PRINTED BY MORRISON AND OIBB,
FOR
T. & T. CLAEK, EDINBURGH.
LONDON HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.
DTJBLIN, GEORGE HERBERT.
NEW YORK. . ... 8CRIBNER AND WELFORD.
MICEOCOSMUS:
AN ESSAY CONCERNING MAN AND HIS
RELATION TO THE WORLD.
BT
HERMANN LOTZK
ITransIateD from tbe ©erman
BT
ELIZABETH HAMILTON and E. E. CONSTANCE JONES
lEifix^ fEBttton.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. IL
EDINBURGH:
T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET.
1888.
.--"^.^>
^8TEj>
NOTE.
The whole of this vohime lias been translated by Miss
E. E. Constance Jones.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
BOOK VI.
THE MICROCOSMIC ORDER ; i OR, THE COURSE OF
HUMAN LIFE (Der Weltlauf).
CHAPTER I.
THE IKFLXJENCES OF EXTERNAL NATURE.
3 EC.
1. History, and the Microcosmic Order,
2. Effects of Cosmic and Terrestrial Influences upon the Human
Soul — Parallelism between the Macrocosm and the Micro
cosm, ......
3. Natural Features of a Country, and Character of the Inhabitants
— Life with Nature, .....
4. Relation of Man to Nature, ....
PAOD
3-6
6-13
13-20
20-23
CHAPTER II.
THIS NATURE OF MAN.
1. Temperaments — The Meaning of Temperament, . .
2. Differences of Temperament — The Successive Stages of Human
Life — Connection between the Vital Feelings which have a
Corporeal and those which have a Mental Origin,
3. Differences between the Sexes — General Mental Peculiarities of
Women, .......
4 . Hereditj', and Original Difference of Endowment, . .
24-26
26-39
39-47
47-49
CHAPTER III.
MANNERS AND MORALS.
1. Conscience and Moral Taste — Untrustworthiness of Natural
Disposition, .......
2. Food — Cannibalism — Cruelty and Bloodthirstiness,
.10-55
5.'i-6l
Cf. Book YI. ch. i. § 1, especially pageis 4, 6.
VI
CONTENTS.
3. Cleanness of Body and of Mind, • . • •
4. Modesty — Disparagement and Exaltation of Nature — Eealisra
of Individual Perfection, and Idealism of Work — Social
Customs, . . . . . • •
PAOH
61-65
65-75
CHAPTER IV.
THE ORDER OF EXTERNAL LIFE.
1. Nature and Culture — Home {die Heimat), . , . 76-81
2. The Life of Hunters — Of Sliepherds— Permanent Occupation of
Land, and Agriculture — Home {das Haus), . , . 81-88
3. FamUy Life, 88-91
4. Society — Division of Labour — Callings of Individuals — Simple
and Complex Structure of Society — Civilisation, . . 91-96
5. Civilisation— History, ...... 96-100
CHAPTER V.
THE INNER LIFE.
1. Doubts concerning the Ends and Aims of Human Life, .
2. Man as a Transitory Natural Product— Spontaneous Judgments,
and Reflections upon them — Connections with the Super-
sensuous World, ......
3. Superstition, .......
4. Religiousness — Unsteadiness and Incoherence of Human Eflfort,
Conclusion, .......
101-103
103-112
112-115
115-118
119-121
BOOK VIL
HISTORY.
CHAPTER L
THE CREATION OF SIAX.
1. Obscurity of the Beginnings and of the Future of Man's Life, . 125-127
2. Nature and Creation, ...... 127-130
8. Steadiness of Development in Nature, and Arbitrary Divine
Interference— The Sphere of Nature and the Sphere of
History, 130-137
4. The Genesis in Nature of Living Beings and of Man — Impossi-
bility of setting this out in Detail, .... 187-143
CONTENTS,
VU
CHAPTER II.
THE MEANING OF HISTORY.
1. "What is History? ..... ^
2. History as the Education of Humanity,
3. History as the Development of the Idea of Humanity— Con-
ditions necessary to make such a Development valuable —
Concerning Reverence for Forms instead of for Content,
4. History as a Divine Poem, .....
5. Denial of any Worth in Historical Development — Condition of
the Unity of Humanity and of the Worth of its History,
PAOK
144-145
145-154
154-168
168-169
169-176
CHAPTER III.
THE FORCES THAT WORK IN HISTORY.
1. Theories as to the Origin of Civilisation, . . . 177-179
2. Theories of a Divine Origin, ..... 179-183
3. Organic Origin of Civilisation — Instance oi Language, . 183-188
4. Importance of Individual Persons, .... 188-192
5. Laws of the Historic Order of the World — Statistics — Deter-
minism and Freedom, ..... 192-202
6. Uniformities and Contrasts of Development — The Decay of
Nations — Influence of Transmission and Tradition, . . 202-209
CHAPTER IV.
EXTERNAL CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT.
1. Common Origin of Mankind — Assumption of Plurality of
Origin, ..,.-.
2. Variety of Mental Endowment,
3. Guidance of Development by External Conditions,
4. Geographical and Climatic Furtherances and Hiudrances,
6. Examples of Peoples in a State of Nature, . .
210-218
218-
-222
222-
-230
230-
-238
238-
-244
CHAPTER V.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY.
1. Stationary Civilisation and Nomadic Life in the East, . . 24?^-255
2. Semitic and Indo-Germanic Nations, .... 255-257
3. Ancient Greece, . . . . . • . 257-263
4. Ancient Rome, ....... 263-267
5. The Hebrews and Christianity, ..... 267-273
6. Character and Early History of the Germanic Nations, . 274-277
7. The Germanic Nations in the Middle Ages, . . . 277-286
8. 9. The Characteristics, the Problems, and the DilBculties of
Modern Times, 286-301
vm
CONTENTS.
BOOK VIIL
PROGRESS
CHAPTER I.
TRUTH AND SCIENCE {das Wissen).
1. Stages of Philosophic Thought — Mythologic Fancy,
2. Cultured Reflection, ......
3. Development of Greek Thought, ....
4. 5. Science — Over- Estimation of Logical Forms and Confusion of
them with Matter-of-Fact, .....
6. Philosophic Problems of Christian Thought — Limitation of
Thought to the Elaboration of Experiences — The Exact
Sciences, .......
7, 8. The Principal Standpoints of Philosophy, and its Efforts in
trying to reach a Knowledge of the Nature of Things —
Idealism and Realism, .....
805 311
811-314
314-318
318-835
335-345
345-360
CHAPTER IL
WOKK AND HAPPINESS.
1. Pleasure and the Means to Pleasure — The Patriarchate, , 861-36S
2. The Adventures of the Heroes — The Liberal Culture of A uti-
quity — Slavery, ...... 868-376
3. The Growth and Preponderance of the Industrial Classes, . 376-380
4. Economic Character of the Present Time, and its Causes and
Effects, ....... 380-885
5. The Modern Forms of Labour and their Social Consequences, . 385-397
CHAPTER in.
BEAUTY AND AKT.
1. Art as an "Organism," and as the Expression of Human
Feeling, ....... 398-399
2. Eastern Vastness — Hebrew Sublimity, .... 399-404
3. Greek Beauty, ....... 404-416
4. Roman Elegance and Dignity, ..... 416-424
5. The Individuality and Fantasticalness of the Middle Ages-
Romance, . . . . . . . 424-432
6. Beauty, Art, and iEslhcticism in Modem Life, . , 432-443
CHAPTER IV.
THE BELIGIOUS LIFE.
1. Comparison of Eastern with Western Life and Thought, . 444-448
2,3. Nature and Social Life as Sources of Religious Ideas, .^ ..a Aar
8, 4. Preponderance of the Cosmological Element in Heathendom, J
CONTENTS.
IX
5, 6. And of the Moral Element in Judaism and Christianity,
7. Christianity and the Church — Returning Preponderain'o
Cosmology in the New Philosophical Dogmatism, .
8. Life and the Church, .....
of
PAGE
4(55-476
'J76-488
<l{J8-494
CHAPTER V.
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY.
1. The Family, and Tribal States— The Kingdoms of the East
Paternal Despotism, .
2. The Political Constructions of the Greeks,
3. Civic Life and Law in Rome,
4. Political Life and Society in the Middle Ages,
5. The Autonomy of Society,
6. National and Historical Law,
Practicable and Impracticable Postulates : —
7. Duty of Society as regards its Members,
8. State and Society,
9. Constitutional Government — Socialism,
10. International Relations,
495-505
505-520
520-529
529-532
532-540
540-541
544-548
549-560
560-564
564-5C7
BOOK IX.
THE UNITY OF THINGS.
CHAPTER L
OF THE BEING OF THINGS.
1. Introiluction, ....... 571-574
2. Three Elemental Forms of Knowledge and the Problem of tlieir
Connection, ....... 574-578
3. The Being of Things a State of Relatedness, . . . 578-587
4. Comparability of the Natures of Things, . . . 587-594
5. Necessity of the Substantial Connection of Finite Multiplicity
in the Unity of the Infinite, ..... 594-599
6. Summary, ....... 599-601
CHAPTER IL
THE SPATIAL AND SUPERSENSUOUS WORLDS.
1. The Doctrine of the Ideality of Space, , . . 602-610
2. The Correspondence of the Real Intellectual and of the Apparent
Spatial Places of Things, 611-617
3. Removal of even the Intellectual Relations between Things ;
Sole Reality of Reciprocal Action — Notion of Action, . 617-623
4. Summary, ....... 624-625
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER II.
THE BEAL AND THE IDEAL.
INC.
J. Contradictions in the Notion of Things and in their Formal
Determinations, ......
2. Idealistic Denial of Things— All that is Real is Mind, .
3, 4. "What it is that we must seek to Construct, and What it is
that we have to recognise as immediately given, .
5. Summary,' .....••
626-636
636-647
647-657
667-658
CHAPTER IV.
THE PERSONALITY OF GOD.
1. Faith and Thought, .....
2. Evidence of the Existence of God, ...
3. Impersonal Forms of the Supreme Being,
4. Ego and Non-Ego — Objections to the Possibility of tht l^srsoii
ality of the Infinite, .....
5. Somiuary, ......
659-663
663-671
671-678
678-687
687-688
8.
CHAPTER V.
GOD AND THE WORLD.
Didiculties in this Chapter, ..... 689-690
The Source of the Eternal Truths and their Relation to God, . 690-699
The Creation as Will, as Act, as Emanation, . . . 699-707
Its Preservation and Government ; and the Idealitj' of Time, . 707-713
6. The Origin of Real Things— Evil and Sin, . . . 713-719
Good, Good Things, and Love — The Unity of the llirce
Principles in Love, ...... 719-726
Conclusion, ....... 727-729
■ I have tried to make plain the antithesis in this Chapter between (1) real,
Reale, Realitdt, and (2) wirklich, Wirkliche, Wirklichkeit, by writing Eeal,
Realneas in the text for (1). As this way of marking the difference did not
occur to me until the Chapter was in print, the question of making previous
Chapters correspond could not be considered.
BOOK VI.
THE MICEOCOSMIC OEDER
VOL. II
CHAPTEE I
THE INFLUENCES OF EXTEKNAL NATURE.
History, and the Microcosmic Order — The Effects of Cosmic and Terrestrial
Influences upon the Human Soul — Parallelism between the Macrocosm and
the Microcosm — Natural Features of a Country, and Character of the
Inhabitants — Life with Nature — Relation of Man to Nature.
S l_~r>YGONE times which are beyond the reach of our
-»~-^ own recollection seem to imagination extremely
obscure. All the serious interests of life and all the trifling
and folly by which we ourselves are stirred, are so closely
bound up with clear and definite images of our surroundings,
that we feel perplexed and astray when we would picture to
ourselves the same varied wealth of existence in times divided
from the present by an infinite series of changes by which the
background and accessories of life have been transformed
We almost fancy that in those olden days the sun must have
shone with a different radiance, that the voices of Nature
must have spoken in different tones, and the world have lain
in twilight as contrasted with our present life of noontide
brightness. History indeed depicts for us on this sober back-
ground great deeds and mighty events, but is for the most
part silent concerning the small causes which combined
to produce them. How the heroes of classic times were
housed and clothed, what was their manner of speech, and
how they filled up the blank intervals of time between
their mighty deeds, is left for the most part to be determined
by our own wandering fancy. There are but few periods of
human history which have left us, in works of art, speaking
monuments from which, besides the glory of heroic deeds,
we also learn something of the stirrings of men's minds, the
philosophic views, the conflict and the joy from which sprang
s
4 BOOK VI. CHAPTER L
those great results. But however truly and naturally poetry
may reproduce for us many of the features of everyday life,
it must naturally leave many gaps, and it is most difficult
for us to ascribe to the thoughts of such far-off personage.3
in their treatment of common things that familiarity and
supple ease upon the vividness and completeness of which our
own sense of life principally depends. Every delineation of
long past times which we attempt seems to us true in propor-
tion as it emphasizes particular points of importance, jumping
from one to another — and this not only because, on account
of our lack of historical knowledge, we are unable to clothe
the skeleton of narrative with the flesh and blood by which
its different parts were connected in reality, but also because
it is extremely difficult for us to get rid of the notion that in
those old days everything was said and done after a stilted
fashion that would 'have suited the immobility of marble
statues. If in the writings of antiquity we come across some
graceful trait instinct with life, some touch of unaffected fun,
some vivid description of scenery sketched in a few careless
strokes, how great, even now, is the concourse of wondering
interpreters calling upon us to admire this classical revelation of
genuine human nature ! As if we could have expected anything
else — as if we might not have supposed that a cultivated people
of antiquity would be susceptible to all the minor charms and
beauties of life, and would have found expressions for their
emotions as adequate as those which are familiar to the mouth
of every modem booby ! No doubt the course of history has
by degrees produced variations of colouring in human imagi-
nation, and greatly widened its scope by increasing know-
ledge of men's earthly abiding-place, by intercourse between
nations, and by gradually enlarging acquaintance with the
world of Ideas ; but not the wliole of life is included in this
forward movement ; there is a region of human existence in
which, at all times, the same ends, motives, and customs recur
without any alteration. All the generations that have passed
away have dreamed and observed, loved and hated, hoped and
despaired, worked and played, just as we do, and those who
THE INFLUENCES OF EXTEKNAL NATUEF* 5
come after us will do the same. The same passions which
move us, the same intriguing calculations of greed and ambi-
tion, the same hidden motives, or the same unreserved devotion
of affection, which we praise or blame in one another — all
these have from the earliest times worked in human hearts.
And though external results exhibit various forms and dimen-
sions according to the direction and degree of culture at any-
given time, there is still no doubt that we are mistaken if,
putting faith in a foolish analogy, we imagine that we can
find among primitive men nothing but the inconsiderateness
and empty-headedness of children.
This it is that we mean by the Microeosmic Order — ■
the impulses ever fresh and ever the same, out of which
have sprung the many-hued blossoms of history, the eternal
cycle in which human fates revolve. It is indeed true that
this order may not be strictly a cycle, but that the apparent
recurrence may include some hidden progress. Still even we,
who live in times in which at any rate the outward splendour
of progress is unfolded more vividly than ever before our eyes,
even we may say to ourselves that the true value of our inner
life is but slowly if at all increased by all this. There arise
no fresh springs of enjoyment which had not flowed before, or
if indeed the springs are new, yet that which they distribute is
still but the old pleasure for which our nature is designed; our
cognition may be enlarged boundlessly, but the results almost
always lead us back to thoughts which men have had long
ago. It seems as though former ages had extracted from
different and perhaps poorer material those same treasures of
happy or exalted feeling which we with far greater expenditure
of scientific and technical power imagine we are discovering
anew. In the ordinary view all our labour is for the most
part only a more extensive preparation for life and not itself
a fuller life, though indeed we frankly confess that this is not
altogether true. Progressive culture is not unlike a majestic
waterfall which, seen from a distance, seems to promise great
things, and which yet when we look nearer does not appear
to shower upon the soil of life a greater amount of refreshing
6 BOOK VI. CHAPTER I.
and really fertilizing spray than was afforded for the refresh-
ment and satisfaction of the quieter life of antiquity by the
more modest stream of a less splendid civilisation.
We cannot renounce the hope that in this flux and reflux
of human development there may be found a tendency towards
some finite goal ; but before we attempt to trace a plan of
historic progress and training of the human race, we would
linger for a while over the stationary aspect which is at first
presented to us by the struggles and the destiny of men.
The spectacle is one which may be regarded with very
various feelings. We cannot without an emotion of melan-
choly see the same evil, the same passions, the same seeds of
all wickedness recurring in every age ; but, on the other hand,
it is a consoling thought that every age has also had access to
everything in which men's hearts can find real and ^^ssential
happiness, and that every age in its own fashion — a fashion
which satisfied it — had part in that higher world which has
indeed become clearer to us, but is not on that account
grasped more strongly by our minds. Our intention for the
present is to seek in the nature of human intelligence, and in
the ever-recurring conditions of man's life, the ready-made
instruments with which Providence works in history ; to seek
out, that is, the natural order of the world, regarding which
we may in a later chapter ask. To what end does the Supreme
Will bend the course of its uniform progress ?
§ 2, Such being our aim, attention is in the first place
attracted to the conditions of external Nature under which we
are placed, and their varied influence upon us, whether
obvious or unobserved. In so far as these circumstances
affect our corporeal life or provide us with means for the
satisfaction of our wants, their action is on the whole plain, and
in a more detailed consideration than we can here attempt,
nothing more would be required than to establish in special
cases the relative worth for civilisation of each one of these
influences. But reflection is very commonly disposed to take
a more profound view of the relation between man and Nature,
and instead of measuring the gain or harm which we receive
THE INFLUENCES OF EXTERNAL NATURE, 7
from the latter, or seeking to find the direction which it gives
to our action, people prefer to speak of an immediate and
more mysterious sympathy which binds man to Nature, and
especially to his dwelling-place the earth. Indeed, they prefer
to speak of the earth as not merely his dwelling-place, but
compare the relation between him and it to the intimate
relation subsisting between mother and child, or between a
parasite and the organism which supports it ; they speak of
the powers and tendencies to development which are inherent
in the earth as being repeated under more significant forms in
the bodies of men ; of every internal fluctuation of telluric
life as finding an echo in changes of human organization ; and
say that what earth herself vainly struggles to express, receives
a spiritualized manifestation in the constitution of conscious
beings.
We have already remarked at length upon the great extent
to which the character of organic beings inhabiting the surface
of a planet, is determined by the special nature of the planet
itself — in respect, that is, of the materials which compose it,
and the conditions of mobility and capacity of combination
which it prescribes to them. We have referred to a view accord-
ins to which the connection between the earth and man is
different from that now indicated ; a view according to which
not only is man forced by the nature of his material abiding-
place to use particular means for the attainment of his own
ends, not only is he provided by its continual influences with
fresh material which the organism appropriates and elaborates
after its own fashion, but moreover the whole of this human
life is after all only a mystical repetition of the life of the
earth, and of its internal tremors. This view seems to owe
its convincing power to the strange inclination which men so
often have to regard what is unintelligible and indemonstrable
as having pre-eminent truth and profundity, especially in
cases where the unintelligibility is such that a sort of
mysterious awe may attach to it. There is no occasion to
deny any one of the actual facts which are usually brought
together with reference to the reciprocal relation which we
8 BOOK VI. CHAPTER I.
are discussing, but we may be sure that it is only a capricious
liking for obscurity which requires that they should be judged
from this particular point of view.
How often do such perverse considerations begin with a
reference to that alternation of sleep and waking in men,
which is in sympathy with the day and night of the world,
and to that emotion of dread when darkness sets in from
which no one is altogether free ! What in fact are night and
day for the earth ? Is it anything more than an arbitrary
play of fancy to call the earth asleep because the noise ceases
which we and the other animals are accustomed to make
during the day-time ? Or because there are no longer those
oscillations of ether which by day make it light to our eyes,
but affect the earth merely by causing a rise of temperature
which extends only a few inches below the surface ? What
other activities are there which rest during the night ? Or
what dread and fear is there in Nature itself, with which we
are in sympathy ? It is in us that there is light or darkness,
in us that there is serenity or fear, and neither the one nor
the other results from our being affected by some pervading
condition of the earth, but from the fact that alterations of
outward circumstances, indifferent in themselves, are at one
time favourable, at another time unfavourable to the require-
ments of our active nature. Such circumstances act upon
the sensitive constitution of our mind, which feels not only
how much but also in what way they aid or hinder us, and
is able to connect all this with various trains of thought ;
and these circumstances, so acting, produce mental condi-
tions which are our own property, and are not mere participa-
tions in a universal life such as Nature is certainly not capable
of. How often, too, is it said that with the changing seasons
of the' year the bodies and souls of individuals suffer from sym-
pathetic affections, and even that. in the course of geologic ages
the very nature of men rejoices and mourns with the youth and
age of the earthly sphere itself; that convulsions of Nature cor-
respond to all the revolutions of human history ; that the tem-
perament and national fancy of the inhabitants of any country
THE INFLUENCES OF EXTERNAL NATURE. 9
are directly affected by the conformation of its land and the
prevailing hue of its sky ! We would not deny that these state-
ments have a certain basis of fact ; but it would be better to
try and find in each individual case the means by which any
natural circumstances have produced in organic life an impres-
sion or an echo of themselves. One gains little more than the
weird charm of a ghost story by exaggeratingwith devout admira-
tion what is incommensurable and irrational in these circum-
stances, instead of trying to remove it by close investigation.
One cannot think without serious regret of this perversion
of thought which has, as it were, taken up the mantle of
astrology. It has not merely delayed the commencement ot
more exact research, but has moreover introduced a general
fashion of romancing about phsenomena which is supposed,
with but little show of reason, to involve some specially pro-
found understanding of them. It would no doubt be interest-
ing to investigate historical fluctuations in the bodily and
mental condition of mankind in their relations to the physical
alterations of the surface of the earth. The history of epidemics
teaches us that every visitation of any pestilence encounters
different receptivity and various modes of reaction in living
bodies, and we can mark out considerable periods of time
within which the human frame has a special predisposition to
sickness of some one particular type. It is probable that the
same combination of inner and outer conditions which causes
this striking one-sided susceptibility produces also in persons
who are in a healthy state some peculiar modification of general
condition and tone. The higher mental interests of mankind
might thus at different times be modified bv various emotional
conditions, sometimes by a relaxed apathetic state, sometimes by
a state of great and anxious excitability, and it may possibly
be the fact that the peculiar influences of outward Nature upon
man in every age have left their traces in the productions of
that age, in the colouring of its poetry, in the nature of its
favourite superstitions, in the general direction oi its mtel-
lectual powers. But the most necessary rule of such inves-
tigations would be not to try and find what is not there and
10 BOOK VI. CHAPTER L
not to over-estimate these influences of Nature as compared with
the much more obvious influences which are to be sought in
the uninterrupted transmission by education of the same wants,
problems, interests, and sorrows from one generation to another,
and in the solidarity of social life. The assertions of paral-
lelism between natural and spiritual revolutions are for the
most part innocent of any such cautious procedure. It is as
easy to understand how widespread and devastating disease is
developed on the direct path of immediately causal influence,
by a great social upheaval with all its train of unusual bodily
and mental exertion, privations, and wretched substitutes for
the ordinary means of subsistence, as it is to understand how,
conversely, striking natural events, earthquakes, inundations,
or epidemics have caused social movements to result from
physical necessities. Accounts of plagues in times most
remote from one another unite with melancholy unanimity
in showing us how quickly all the moral obligations of
order, duty, and affection are dissolved under the influence
of terror, how excited and terrified imaginations become
incapable of any sober judgment, and the wildest super-
stition, alternating with the densest folly, rages unchecked.
Yet it can hardly be, that any great historical revolution has
arisen entirely from such a source ; if it were so, the storm of
revolt would be allayed by the alleviation of the physical
distress which aroused it. To seek here for any more
mysterious connection between cosmic and human life is
but to follow a will-o'-the-wisp. It is easy to bring for-
ward the facts that the downfall of Grecian civilisation in
the Peloponnesian war, the last struggles of the Eoman empire,
the rise of Mohammedanism, the Crusades, the discovery of
America, and the Eeformati<)n were contemporaneous with de-
vastating epidemics ; but when these coincidences are adduced,
it is forgotten that at many other periods of less historical
importance, and in countries not included in the great stream
of historical development, similar plagues have sometimes
raged under like conditions, and sometimes, having first
arisen under unknown conditions, have spread by means of
THE INFLUENCES OF EXTEENAL NATURE. 1 1
the ordinary channels of communication to districts with the
social circumstances of which they had originally nothing to
do. Plague and yellow fever have continued their ravages in
their native haunts down to recent times without any con-
nection with great political events, and it is hardly credible
that an outbreak of cholera in India should have been in
necessary correspondence with contemporaneous revolutionary
movements in Paris.
The same insecurity hovers about our views as to the
influence of climate upon the character of a people. We
cannot seriously decide offhand that the backward civilisation
of negroes is due to the blazing sun that beats down upon
their heads and makes it impossible for them to gaze upwards,
and by heating their blood to fever point, inspires them with
ungoverned passions. Even at the equator the sun is not in the
zenith day and night ; and when we think of the relaxing and
yet exciting effect which our own greatest summer lieat has upon
ourselves, we forget that in consequence of the long acclima-
tization of the negro this effect may for him have become so
modified as to be merely one of those pleasures of existence
which are regarded as matters of course, and are certainly not
self-evident barriers to the progress of development. The
monotony of the tropical year in contrast to our changing
seasons, has also been adduced as another hindrance in the
way of advanced civilisation. There are undoubtedly present
vital changes which we as certainly feel, changes produced by
the transitions of the seasons that cause alterations in our
bodily economy, but these changes are little known to us in
detail. The mental effect of these natural circumstances is
to be found rather in the facts which they present for our
observation than in the impressions which our senses imme-
diately receive from them. We learn abundantly from the songs
of poets how significant for our emotional life are these great
periodic alternations of decay and resurrection to life, with all
the hopes and remembrances that attach to their different
phases. Not only do we here see our own destiny symbolized in
a thousand images appealing to the senses, but also a deeper
12 BOOK VI. CHAPTER I.
feeling for the slowly passing phases of human life, and the
characteristic advantage of each may certainly be connected
with this clear marking-off of time into divisions. Such
occasions for thoughtful and self-examining reflection no doubt
occur less effectively where blossoms and fruit are always
^rowing and blooming and ripening at the same time as the
fresh shoots are budding forth ; but even with ourselves the
impression of human transitoriness is softened by the way in
which the gaps left by death are unobtrusively filled up
every moment by creatures newly born into the world. How
different it would be if the human race, like the vegetable
life of these climates, all together growing old, or blooming
in fresh youth, were to die ofif completely in fixed periods
and be replaced by a new growth ! But in such a case, who
could deduce the absence of historical recollection and his-
torical progress among the black races from the absence of
clearly-defined seasons of the year ?
The character of the African continent, its isolation and
inaccessibility, without bays or gulfs, has seemed to many
to be mirrored in the mental constitution of the negro. We
cannot deny the influence of this conformation of the land,
though we may not hold that it consists in this inexplicable
mirroring. It is to be found in the material hindrances to
intercourse between nations presented by a wide extent of
continent without a corresponding supply of navigable rivers,
and the obstacles to a clear comprehension of their position
and proximity to one another presented by the absence of any
large gulfs and of numerous and well-distributed mountain
ranges. In comparing views of scenery, we feel directly that
in the simultaneous presentation of a wide extent of country
there is something that does one good and seems to enlarge
the soul, and that there is a keen pleasure in being able to
comprehend in one view a multitude of different but con-
nected objects, enclosed as it were in a firm network of
relationships. The notion of being able to reach any place by
a given amount of movement in a given direction can never
be a substitute for the peculiar impression of clearness which
THE INFLUENCES OF EXTEKNAL NATUEK 13
we receive from actually seeing its position with reference to
other places. The dweller in the wilderness has at any rate
a boundless horizon spread before him ; in the interior of a
continent where there are no mountain-tops from which one
may survey the country, which is otherwise impenetrable to
the view on account of its luxuriant vegetation, permanent
obscurity invests even adjoining districts, and fancy here could
never look with such a far-seeing and penetrating glance into
the comprehensive connectedness of human life, as it has done
since ancient times from the favoured shores of the Mediter-
ranean Sea. Many points could be found there upon the
mountains, the level coast, and the sea itself, from which one
could behold at once numerous countries and islands like a
wreath of many-coloured flowers, and could watch the busy
traffic which connected them all together. In every case where
anything complex falls into well-defined groups distinctly
marked off from one another, a clearer and more intelligible
picture is presented than where immeasurable continuity
offers no fixed points of support to the imagination; in this
way it is that the alternation of land and water in the
Mediterranean region has much facilitated geographical appre-
hension, and also at the same time aided a part of our know-
ledge concerning the relation of man to the universe. But we
cannot regard these influences nor the hindrances offered to
commerce by great unbroken extents of continent as being in
themselves sufficient explanation of the backwardness of the
negro races ; we ourselves look at these latter circumstances
chiefly as hindrances to the eager zeal of discoverers ; but
they could not present really formidable barriers to a steadily
progressive, long-continued struggle of native tribes unless
reinforced by other causes.
§ 3. If the other condition which must be added to the
favour or disfavour of geographical situation in order to
explain a small or great degree of progress be sought in the
character of the country which is reflected sometimes usefully,
sometimes detrimentally in the mental dispositions of its
inhabitants, we get upon still more slippery ground, and the
14 BOOK VI. CHAPTER I.
observations on tins point which we fancy we make do
certainly contain an extraordinary amount of sesthetic self-
deception. We are justified in expecting that extreme cold-
ness and severity of climate will produce dispositions deficient
in quickness and activity, and that greater warmth and
uniformity will cause a boundless development of all bodily
and mental capacities ; and when our conclusions go no further
than this, they are confirmed by a comparison of different
nations and the countries which they inhabit. But when we
go beyond this and think that we find men's special pecu-
liarities of imagination, civilisation, and mode of thought to be
in direct and perceptible harmony with the countries in which
they dwell, we are led astray by the circumstance that a
country and its inhabitants are ever presented to us in
conjunction as making one picture, having therefore that
appearance of intrinsic aesthetic connection which comes to be
assumed by any fact which is continuously presented to us.
The Dutchman in Holland seems to us to be suited only to his
own flat, fertile, lowland home, the North American Indian we
imagine to be the only fitting denizen of his forests and
steppes ; but if we see Mynheer in the Sunda Islands, or the
Anglo-Saxon ■ pioneer in the far west of North America, we
can hardly say that either the one or the other is in irrecon-
cilable contradiction with his new surroundings, unlike as
they are to those of his native place — unless indeed we look
with an eye prejudiced by recollection. The same ground
which the ancient Greeks once trod is now pressed by the
foot of the Turk, and it seems to us that the one race matches
the physical background just as naturally and harmoniously
as the other. The physical nature of any country is a whole
composed of very varied parts, and the nature of its inhabit-
ants is equally complex. The comparison of two pictures both
so many-sided and composite is sure to furnish him who is
seeking to establish a relationship between them with some
evidence in support of his view, if he has a capacity for
skilful combination ; it will also furnish without much
difficulty, to him who seeks them, points enough in which
THE INFLUENCES OF EXTERNAL NATURE. 15
there exists an inexplicable contrast between the two. The
creative power of Nature which produced in India the colossal
elephant, produced there also a race of men by no means
equally colossal, but on the contrary surprisingly feeble ; one
might, however, fancy the cunning and incalculable fierceness
of its beasts of prey to be repeated in the dispositions of the
human inhabitants, as some have thought that they saw
reproduced in them the slender grace of various native plants.
Often the only effect that magnificent scenery has upon
the minds of the inhabitants, results from the hindrance
which features of great natural beauty present to the ordinary
occupations of life ; the dweller in the Alps owes to the
character of his home an unusual development of bodily
strength, and also of conscious worth fostered by the necessity
of continual self-reliance, but he does not receive from it the
freedom and breadth and fulness of spiritual interests which it
seems to us would fitly correspond with the boundless horizon
stretched out before him. The false notions which people so
often have of the connection between a country and the
dwellers in it, result from neglecting to investigate the actual
means by which Nature really comes to operate in mental
life. That any object has a definite form and position, is no
sufficient reason for our necessarily perceiving that it has that
form and position, or even for perceiving it at all ; our doing
so depends upon whether its form and position and all its
qualities are presented to our eye and our mind through the
effects which it has upon us. And it is not enough that the
vault of heaven should stretch above us in various degrees of
blueness and purity and brightness, that we should be sur-
rounded with bolder mountains and more luxuriant vegetation;
in order to understand the educative influence of Nature upon
us, we ought to know first what circumstances make a notice-
able physical impression upon us ; secondly, for how much of
the £esthetic worth of these spectacles we have the capacity
of reception which is a condition of feeling this worth and of
assimilating it for the needs of general development; and
lastly, how much of it all is lost upon us because it is obscured
16 BOOK VI. CHAPTER I.
in our consciousness by other influences which are responded
to by more pressing natural interests. In so far as mental
character depends upon external Xature, it does not depend
upon what this Nature is, but upon how it affects the as yet
untutored minds of men who are habitually surrounded by it.
The effect of external Nature is not to be directly estimated
by considering the impression that it makes upon a mind that
is already educated, and that comes to it merely as a spectator
and not as dwelling with it and in the midst of it.
On the whole, one hears much said of those happier times
when there was more intimate communion between man and
Nature, and we wish that we could return to that transparently
simple existence and leave the clouds of sophistication in
which our modern life is wrapped. This longing may be
justified if what it desires is social arrangements a little more
in accordance with the natural impulses of humanity, and free
from the excess of traditional trammels by which we are at
present hemmed in; but it is certainly wrong if it expects
that a fuller enjoyment of external Nature as contrasted with
social life, would produce more exalted happiness and a truer
development of humanity. When a man exhausted by the
interminable distractions of his daily occupation hastens to
open the great book of Nature and to read therein, he scarcely
notices that which is the only redeeming touch of truth amid
all the pedantry and folly of the fancy picture to which we
have referred ; the admission that Nature has a permanent
charm only for the mind accustomed to dwell on some
great connected system of interests, whether scientific or social,
or for the soul that having been thus exercised now finds in
external phsenomena innumerable reminders of the experience
of his life, living solutions of his doubts, refutations of his
prejudices, confirmations of his hopes, and incitements to
further investigation. It is the culture of the heart and the
understanding developed by the relations between man and
man which first makes us capable of receiving further culture
at the hand of Nature ; a man who has always lived and who
continues to live alone with Nature, would be hardly more
THE INFLUENCES OF EXTERNAL NATURE. 17
Stirred by her influences than the wild animals who live on
umLdst all this glorious beauty without being softened or
ennobled by it.
One may be enthusiastic about the life which a hunter
leads who wanders through the American forests and prairies
alone with Nature ; but the intelligent glance that can take in
and enjoy the changing phsenomena of his surroundings he
owes to his early education and to the (perhaps long unheard)
language of his own people, which calls up along with every
fresh thought a thousand remembrances of the home and the
civilisation which he has left ; and the intellectual dower
which he has received from these is just as indispensable to
him as are the material aids of civilisation. How the young
romance over adventurous wanderings, and think that they
could plunge with full satisfaction into the lonely enjoyment
of ligature ! And they do not remark what a large share of
their pleasure is due to the sociability of travel, and how little
the continuous absence of friendly intercourse with men could
be supplied even by the countless occasions of far-reaching
trains of thought which Nature furnishes to the instructed
mind. The continued view of some striking natural beauty,
operates upon the mind, if we are alone, as a gradually in-
creasing pressure, as an impulse which fails to find its object.
This tension, half pleasant, half painful, is lessened but not
quite removed by the consciousness that others share it with
us ; for it arises not only from the need for sympathy, but
also from our feeling that we really do not know exactly
what this beauty of Nature should prompt us to do. For it
is in human nature to be prompted to some action by any-
thing which interests it ; it cannot remain long in a condition
of passive enjoyment without feeling the inner restlessness of
unsatisfied activity. But it is into such a position that Nature
always forces us at first ; all its visional splendour, however
clearly it may be spread before us, is yet something of which
in itself we can have no intimate comprehension. It is indis-
putable that the light, and the sunset glory, and the fresh
green of spring, and the wonderful outlines of hill and valley,
VOL. II. B
1 8 BOOK VI. CHAPTER L
take our spirit captive with their charm ; but all this glorious
beauty is voiceless, nor do we know aright what we would
have of it ; we can never get nearer to any of these phsenomena,
and though the light should shine for ever, and the woods be
ever green, our enjoyment of these living pictures would never
be heightened or increased in significance if we did not
supplement them by thoughts of our own. What, indeed, are
they to us ? The answer would be easy if we could embrace
the sunset glow, or feed upon the green beauty of the woods ;
or if it were possible, in any way, to probe somewhat deeper,
and with a more active exercise of our own powers, the " open
secret" of Nature — open and yet so close — to sound this
seeming depth, which on nearer inspection is ever seen to be
for us a mere — and yet impenetrable — surface. Since however
this cannot be, our interest in a riddle which seems insoluble
dies out ; we always indeed retain a capacity of being freshly
roused by it, but it cannot occupy the mind continuously and
alone. Suppose we have reared some plant with the greatest
care and pains, when at last the blossoms appear, a sort of
helplessness comes over us, as if we did not know what to
do next; our interest is momentarily re-awakened when we
show it to others ; but to look at it for long together, makes us
inclined to ask. What is the use of it ? We should not wish
to see the most charming prospect spread out before us for ever
without alteration ; there is not enough meaning in it ; all
these things suffice only to make a pleasing background for life
itself; they are graces of existence which we lay aside and
return to again. A day of lonely enjoyment of Nature,
although enriched by all the intellectual delight that may be
derived from solitary reading, secretly seems to us incomplete
and half-wasted, unless a word with some fellow-creature
crowns the day, reminding us of that community of human
life in which we are included. I believe that such emotions
occur in every one who observes himself, and they explain the
profound sense of discord and the discomfort produced in us
by the laboured attempts of a good deal of feeble poetry to
entertain us by continual immersion in the mystery and
THE INFLUENCES OF EXTEENAL NATURE. 19
romance of natural phsenomena, whilst our heart is hun^erin*^
not for mere symbols and analogies but for the full pulse of
life itself, and thirsting for reality.
These are feelings which belong to civilised life. He who
thinks that life is spoiled by such sentiments, and glorifies the
primitive condition of mankind as if Nature liad been then
less impenetrable to human intelligence, indulges fancies
which are extremely improbable. We find that the under-
standing of Nature among those who still have the advantage
of living in closer contact with her, is not greater but less
than that of those who come to her fresh from social life ; the
former are just those to whom that which is useful and the
handiwork of men seems decidedly more valuable than the
poetry of Nature. And even in the present day we can see
by reference to those socially undeveloped peoples who inhabit
tracts of land as fertile and beautiful as Paradise, how little
immediately educative power there is in the unelaborated
influences of Nature. Isolated, and deprived of even the
imperfectly organized community with their fellows which
these tribes enjoy, men would only feel with still more force
that enervating influence which is exercised by natural sur-
roundings, however full of sensuous beauty, as long as they do
not arouse either the keenness of scientific search, or that
practical faculty of the mind which takes delight in laborious
transformations of material objects. But in fact Nature does
arouse both, when she creates wants and at the same time
affords the means of gratifying them. It has been long main-
tained, and with truth, that higher development is hindered not
only by the extreme disfavour of Nature but also by that
excess of bounty which enables men to supply the needs of
life without exertion on their part. Human culture began
when men began to regard the earth as a fruitful field of
labour ; but the beauty and ideal meaning of natural scenery
has of itself produced no culture ; it has in fact only become
intelligible in proportion as the school of work has trained
human thought to form plans and to appreciate the worth of
success, that is, the worth of the harmony established among
20 BOOK VI. CHAPTER I.
disconnected beginnings by their joint contribution to one final
result. Man learns to know and to estimate the great value
of truth and of faithful law-abiding constancy on which one
can depend, when he finds that the soil with unfailing regu-
larity causes the seed entrusted to it to spring up and ripen,
or when a successful result crowns some simple attempt in
which, relying upon the teaching of his own experience, he
seeks to make an artificial arrangement of natural powers
serviceable to his own ends. By this time there has crept
into his consciousness by imperceptible degrees the conviction
of a connection between things which in a general way
guarantees some conclusion to every beginning, some result to
every experiment, to every like cause a like effect, to all events
the possibility of ordered harmony, to every individual thing
in the world a certainty of not being isolated or in vain, but
of ever finding some way open by which its longing and its
activity may be added to the sum of the universe, and in the
end make its worth felt. Under whatever forms early mytho-
logic fancy may have pictured the life of Nature, it was in
truth a perception of the ordered mechanism of the external
world which educated mankind, and it was the steady immuta-
bility of this mechanism which first impressed man's sense.
He only learnt to understand tlie frank beauty of Nature in
proportion as he became able on the one hand to rejoice in
the pervading order of the universe, and on the other hand to
feel the bitterness of temporary discord between it and his
own individual wishes — becoming able, with the help of such
experience, to find the meaning of natural phaenomena.
§ 4. Our sceptical observations have up to this point been
directed partly against the opinion that the peculiarities of
the planet to which we belong reappear in the general features
of the human mind, or that particular peoples present a kind
of spiritualized reflection of the character of their native land ;
they are also partly directed against the belief that these
mysterious influences of cosmic life further the development
of humanity. In making these observations we are renewing
a warfare, begun long ago, against the inclination to see in
THE INFLUENCES OF EXTERNAL NATURE. 21
every individual department of reality merely an imitative
echo or a prophetic indication of some other department, and
in the whole great circle of phsenomena nothing more than a
continuous shadowing forth of the higher by the lower, and of
the lower by the higher. The life of the soul does not appear
to us as an image of the life of the body, does not seem to us
to be bound to develop some inner activity as a counterpart of
every individual function of the body ; on the contrary, we
hold that all which is material is but a system of means
which the mind uses for other than material ends, and with
the useful results of which it is concerned, without asking by
what system of activities the body has secured this net produce
of available stimulation. Again, man is not a mere copy of
external Nature, but is a living product, unique in kind —
receiving, indeed, innumerable impressions from Nature, yet
not in order that he may reflect them back in the form in which
they were received, but that he may, in accordance with his
nature, be roused by them to reactions and developments, the
explanatory cause of which lies in himself, and not in what is
external. We are not here denying out and out any deter-
mination of man by Nature ; we even admit that kind of
dependence in accordance with which fluctuations of natural
circumstances tinge our inner life with changing hues. We
may and do admit that our organic feelings depend upon the
weather, our moods upon light and air, the tone of our thought
upon season and climate. But on the one hand, it is
mere superstition to lay extravagant emphasis upon conditions
80 difficult to calculate, whilst clear and imperative motives
of our reciprocal action are seen much more obviously in
human passions and circumstances ; on the other hand, that
which is thus subject to the influences of Nature is only our
moods, those vague states of mind which may indeed hinder
or further an impulse to development which has originated
elsewhere, but which could never of themselves have guided
• human progress in any definite direction.
When, however, from these considerations we turn to the
question, By what definite ideas of action could Nature favour
22 BOOK VI, CHAPTEE I
the moral development of mankind ? the beginning of all
human culture seems still more wonderful. For it is clear
how fruitless must be any attempt to borrow from soulless
reality rules which have an unconstrained and natural relation
to our action with its totally different motives and aims. To
a mind already alive to the worth of law and order, the fact
of their universal prevalence is a point — and the only point —
in Nature which it can recognise as presenting some similarity
to the constitution of its own conscience, and as affording a
clear lesson for its own guidance ; but to attempt to model
the duties of creatures that have mind and the arrangements of
their social intercourse after the particular forms in which the
phaenomena of the external world depend on one another, is one
of the most grievous and barren blunders of that sentimental
symbolism which we are opposing. What suits stars and
flowers need not on that account suit us ; the most we could
expect would be that the sure instincts which guide those
creatures nearest to us in the scale of creation might perhaps
furnish a true and unsophisticated indication of what Nature
requires of man, and whereto she has destined him. We
know the ideals with which this department of life can furnish
us. Beside the strength and grace of one animal we see the
sloth and stupidity of another, beside isolated moments of self-
sacrificing love and fidelity the treachery of the most blind
and inconsiderate selfishness, and in some creatures dainty
grace and timid beauty, combined with a cruelty that delights
in tormenting prey ; and the whole of this motley picture in a
perpetual ferment, one part cancelling another. What sort of
conviction of an intelligible connection of the world, and what
sort of a consciousness of our own duties could result from
such observations as the foregoing? It is unquestionable
that he who takes the nature of brutes as his pattern will
attain a development, not of humanity but of bestiality. He
however who begins to distinguish between the indications of
universal validity which Nature affords us even in the life of
brutes and the impulses prompted by blind instinct, though he
refuses to recognise a higher law of conscience, has already
THE INFLUENCES OF EXTERNAL NATURE. 23
reached a stage of criticism at which any worth of natural
impulses considered as furnishing a standard of right must
disappear altogether. For he will not be able to deny that in
his own nature also, many of these condemned impulses occur,
and that too with all the force of importunate attraction, and
he will then perceive that physical Nature cannot teach right
or duty until its indications have been approved by the higher
law which is in man himself, and until they have become part
of the intelligible connection of a supersensuous rule of life.
CHAPTER 11.
THE NATUEE OF MAK
Temperaments — The Meaning of Temperament — Differences of Temperament —
The Successive Stages of Human Life — Connection between the Vital
Feelings which have a Corporeal and those which have a Mental Origin
— Differences between the Sexes — General ' Mental Peculiarities of Women
— Heredity, and Original Difference of Endowment.
S 1. nrr from external Nature, the influence of which we
A could neither deny, nor admit without qualification,
we turn back to ourselves, we find that the original peculiarity
of our own nature sets numerous limits to the development
of our individuality. In temperament, in innate capacities, in
those changes of the whole background of our mental life
which are inevitably caused by changes of age, in difference
of sex, in the varieties of susceptibility and impulse which
mark different nationalities, are to be found rules and limits
from which our development cannot escape. And from which,
indeed, in many respects it ought not to escape. The ideal
of humanity may find in these natural endowments more or
less hindrance to its realization ; but it is not of the essence
of this ideal to require a uniformity from which every tinge
of individuality has been expunged. It is only among brutes
that such conformity to the type is regarded as a perfection ;
among men it is more in accordance with the ideal that the
special nature of each individual should impart to his conduct
(of which the general outlines are the same for all men) its
characteristic tone and colour.
We are little acquainted with the circumstances upon which
these varieties of human endowment depend. They may be
for the most part conditioned by bodily constitution, or they
may result froia the gradual summation of innumerable similar
u
THE NATURE OF MAN. 25
impressions; whether it he that these continued influences
have become as it were to a certain extent fixed as tendencies
to development in the hodily constitution, or whether it be that
the mental development of our ancestors has been transmitted, as
innate capacity, to their descendants, after a spiritual fashion
which is still less comprehensible to us. However this may
be, the differences exist, and we cannot altogether neglect a
consideration of their consequences, though we may leave the
question of their origin undecided.
Varieties of Temperament, as of all other innate natural
capacities, appear to us to be most marked under conditions
of advanced civilisation. This may result from our imperfect
knowledge of the more simple forms of life, the distant view
making their uniformity seem greater than it is, or it may bo
that only high culture affords scope for any great development
of the characteristic talents and dispositions of individuals.
Clear as these differences themselves may be in many cases,
the signification of the name — temperament — by which they
are distinguished, continues vague. The original meaning of
the word seems to indicate that we should understand tem-
perament to signify general characteristics of the course of
mental life which do not of themselves exclusively predetermine
either a fixed degree or a fixed direction of culture, but which
certainly promote or hinder in various ways the development
of intelligence and of moral character. These we cannot
pronounce to be either altogether unconnected with, or indis-
solubly attached to, special varieties of bodily constitution
and predispositions to particular forms of disease. Under the
head of temperaments comes a consideration of the throng
of ideas which pass through consciousness together, the swift-
ness with which one succeeds another, and the force with
which thought works, either in one direction specially, or
several simultaneously, calling up a more or less numerous
and harmonious association from the ranks of previous impres-
sions ; of the fidelity with which previous perceptions are
retained, or the rapidity with which they melt into vague
general images; of the constancy with which an idea once
26 BOOK VI, CHAPTER U.
taken up with interest is held fast in the midst of numerous
changes, or the ease with which sympathy and attention are
diverted from their original object to a host of importunate
accessories ; of the general degree of feeling roused by impres-
sions, and the permanence or transiency of this feeling ; of the
concentration of effort at certain points of enduring interest,
or the inclination to jump from one occupation to another,
and of the various strength of the impulse to express one's
feelings in movements, words, and gesture. Differences of
temperament are just like those differences in the movement
of a current which are due to the original nature of its source
and channel; according to the original density of the fluid,
according to the direction of its fall and the nature of its bed,
the various obstacles with which it meets cause it to be
disturbed in some cases by deep, slow movements, in others
by waves which merely fret its surface.
§ 2. If out of the innumerable varieties of individual
temperament which we must recognise in experience, we
would emphasize some striking forms in which the distinctive
features we have noticed are grouped with most coherence, we
shall naturally recur to the quaternion ( Vierzahl) to which anti-
quity, combining groundless theory with sound observation, gave
names which are still retained. But nothing would be gained
by painting here over again these oft-presented pictures ; we
shall be better occupied in considering how, in the individual
and in society, temperaments akin to these do to some extent
naturally occur, and how to some extent they should occur in
a regular course of development.
The health of the body depends a good deal upcn its
different parts not being so intimately connected as to cause
every shock received by one to be communicated to the others.
It is a sign of morbid weakness of nerve when the whole-
some resistance to diffusion which prevents the spread of
excitation is so far diminished, that every slight irritation affects
the whole frame, and when disturbances of organic feeling
which are by no means immoderate immediately call forth a
variety of secondary sensations, produce convulsive movements,
THE NATURE OF MAN. 27
and accelerate secretions, or change their character. On the
other hand, one might ask whether this general sensitiveness
to stimulation is not the right state for a mind to be in prior
to experience. Minds are not of course destined to remain
permanently in such a state, but the task of educating one-
self, and of gradually establishing one's own character, can
only be satisfactorily carried out when it is unhindered by
any original rigidity or sluggishness of constitution. Permanent
excess of this general capacity of reciprocal excitement among
all psychical states and general sensitiveness of the soul to all
outward stimuli, distinguish that temperament which with a
tinge of disapprobation we designate the sanguine. We
think that to be easily disturbed and so pass easily from one
mood to another, is natural and fitting in childhood, an age of
which the proper business is to collect impressions by which
it may build up its mental life without prejudice or special
preference, and in fact it is generally where this volatility
exists without lasting too long that a child develops most
rapidly. The liveliness of the sanguine temperament seems to
us to be also natural among uncivilised tribes, the differences
of whose interests in life are generally too slight and shallow
to call forth such a one-sided pursuit of definite ends as to
weaken men's original receptivity for impressions of all kinds.
Only it must be remembered that favourable conditions of
external Nature are necessary for the simultaneous develop-
ment of quickness of mind and joyous activity of body.
But while this temper of mind is advantageous at the out-
set of development, it presents many hindrances to the later
development of intelligence, as well as of' the emotional and
moral nature. Great rapidity in the succession of ideas, which
is made possible by the short-lived interest awaked by each
one, is to a certain extent necessary for a child. This rapidity
produces knowledge of a multitude of individual facts, and
moreover, by means of the many-sidedness of ideas which supple-
ment and correct one another, it prevents the establishment
of narrow notions and attachment to ideas accidentally got
and not of universal validity — faults whici men are only
28 BOOK VI. CHAPTER II.
too apt to fall into in later life in consequence of the monotony
of their particular occupations. But on the other hand, this
rapidity of change hinders the fixation of that which has been
acquired, and a sharp demarcation of the regions within which
easily attained generalities are valid but beyond which they
cease to be applicable. It is further necessary for a child
that feeling should be easily roused by slight impressions and
unimportant perceptions, and also that the fluctuations of such
feeling should be as rapid as the fluctuations of its various
occasions. It would be ill if in children laughter did not
follow in the wake of tears, and if instead of their happy
forgetfulness of sorrow, and even to a certain extent, of
salutary punishment, a tenacious memory for all evil, for
injustice, afironts, and pain, were to occasion moods of con-
siderable duration during which their ready receptivity would
be disturbed. This characteristic again, which is an advantage
in the beginning, becomes a disadvantage later on. The quick-
ness with which feeling that is continually on the qui vive
responds to every momentary impression, together with the
small amount of effort which the excitation is capable of call-
ing forth, leads to the instability which must mark a course of
conduct prompted by motives not derived from comprehensive
reflection, or from the combined tendencies of a formed
character, but borrowed hastily and fragmentarily from isolated
and transient occasions. Every human life starting with
infinite possibilities of varied development, has the task of
limiting itself to the finitude of some definite characteristic form
which leaves a thousand early hopes unfulfilled, but by way
of compensation evolves from the few impulses which it really
develops a thousand wonderful and characteristic results, the
rich variety of which could never have been suspected in the
beginning. The man whose sanguineness of temperament has
outlived its natural term, gives us, not inappropriately, the
impression of being a grown-up child, and the social charm
which we readily grant to his general responsiveness and easy
adaptation to all circumstances, does not make up for the want
of trustworthiness, and does not rouse that interest which we
THE NATURE OF MAN. 29
take in every individuality that has actually worked out its
natural potentialities to some definite reality.
To correct such faults without sacrificing what is attractive
in such a temperament should be the aim of subsequent
development. The mind ought to retain all its receptivity,
for both great and small, and for the most various kinds
of stimulation ; but it should at the same time learn to dis-
criminate between that which is of great and that which is
of little worth, and to regulate the amount of responsive re-
action according to the significance that each impression has
for the interests of human life, which gradually stand out
more and more clearly as forming a coherent whole. The
natural course of development begins the accomplishment of
this task, the sentimental temperament of youth displacing the
sanguine temperament of childhood. I choose this name in
order to avoid an inexactness which is involved in the ordinary
designation of the melancholic temperament, an expression
which makes us think of sadness and dejection of mind, and
though this unhappy humour may cast its gloom over the
whole of a man's mental life, in consequence of bodily disease
or of long-continued misfortune and the memories which
succeed it, yet it is not itself one of those general types of
inner life to which the name of temperament can be properly
applied. Indeed, the fact is that this humour, like every other,
is compatible with any temperament, although one may be
more conducive to it than another ; while what we mean by
the sentimental temperament is not one humour which out of
the many that we may experience has become predominant,
but a general propensity to give oneself up to humours, to as
it were lay oneself out for them, and to entertain them in
greater force and to a greater extent than occasion warrants.
Children do not pick and choose among impressions those that
they will attend to ; their curiosity is easily excited by facts
of any liind which can furnish them with ideas. If we some-
times find them disinclined to learn, we should remember how
very uninteresting to them those objects must be in which we
are only interested because of our knowledge of their signifi-
30 BOOK VI. CHAPTER IL
canca If we consider this, we shall admit that there is in
the child a disinterested readiness to appropriate the most
various material, and that the results of this during the early-
years of life far exceed what is acquired in any equal space
of time in after life. It is natural that this undiscriminating
receptivity should diminish, the more the task of thoroughly
organizing the acquired material of knowledge comes into
prominence. The youth therefore is more discriminating than
the child in his reception of impressions ; much seems to him
indifferent or repulsive which the mental digestion of the
child readily assimilated. But in proportion as there have
not yet arisen definite objects in life in connection with which
all particular experience may be steadily systematized, the
interest of the soul will become centred in the emotional worth
of impressions ; it will withdraw from all which does not
promise satisfaction to its inclination for this kind of excite-
ment, or conversely will use every imaginable impression
merely as the peg on which to hang a succession of feelings,
treating its intellectual content with unsympathetic neglect.
Thus is formed the sentimental temperament which naturally
gives the tone to mental life during the period of youth ; and
if it does not outlast its due time much that is valuable and
noble in our development is due to it. Being specially
capable of appreciating the harmony or discord which belongs
to the formal relations of impressions, it is given to the
dreamy repetition of all that is rhythmical and in ganeral of
all aesthetic impressions ; little inclined for real hard work,
but driven by restlessness of feeling to imaginative activity,
it seeks an outlet partly in artistic creation and partly in
framing ideals of a better state of things than that which
actually obtains. But while susceptible to the emotional
worth of perceptions, it is at the same time disposed to
theoretical vagueness, in consequence of not having a suffi-
ciently firm grasp of the definite points between which those
relations extend which are themselves of so much conse-
quence. Thus it becomes unpractical, wishing indeed to
reproduce by its own activity the moods which it values, but
THE NATUEE OF MAN. 31
having no sympathy for the uninteresting details of appro-
priate means ; and just as often it is unjust, resenting the
indifference or opposition of others to its own aesthetic pre-
judices with a bitterness which excludes all fair judgment
and all toleration of divergent culture.
It is a happy peculiarity of our nature that past suffering
does not live as vividly in our memory as past joy ; but any
pain at the moment when it affects us, stirs the spirit more
powerfully, and produces a greater mental turmoil of thoughts
seeking for utterance. Sometimes a man does not for the
moment know what to make of pleasure, and often he has to
wait until time shall have revealed all the individual happy
consequences which some present good fortune involves, find-
ing only then a fitting expression for his joy. This explains
how it is that men are disposed to seek dissonances, or to
exaggerate them when they exist, in order that by doing so
they may as it were gain mediately a clearer consciousness
of the harmonies which are actual or possible, and the worth
of which stands out the more clearly in the contrasted pre-
sence of impending danger. Therefore sensitive souls love
the gentle melancholy which is spread like a grey background
behind the rainbow glory of isolated moments of delight, and
the old view was not altogether wrong in giving to the senti-
mental temperament the designation of melancholy, with
which humour that temperament is in fact thus naturally
connected.
The great defect which attaches to this temper of mind is
the ease with which the development or establishment of a
sense of duty may be hindered by excitability of feeling.
However indispensable this temperament may be not only
for artistic genius but also for the truly humane ordering of
practical life, yet if it continues in isolated predominance it
leads both in art and practice to mere skill, which amuses itself
but acknowledges no obligation to serious work. We need
not refer to that repulsive form of sentimentality which turns
all the circumstances of life to account in no other way than as
occasions of emotional excitement ; we may also trace the ill
32 BOOK VI. chapti:k il
effects of the sentimental temper both in science and in art.
It is shown in the latter by its way of dealing with the
isolated lyric movements of emotion which naturally arise in
men and have received a pleasing formal expression either from
some gifted individual or from the cultivated general mind ;
these it is incapable of grasping and bringing together into
a coherent whole in such a way as to attain to higher
truth. It is shown in the scientific region by the numerous
examples of men who, with great natural gifts, can be content
to spend their ingenuity in constantly devising some new
dress for the knowledge they have already acquired, in giving
it a finer point and more exquisite arrangement, without ever
honestly doing their part towards the final solution of any
problem. A good deal also of apparently earnest effort has
to be set down to this less emotional form of sentimentality ;
but what is great in life and in science has always been
the result of concentrated energy, which, without denying
the worth of other impressions, yet passes them by on the
other side, as it presses towards its own goal, busying itself
all the more eagerly about the means of attaining to it,
though these being indifferent in themselves, are despised by
the excited temper of youth in its search after worthy ends.
The choleric temperament is plainly that which we must
desire to see developed in the time of manhood, as the
natural successor of the sentimental temperament ; its too
early appearance would be as contrary to the perfection of
human development as its not appearing at all. The
diminished susceptibility to excitement which is ascribed to
this temperament, together with the great force and endurance
of its reaction, when feeling has once been aroused, are doubt-
less often the effect of a moral steadiness of character, which
having chosen definite ends refuses to be lured from its path
by irrelevant attractions ; or it may be that they are the effect
of a narrow range of ideas produced by the monotony of life,
and in many cases blunting the interest which would naturally
be felt. But that obstinate perseverance in a path once
entered upon, which hindrances only serve to spur on to
THE NATURE OB MAN. 33
greater activity, often occurs even in children ; we are tliere-
fore fully warranted in designating this state of mind as a
particular temperament. Its essential features are to be
found in its unreceptiveness for incidental attractions which
lie out of the beaten track of its thought ; in the narrow scope
afforded to new impressions, these sufficing only to call up
the recollections most closely associated with them in one
particular groove ; and lastly in the small degree of feeling
which can be aroused by any perceptions but those which fall
in with the prevailing current of feeling. But when interest
is once awakened, it affects with equal steadiness the train
of ideas and the efforts of the will; thus this is the pre-
eminently practical temperament, both on account of the
definiteness of the ends which imagination presents to it,
and also because its less exacting and less touchy temper
does not shrink from the employment of indifferent or irksome
means which, while destitute of intrinsic worth, are indispens-
able for the attainment of the desired end. But the frequent
confusion of this temperament with what we call simple
wilfulness shows that it has drawbacks which are closely
related to its advantages. In fact its practical efficacy
is often impaired by a gradually increasing narrowness of
mental life, which having chosen some one exclusive end,
not infrequently fixes with equal exclusiveness and obstinacy
upon some one definite kind of means, and even sometimes,
reflecting itself as it were, seems as a final stage, to reject all
reference to intrinsically worthy ends, and develops into that
conscious stubbornness which is the caricature of rigid consist-
ency. It is not in such results that the progress of development
which we desire is to be found. Later life ought to inherit
a fair share of that passion for everything which has emotional
worth which is characteristic of the sentimental temperament,
as well as of the mobility and sensitiveness of the sanguine
temperament, and the group of characteristics which best
becomes the ideal of human excellence is not to be found in
the unsympathizing or contemptuous disposition which a
narrow-hearted devotion to definite ends exhibits towards
VOL. n. c
•54 BOOK VI. CHAPTER II.
all which lies out of the track of its own particular
e&urt
I shall perhaps be regarded as the advocate of a strange
thesis when I say that I regard the phlegmatic tempera-
ment as the natural temper of advanced age, and at the same
time as an improvement on the choleric temperament with its
prejudices and narrowness. A description of the different
temperaments so naturally presents each one as an exaggera-
tion of its special characteristics, that at the very name of
phlegmatic we are accustomed to think of a sort of mental
lethargy very far from suggestive of advance in human
development — a state in which susceptibility to impressions, as
well as any pleasure in responding to them, has been almost
wholly lost. But in this representation vacuity of mmd is
confounded with a form of activity which may belong to a
full as well as to an empty mind. A state of steady
equanimity would be intolerable and repulsive in a soul
whose capacities were as yet only partially unfolded, and
whose best development yet remained to be won among the
manifold changes and chances of life ; but such calm is to be
reverenced in a mind which has passed victorious through
chance and change, and has learnt by wide experience,
neither to be carried from one mood to another by every
changing impression, nor to give exclusive and one-sided
approval to some one particular form and direction of human
effort. It is true, indeed, that as long as we understand by
temperament only a natural disposition as contrasted with any
acquired attitude of mind, the immovability of the phlegmatic
temperament must seem to us the least pleasing of any human
character. And yet even in this we are often unjust ; w©
conclude too hastily that disinclination to bodily movement
indicates an equal sluggishness of thought, that the absence
of foolish outbursts of emotion and omission of useless expres-
sions of feelings are due to coldness of heart. Hence we are
often surprised to see such minds stirred up by a great and
impressive stimulus to some energetic passion, producing
vigorous and long-sustained efforts; such an occurrence we
THE NATURE OF MAN. 35
have often enough seen " writ large " in the history of races
whose national temperament is decidedly phlegmatic. We
learn from such cases that it is unjust to attribute the
immovability and incapacity of mere stupidity to that solid-
ness of mental life which is hardly affected by individual
passing impressions, but slowly stores them up until the time
arrives for some supreme effort — or at any rate if no occasion
for action arises is not haunted by a mental unrest which
prompts the search for such an opportunity. Like all rest,
this equanimity of soul is a phsenomenon that may have many
significations, and its worth is in proportion to the amount of
dormant power which it holds in suspense. We blame the
unreceptiveness which remains unmoved because it is wanting
in all intelligence and sympathy ; but we all seek that peace
which is not immoderately excited by anything, because
nothing is any longer wholly new to it ; which has experienced
every kind of emotion, but has long ago learned to assign to
every passionate impulse its proper value in the whole
intricate chain of human interests, appealing to this from any
accidental strength of feeling which may be due to the
circumstances of the moment ; which finally has ceased to
have any part in the heat and hurry of self-willed effort,
because it has learnt that the vicissitudes of destiny are too
great, and the field of human activity too circumscribed to
admit of our attributing absolute and unconditioned worth to
any single work or any single performance of ours. We hope
for this frame of mind as the natural temperament of old age,
but we certainly do not see that it is generally attained ; on
the other hand, however, we find that by innate favour of
spiritual organization, some few happy souls have all
through life this fine balance of mental temper. They receive
with pure-hearted and ever fresh interest, impressions of all
degrees of importance ; they are not indifferent to any class of
feelings, but on the other hand, none carries them away into
the tangled paths of a one-sided and narrow humour ; with clear
vision and patient hand, they quietly compass the means to
some steadfastly pursued end, without the unsympathizing
30 BOOK VI. CHAPTER II.
harshness which refuses to endure any interruption of its work,
and without that contempt for other paths which is natural to
him who knows none but his own. It is not of the great
names ot history that we are thinking now, but of those gentle
and blessed natures who pass noiselessly through life, seeming
as it were the very embodiment of our ideal ; those who have
had a strongly marked effect upon the course of history, have
much oftener been men whose minds were not thus finely
balanced, and who owed their influence to the one-sided
harshness with which they have succeeded in forcing their
own views upon the world, undisturbed by any acute sense
of the comparative worth of conflicting opinions.
Observation does not show us that more than a distant
approach to this gradation of human development actually
exists. In order to go through it completely, and to
let each of the temperaments run its whole course in full
and unmixed current, unusually favourable conditions both of
natural disposition and of outward circumstances would be
required. It is only when culture has advanced rather far
that it can furnish the different periods of life with that
variety of interests from which each particular phase of
character can draw material for vigorous development ; hence
the monotony of a very simple mode of life would weaken the
characteristic differences of temperament. But on the other
hand, the multifarious complications of life may hinder regular
development by events which press with such a weight upon
the soul that completeness and spontaneity of further develop-
ment becomes impossible. And finally, the more thorough-
going has been the development of mind and character in any
generation by a life of varied culture, the more are the natures
of the next generation likely to diverge from one another,
exhibiting characters of striking individuality, the course of
development of which often differs strangely from that of the
ordinary type. Then there are numerous diseases which have
a powerful effect on temperament and humour, and numerous
bodily disorders which, before they declare themselves as
disease, appear in disturbances of organic feeling which,
THE NATURE OF MAN. 37
inexplicable even to him who suffers them, imperceptibly give
a tone to the totality of his views and feelings. It would be
extremely interesting if it were possible, to investigate the
causes of these phsenomena. But it is indeed impossible to
discriminate in them between what has its origin in the
region of mind, in the impenetrable windings of every
individual development, and to some extent reacts upon the
bodily organization, and what on the other hand is due to
organic development and its disturbances, and has a share in
influencing the growth of the inner life. Perhaps too much
weight is sometimes attributed to the last factor, but still there
IS no doubt that it does have a very important effect. We
see tardiness or precocity of bodily development accompanied
by a like tardiness or precocity of the mental dispositions
corresponding to these stages of physical growth ; and on the
whole nothing is more natural than the assumption that the
full tide of organic feeling receives at different times a different
colouring in proportion as this or that organ or department of
the bodily economy makes its influence more or less felt by
innumerable constant excitations, singly imperceptible, which
vary according to the rapidity or backwardness with which
the organ or department in question develops its activity.
But while the time is gone by for explaining such matters by
reference to the black bUe and the yellow bile, the time is not
yet come when we may have recourse to exact observation
for an explanation of the importance of different functions at
different times, and for trustworthy information as to their
influence on mental life.
How intimately permanent bodily conditions may be con-
nected with permanent mental dispositions, is shown by
observation of cases in which their reciprocal influence is
temporary. It has been said, and not without truth, that we
think differently when we are lying down and when we are
1 standing up ; a constrained and cramped position of the body
has a depressing effect upon the spirits; again, we find it
difficult to be devotional in a comfortable and careless attitude;
38 BOOK VI. CHA.PTER II.
to get a furious man to sit down in an easy-chair ; and the
Jiand which smooths the wrinkles from one's brow, smooths
away trouble too. It may be asked whether aesthetic and
moral judgments or our thoughts about future joy and sorrow
do not primarily receive their vividness and intensity from
accompanying sensations in which that which is of intrinsic
worth appears to us as harmonizing with the innermost con-
ditions of our own individual existence. There are plenty of
apathetic states in which these attendant feelings are wanting
— in which we may see as plainly as before the objective
excellence of one kind of conduct, and the blameworthiness of
another, and recognise the just claims of others on our love
and sympathy without being in the slightest degree capable of
conjuring up that glow of feeling which we know would be
appropriate to the occasion. How often does the same thing
happen in our enjoyment of beauty ! Appreciation of it is
not mere abstract delight in harmonious relations , delight in
general is not a merely mental process, but something by
which our whole being seems to be exalted and carried away,
something which makes us breathe more fully and freely^
which quickens our pulse and gives elasticity to our muscles ;
remorse for what is past is not the mere moral sentence of
condemnation which, pronounced by conscience, is simply
apprehended by the soul; the relaxedness of the limbs, the
oppression of the heart, perhaps in anger an actual spasmodic
contraction of the throat and rising of the gorge which prevent
our swallowing the morsel already in our mouth — these show
the sympathy of the bodily organization, and as it were
eymbolize the attempt to get rid of some detested burden
under the pressure of which we suffer. Even devotional
feeling is not a purely mental exaltation ; but whilst it makes
us unconsciously forego the careless haste of our ordinary
gait, and causes our movements to be slower and more self-
restrained, and our attitude to take a peculiar stamp, not of
relaxedness, but of strength which voluntarily submits, there
flows back into consciousness from all these bodily effects an
echo of feeling strengthening the intellectual mood. We can
TUB NATURE OF MAN. 39
understand what a difference it must make if the body return
this echo imperfectly or with a tone altered by disease, and
how in fact similar moods of some special individuals can
never be quite comparable one with another. It is in the
bloom of youth that we find this correspondence between mental
life and its material vesture developed in the most attractive
and perfect form ; in later life the gradual increase of obstacles
and of friction causes the imperfections and incoherences in
the connection between the two orders of affection to become
more and more prominent. We can no longer read the whole
soul in movement, gait, and carriage ; ordinary daily actions
are got through with unsympathetic dispatch, eating and
drinking often with ugly and soulless eagerness; and it is
always a sign of profound culture of the heart when the
thoughts of a man advanced in years do not meet the sensuous
warmth of any passing event with the uninterested and
unsympathetic coldness of age.
§ 3. We feel afresh the want of trustworthy knowledge
concerning the psychical importance of the bodily organs and
their connections, now that we are come to that difficult part
of our task, a consideration of the mental differences of
the two sexes. I will not stay to compare the undulating
outlines of the woman with the more angular build of the
man ; it may be that there is foundation for the idea that the
latter indicates the preponderance of some impulse towards
characteristic individualization, and that the perhaps really
greater bodily likeness among women is to be regarded as
evidence of their greater mental conformity to some general
type. Even here where the outward form is to others indica-
tive of the inner life, I find myself able to lay little stress
upon the merely symbolical significance of the bodily form ;
it would be much more interesting to show, if one could, what
particular organic feeling the body comes to have in conse-
quence of its functions and of the particular proportions of its
parts.
Of all this we know but little. The relations of the different
parts of tfie skeleton and of the muscular system show that
40 BOOK VI. CHAPTER IL
there is less power of work in the frame of the woman, the
shoulders and chest are not adapted for lifting, carrying, and
moving heavy weights and obstacles, nor are the hips and legs
framed for swift running, or for walking firmly under a heavy
burden; the muscles seem less fitted to endure continuous
strain, great as may be their capacity of work when they have
frequent alternations of activity and rest. These circumstances
can hardly fail to influence organic feeling, a very important
part of which always depends on a consciousness of the ease,
elasticity, and peculiar security of our position, attitude, and
mode of progression. The fact that a man's body forms an
oval with its greatest diameter through the shoulders, and a
woman's body an oval which is widest across the hips, is in
itself indifferent ; but it may be that on the man the preponder-
ant weight of the upper part of his body may have the effect
of a burden which demands to be carried forward swift and
sure in opposition to all obstacles, while the woman, feeling
more fettered, most naturally finds her sphere of work nearer
home, and expects it to come to her thither from the dim
distance.
This inferiority in strength is compensated by a greater
capacity of adaptation to the most various circumstances. The
bodily wants of women are much less than those of men ; they
eat and drink less, they breathe less air, and are said to be
less easily suffocated ; with regard to hardships — at least
those which are continuous and of gradual gi-owth — and
privations, they bear them to some extent more easily than
men, and in some respects with less of ill effect than might
have been expected from their degree of bodily strength.
They endure great loss of blood and continuous pain better ;
and even the greater irritability of their nervous system, on
account of which many unimportant disturbances have a
great effect, seems to favour the rapid and harmless dispersion
of any shock that may be experienced. Hence even under
unfavourable circumstances, they often reach a great age,
although the examples of extreme old age, lasting on far into a
second century, are to be found almost exclusively among men.
I
THE NATURE OF MAN. 41
Tliey are naturally disinclined to very vehement sensuous
gratifications, and often have only a sort of emotional aversion
for disagreeable impressions in cases where a man would be
almost overcome by absolute physical disgust ; the work of
restoring cleanliness is always in itself uncleanly. The same
capacity of accommodation is shown in the various circum-
stances of life. It is an old and true remark that women can
much more easily suit themselves to new conditions of life,
to a different rank in society and changes of fortunes, whilst
it is hardly possible for a man to efface the signs of his early
training. Acquired habits also have a stronger hold on him,
and when accustomed order is interrupted or the usual hour
for work or food comes round empty-handed, his general com-
fort is much more greatly disturbed. With the above charac-
teristics of women there is naturally combined a mixture of
that liveliness proper to the sanguine temperament and that
warmth of heart, belonging to the sentimental stage, the
absence of which we regret in any woman, counting it an
imperfection. In her, varieties of education hide much ; but
even in the most extreme cases we shall hardly fail of finding
a propensity (akin to inquisitiveness) to talk for the sake of
talking, and some trace of pleasure in beautiful and harmonious
arrangements.
But the question, How is the higher mental life of both
sexes characteristically distinguished, with reference either to
these natural features or to any others ? is one which it seems
hardly possible to answer. The innumerable observations,
partly ingenious and partly also at the same time true, to
which this question has given rise, have seldom been con-
cerned to distinguish between what is to be regarded as
original disposition, and what as a remote result of the
circumstances of life and educational routine which have
affected the two sexes very differently, although in harmony
with their natural dispositions. However often the attempt
may be made to reduce to simple intelligible expression the
multitude of these particular characteristics, which only a
life's experience can teach, and only the plastic creations of
42 BOOK VI. CHAPTER II.
poetry can reproduce, it will always be found that such
attempts must be content to give merely an extremely
colourless outline of that which in its boundless wealth of
colouring furnishes the philosopher of common life with an
inexhaustible field of interest.
I do not believe that the intellectual capacity of the sexes
differs, except in so far as the special emotional interests of
each have prescribed the course of their intellectual life.
There is perhaps no subject which a woman's mind could
not understand, but there are very many things in which
women could never learn to be interested. Though it is
often said that in knowledge a man is attracted by the
universal, a woman by the particular, yet in very many
cases we should find, that it is just the individualizing
power of women which is inferior, and their delicate instinct
for the universal which is superior ; and besides, this division
of the work of knowledge to which we have just referred is
inconsistent with the current attribution of egoistic effort to
the masculine will, and of subordination to universal rules to
womanly self - suppression. There would perhaps be more
truth in the opinion that the knowledge and will of men aim
at generality, those of women at completeness. It is masculine
philosophy to analyse striking phsenomena and to find out from
what complication of general conditions each of them inevitably
and necessarily resulted, however much it may seem to be some
arbitrary and chosen product of Nature ; it is characteristic of
women to hate analysis and to enjoy and admire the beauty and
intrinsic worth of any whole that may be presented to them iu
finished completeness. All mechanical inventions have been
made by men, and to men belongs delight in the mediate pro-
duction of effects by the application of general forces according
to general laws ; while the actual manipulation belongs rather
to women, and to them also the desire to find that the warmth
of living feeling is being as it were transferred immediately to
the product of their activity. Characteristic of masculine
thought is the deep conviction that all which is greatest and
most beautiful in the world has its mechanical conditions, and
THE NATURE OF MAN. .43
tliat no result which is premature and which evades this
fixed order of realization can he permanent and stable ; it is
to this thought that is due the order by which life is organized,
an order that is everywhere dependent on the principle of
law, that is on the belief that the universally valid con-
ditions of truth must be satisfied before there can be any
question of a result that may be desirable in some particular
case. On the other hand, the faith of women — which is both
just in itself and as necessary as the other to the happiness
of life — is that no general principle and no form can ever
have an independent and unconditioned value, but that such
v^alue belongs exclusively to the living reality which may be
founded on them ; from this faith flow all the beauty and
compensations of life, for it is a faith which is everywhere
dependent on that principle of equity, which makes men
feel bound to soften the harshness of law by unowed love
and kindness ; the misfortune is that this desire to show
kindness is often in danger of hastily and unjustly breaking
through forms of law which hinder the fulfilment of its
intention.
All masculine effort depends upon profound reverence for
general principles ; a man's pride even and ambition are not
satisfied by groundless homage, but he founds his claim upon
the sum of generally recognisable superiority which he believes
himself to possess ; he feels that he is undoubtedly something
more than a mere example of the universal, and he demands
to be compared with others by means of some common
standard. Just as devout is the sentiment of the feminine
mind towards completeness ; a woman no more desires to be
considered as an example among others than the beauty of
one flower requires to be compared with that of others accord-
ing to some standard of comparison ; and while a man
cheerfully joins himself to others who are like-minded and
cheerfully perishes with them for the sake of some general
principle, a woman would rather be sought and loved as some-
thing fair and complete in herself, and for the sake of her own
individuality, which is a thing that is not susceptible of
44 BOOK VI. CHAPTER IL
comparison, nor explicable by reference to otber individuals.
For certainly in the feeling with which we regard such a
whole, love in the strict sense is more prominent than esteem,
but it is pre-eminently esteem and not love which a man
requires in the feeling with which he is regarded ; he is not
merely willing that his worth should be measured by a
common standard, but he demands that it should be so
measured. No one, of course, will so misunderstand this
contrast as to imagine that we mean that a woman's nature
has, like the unanalysable fragrance of a flower, no pretensions
to call forth the sentiment of esteem, which is in fact aroused
in a very high degree by particular virtues which appear in
women, and which are susceptible of comparison.
We only need to look about us as we go through life in
order to find a thousand traits which bear witness to this general
dissimilarity. The business communications of men are brief,
those of women are wordy, and generally abound in repetition ;
it is plain that they have little faith in the trustworthiness of
a promise which is guaranteed merely by the general obliga-
tion to truth and good faith, and is not clenched by a variety
of small considerations drawn from a comprehensive survey of
the case in hand. Men lay less stress upon the harmonious
arrangement of their spatial surroundings, except in as far as
these secure the immediate and ready applicability of means
to desired ends ; but they value punctuality as regards time,
which is in a much higher degree a mechanical condition of
all success; women have the happy knack of arranging a
multitude of objects in space in such a way as to produce a
pleasant effect on the whole without any rigid adherence to
system ; but they show less management with regard to time,
which is something that cannot be seen. When men and
women speak of regard to form they generally mean very
different things ; the womanly nature is concerned to round
off into a graceful and consistent whole the final product of
any activity ; her skill lies in knowing what is appropriate to
the case in hand, which very often is exactly that which the
man's judgment disapproves ; for the forms which he would
THE NATURE OF MAN, 4SJ
choose to have observed are general rules of orderly procedure,
which must be carried out even at the cost of producing some
isolated discords. With the above is closely connected the
well-known unjudicial character of women. Tt does not
consist in an incapacity to sacrifice individual claims, for
nothing could exceed the cheerfulness with which women
make such sacrifices, as soon as they have actually set before
them that good of others for the sake of which the sacrifice is
to be made. But they feel aggrieved because very often the
law in considering any given case does not regard it as a
whole, but brings it under some general definition in virtue of
some special characteristics, the selection of which seems to
the woman's mind to be arbitrary ; the definition itself seeming
to be not less arbitrary, because, being a general rule of pro-
cedure, the ultimate good which it seems to secure is not
directly presented. A man does not rebel against undertaking
things of which he cannot see the result, if the carrying out
of some' general principle is concerned ; women require to
have the future results set plainly before their eyes, they want
to anticipate beforehand the final form of the whole, to know
in what shape the unrest of action will be embodied in the
end. This disposition, this happy faith that there is some
answer to every puzzle, some mode of reconciling every con-
flict, some way of gathering up in the end the loose threads of
broken effort, has unquestionably an injurious as well as
beneficial effect on the masculine mind, women being able to
produce this effect in consequence of the share which they
have in education. That consideration of possible results which
holds men back from action at moments when inevitable duty
is in question, is generally due to maternal influence.
A man generally regards his property as what it really is,
as a collection of usable and divisible means to various ends,
and his liberality is not disturbed by the idea of breaking into
some imaginary completeness which attaches to it as a whole ;
when women are extravagant, their extravagance generally
consists in making purchases for which they will not them-
selves pay the money. On the other hand, property which they
46 BOOK VI. CHAPTER U.
have once acquired and actually have in possession often seems
to them a kind of sacred deposit, all the parts of which belong
to one another, and which it would therefore be wrong to disturb.
What draws down upon their management the suspicion of a
leaning to avarice, is not exactly an unwillingness to impart
to others, but certainly, to some extent, that reverence for the
intrinsic coherence of things, which is expressed equally in
their horror of disturbing some treasured remembrance, break-
ing up some possession with which the whole of life seems to
be entwined, and in their mysterious satisfaction in exacting
" good measure."
Finally, I would venture the assertion that to the soul of
a woman truth does not mean the same thing that it does to
a man's mind. For women everything is true which is justified
by a capacity of fitting in harmoniously and significantly into
the rest of the world considered as a whole, with all its system
of relations ; they do not care so much about its being at the
same time a reality. Hence they are inclined not to lying but
to making a fair show, and if something presents the appear-
ance they desire in some connection which they regard as
important, they care little whether or not it would prove on
investigation to be something which has any right to present
that appearance. To wish to seem what one is not, is indeed
a failing common to all humanity, but a man is accustomed to
require, at any rate in the goods which he possesses, solidity
and genuineness ; among women, on the contrary, there is a
widespread predilection for shams. Having such leanings, they
are not given to scientific labours, and their mode of thought
is artistic and intuitive. As a poet does not create characters
by analysis and calculation, but is assured that they are true
to nature if he can himself in his own mind follow their whole
action with natural and spontaneous sympathy, so women love
to put themselves in imagination in the place of things, and
as soon as they have succeeded in getting some idea of what
it is like to exist and move and develop in the way in which
any given thing exists, moves, and develops, they think they
understand it thoroughly. That the possibility of things being
THE NATUEE OF MAN. 4t
and liappening as they do involves a scientific riddle, is
something which it is hard to make a woman understand. It
13 easy to see the connection between all this and some of the
great goods of life, for instance, firmness of religious belief,
and calm assurance of moral feeling ; but we also find this
preponderance of living tact over scientific analysis in many
small and inconspicuous traits. Women employ a thousand
delicate technical devices in their daily work ; but they can
with difficulty describe, they can only show, that which they
have skilfully accomplished. Analytic reflection upon their
own movements is so little familiar to them that one may
afBrm, without fear of being very far wrong, that such expres-
sions as, to tJie right, to the left, across, reverse, express in the
language of women, not any mathematical relations, but certain
particular feelings which one has when in working one makes
movements in these directions.
§ 4. But I am in danger of trying to exhaust that which
is inexhaustible; and I am the more bound to avoid this
because a consideration of life in the concrete shows us every-
where the part taken by both sexes in the whole constitution
of life and its enjoyments. Still a brief indication of the limits
imposed on each sex by its own special nature, may guide us
in a special consideration of the divergent developments which
we see arise from the national character of diflferent tribes and
races. We often find among the people of one nation that
many mental as well as bodily peculiarities are transmitted
with great persistence from parent to child for several genera-
tions, especially talents for those arts which are concerned
with combinations of many elements that can be intuitively
apprehended. Examples of the inheritance of mathematical,
musical, artistic, and technical capacity are not rare, and with
these are connected primarily the transmission of similar
temperaments, in which we have already recognised general
formal peculiarities of mental life. Parents are often
astonished at seeing reproduced in their children the same
faults and the same little tricks of which they are conscious
in themselves ; in civilised life, indeed, where persons of the
48
BOOK VL CHAPTER IL
most dififerently developed characters unite to form new
families, the very reverse of this is often seen, or at least we
cannot trace the nature of the child to any mixture of the
qualities of the parents ; but on the other hand, among un-
civilised tribes not only is a considerable constancy of such
transmission to be expected, but the expectation is confirmed
by actual experience.
We may try to derive all the national differences of
civilised people from the influence of the peculiar conditions
of their civilisation, which are to a great extent dependent on
geographical position and the vicissitudes of history, this
influence being of overpowering importance, and pervading
the whole of life ; but we cannot by so doing remove the
general impression received from observation, that nowadays
at least every new-bom life comes into the world with some
innate and inevitable national stamp, quite independent of its
later contact with the civilisation of its nation. It would bo
useless to try and explain this phgenomenon, as observers
differ so much in their opinion of the extent to which it
occurs. We cannot decide finally whether all races are
capable of an equal degree of civilisation, but we find that the
most favoured nations share in the development of humanity
in unequal measure, and in ways peculiar to themselves, and
we see that individuals of the same nations are very differently
endowed with mental energy and activity; finally, we have
every reason to believe that the savagery in which we find
the coloured races of men is by no means a condition abso-
lutely inseparable from their nature. Our primary deduction
from these considerations is the conviction that to attempt to
deny all original difference of endowment is a superfluous
undertaking, for when we have denied it of the great divisions
of the human race, it infallibly recurs in individuals, and such
a connate limit can be no more oppressive for the former than
for the latter. The only question is, whether all races of men
have in common those capacities which are necessary to lead
them to a participation in the moral inheritance of mankind,
and to unite them in human fellowship. It is not now our
THE NATURE OF MAN.
49
intention to give an answer to this question, wLich belongs to
the Philosophy of History, but we shall find a preparation for
the answer in a consideration of the general way in which
the inborn nature of men is stirred up by the educative
influences of Nature and of social relations to the production
of all that is most essential to life.
vor,. 11.
CHAPTEE III.
MANNERS AND MORALS.
Conscience and Moral Taste— Untrustworthiness of ITatural Disposition— Food
—Cannibalism— Craelty and Bloodthirstiness— Cleanness of Body and of
Mind— Modesty— Disparagement and Exaltation of Nature— Realism of
Individual Perfection, and Idealism of Work— Social Customs.
R 1, XTTHEN we sought in the human mind for the germ
▼ » of moral development, we did not seem to find
there any complete revelation directly enabling it to bring the
relations of life, or even those parts of human conduct which
are of most universal concern, into harmony with undoubted
precepts of moral order. Even in an educated conscience, a
lively conviction of the worth of an ideal by no means guarantees
the simultaneous presence either of that sensitiveness of
judgment which is necessary for discriminating instances of
its genuine realization from spurious imitations, or of that
creative imagination which can apply the well-known general
type to particular cases without distortion or misapprehension.
Many a man whose soul was deeply stirred by thoughts of
the supremely good and beautiful, but who found in his own
age no artistically perfect expression of his ideal, has fancied
that he saw it realized in forms, the sorry poverty of which
calls forth the astonishment of a later and more developed
age. Forced to satisfy its longing with something which it
has, the mind easily over-estimates those meagre outlines
which it invests with the life and colour of its own feeling ;
and thus accustomed to take the will for the deed, it
becomes unreceptive, timid, and perverse towards that fuller
beauty which reality presents, and which if it only were
intelligible would much more effectually satisfy the soul's
needs. This has been very much the case with moral de-
MANNERS AND MOEALS, 51
velopment. We may, indeed, certainly ascribe to the human
mind the possession of innate general ideas of Eight, of what
ought to be ; but the moral skill which enables us to find, in
every individual case, the special form in which this Right
should be realized, is decidedly a product of progressive
civilisation, and happy traits of natural disposition are not a
full and sufficient but only an extremely imperfect and frag-
mentary substitute for it.
This will appear to be self-evident with regard to all those
more important human institutions, such as the State, or the
organization of civil society, which, in as far as they are the
intentional product of human skill, can only be founded on
a knowledge of the thousand-fold relations which bind the
members of a society both to one another and to the con-
ditions of external life which they have in common ; and this
knowledge can only be attained and gradually perfected by
the actual experience of life. But where man is related to
his fellow in a way that does not involve any of these com-
plicated relationships, or where he dwells alone face to face
with external Nature, one might suppose that his conduct
would be guided more unambiguously by the innate voice
of Conscience, prescribing to him not only fitting ethical
sentiments but also the manners and morals corresponding to
these as their natural expression. However, a comparison of
the different modes of human life teaches us the very contrary.
What it is fitting a man should do or leave undone, in what
way it is becoming that he should order his surroundings and
his social behaviour, what he should esteem and what he
should avoid, and what things are without claims upon him,
and of no importance to him — finally how he ought to dis-
pose all his conduct and every detail of his action, so that
his life may be a harmonious whole — all this must be learnt
in a long course of development, and never can be fully
I learnt. The innate goodness of mankind is very far indeed
irom leading directly to such a development of morality.
Many a simple custom of peoples who are yet uncivilised
pay well compare favourably with the distorted growths of
I
52 BOOK VT. CHAPTER HI.
our civilisation ; the unsophisticated manifestation of isolated
traits of natural nobility may well have a charm for us ; but
around these bright spots the shadows lie all the deeper, and
the general character of this life of Nature, and of every
people that is in a state of Nature, exhibits the instability, the
incoherence, and the incalculable inconsistency with which,
side by side with attractive manifestations of particular moral
feelings, inhuman crime and the most astounding perver-
sity of conduct flourish in rank luxuriance. We are struck
by some advantages of a state of Nature which are for the
most part, though never necessarily, sacrificed by civilisation
for the sake of higher ends, and we long to return to the
simplicity of such a life — forgetting that it is civilisation itself
which has sharpened our appreciation for it as presenting a
pleasing contrast to the conditions that are evil in our own.
state, and that with the charm of such an existence there is
associated a poverty which neither knows nor can produce
a large proportion of the best goods of life. In such moods
we are but too apt to lose courage, and it is this which so
often makes us turn back from the complication of great and
not altogether successful undertakings to refresh ourselves with
the complete success of more insignificant works, rather than
push forward with a good courage notwithstanding. A little
flock is soon counted ; and he who shrinks from venturing on
the open sea and steering his course among the thousand con-
flicting claims of a civilised life which, as regards all mental
interests, is stirred to its very depths, can easily construct an
idyl on which the eye may dwell with momentary satis-
faction, but only to turn away from it wearied after a
very brief space. A fine climate, inherited excellence of
bodily organization, and absence of hard work, develop among
men, as among beasts, the greatest beauty and suppleness of
form, and a natural gracefulness of carriage, independent of
any deep spiritual life ; kindliness and good nature which we
would gladly count among innate human qualities are very
likely to brighten life and beautify it by traits of social refine-
ment in cases where simple relations exist which "ive no
MANNERS AND MORALS.
53
occasion to lasting and deep-rooted conflict ; but untutored
spirits are not accustomed to take a comprehensive view of
human life ; they know not its significance and the aims which
are set before it, aid hence they find only too many barren
spots in life, too many moral difficulties which receive no
decided answer, too many practical questions which may, it
seems, be answered indifferently this way or that — and which
consequently are frequently decided in accordance with the
impulse due to temperament and external circumstances,
leading often to an extreme of inhumanity and a barbarism
which are in the most violent contradiction to the amiable
traits that promised so much.
This moral untrustworthiness is by no means peculiar to
uncivilised peoples in their natural condition. Even in our
own highly civilised state, many an evil disposition is kept
under only by the unremitting pressure exercised on all sides
by the authority of systematised social forces ; and not
only so, but narrowness of moral insight, want of a delicate
perception of the way in which the moral ideal should include
and animate even the simplest relations of life, and all the
rudeness of mere selfish subjectivism might appear at any
moment, even among us, with most confusing effect if past
centuries had not preserved and matured mighty spiritual
forces of objective validity which they have handed down to
us in the treasures of science, art, law, and religion. It is
these which help the nobler minds to recognise that close
connection between all the most sacred spiritual possessions
of men which the individual could not discover unaided,
whilst they keep baser natures within bounds as a system of
institutions which, though uncomprehended, happen to have
the authority. And finally, at no time can we say either
that this vast fabric of human civilisation is completed, or
that all its parts are at the same stage of advancement. In
all societies there are departments of life which, though
susceptible of thorough moral cultivation, are yet given over
to individual caprice arising from temperament, as though
they were subject to no law or rule; on the other hand,
54 BOOK VI. CHAPTER III.
there are customs, really indifferent in themselves, which have
become established as having the force of absolutely binding
commands, much to the detriment of progress. Finally, our
morality as a whole suffers from a deficiency which it never
will, and indeed never ought to, surmount wholly; a
deficiency, namely, of perfectly clear theoretic insight into
the grounds of the binding validity of its demands — such an
insight as would be capable of making faith in the dignity of
moral institutions independent of any change of mood, and
hence out of the reach of that scepticism which passion and
the sharp troubles of our earthly lot only too easily arouse.
In saying that this deficiency ought not to be wholly
surmounted, what we mean is that it would not be advan-
tageous for moral development if the binding truth of all
particular moral commands, and the indissoluble connection
between them, were presented to individual minds with the
theoretical certainty of an arithmetical proof, and if it were
not left for every soul to fight its way through the battle of
life, by living, believing action and effort, to this clearness of
comprehensive moral intuition. As a possibility of doing ill
is everywhere a condition of the realization of what is good,
so this peculiarity of moral cultivation makes possible both
original divergence to barbarism and a relapse into it. The
dignity of any moral custom or ceremony can very seldom be
convincingly shown when it is regarded in isolation and not
in its connection with the whole spiritual significance of
human life ; having a thousand roots entwined in this, it is
generally wholly incapable of a concise syllogistic proof that
does not, in its turn, require to have its own presuppositions
supported by an infinite series of proof. Just on this account
every moral command is exposed to the destructive sophistry
which, taking anything that appears an abomination to our
civilised ideas, can so separate it from its relations with the
whole of life as to make it seem merely an innocent matter
of fact. And not only so, but we also learn how impossible
it is for the untutored reflection of a so-called state of Nature
io avoid developing what is crooked and barbarous, side b;'
MANNERS AND MORALS. 55
side with those elements of personal merit to which a good
disposition prompts.
§ 2. It may not be uninteresting to recall some instances
both of the dawning Moral Taste which led men gradually to
seek emancipation from the guidance of mere natural instinct,
and also of the mistakes to which reflection was exposed in
this progress. If we begin with a consideration of the bodily
wants which first roused men to barter, and to the adoption
of some simple rules of life, we observe that no people have
ever had any moral scruple with regard to the consumption of
vegetable food. The whole course of vegetable life is so
unlike our own that the ripening fruits seem expressly fitted
for our use as mere means, equally removed from the unser-
viceable toughness of inorganic material, and from that
animal life which checks the longing of appetite by a kind
of natural repulsion. The pious anchorite, feeding on roots
and fruit, or at the outside on honey — the product indeed of
animal activity, but itself inanimate — and the tribes who, in
primitive innocence, support existence on the produce of the
bread-fruit tree and the date-palm, are pictures which are
harmonious in themselves, and with which our fancy is
familiar. But dawning civilisation soon grows ashamed of
such an unsophisticated use of Nature's raw products; it
seems not altogether becoming to live so directly from hand
to mouth, and the fruits of the trees and of the fields come
to be at least gathered together and stored up, before they
are wanted for use. It is as though the mere lapse of time
between the moment when Nature matures them, and the
moment when we enjoy them, had loosened their connection
with the outer world, or as though they had become more
assimilated to our own nature through being in our posses-
sion for a time. But it is seldom that we stop here. The
inventions of cookery may indeed be chiefly intended to
enhance a pleasure of sense, but we may certainly find
another and less obvious motive of culinary activity in the
obscure impulse which urges us to disturb the form given by
Nature's o\\n hand, to alter the raw condition of nutritive
56 BOOK VI. CHAPTER III.
material, and to give to this before we use it, as far as
possible, the character of a product of our own fancy. It
would be a mistake to object in answer to this that when
we escape from the ceremonious propriety of our civilised life,
we delight to climb the trees and eat the fruit as we pluck
it from the bough ; it is just because our sense of civilised
existence is so strong that we take pleasure in divesting our-
selves for a moment of that which we can always resume at
will, and in dwelling for a moment with satisfaction on the
consciousness that our life is a life of sense, and in close
connection with Nature. The truth of this will be readily
seen if we imagine how odd it would look for man, the
thinking creature, to go out daily at meal-time into the fields
to devour a turnip on the spot, just as he had pulled it out
of the ground.
But nearly every dawning civilisation has had scruples
concerning the lawfulness and propriety of eating animal
food. Man has such a deep horror of consuming the dead
bodies of those animals which have died a natural death,
that he has always preferred to undertake the intentional
killing of beasts, this destruction being to a great extent
made less repulsive to him by the excitement of having to
defend himself against their attacks. But in the choice of
what we use for food an unquestionably moral taste has
gradually prescribed limits, the worth and significance of
which it would be hard to reduce to definite notions. By
civilised peoples it is almost exclusively vertebrate animals
that are used for food, and even among these amphibia at any
rate have never been generally used ; among the invertebrate
animals, on the other hand, we can mention a few, and but
a very few, such as the oyster and the crab, which people
venture to consume in their natural state, whilst some others,
as snails, are only endured as disguised ingredients of pre-
pared dishes. It may be easy for the doctrinaire mind to
prove that at bottom meat is flesh, if indeed it does not
succeed in establishing the still more remarkable discovery
that the range of our natural appetite is coincident with that
MANNERS AND MORALS. "67
of albuminous material in the animal kingdom, and that it
ceases when we come to the lower orders of animals where
these materials are replaced by others of different composition
and more heterogeneous to us ; but spite of all reasoning, the
natural taste of civilised men adheres obstinately to the
opinion that animals do certainly differ from one another in
being some clean and others unclean. To eat insects and
worms, leeches, maggots, and vermin, will always be regarded
as a mark of hideous barbarism, however great their nutritive
value may prove to be.
It is partly the shapelessness of these living objects which
disgusts us, partly the numerous disagreeable qualities attach-
ing to their exterior — ^as, for instance, slimy coldness — partly
the strangeness of their appearance, and even their small size :
for though we may take animal food, eating of meat which
comes before us in pieces of considerable size, there seems
something repulsive in the idea of consuming whole organisms
with all their vital apparatus, something revolting in swallow-
ing an object that comprises in itself the variety of a complete
though minute anatomy, that we cannot disjoint. We thus
seem impelled by a natural instinct to the consumption of
creatures which are of a higher order, and whose organization
is more akin to our own.
How dangerous this indication may be in itself does not
need to be specially emphasized; it is plain that logically
followed out it leads to Cannibalism. And, indeed, it is
hardly to be doubted that men in a paradisiacal state of
I^ature have often enough in all innocence followed it out to
this result, seeing no evil in it — indeed, even when the dawn
of reflection had broken, they were by no means at a loss for
pretexts which should invest with the semblance of tender
consideration a custom we regard as the very extreme of
inhuman barbarism. What could be a more appropriate
fate for the organic remains of beloved persons than to be
converted forthwith into the living flesh and blood of their
descendants, instead of being consigned to the horrors of cor-
ruption ? A man may be absorbed in tender recollection of
58 BOOK VI. CHAPTER III.
the friend whom he has eaten, as he plays with the bleached
knuckle-bones of the dead, and he may listen in amaze to the
horror expressed by a civilised stranger at such proceedings.
It may be objected that even cannibalism revolts from devour-
ing the bodies of those who have died a natural death, and
that therefore as a matter of fact, the feast of a cannibal
must always be preceded by murder. But what is there that
could effectually restrain men who are in a state of Xature
from killing their enemies, or even neighbours to whom they
are otherwise quite amicably disposed ? We should remember
how fond we ourselves grow of the domestic animals which
we feed for human consumption, and how, without feeling
any particular moral contradiction, we give them a final
caress the evening before they are to be slaughtered. So
much that is contradictory finds room in our minds, that we
ought hardly to feel boundless astonishment at hearing of
wild tribes who invite their parents, when becoming aged,
to let themselves be killed and eaten, and when we find
that the soft, natural grace and friendly deportment of the
South Sea islanders hides a craving for human flesh.
If one thinks how easy it would be for an ingenious mind
to bring forward whole series of reasons, plausible and hard
to be refuted, in justification of such atrocious customs, one
sees the more what a vast moral effect civilisation produces
by merely holding fast the opposite conviction, and by its
unhesitating and energetic refusal of such sophistry. The
real positive grounds of this civilised conviction will probably
not be alleged ordinarily, for they do not lie on the surface
of our civilisation as isolated maxims which can easily be
collected thence, but are bound up with the very foundation
of our whole philosophic view. The deeper our insight into
human destiny becomes, the more sacred does every individual
human being seem to us, and the more unconditionally do we
refuse to attempt to take the measure of his relative worth, with
a view to determining whether he has already accomplished his
task and tasted his share of happiness, and may now be treated
as mere matter devoid of rights, which we may, if we choose
MANNERS AND MORALS.
69
consign to destruction — finally, the more intolerable becomes
the thought that the body, which, as the vesture of a human
soul, belonged to that soul in an unique sense, should be
disintegrated in any other way than by those natural forces
to which it owed its formation, or that its substance should
be used by others as a mere means for the support of animal
life. The spirit of civilisation has set upon human personality
that seal of inviolability which the perversity of a state of
Nature sometimes sets upon external objects ; and wherever
our conduct is not actuated by this sentiment, wherever Law
and Society still treat individuals as though they were things,
there our civilisation is marred by a remnant of barbarism,
and there we have not yet succeeded in vanquishing the
principle of barbarism altogether.
Even to have vanquished it in essentials has not been easy,
and a glance at very various periods of history is sufiicient to
convince us that the task is not yet completed — ^that a con-
siderable degree of so-called civilisation is not incompatible
with a sanguinary background of cruelty, sometimes proceeding
from natural savagery, sometimes from cold-blooded bigotry.
We very often see in children a disposition to torment
animals ; and it is said that the North American Indian
never passes a bird's nest without destroying it. Among
barbarous tribes it is often found that not only the physical
courage which they have in common with the beasts, but
also many a trait of weak voluptuousness is combined with
deliberate cruelty ; and if thirst for blood is not a prime
characteristic of human nature, neither is there implanted in
it anything like such a horror of bloodshed as many an
optimist thinks. In the early stages of almost all civilisa-
tions we find the custom of avenging blood by blood ; and
the fact that we meet with it as a custom, as an established
duty, shows that this wild impulse of revenge was passed on
from a state of barbarism to ordered societies, which were
incapable of repressing it. The East Indian Thugs and the
Assassins I will merely mention, for we very easily credit
mystical fanaticism with utterly obscuring human feeling.
60 BOOK VI. CHAPTEE IH.
even in the midst of civilisation which is in other respects
far advanced. But in the most enlightened age of Greece
and Eome we find the exposing of weakly children recom-
mended in the most open way, in an ideal constitutional con-
struction ; and we find, in practice, the abomination of a system
of slavery, that could not claim even such justification as may
be found for the white slave-owner of the present day, in the
contempt that he feels for the black-skinned race which he
reckons as belonging to the inferior animals — a system in
which, on the contrary, men were enslaved by others of their
own race, and in which there was much more cold, systematic
cruelty than in modern slavery, and hardly less of passionate
savagery. And all this in a Golden Age of art, and amid the
■glory of one of the great kingdoms of the world.
But we do not need to go back to distant centuries for
instances of what lies at our very doors. I am not alluding
to the evils inseparable from war — war which springs up
again afresh in every age, and which it is idle to hope that
we can charm away with the olive branch of peace. When
advanced civilisation turns to this last resource, it is not
because any delight in outrage stirs it to the temporary
unchaining of murderous forces, but because it recognises
that the complication of the situation is too great to be
solved by existing human wisdom. No one denies that,
spite of this recognition, the solution would often be really
very easy to find ; but the very fact that the right view does
not obtain general acceptance and realization, is one of the
inevitable deficiencies of every civilisation which has recourse
to the ultimatum of war. So men betake themselves to
the extreme remedy of momentarily suspending those laws
of humanity by which we are ordinarily bound, and of
referring to force the decision which has been sought in
vain from wisdom; yet still the suspension is only partial,
and men always regard as sacred, at least those forms of
intercourse which serve to facilitate the return at any
moment from a state of violence to peaceable relations.
Therefore, however lamentable it may be to see this appeal of
MANNEES AND MORALS. 6-1
civilisation to force recurring again and again, we find even in
the appeal itself a reference to that good to which men hope it
will help them to return ; but there are not wanting proofs
of a continued influence of barbarous philosophy in sugges-
tions which are made unhesitatingly even in our own time ;
in incitements to wars of extermination, in exhortations to
assassination, in instigations to go beyond legitimate self-
defence and the re-establishment of justice, to deeds of
immoderate and bloody revenge.
§ 3. Let us, however, turn back to those simple phseno-
mena in which dawning civilisation betrays a gradual
heightening of the human sense of self-esteem. To keep one's
own body free from all accretions of extraneous matter is
an impulse of cleanliness which is everywhere a sign either
of the beginning of culture, or of a happy natural constitu-
tion that promises to favour the establishment of culture.
On the whole, we can hardly maintain that cleanliness is
natural to men in a higher degree than to the beasts ; it
springs up spontaneously among people who are invited by
the proximity of the ocean to frequent indulgence in the
pleasure of the bath; but where this favouring condition is
absent, we find not only that barbarous nations are extremely
uncleanly, but that even among those who have pretensions to
belong to the civilised world, uncleanliness is quite compatible
on the one hand with effeminate good nature, and on the
other hand with active aesthetic taste for beauty in outward
form and movement. Uncleanliness is unendurable only to
those civilised nations who strive after order and con-
sistency in their inner life, in their whole system of thought,
in their feelings and endeavours. Gifts of genius, as well
as benevolence of disposition, have in every respect an extra-
ordinary compatibility with uncleanliness and disorder; on
the other hand, nations which are not so remarkable for these
endowments, but which produce more perfect characters,
will be inclined to the same nicety and systematic precision
with regard to their own persons which they introduce into
their occupations and surroundings.
62 BOOK VI. CHAPTER IIL
I am not, I think, having recourse to a fai^fetched
analogy when I couple with this outwaid virtue the inner
virtue of truthfulness. The worth of truth, and the total
impossibility of carrying on human intercourse under a
system of barefaced lying, is so strongly felt, even by men
in the most barbarous state, that lying has always been
regarded as the root of all evil, at least in certain circum-
stances in which men reckon upon truth. But the impulse
to speak truth is not directly bound up with the recogni-
tion of its worth, and it is only in civilised society that the
liar appears to himself worthy of condemnation, whilst the
life of barbarians is in many respects founded on craft and
carefully cultivated hypocrisy. We may remark that to a
man of morally cultivated mind it is peculiarly hard to tell an
isolated lie on the spur of the moment for some temporary
and isolated end ; he feels that it disturbs too conspicuously
his consistency as an individual, and is conscious of being
untrue to himself ; it is much easier to make consistent lying
the maxim of his conduct; in that case he can still be con-
scious of having a coherent individuality, not destitute of all
method and order. The same thing is seen in the case of
other moral relations ; men hesitate to infringe one isolated
law of social order the more if they still recognise the others,
and by this recognition condemn their own deed ; it is some-
what easier to set oneself in opposition to social order
altogether, and to wage war against the world, like some
monster cut adrift from it. In such a course there may yet
be expressed — though misguided to the last degree — the
impulse of an individualizing personality to establish the
basis of its own conduct not in dependence on foreign condi-
tions, but in systematic complete harmony with itself.
Around these rare cases of conscious grand systematic
untruth clusters the incredible amount of petty incoherent
falsity, which in the most varied forms pervades all strata of
civilised society, and which seems to me much less akin
to lying in the ordinary sense than to that impurity and
untrustworthiness of the inner life which appear, only im-
MANNEES AND MORALS. 63
perfectly veiled by fair appearance, as the general rule
among barbarous men. To a character of thorousfh moral
development every entangled complication of circumstances,
every uncertainty regarding claims which it is entitled to
make or called upon to satisfy, every doubt about its relations
to others is as odious as bodily impurity. We need only com-
pare with this the prevailing inclinations of the lower classes,
in order to see those moral deficiencies which it is so hard for
imperfect civilisation to avoid; the difficulty of extracting
from them a definite, decided promise, their constant dis-
position to leave everything they can in a state of fluctuating
uncertain indecision, their inaccessibility to the notion that
one's word once given is of binding obligation, and — in wider
circles — the propensity to cling to doubtful and untenable
relations, the hope that if one never takes a decided step one
will be able in the hurly-burly of events to snatch some
advantage, of which one has at present no clear notion — in
short, inexhaustible patience with all sorts of confusion, and
a delight in wriggling on, with the help of procrastination,
waiting about, half-admissions and retractions, and general
uncertainty, through the course of events which to men thus
inclined seems itself equally uncertain. Among the more
intelligent upper classes the same deficiency recurs, but under
other forms, or under the same forms, but in different connec-
tions ; among them, as among those whose conditions of life
are less favoured, the noble spirits are but few, but there are
some of these in all ranks of life — souls who, with an un-
wearied impulse towards truth, renounce all those pretexts
with which the slothful of heart seek to excuse this mental
instability, and who, moved by the enthusiasm and force of
moral conviction, not only desire to make their whole duty
clear before their eyes at every step of this changing life, but
also obey with unhesitating decision every clear call to
action.
. Unexpected perfidy and perfectly sudden and inexplicable
changes of mood have always been the first wa!rnings which
have roused mistrust towards the deceptive friendliness of
64 BOOK VI. CHAPTER IIL
barbarous men. It is the nature of a beast to act in accordance
with the passion of the moment, but in a man the passionate
motives to action due to momentary feeling should be
moderated by the counterbalancing force of the other moral
motives which the memory of past experience has stored up.
Children and barbarous peoples lack this retarding or regu-
lating flywheel that can hinder, as in machines, the precipitate
course of springs once set in motion, and we can as little
rely upon their moods as upon the course of the weather.
To realize this one must look into one's own mind. How
easily is one inspired with momentary enthusiasm by some
noble thought, or the idea of performing some magnanimous
deed ! But this excitement is followed by a state of nervous
exliaustion, or, to state the case more simply and honestly, by
laziness ; there wake up all sorts of little likes and dislikes
which were hushed at first ; and at last, although the work
may, as we had pictured it to ourselves, be indeed a noble
one, yet all the same we find that we can get on without it,
and besides who would thank us for our pains if we were
to trouble about it ? Here we see that moral weakness
which so lightly dons the cloak of heroism, but has not the
enduring strength necessary for holding fast the ideals of
youth, and then coolly, as though it had long ago weighed
the whole matter, rejects as an idle dream that which it was
too lazy to convert from a dream to reality. In a mind
which has not been furnished either by education or by rich
experience with power sufficient to withstand this sloth, the
obscurer of all that is good, but which retains unimpaired the
capacity of appreciating every passing advantage or dis-
advantage, the sloth wiU be almost necessarily intensified to
falsity. Any fancy that crosses the mind, any unfamiliar
association of Ideas, rouses mistrust, and disturbs the equili-
brium of these poverty-stricken souls, for whom all steady
social intercourse makes shipwreck on the rock of their own
incapacity to calculate and guide the course of their inner
life — a course which is not amenable to any standard of reason-
ableness, of principle, and of self-government. We find that
MANNERS AND MORALS. 65
this running wild of the course of thought and of changes of
mood is not confined to men who are in a state of barbarism,
any more than other moral deficiencies are ; on the contrary,
it is found among all nations except those which by a long
course of development embracing equally all departments of
human life have become the very repositories of human
culture ; and alas ! the genius of civilisation — quieter, self-
centred, hemmed in by a thousand self-imposed limits — is but
too often imposed upon by this as yet unexhausted " natural
force." For we find ready to our hand this and other flatter-
ing names for such untamed and untutored wildness, which
bribes our aesthetic judgment sometimes with the heroic
noise of boundless passion that must have its way, regardless
of consequences, sometimes with the different charm of some-
thing unique, incommensurable, supernatural. We too easily
forget that much which looks extremely well in a picture and
has a striking effect in poetry, would make us heartily
ashamed of our prepossession if we were to see it, not at a
single favourable moment but in the ordinary course of life,
in connection with all its manifold results. The charm of
what is strange and full of characteristic expression and one-
sided originality, is so great that it leads every one to be
sometimes unjust towards that consistent, thoughtful, steadfast
order of civilised life which though less warm in colouring is
ineffably more worthy.
I 4. "We now turn back once more to the most funda-
mental relations between Nature and Man ; to the great
mystery which joins our spiritual life to our bodily form, and
mental excitations to external gesture and movement, which
binds up the continuance of our personal life with the con-
tinuous activity of the physical machine of our body — that
body which we so cherish as long as it serves us, and which
we regard with such strange horror as soon as life has
departed from it ; by which, finally, our existence altogether
is made dependent on the inexplicable secret of bodily repro-
duction. The more deeply conscious the soul is of itself and
of its destiny, the more obnoxious to its self-esteem is the
VOL. IL E
66 BOOK VI. CHAPTER IIL
direct unity presented by the combination of the inner life
with the marvellous material organism, the soul being in-
evitably forced to sympathize intensively, by pain and pleasure,
with all the excitations of the body, and to trust to it for the
expression, the accomplishment, and even the very quickening
of its endeavours. For in truth the soul can enjoy the full
warm life which alone can satisfy it, only if the supersensuous
play of its states and activities is supplemented, as by a
sensuous echo, by the sum of all those feelings which seem to
make known to us the strength and elasticity, the tension or
relaxation, the rest or the sympathetic stirring of desire
which affect our material part. Our spiritual nature is every-
where ashamed at finding itself in indissoluble connection
with the world of sense — at the consciousness that while its
own aims have intrinsic worth and are incommensurable with
material processes, we are yet bound by the mechanical order
of Nature, and that of our whole destiny no part could be
realized without those natural impulses by which our
endeavours are provided with tangible objects and means of
attainment : it is the dim consciousness of all this which in
the dawn of moral culture has produced those various develop-
ments of the sense of shame by which the human race is
everywhere prompted to veil the physical basis of its spiritual
existence, especially when this physical basis furnishes the
pre-eminently sensuous means by which we must reach the
most precious and spiritual treasures of life and love.
I will not attempt to decide what is the significance of
those traces of a sense of Modesty which appear even among
beasts, or to what extent it may be an innate natural feature
of the human race. Observation of barbarous peoples reveals
to us sometimes a considerate delicacy and purity of manners,
but much more often a bestial absence of restraint in the
satisfaction of all physical wants ; and we are left in doubt
which of the two we should regard as original and which as
the result of dawning civilisation or of almost total relapse
into savagery, or, indeed, whether we should not refer differ-
ences in this respect to peculiarities which are not shared
MANNERS AND MORALS. 67
by all mankind. However, beside the moral sentiment on
these subjects which has on the whole become established
among all civilised peoples, civilised reflection and sophistry
■ have produced two one-sided but mutually-opposed views :
on the one hand, the exaggerated contempt with which a
fanatical spiritualism looks down upon all Nature as some-
thing in itself unclean, shameful, and degrading, and to be
resisted by every weapon of a gloomy asceticism ; on the
other hand, the cool assumption that everything which is
natural is pure. Neither the former opinion with its hatred
of Nature, nor the latter with its easy complaisance, has
succeeded in guiding the moral feelings of civilised humanity
on the whole ; but both have had an important practical effect
on the temper of different times, and both have in many
ways obscured theoretic belief concerning the grounds of
such moral feeling and the demands made by it.
With regard to those deep and sacred joys of life which
we can reach only through the middle term of sense, it is
not a genuinely human feeling of modesty which leads us to
despise and reject them merely on account of this medium, to
which they are joined in the order of Nature ; on the other
hand, in that intentional prying into this mysterious connection
which vainly seeks to justify itself by the pretence of serving
science, there is an unconscious immodesty; and not here
only, but also in analysing, for the confirmation of christian
humility, all the foulness and corruption on which rest the
beauty and proud gladness of our life — in brief, in the dis-
position to hunt after that which is impure and sinful, of
which there will be the more to be found in proportion as
the imagination which seeks it is the more corrupt. The man
of genuine moral feeling sees primarily that which is pure and
noble and divine in things ; the indissoluble connection of all
this with the world of sense seems to him to be entailed by
his own finiteness, but to have no power to destroy his faith
in the worth of those blessings which are only accessible
through the medium of sense.
But on the other hand, the principle that all which is
68 BOOK VI. CHAPTER III.
natural is to be regarded as pure, leads to a mode of thought
and action which is rejected with equal decision by cultivated
moral feeling. It can naturally be no reproach to a finite
creature to be subject to the wants entailed by his bodily
organization, and to say merely this would be to show but
cheap wisdom. But that in our consideration of human life
as a whole, we should regard these calls of Nature as entitled
to put in an appearance without check or reserve, and to be
reckoned in their primitive simplicity as among the pheeno-
mena of moral development — this is a notion which we must
in all cases reject as a mark of inhuman barbarism. It is
difficult to say whether the claims of moral culture in life
and in art are more deeply sinned against by the impassioned
voluptuousness which breaks through many a moral barrier,
and misuses poetry as a means to its own glorification, or by
the cold unemotional temper, which — taking a pride in being
beyond the reach of temptation and knowing nothing of what
is seductive but only of what is unclean — seeks this last, and
with naked plainness describes or practises it as being, or be-
longing to, " human nature." If voluptuousness leads sooner to
the transgression of moral limits, yet at least there is in it the
remembrance of a natural charm to which the human impulse
is subordinate ; but in that realism, coarse and scornful by
turns, which takes pleasure in emphasizing the inevitable
earthly element in all that is fair and noble, and in recognis-
ing with deliberate expressness the impurity which our nature
cannot shake off — in this there is a corruptness of imagination
which far more completely, though perhaps less quickly, blunts
all moral sensitiveness. Beside two such monstrous growths
the principle of the purity of Nature will certainly for the
most part lead to a middle path ; it will allow the general
practical necessity of modest decency, but will blame as
exaggerated sentimentality the wish to ignore those natural
facts which it is in truth impossible to deny. The conduct
of grown-up men and women tends for the most part to be
in agreement with this view, which with simple straight-
forwardness inclines to call everything by its real name.
MANNERS AND MORALS. 69
Unless people are guarded by a noble refinement of mind,
the older they grow the less reticent do they become with
regard to their physical nature — increasing bodily infirmities
incessantly call attention to the functions of animal life, and
give occasion to seek medical counsel and help ; and thus is
gradually shattered the proud, shy modesty of the individual
spirit, the attachment of which to its disintegrating envelope
begins to be loosened. If in contrast to this we recall the
indignation of some young and lofty soul, when in ordinary
life in the intercourse of elder persons it hears others treat
and discuss and bring before it with idle indifference circum-
stances which it feels impelled to conceal even from itself,
we shall be constrained to admit that even the well-meanins
moderate view of steady-going folk involves a sensible retro-
gression in moral refinement, and that of all kinds of en-
lightenment none is more hazardous than that which conflicts
with the prepossessions of modesty.
We are in the habit of expecting this feeling to be most
active in the intercourse of the two sexes, and in fact the forms
by which such intercourse is regulated are all the more essen-
tial marks of high moral culture because definite forms are so
little prescribed in this department of ordered life by mere
natural cii'cumstances. The only kind of marriage which
would everywhere seem unnatural is that between parents and
children, and this on account of the disparity of age; but
Nature enters no protest against marriage between brothers
and sisters, and presents as many analogies in favour of poly-
gamy as in favour of monogamy; indeed, mere Nature provides
us with no reasons why we should substitute a life-long union
for a temporary connection formed for the gratification of
desire. All the limits which the human race has set to its
desires of this kind are the product of a gradually awakening
moral sense ; the attempt to find for them a natural foundation
which does not exist, does not make them any the more sacred
or intelligible. For we are neither justified in following the
dictates of Nature merely as such, nor bound in duty to do
so; it is only when we act contrary to those commands of
70 BOOK VL CHAPTER III.
Nature, on obedience to which all successful action depends,
that our procedure is vain and criminal ; but with regard to
those things which she leaves to our option, the moral nature
has to make a nicer choice, a choice which can only be justi-
fied by its ideal end. There is no other particular of ordered
life in reference to which there has been a more strange
divergence in the variety of custom, and this variety is to be
explained by a consideration of the different degrees of clear-
ness with which the worth of human personality and of the
individual soul was presented to the imagination of different
ages and nations. To some nations of antiquity, marriage
between brothers and sisters seemed admissible ; to us it
seems so incomprehensible that its inevitable necessity, in case
of the human race having sprung from a single pair, has been
thought a sufficient argument in disproof of this view of
our origin. But to think this is clearly wrong ; for it is
certainly an error to imagine that the sinfulness of such a
connection is immediately declared by the voice of Nature.
On the contrary, the voice which declares it is that of the
most highly developed moral insight, which impresses upon
men a horror of mingling two human relationships, of which
each can be experienced in the whole fulness and beauty of
its ethical significance only if it is kept uncontaminated, by
isolation from the other. This monition could have had no
weight for those primitive brothers and sisters who were as
yet all the world to each other.
As we associated purity of the inner life with bodily cleanli-
ness, we would also assign to modesty a wider range than is
generally considered to belong to it. As it is certainly a
mark of defective civilisation to neglect the development of
the bodily frame and its capacities, so is it little in agreement
with genuinely moral feeling to make one's bodily presence
conspicuous and to wish to be esteemed on account of it. The
more highly civilised nations and the more cultivated classes
of society consider as most essential to a fitting dignity of
demeanour that correctness of external appearance which
neither can be found fault with, nor attempts to show off" any
MANNERS AND MORALS. 7l
personal advantages, and which is thus best adapted to prevent
any undue attention from being excited by one's personal
appearance. On the other hand, it betrays a lower degree of
culture to show off physical strength and skill, except in work
in which they find appropriate employment, and to wish to
do one's work in the world by means of a noisy display of
one's bodily gifts.
In respect of this, nations and individuals are divided into
two distinct groups, the peculiarities of which pervade and
give a tone to all departments of culture. There is one
disposition which — to employ here one of the most repulsive
phrases which modern times have invented — considers that the
business of life is to develop oneself (sich darzuleben) ; there
is another which, forgetting and neglecting self, tries to find a
reflex of its own Ideas in any finished work, any labour, any
external order ; each has for the other an antipathy which only
gives place to mutual admiration when they look at one another
from a distance, and the one sees its own deficiencies supplied
by the other's peculiarities. We will, however, not. conceal the
fact that in the interests of human culture we are decidedly in
favour of the last, notwithstanding all its shortcomings. A
deep-rooted aversion to take in hand any hard instrument not
easy to manage, and to do a spell of honest work, is in the case
of men of the disposition which we first noticed, ordinarily
joined with an inclination to make a boundless fuss about
their own appearance and about all those physical powers
which the bodily organization graciously and gratuitously puts
at the disposal of the fancy. Continual inquisitive activity
of the senses and quick receptivity makes such men good
observers while they do observe ; but their attention being
easily distracted, for the most part they grasp only the super-
ficial harmonies or discords of external form, only what is
graceful or ludicrous. They likewise feel an unceasing need
of manifesting their inner life with all its emotions, however
transitorj' and insignificant ; and this on the one hand leads
them to be always making a show and trying to give a
picturesque and heroic air to their finery or their rags, and
72
BOOK VI. CHAPTER III.
on the other hand tends to bring their minds, even in solitude,
into a dramatic frame, in which they take a secret pride and
pleasure. Little inclined to real exertion, they make the most
perfect theatrical use of their bodily gifts ; they are eloquent,
and in their language indulge in far more of high-sounding and
diffuse description, colouring, and ornamentation than there is
any occasion for j they are given to song and noise, and add
to all this the luxury of expressive gesticulation. It is chiefly
the southern countries of the temperate zone which by their
fineness of climate have produced in their inhabitants both a
bodily organization which combines beauty and strength, and
also a keen satisfaction in the endowments and capacities of
this corporeal frame, and in addition to these the passion
and vividness with which they feel to the full the joy or
admiration, the love or hatred, the devotion or despair which
any situation may call forth. If we add to this the approving
definition of their nature, long ago adopted by philosophic
reflection, and say that in them and in their culture we see
attained the highest development of the living human form,
we think we shall have sufficiently indicated the short-
coming which is attributed to them by men of the opposite
disposition.
For to cultivate oneself, and to make oneself into a perfect
human being, may easily seem to be the essential scope of all
human tasks; but nevertheless we must admit a deficiency in
this mode of thought, which aims solely at moulding its own
being into a beautiful flexible whole, doing this partly with a
kind of natural instinct, partly with doctrinaire self-conscious-
ness— a deficiency, namely, in that submission and self-
sacrifice which make one element of morality. And this remark
does not apply merely to that so-called healthy natural
sensuousness which, glorying in the endowments of the
physical organization, does in truth accomplish no more than
the production of a first-rate specimen of the species man,
looked at from the point of view of natural history ; we must
also blame, as a more refined kind of Egoism, the deceptive
self- culture which does indeed always seek that which is good
MANNERS AND MORALS. 73
and noble, but only in order to adorn with all the ornaments
of virtue that specially cherished central point which we call
our Ego. All the duties imposed upon itself by a mind of
this temper seem to it to be duties to itself alone; the dignity
of its own personality is the end to which every effort of life
is devoted.
It cannot be said that the other mode of thought which we
contrasted with this does not accomplish the same results, but
the consciousness of personal dignity comes to it rather as an
accidental gain, because it does not aim primarily at this end,
but, forgetting and denying self, works for the general realiza-
tion of what is good in all the world. Indeed, it would be
more in accordance with truth to say that what it gains is not
the consciousness of personal dignity, but the habit of feeling
and acting in accordance with this ; and also it attributes less
value to the efficacy of external expression, which will
naturally belong in greater measure to him who regards him-
self as a work of art to be polished to the utmost pitch of
perfection. To be of use in the world, and to do one's work
in life by labouring for the general good, is the comparatively
prosaic motto of men of this character ; and their own person-
ality is regarded as but one among many — the many who are
to share in the general benefit and rejoice at it. Wherever at
particular periods, or in particular nations, this mode of
thought has preponderated, there has arisen delight in work
of a kind that not only is advantageous to the community, but
also affords in its products an objective reflection of individual
personalities — products in the characteristic forms of which the
worker sees embodied the worth of his being and his own
creative fancy. Not himself, but what he has made, not his
person, the product of cosmic forces, but that reflection of his
own being in his surroundings which his bodily and mental
labour and self-sacrifice have called forth — these it is which
such a man regards as what entitle him to a place in the world,
and in proportion as this feeling grows, there increases also his
aversion to any ostentatious display of a personal strength and
beauty which are the gift of Nature. To speak louder than
74 BOOK VI. CHAPTER IIL
is nece&sary, seems to him an uneducated display of vocal
resources; to be more excited than the importance of the
occasion justifies, appears to be a foolish yielding to the sheer
power of the external stimulus ; he regards as unendurable all
liveliness of gesture, all pantomime and movements of the
hands 'which accompany simple verbal expression as a mere
luxury of bustle, wholly useless and ineffectual; and the
objectless and overflowing manifestation of mental moods is
as repugnant to him as to be everlastingly thinking ho.w to
pose effectively. It is easy to see how these contrasts of
external demeanour are connected with points favourable and
unfavourable to mental life, and how this disposition of mind,
if it becomes still more self-contained, threatens the beauty of
life and art with a self- absorption, a closeness, and a reserve
which are in truth little in accordance with its original self-
forgetting and self-sacrificing bent.
I must renounce the attempt to investigate, within the
narrow limits of these observations, the other innumerable
peculiarities of moral feeling which are expressed in the forms
of daily intercourse among men, and the development of which
is due partly to the special circumstances of life, and partly
to the original disposition of particular nations. We may
remark in general that as culture advances, expressly estab-
lished rules of etiquette become more numerous, not only for
the regulation of the conduct of inferiors towards superiors,
but also to prevent personal dignity from being wounded in
the ordinary intercourse of life by natural passion and curiosity,
or to secure the performance of binding duties against which
sloth and selfishness rebel, by the sanctity of inviolable
custom, regulating even the minutest details. The less scope
is allowed to arbitrary choice in determining the mode of any
performance, the more imperative does the performance itself
seem. (In saying this, we would by no means deny that the
refinement and politeness of manners, hospitality, and other
virtues which we find exercised in states of rudimentary cul-
ture, may not be partly founded on natural good-heartedness.)
The further progress of civilisation generally breaks these
MANNERS AND MOEALS. 75
trammels of conduct for good and also for ill. In modern
life even in the cases in which etiquette is most thought of,
generally speaking it either has a legal or political signifi-
cance, which is of use not in personal intercourse, but as a
symbol of that objective order which transcends all mere
subjectivism — or, if it is really a form of intercourse, it is
seldom of such rigidity that a cultured person would not be
able to substitute for the ordinary form some other of similar
significance. Here also culture drops the use of fixed and
specialized precepts, and trusts more to that unconstrained
moral feeling to tlie predominance of which it is due that
the social intercourse of civilised peoples is superior to the
ceremonious meetings of less developed nations. But we
must equally admit that with the removal of this curb, social
intercourse among the more uneducated classes is freed from
all check; clumsy curiosity, intrusive indiscretion of every
kind, and the absence of all respect for the inner life of
another, make the intercourse of these classes far less dignified
than the reserve with which the hospitality of simpler peoples
receives the wanderer and provides for his wants without
inquiring too precipitately how he is called, whence he comes,
and whither he goes. It is becoming more and more rare to
find societies in which customs handed down from antiquity
with all their traditional circumstantiality and detail, still give
to social intercourse a cast of grave and considerate cere-
moniousness.
CHAPTEE IV.
THE OEDER OF EXTERNAL LIFE.
Nature and Culture— Home {die Heimat)—TlhQ Life of Hunters— Of Shepherds
— Permanent Occupation of Land, and Agriculture — Home {das Haus) —
Family Life — Society — Division of Labour — Callings of Individuals —
Simple and Complex Structure of Society— Civilisation— History.
S 1. "VTTHO is there that amid the thousand cares and
w
perplexities of life has not sometimes asked
with a sigh, To what purpose is all this pain and struggle ?
To what purpose all the conventionalities which at one
moment oblige us to useless exertion, and at another impose
upon us constraints which are equally irksome ? To what
purpose all this haste to be rich, since our very organization
prevents us from getting enjoyment, except in imagination,
from the abundance of overflowing wealth ? To what purpose
is our sensitive regard to honour when the estimation which
others have for us adds, directly at least, so little to our
happiness ? Why should we not restrict ourselves to the
simple, natural wants of existence, and give up struggling
after all those tilings which are but means to other objects
more or less remote — objects which themselves, when looked
at closely, are of only imaginary worth ? In such moods it
seems to us that Diogenes in his tub had found the true secret
of practical wisdom, and that all the complex culture which
surrounds us would do well to abolish itself, and no longer to
hinder l)y the useless constraints of innumerable artificialities
the satisfaction of the few wants inseparable from human
nature.
And yet it was in vain that Diogenes protested against the
civilisation of his age ; and all those individuals who since his
time have turned their backs upon human culture have only
THE STEUCTURE OF EXTERNAL LIFE. 77
been able to make their solitude endurable to themselves by
knowledge, thought, and reflection which they owe to the
very culture which they despise. Opposition to the com-
plexities and details of civilisation has a charm only as long
as it remains mere opposition ; if mankind by sudden consent
were to return to the simplicity of the most natural conditions,
without doubt the same mental forces which had brought
about this resolution would forthwith be as busy as before in
reproducing in turn all the rejected superfluities of civilisation.
We may frankly admit that there is very much in the com-
plexity of our present mode of life which is in itself idle and
unmeaning, and that, if we were free from certain wants, we
should do more wisely and be more happy. But the truth is
that we already have these wants, and the mere knowledge
that they are not inseparably joined to human nature as a
whole does not in the least alter the fact that they are so
much the more firmly bound up with that definite type ot
human nature which is special to us, and which we owe to
historical development and to education. We, as we are,
should suffer from their non-satisfaction, and the same degree
of happiness which men in the natural state could obtain by
the use of scanty means is only possible for us through the
simultaneous fulfilment of many conditions, or through the
conscious and voluntary renunciation of many individual
satisfactions. But, on the other hand, a voluntary oblivion
of that towards which our hearts are yearning is not in our
power ; it is only great historical changes of fortune that may
sometimes obscure a nation's remembrance of all the complex
variety of its demands upon life, and make it capable of being
satisfied with the simple and elementary enjoyments of
returning barbarism.
Have we, however, a right to speak thus, and to prefer such
culture to such barbarism ? Seeing that in advanced culture
satisfaction is dependent on so many conditions, and that it
must involve so much self-denial, is not this condition of
culture unhappier than that more natural life, which with
greater ease and security reaches its state of equilibrium, and
78 BOOK VI. CHAPTER IV.
seems to be exposed only to the inevitable ills of tlie course
of Nature? These are questions, however, which we can
easily answer. For the more vividly we represent to ourselves
the simplicity of a state of Nature, the more clear does it
become not only that it could never suffice to satisfy our
souls, but also that those living impulses in us which stand in
the way of such satisfaction, have, with all their train of
unrest and failure, an unconditional right to be preferred to
that contented poverty of mental existence which only seems
to us now and then desirable as a break in our own more
agitated life. The happiness to which the human soul is
destined by no means consists in the mere absence of all
disturbances which could hinder those impulses which proceed
most directly from Nature, or in the maintenance of favourable
conditions, securing to them an uninterrupted and uniform
satisfaction ; the course of civilisation is not merely a succes-
sion of compensatory efforts capable of re-establishing, under
less favourable conditions and by the use of more powerful
means, a lost equilibrium and a degree of happiness previously
possible. On the contrary, by the opposition which the
natural course of things offers to a too easy satisfaction of
natural impulses ; by the labour to which man is compelled,
and in the prosecution of which he acquires knowledge of,
and power over, things in the most various relations ; finally,
by misfortune itself and the manifold painful efforts which he
has to make under the pressure of the gradually multiplying
relations of life : by all this there is both opened before him
a wider horizon of varied enjoyment, and also there become
clear to him for the first time the inexhaustible significance
of moral Ideas which seem to receive an accession of intrinsic
worth with every new relation to which their regulating
and organizing influence is extended. In the longing for a
return to a simpler life there is involved a temporary over-
estimation of merely physical wellbeing, and we soon bethink
us that a cultured mind possesses .far more springs of happi-
ness, the origin of which we cannot trace. Perhaps we should
not seriously wish to be without even the suffering entailed by
THE STKUCTURE OF EXTERNAL LIFE. 79
self-denial. And then there is pain, the bitterness of which is
only intelligible by reference to the refined relations of social
life, and to the consciousness of combined victory and recon-
ciliation springing from practised ethical insight — pain which
gives rise to innumerable feelings not easily expressed, and
pervading our whole life like a precious fragrance that we
would on no account consent to renounce. Men are much
inclined to delude themselves with the hope of combining two
incompatible advantages, i.e. the simplicity of existence in a
state of Nature, and the feelings with which we ourselves
regard the external world — we who have been moulded by the
influences of science, art, and religion. For we would certainly
wish to take with us these feelings when we return to a state
of Nature ; but we should remember that they are products of
a culture which is unthinkable without all that intricate
mechanism, the noise and inflexibility of wliich sometimes
disturb us. We can choose only the one or the other ; either
the simple monotonous harmony of an uneventful life accord-
ing to Nature, or the full, articulated melody of civilisation,
gradually unfolding through many a discord ; and no one can
doubt that the latter presents the higher beauty, and that
civilisation is not a mere roundabout means of attaining under
altered conditions the same degree of enjoyment as was tasted
in a state of Nature, but that it must, on the contrary, be
regarded as a power which for the first time unfolds before us,
in all the glory of the perfect flower, the full worth and joy
of every moral relation.
On this subject I have now but a few plain remarks to add.
I will not here go into the question of the first origin of
civilisation, nor endeavour to point out either what definite
causes (in the minds of individuals and nations or in external
circumstances) aroused and guided the spirit of progress, or
what obstacles were put in the way of general or special
development either by conditions of life or, more obscurely,
by national character ; these things will for the most part
remain always unknown to us, and as much as we can hope
to make clear, we defer to a later historical consideration. It
80 BOOK VL CHAPTER IV.
is just as little my intention to institute here a comparison
between the different epochs of civilisation through which
mankind have hitherto passed, although such an attempt
might admonish us to desirable caution in many respects.
For this attempt would in the first place take us back to an
observation which we have already made, to the effect that a
clear advance in knowledge and power, and in all the external
trappings of life, may take place without a simultaneous
increase of those things that are good in themselves, for the
sake of which all the labour of civilisation is employed. With
the advance of civilisation and of its power over the external
world there arise everywhere new relations and new sources of
enjoyment, but the alteration of social conditions which is
bound up with these other changes, unavoidably demolishes
many a form of existence handed down from antiquity, to the
joy and worth of which only poetry and not real life will ever
again find access. Whether this is to be regretted, or whether
on the whole in our destiny the good only makes way for the
better, is a question the answer to which we can seek only in
considering the history of the human race. But the worth of
culture in general,as compared with that natural condition which
we sometimes describe as a state of innocence and sometimes
as barbarism, is not here called in question. And although a
sharp line of demarcation dividing the two would only be
possible if we could contrast a perfect humanity, hitherto
unrealized, with complete brutishness, yet we may emphasize
some individual features of social order, on the presence of
which the excellence of any culture must depend, and on the
more or less completely organized combination of which to a
coherent structure is grounded the superiority of one stage of
culture over another.
A man wants, in the first place, a home, and possessions, and
a sphere of work, so that he may feel he has some definite place
assigned to him in the ordered universe ; he further wants
not merely occasional contact with his fellows, but a lasting
community of life with some one person at least, so that he
may secure understanding and sympathy for his own nature
THE STRUCTUEE OF EXTERNAL LIFE. 81
and individuality. The family circle, too, requires that
beyond its own narrow limits there should stretch a wider
social background, by the common opinion, custom, and law
of which its own life and effort are regulated, to which it
belongs, and by which it is supported and judged ; finally, it
is in all cases inevitable that the mind of this society should
connect its own common life and the existence of every
individual with the future and the past by some theory of the
earth's history, and should link all terrestrial existence to some
still more comprehensive theory of the universe by a common
religious belief.
§ 2. Not even beasts rove about altogether homeless over
the surface of the earth ; even where a wide extent of country
everywhere offers them equal means of subsistence, they restrict
their wanderings to a limited region, beyond which they are
driven only by force or unaccustomed circumstances, and not
by their own impulse. It is as though each living soul could
only taste rest and happiness when, instead of feeling lost
amid the restlessly changing multiplicity of new impressions,
it can make the unvarying representation of its own familiar
surroundings the centre around which are grouped, in dimi-
nishing degrees of clearness, the more distant variety of the
outside world. Man's love of adventure, which would other-
wise lead him to transgress more easily than beasts these
self-imposed limits, is counterbalanced by another and more
profound impulse, that of the spirit of acquisition which makes
him wish that the results of his activity should not disappear
with the crowd of changing objects on which it is expended,
but should gradually accumulate in lasting monuments of his
labour, and present in visible and connected form the gain
acquired by his life's work.
Natural circumstances favour or hinder this inclination in
various degrees. "Where men as yet without fixed habitation
are forced by the great abundance of animal life and the
necessity of defending themselves from the attacks of wild
beasts to take at first to the hunter's life, the dawn of higher
civilisation meets rather with delays and hindrances than
VOL. IL r
82 BOOK VI. CHAPTER IV.
with rapid furtherance. The necessity of following wander-
ing game, substitutes for the idea of a settled abode the
wider and vaguer idea of a hunting-ground, and the ease
with which the captured prey, after very slight preparation,
can be applied to satisfy natural wants, as well as the way
in which, in this kind of life, all the fruit of men's efforts is
consumed as it were from hand to mouth, without leaving a
trace behind, is not conducive to any thought of collecting
the results of one's labour so as to make some lasting and
coherent monument, or any thought of so arranging life as
to connect into some scheme of development men's fitful
attempts to trade and accumulate. Cunning patience and
passionate fury of attack are the two capacities which this
life demands and exercises, in alternation ; both are but little
calculated to promote higher human civilisation. Only the calm
with which the North American Indian listens without interrup-
tion to the speech of another, and the passive courage which he
shows under suffering, are useful elements, which, from the
necessity of quietly enduring countless hardships and mishaps,
have been cultivated in the school of this wild life, in which
the hunter is early taught to watch with silent self-restraint
every movement of the jaguar or buffalo, so as not to betray
himself too soon by any disturbance of them. If there were
not other ineradicable impulses of human nature impelling
individual men to some combination among themselves, there
would be little in the character of this mode of life that could
lead the homeless hunter to social union and the development
of human intercourse ; the occupations of all are too uniform
for any one to expect that any other should specially com-
plement his own knowledge and capacity.
The pastoral mode of life brings with it conditions some-
what more favourable to development. It cannot altogether
dispense with courage and activity, which are needed for the
protection of the flocks and herds ; but it is based not on
destruction but on cultivation of animal life ; and this life
calls out alongside of a patience which is not sneaking and
cowardly but calm and persevering, much forethought and
THE STEUCTUEE OF EXTERNAL LIFK 83
providence, and leads to a growing variety of wants, and
hence to the beginning of a division of labour in a small
society of members all helping one another. In place of the
sudden alternations between wholly inactive leisure and exhaust-
ing effort which are usual with those who lead a hunter's life,
there is established a steady succession of occupations each of
which reckons upon the rest, and which reciprocally make
each other possible ; social life takes the place of isolation,
and the position in which different persons stand with regard
to the property (whether held in common or by individuals)
with the management of which all are concerned, calls forth
of itself simple differences of social importance. With the
possession of this moveable property arise the first elements of
two notions which are foreign to the hunter's life, namely rural
economy and society. Settlements of some kind, which although
not necessarily permanent are yet of some duration, are indis-
pensable ; and if the custom of feeding the flocks by letting
them graze on natural pastures necessitates a periodical change
of abode, still a return to familiar grounds is always preferred
to uncertain wanderings into distant localities. Thus life
becomes more and more bound up with the region of country
which now (for the first time) begins to be a home, with the
fountains, hills, and woods of which there begins to be linked
an ordered remembrance of past events, and which no longer
is the mere scene of adventures that have been gone through,
but supplies to coherent labour that background and basis of
orientation which imagination always requires. But pastoral
life in itself does not everywhere produce those fair first
fruits of civilisation which we rejoice to see in some examples
of it. Partly the nature and capacity of the domesticated
animals, the kind of tendance they require, and the degree of
their attachment to mankind, partly climatic and social con-
ditions, and finally the incalculable peculiarity of national
character modify greatly the degree of development. The
pastoral tribes of the polar regions, pressed by the disfavour
of Nature, and cut off from contact with a different and more
advanced civilisation by wide reaches of country, present a
84
BOOK VI. CHAPTER IV.
poverty-stricken picture beside the life of the Semitic patriarchs,
in the simple grandeur of which we find distinct traces of com-
merce and of pretty considerable contact at many points with
the culture of stationary tribes. It is not only that the barter
of an infant commerce provides the shepherds with products
of foreign industry with which they may adorn their life and
make it easier — the mere knowledge that beyond their im-
mediate horizon there stirs other human life with other forms
and customs, must lift their apprehension above that monotony
which with more isolated tribes arises from want of the idea
of human society. For indeed this idea is absent even now
in cases where a larger association of families repeats each
the same mode of life, the same occupation, and the same petty
domestic organization.
Even antiquity knew that the real beginning of higher
human civilisation, was in all cases to be found in the
change from nomad life to permanent settlement, and knew it
with a fresher and nearer feeling than is possible for us. This
change was a necessary result of the need for procuring means
of subsistence from vegetable life, a more fruitful and certain
source of supply than the animal world. It is only luxu-
riant tropical lands that yield such a vegetable supply to a
large extent, without any human labour ; and in just those
regions man would have remained most completely a parasite
of his bread-fruit bearing land, if — among populations that
were growing numerous and pressing one another on all sides
— the impulse to social enjoyments, and many a sensuous
desire, flaming up irrepressibly, had not either given rise to
some regulation of this communal life, or at least by violent
interruptions of such regulation, infused into existence an
element of passion. Where these food-bearing plants are
scarcer, the spots where they abound mark the abodes of
men, who settle down at the foot of the trees, but systematic
civilisation is first developed where Nature has made work a
necessary forerunner of enjoyment. The benefits which the
vegetable kingdom has bestowed upon man in the banana,
the bread-fruit tree, the date-palm and the cocoa-nut tree, are
THE STEUCTUKE OF EXTEENAL LIFE. 85
certainly not accepted by him without any thought what-
ever ; and the imagination of the people who live upon the
products of these plants is sensitive - enough to link with
their striking images, in grateful veneration, the dawning
poetical reflection of their simple life. But far superior to
these incitements is the educative power everywhere exercised
by the various occupations involved in the cultivation of
cereals. It is his own strength and effort which the tiller of
the ground must employ for the satisfaction of his wants ;
Nature and the soil, with which he deals, neither offer their
gifts gratuitously, nor can they be swindled out of them, but
they yield them to unceasing and exact industry. The
necessary attention to a number of small conditions which
all help to secure the result; the indispensableness of a
definite succession of occupations which cannot be altered by
caprice nor avoided by thoughtless presumption; patience not
only in struggling with the weather and the seasons, but
also in waiting for the slow maturing of the produce which
cannot be accelerated by any greedy haste; and finally the
spectacle of the uniformity with which in general the work
of natural forces proceeds — all these things teach the mind
to feel itself taken up by and involved in a trustworthy,
consistent, and complicated system of natural order ; and they
will not fail to produce even in the most poorly endowed
mind a consciousness of the necessity of complete, con-
nected, and systematic means to secure the success of
any work, and to show how little a life that proceeds as it
were upon the spur of the moment can reckon upon satis-
faction and success.
The growing labours of agriculture involve the establish-
ment of permanent settlements, and man now enters for the
first time into a relation of manifold opposition to Nature, on
which all further progress in civilisation depends. For in
fact the powerful tie binding man to the soil, which first
strikes one in considering the stationary state, is not the
predominant element in this relation, and the nomad who
wanders hither and thither has little reason to look down with
86 BOOK VI. CHAPTER IV.
Bcorn upon this tie ; on the contrary, he is himself in a state
of much greater dependence upon Nature, to the scenery of
which he seems to belong almost as much as the flock which
he guides or the game which he pursues. It is within the
four walls of home that a man begins to enjoy, in his leisure
time and secluded from all outward influences, the quiet con-
centration of family life, and to prepare the mechanical means
with which to make fresh excursions into the surrounding
world, and to secure and work up its products : these walls of
home are a much more powerful means towards freeing him
from dependence on the external world than is the fugitive
haste of the nomad, who restlessly changes one place for
another without finding access to any inner world, except in
the quiet interior of his tent in the intervals between his
journeys. The walls of home enclose a new realm of human
thought and effort; within them rising generations find a
fenced and guarded region of existence, filled with memorials
of their forefathers, with whose banished forms the life of the
present is now for the first time in conscious and unbroken
community — the work which they have left behind being
added to, altered, and carried on by each generation, which
thus makes its own contribution to what went before. But it
would be whoUy unnecessary to describe the thoughts and
feelings which arise in every one at the name of home, and
which are repeated in all their freshness and fulness when-
ever there is founded any permanent settlement, intended to
become the scene, for an indefinite time, of a succession of
human joys, sorrows, hopes, and remembrances, all inextricably
bound up with one another. Suffice it to say that in the
dawn of civilisation the contrast between Nature and the
world of* mmd appears first, and in its most expressive mani-
festation, as the contrast between domestic life and the un-
boundedness of the external world.
Even m our present life, in which the intricate connection
of mental interests obscures in many ways our relation to
Nature, we may easily observe what an important influence is
exercised upon our minds by the visible marks of our efforts
THE STRUCTUEE OF EXTERNAL LIFE. 87
in external works. The artificer who frames a work of his
own hands, and whose joy in it is not diminished by any
existing social deficiencies, retains almost always a more even
and contented humour than the inquirer who lives in a super-
sensuous world of merely intellectual interests. It is true that
he may be compensated for many a long struggle in the
moment when the result of these takes form in artistic com-
pleteness ; but it is seldom that this result is as certain and
complete in itself as the external work which, with all its
excellences and defects, is set before our eyes in visible shape
and can be fully estimated, and which as it grew beneath our
hands gave us, at every step, practical insight into the means
of overcoming individual difficulties. So that all the more in
the dawn of civilisation (as in the beginning of every individual
life) must there be a joyous celebration of the awakening of
self-regard as soon as self beholds the first-fruits of its inner
thought and effort embodied in the form of a finished work of
its own creation. Every tool or utensil that a man has con-
structed bears for him the stamp of some thought of his own,
and it represents to him at the same time, the future service
which it will render, and the power with which his own mind
is now armed, for influencing the external world — that mind
having now a stronger and a wider grasp than when it had only
the aid furnished by his own bodily organization. This pro-
found need of seeing our own life reflected in surroundings
which have been transformed by ourselves, governs us always.
Not only must house and home present to us the traces of past
activity, and the instruments of that which is to come ; but
even where more spiritual interests are concerned, to which no
spatial phaenomenon can adequately correspond, we like to be
able at least to point out some definite spot as the centre
from which any particular human activity is used to radiate.
It is true that God is near us everywhere, but every civilisation
in its earliest dawn founds local and permanent sanctuaries
and altars, and men will only adopt, as their special place of
prayer, those spots which they feel have been made sacred by
the prayers of their forefathers and the common devotion of
88
BOOK VI. CHAPTER IV.
their contemporaries. It is not merely the pressing necessity
of maintaining life which leads to the establishment of
permanent settlements; but when a man gets a home, he
seems to take as it were spiritual possession also of his whole
surroundings, or perhaps we might better say that it is then
that spiritual life receives local manifestation.
S 3. With the establishment of a steady centre and circle
of work a prosperous development of other moral relations
first becomes practicable. It is hardly possible that in the
wild life which hunters lead the intercourse of the two sexes
should attain a higher significance than that which as a matter
of fact it actually does reach. Constant participation in the
efforts of the man is by Nature made impossible for the
woman, and if it were possible it would still be a partnership
which would afford to the diverse mental natures of both
very little opportunity for the development of their special
characteristics. Under such conditions masculine strength
cannot find in the woman's mind any essential complement of
its own insufficiency, because the life is so poor, and furnishes
so few circumstances which are of emotional value, and in which
both have a common interest; moreover, in consequence of the
lack of property to be looked after, there is too little com-
munity of labour and of solicitude. The other family relations
also suffer from this absence of a common aim in life. Among
beasts we see the young lives environed by a parental love
which is capable of self-sacrifice, but which suddenly cools
when the need of help in the young diminishes ; and just in
the same way men in a state of Nature afford striking examples
of the self-sacrifice of parents for their children, but we also
see how easily, wdth them, this connection is dissolved, when
the children have attained bodily maturity. In fact whero
one generation never takes up and continues the work of that
which preceded it, but each one, as though isolated and beginning
afresh for itself, turns to universal Nature, in order to obtain
the satisfaction of its wants in traditional modes, it is plain
that there cannot be that intimate communion of souls having
common interests in life and yet individually different charac-
THE STEUCTURE OF EXTERNAL LIFE. 89
ters and different imaginative bents, and that community and
at the same time that conflict of wishes, hopes, and fears, by
which in the civilised world there is developed from the
natural bonds of kinship a moral community of hearts. It
has been often observed how easily and painlessly the North
American Indian can bid his parents a last good-bye ; and by
man in his natural state the relation between brother and
sister is felt to have even less — ^much less — significance and
beauty than that between parent and child.
I might go on to pastoral life, and extol in it the higher
meaning which men now feel in family ties — the freer condition
of women, who from being the slaves of men have been raised
to be their companions — the pleasure which is taken in carry-
ing on genealogical tables, by the unbroken coherence of which
each individual member of a society which has grown up by
degrees is assured of his connection with ancestors whose
names have been made illustrious by well-preserved traditions
of glorious events and deeds. But the fact is that these fair
beginnings of culture are found only among a few favoured
races, and especially in that Semitic past which we are
accustomed to regard as a mirror of the purest and most
primitive human development. They are found much attenu-
ated and accompanied by far less depth of feeling in the
warlike shepherd tribes which still enliven the wildernesses
and steppes of the old world, and they almost disappear in
the unpoetic savagery of the polar races. A more compre-
hensive ethnographical comparison than we can here attempt
would make it clearer to us that the degree of cultivation
attained is by no means wholly dependent on the particular
modes of life which we are here considering ; and on the other
hand would show how strikingly the unexplained differences
of mental endowment which distinguish individual races of
men lead to divergence in their course of development, under
conditions which are in all other respects similar. More
than this, much which we should be inclined to regard as the
almost immediate effect of a mode of life determined by
external circumstances, is perhaps the echo of some extinct
90 BOOK VI. CHAPTER IV.
civilisation, or a reflection from some other civilisation existing
elsewhere, into fruitful relations with which the historical course
of events has brought some tribe which has apparently developed
in isolation. Historical consideration may distinguish if it can
the separate influences of these coefficient factors ; but if we
are merely concerned to estimate the ethical importance of
modes of life on which modern civilisation is built, we shall
not doubt that permanent settlements, and the sphere of work
which first establishes itself in house and home, form the
firm basis of consolidated family life, and indirectly through
this of wider social order also. It is not, indeed, possible in
the nature of events, nor is it an imperative necessity of
human nature, that clans gradually increasing in number
should permanently continue to inhabit that native land of
their forefathers in which they themselves were born, or that
the bonds of relationship which link a numerous posterity
both to one another and to their ancestors, should be held in
distinct and present remembrance to degrees of indefinite
remoteness. Grandparents and grandchildren are held together
by a strong natural bond, but when we get beyond the third
generation (and similarly with the wide extension of kinship
by marriage) these feelings of blood-relationship cool down
rapidly into the mere general interest which men take in their
fellow-men or fellow-countrymen. This does not, however,
destroy the charm that we shall always find in being able to
look back through centuries of successive generations of which
we know ourselves to be the latest representatives ; bu^ as
such tradition is only made possible by the existence of
cultured feelings of considerable strength, so its value must
consist either in the consciousness of some transmitted histori-
cal work which has to be carried on, or in reflection on
the connection of human destinies which may here be followed
clearly along a single continuous chain, whilst universal
history in its consideration of the whole hum-'vn race, loses
sight of individual threads. It is but few who can take such
a retrospect, and to whom is granted the happiness of lingering
in an old ancestral home and among memorials of their fore-
THE STRUCTURE OF EXTERNAL LIFE. 91
fathers; for most, their parents' temporary home takes the
place of an inherited estate. But even to such a paternal
home fancy gladly looks back from amid the storms of later
life ; and after the dispersion of the family, when the difficulty
which its members find in keeping up an acquaintance with
each other's various pursuits and courses in life has weakened
the feeling of connection between them, the yearning with
which they look back to the past and deeply-felt happiness
of domestic union bears witness to the worth which a settled
establishment of families possesses even in our own civilised
condition. This dispersion itself is, however, made less
painful by the ever-increasing importance of society, which,
in proportion as its internal structure becomes more elaborate
and complete, gives rise to an increased number of other
ethical relations between individuals — relations which are of
as great worth as the ties of kinship, and, in some cases, of
still greater. But it hardly needs showing that the moral
strength of these social relations is itself rooted in the soil
of domestic family life, and that every career, though its
orbit may be apparently eccentric, really revolves about this
centre, and derives its human worth from the fact that it had
its origin in that life, and will find in it its consummation, or
that at any rate it works for a community which is founded
upon such life.
§ 4. If the natural course of things did not, setting out
from a single original pair, produce a growing society, or if it
did not, in the present condition of the world, place every one
at the beginning of his life in the midst of an already existing
society, each individual pair would have to long in vain for
the help which such a living background of life can afford
towards the full development of humanity and the satisfaction
of all the wants of men's souls. I do not doubt that the
smallest cottage is large enough for happy lovers; but we
may be certain that without the remembrance of a society, the
cultivating influence of which they experienced before their
isolation, and without any return to this living circle, the
happiness of their love would not be essentially greater than
92 BOOK VI. CHAPTER IV.
that which falls to the lot of the forest Indians, who, going
about in melancholy couples, ungregarious and dumb, search
for and partake together the means of satisfying their wants.
The drama of life is too tame when it is played by only two
persons ; they want, at least, the chorus to keep them in mind
of the inexhaustible fulness of human interests, of which only
a small portion can be brought into consciousness by their own
relations to one another. Men and women cannot be satisfied
by the solitary companionship of one other human being ;
they wish to observe his attitude to some third person, and
to know that he also observes theirs ; finally, they wish that
the reciprocal influence of themselves and their companion
should be seen and recognised by other intelligent beings ; for
to enjoy without other people's knowing anything about it is
not much better than to be non-existent. This need of others'
recognition runs through our whole life ; even the most modest
love does not wish to hide its joy for ever, he who has a friend
desires to show his pride in him before the world, and the praise
which we receive from another does not please us so much as
the consciousness of being honoured by it in the eyes of some
third person ; all artistic effort demands recognition, and the
most unselfishly devoted scientific labour carried on in self-
absorbed isolation from the world of contemporaries secretly
reckons upon the generations to come and their appreciation.
Finally, it is not without cause that men's favourite topic of
conversation in all ages has been their fellow-men ; for it is a
fact that everything else in heaven and earth is of less imme-
diate interest than the doings of men, in observing, investi-
gating, praising, and blaming which we can best become
conscious of our own advantages, deficiencies, efforts, and ends.
Now, as long as the mode of life of any considerable society
causes complete uniformity of the aims and occupations of
all, this mutual interest and sympathy cannot unfold its
whole educative force. It is fixed settlements and the many
occupations made necessary by agriculture which first lead to
a growing variety of callings in life, and the whole nature of
a man is pervaded and influenced by the particular spirit of
THE STEUCTUEE OF EXTEENAL LIFE. 93
his calling, without its suppressing those human qualities
common to all. In this there is a double advantage. On the
one hand, any life-work which is chosen to the exclusion of
every other, not only requires a thorough acquaintance with
the objects about which it is concerned, and produces great
habitual exactness and systematic technical consistency in the
treatment of them, but it also introduces the worker to a
manageable and coherent circle of thought, within which
universal truths stand out with the more convincing force in
proportion as the examples which illustrate them intelligibly
and clearly are more special to, and as it were inherent in,
the particular occupation at which the worker is employed
day by day. In order to appreciate the truth of this, we
need only recollect the store of proverbs and proverbial sayings
in which all nations are accustomed to treasure up the prac-
tical wisdom of experience ; the most expressive of them show
that the general truth which they contain has been abstracted,
within the sphere of some definite calling, from particular
examples occurring there, and there alone. On the other
hand, every calling gives a special cast to the mind, a parti-
cular bent to the imagination, distinctive standpoints and
modes of criticism to philosophic views — and it gives to the
emotions and to the whole mental attitude of a man a har-
monious and distinctive stamp; consequently every one is
now an object of greater interest to others. When we are
absorbed in the study of a character thus strange to us and
so different from our own, beside the innumerable individual
traits which arouse our sympathy, that which is common to
human nature stands out so much the clearer, and our moral
horizon becomes enlarged when we cease to think that we are
justified in regarding our own special fashion of existence
as the only one that is conceivable, or the only one that
is praiseworthy. But as the opening of the Odyssey em-
phasizes what our modern passion for travel confirms — namely,
the value of learning to know the cities and the modes of
thought of many men — this aspect of the educative influence
of society needs no further proofs. We will, on the contrary,
94 BOOK VI. CHAPTER IV.
glance at the dangers entailed by the ever-increasing variety
of ways of life and the acquaintance of each with the others,
"We need only refer in the briefest way to that narrowness
of thought and bluntness of sensibility for essentially human
interests which may be caused by restriction to some mono-
tonous groove of occupation. But the coexistence and neigh-
bourhood of different modes of life has disadvantages too, as
well as advantages. The more uniform the occupations of a
large society are, the more easily is there formed, as a standard
for all actions, a fixed rule of custom, from which nothing is
exempt; as long as this remains unshaken, it reduces the
individual to little more than a mere sample of some typical
national civilisation, at the same time, however, securing him
from the misery of doubt and of moral instability. But where
civilisation has produced greater division of labour and greater
variety of life, especially where, in consequence of historical
conflicts, there is a mixture of the kindred civilisations of
different peoples, a confusing multiplicity of possible modes
of existence is presented to the mind ; the influence of this
is, on the one hand, powerful in raising the intellect above
the narrowness of transmitted prejudices ; but on the other
hand, it is equally powerful in disturbing the stability and
security of all moral restraints. For this reason the numerous
amalgamations of different nations which have happened in
the course of history are from some points of view the most
interesting epochs of human development. When any estab-
lished and harmonious civilisation has been broken up, the
imagination of men is given back to unrule ; and yet strongly
stirred by the influences of the past, it moves among the ruins
full of haunting thoughts, loosed from all constraint, eagerly
investigating in every direction, and inclined, from the lack
of mental equilibrium, to splendid extravagances. Such
times may, indeed, bring forth products in which there is
more richness and variety and more of the fire of genius than
there is generally even in the prime of any civilisation which
has attained stable equilibrium, and is faithful to its ideal :
but we must also remember that such times are fated to
THE STRUCTUKE OF EXTERNAL LIFE. 95
sink down into a state which is a mixture of genuine barharisna
and isolated unnatural moral exaggerations. We see this
morally dissolving force in the present day in all those abodes
of men in which there is continual contact between strongly
contrasted civilisations. It was long ago remarked, and with
justice, that in the East weak minds must be very confusingly
affected by the sight of so many different races who, some
white and some black, some proud of their freedom, others
servile slaves, pray in one place to these gods and in another
place to those ; who in some cases are faithful to the marriage
tie, in others enjoy the pleasures of polygamy. Everything
seems to be permitted — all seem happy in their own fashion,
and there falls no bolt from heaven to pronounce judgment
amid this chaos of opinions.
To pass from a national habit of life to a more self-conscious
condition of humanity, civilisation must run this risk of
scepticism, and history continually renews its efforts to increase
the reciprocal influence of different divisions of the human
race. It is seldom that individuals or nations are induced to
wander far by want of the simplest and most natural means
of subsistence ; they are led to do so more often by a restless
adventurous impulse, most often of all by a desire for objects
of which the direct worth for human nature is but unim-
portant, and which partly charm the senses and the love of
novelty, and partly acquire through habit, as civilisation
advances, the character of imperative necessities of life. We
find that even in ancient times poets and moralists spoke of
the insatiableness of men which, urged by a thousand artificial
wants, transcends all natural limits, and brings into a. life
that might pass simply and peaceably the danger and unrest
of far-reaching undertakings. How much might be added to
such complaints in these days ! For now there is no depart-
ment of Nature which does not attract men to infinite labour
by its productions. In the mineral world, gold and precious
stones, iron, brimstone, and coal have tempted them, and have
led to the discovery of new countries and to a development
of industry to which are due the birth and extended influence
96 BOOK VI. CHAPTEK IV.
of innumerable other human activities. The vegetable king-
dom by its edible products early gave an impulse to commerce,
but the interested spirit of enterprise has been called out in
much larger measure by sugar, coffee, tea, and the numerous
spices which people could do without as long as they had not
had them. Finally, in the animal kingdom, the whale and the
furs of the Arctic quadrupeds have attracted courageous and
enterprising spirits to the inhospitable polar regions, and the
web spun by the insignificant silk-worm early led to com-
merce between civilised nations. The boundless influence
exercised by all these circumstances on the development of
human capacities is too well known in our own time to need
more than a passing mention. A life which could have been
contented with the satisfaction of its primary natural wants,
would have found little stimulus to further development ;
while, on the other hand, luxuries that men might have done
without have caused all physical and mental powers to be
exerted to the utmost, and as there has been a continuous
increase in the degree of exertion necessary to ensure the hope
of success, science has grown great in this ministry, and in it
the constructive imagination of men has found inexhaustible
occupation, and moral courage has encountered innumerable
opportunities of proving its worth in new and peculiar
circumstances.
§ 5. We have so far considered culture only with reference
to the good things of life which it produces and offers to
individuals ; the further it advances the more does it require
likewise fixed external rules of individual conduct, and a
definite system of administration securing the greatest amount
of general satisfaction that is rendered possible by the existing
or attainable means of enjoyment. A society, with the
customs and rules which have grown up naturally, becomes
transformed into a State, which has to take the living moral
Ideas existing in the mind of the society and, scientifically
and with conscious calculation, to work them as governing
principles into the details of present circumstances ; likewise
to present to the mind of each, as a systematic whole, with the
THE STRUCTURE OF EXTERNAL LIFE. 97
clear stamp of objective reality, that spiritual organism of
which he is a member. This is not the place for describing
an ideal of political order, a task to which we shall not return
tQl the end of our considerations ; but we must here briefly
notice the necessity of following such an ideal with more or
less success, and the inevitable relations with it into which
each living individual must enter in the natural course of
things. "We shall find that there are two struggles perpetually
going on, one between subjective self-will in general and the
obligation of an objective order, the other between the wants
of the individual and the mechanism of ordered political life
by which these wants are not all satisfied.
Coeval with all the political organizations of the world are
the hardships inflicted by their institutions on individual
members of the community ; hardships which are blame-
worthy in all cases where merit and struggling capacity are
by law denied room for development and the opportunity of
winning a congenial position in life, excusable in cases where
the political organization, while making all careers accessible
to all, does not at the same time remove those hindrances to
entering upon them which proceed partly from external
circumstances, partly from human nature and its weaknesses
and evil inclinations. We shall have special occasion, at a
later stage, to consider these partly evitable and partly
inevitable deficiencies of human arrangements ; we only refer to
them here in as far as they may awaken doubts of the general
beneficence of civilisation, and excite the desire for a return to
the simplicity of a state of Nature. There can of course be
no question that the ever-increasing refinement of life does not
benefit all in equal measure, that a full enjoyment of the
physical and mental advantages of civilisation is the lot of
only a favoured few, and that on the other hand in all ages a
large fraction of mankind remains far below the level of
attainable culture and far removed from its enjoyments. But
this only makes it all the more erroneous to imagine that
while culture raises the more favoured ones, it inevitably
diminishes the measure of enjoyment of all the rest to a less
VOL. II. G
•^8 BOOK VI. CHAPTER IV.
amount than might be possible for them if all the trammels
of a complex social order were to fall away. A sufferer,
wounded in spirit, forgets in his pain very many benefits
which he owes to this order, and which because they do not
assume the tangible form of some private possession are as
easily overlooked as the presence of the atmosphere that un-
obtrusively surrounds us and makes respiration possible ; he
forgets the security of his person, the legal protection which
is accorded to his claims, the possibilities of culture which are
open to him, the use which he makes (and indeed the very
existence) of various ready-made paths in which he may
endeavour to employ his powers in a way advantageous to him-
self. He forgets that all this, as well as his very knowledge of
most of the good things which are denied him, is only mad©
possible by the civilisation which he blames, and that on the
other hand the simple state of Nature for which he yearns
could not secure to a numerous population in most climates
anything like the same satisfaction of its wants as civilisa-
tion affords — indeed, there are but very few climates where
it could even do this approximately and for a time. The
evils of poverty and misery which we so often see in close
proximity and saddening contrast to the growing splendour
of wealth, should no doubt stir up earnest efforts for the
improvement of social arrangements, but they do not invali-
date the assertion that every man who is a member — though
only in a subordinate and unfavourable position — of a civilised
society, has, unless hindered by his own fault, not only
participation in an infinitely richer mental life than would
have been accessible to him as a result of his own isolated
strength, but also possesses greater possibilities of material
wellbeing.
To the consideration of the other conflict — that which we
mentioned first — we will also devote just a few words. The
pressure which is imposed on the individual in the interests
of universal order, the limits which it sets to his humours,
fancies, and passions, naturally causes in him a counter-current
of effort, and he seeks either to escape from this condition of
THE STRUCTURE OF EXTERNAL LIFE. 99
constraint, or — wliere that is not possible — to abolisli or
change the order itself which is the cause of the constraint.
Society will feel justified in attempting to do the last when it
suffers as a whole from those of its institutions which have
become unsuitable. And to wish to maintain an established
order in opposition to the needs of the whole community, for
the satisfaction of which it exists, is but a mere empty
devotion to forms. Ihis established order, however, may not
only stand opposed to the individual as authoritatively
restraining his personal desires, it can also, in a moral point
of view, not be so completely subject to the arbitrary will of
the community as if it had been the result of arbitrary
convention. The statutes of a society which has come
together of its own accord may indeed be regarded as bind-
ing by conscientious members, but no one regards them as
sacred ; indeed, their being looked upon as binding, and the
observance of fidelity and faith with regard to them, seem to
me to be possible only in a civilised society which has pre-
viously become accustomed to reverence a binding moral
order which is independent of its own arbitrary will. A
great political community is thus, to a large extent, every-
where a work of Nature, or rather not of mere Nature, but of
a Moral Order which is independent of the individual, and
the commands of which occur to men when they are living
together in a life of social communion, tt rests on the one
hand on a pious regard for the work which our forefathers
have begun, whether it is human labour or the development
of humanity ; on the other hand, on provident love for our
descendants, since we wish to preserve for them that whicli
we have inherited and to transmit it to them with interest.
A humanity which aimed at forgetting completely both past
and future and at making all the arrangements of life sub-
I ordinate merely to present satisfaction, would be distinguished
from the beasts by nothing except a better choice of means.
Therefore, although there is no question that the mechanism of
civilised order exists for the sake of society, and not society
100 BOOK VI. CHAPTER IV.
mere sum of all the individuals of which at any given moment
it is composed. Even in the improbable case of all the
members without a single exception agreeing with one another,
yet even then these coexisting members would not constitute
the community which from a moral point of view is entitled
to decide with supreme authority on all the forms of its own
constitution ; we must reckon as indispensable members of such
a community both the generations that are past and those
which are still hidden in the lap of the future. A man
cannot be truly called a citizen of a state or of the world,
unless he feels himself included in this unbroken chain of the
temporal development of humanity, endowed with innumerable
benefits won for him by past generations, and hence bound
body and soul to this historical whole, without which his own
existence would be unthinkable, and whose unfinished work
he is called upon to develop further by his own activity and
intelligence. Something of this feeling has stirred men in all
ages, but a consideration of history will teach us how seldom
the one-sided attachment to what is old and the blind and
passionate love of innovation have consciously joined for the
carrying on of this work of true development, and how much
oftener it has been left for the Tinconscious and pressing
necessity of circumstances to work out by degrees the progress
that human wills had refused or had in vain attempted to
carry on.
CHAPTEE V.
THE INNER LIFE.
Doubts concerning the Ends and Aims of Human Life — Man as a Transitory
Natural Product — Spontaneous Judgments, and Reflections upon them —
Connections with the Supersensuous World — Superstition — Religiousness
— Unsteadiness and Incoherence of Human Effort.
§ 1. rilHE more complex and multiform the external order
-L of life is, the more pressing becomes the question,
What is the kernel of this hull, and what is the clear gain f
which men are to purchase at the cost of their life's labour ? ^
It is not asked only by those whose unfavourable position in. y
the midst of a complex civilisation forces them to a long
struggle for existence and to a continuous series of efforts
in which every success only brings an immediate necessity for
fresh labour, and hardly affords the hope, even in the far
distance, of at last reaching a secure position. It is asked ;
just as often by those who enjoy all the good things of life
without having to take any trouble about winning and
establishing their footing in society; to them, too, it often
seems as though there were no objects and aims of existence
except such as men arbitrarily choose to set before them-
selves— as though nothing could stir the soul except the
passion of a struggle for something yet unattained, whilst
any good that one has succeeded in winning seems to melt
into thin air, and the tension of effort being relaxed there
remain in its place a tedium and lassitude which seem to
seek in vain for some new object that will not lose all charm
in the moment of attainment. There are indeed some lots
;more favoured — lots in which spells of hard work and joyous
holidays, labour and compensating enjoyment, are fairly mixed ;
[ but even from the peaceful content ot such lives men are rudely
101
102 BOOK VI. CHAPTER V,
roused by the doubts which are stirred in them, both by the
injustice of Nature and by a consideration of history. The
comfort that can be derived from a comprehensive consideration
of human destinies and the traces of divine guidance in the
history of mankind, is not within the reach of the majority ;
within the range that is accessible to them it is, generally
speaking, only a soul that has already attained peace that can
grasp the wide harmonies in which all lesser discords are lost.
It is not always in the power of honest endeavour to struggle
upwards to a satisfactory position in life, and even if we were
to allow that no misfortune happened without some error on
the part of him who suffers from it, still this admission would
soften but little the bitterness which we feel at seeing incom-
parably greater faults repaid by the undeserved favour of
circumstances. And then, finally, how many hopes are dashed
to the ground by sickness and by death ! How many souls
appear on the stage of this earthly life only to quit it again
forthwith without end or aim — without bringing forth any
fruit of development in their brief existence ! And if we take
a survey of the fates of human beings as far as our own
experience goes, what do we see but a perpetual repetition of
the same labours and sorrows, the same misunderstandings and
perversities, differing only in external accessories, and every-
where brightened only by the same isolated lights of transitory
enjoyment ? How great is the number of the hours and days
which are spent in works and labours which we should never
have undertaken except in the hope of a result which would
more than counterbalance them ; and how few are the
moments in which it seems to us that we have really lived,
and not been merely busied with preparations for living !
There is scarcely a soul which is altogether free from reflec-
tions of this sort, although — very fortunately for mankind —
they are in most men extremely transitory, being displaced by
cheerfulness of temper or deliberately put aside — and the
heart is thus enabled to surrender itself to the attraction
of all the little charms of life, and to be satisfied with them
for the moment. It is even as the old saying declares, We
I
THE INNER LIFE. 103
know not whence we conie nor whither we go ; the wonder is ]y^
that we can be as light-hearted as we are.
The short survey of human existence which we have been
attempting as a preparation for the consideration of its
historical development, can hardly aim at concluding with
an answer to these pregnant questions. But the very fact
that such questions are raised, and that men, with hope and
doubt, with faith and vivid fancies, look for ends and aims of
their existence, that they feel themselves to be in constant con- ,
nection with a supersensuous world and by their very efforts (
to suppress the feeling only bear witness to its obstinate 1^
vitality — all these reflections and emotions (as well as the
external order of society and evea more emphatically than
it) must be reckoned among the decisive facts which raise \
humanity far above any psychical development of which the |
inferior animals are capable. It is true that among some i
species of animals, the reciprocal action of their psychical
mechanism and physical organization leads to an established
order of social life ; but whilst in these animal polities a pre-
determined order, fixed in every detail, combines the actions
of all the members to an ever uniform whole, it is among
mankind alone that with the question. What are we, and to
what_are we destined? there first breaks the dawn of a
genuine inner life, for the development and enriching of
which all our expenditure of external activity seems
designed. The views of life which attempts at answering ,A.
these questions have produced in the human mind at all '
periods, will form our topic for the rest of this chapter.
S 2. There are scarcely any theoretic convictions that are
more severely tried by comparison with experience than the
opinions which we frame concerning our own human nature
and destiny. In the quiet presence-chamber of speculative
thought, it is what is good and noble and significant in human
life that stands out as if it were the whole, and all the dross
being refined away, the image of man is insensibly glorified
into an ideal form which not only fits harmoniously into its
place in the intelligible whole of universal order, but merits
104 BOOK VI. CHAPTER V.
a place so promment that it seems hardly possible to describe
worthily the significance of its destiny and the profound import-
ance of its position in the world. This reverent conception
of humanity receives a rough shock where we come into
contact with its average individual representatives. We do
indeed find everywhere the general physical and mental
capacities with which man is endowed for the accomplish-
ment of his high destiny, but so little are these capacities
consecrated to the service of that destiny, that love of the
race and contempt for the individual are but too often found
to be compatible. The last may perhaps be modified by a
fair consideration of those seeds of good which we may always
find even in perverted human nature; but the impression
which we receive on the whole from these everyday experiences
should make us critical of that over-estimation of human worth
which has become so familiar to our anthropological reflec-
tion, and which in truth corresponds but ill with the far more
modest judgment which men mete out to themselves in their
unsophisticated daily thought. In the same way that terrestrial
Nature has been regarded as the only phaenomenal world in
which the wealth of the Creative Substance has been manifested,
has it been quite common for philosophy to regard man as
the isolated apex of this phaenomenal world, and to imagine
that there was nothing between him and God except a yawn-
ing chasm, the blank emptiness of which could offer no great
hindrance to our leaping across it. He who will only trust
to the most direct experience, a kind of experience which
presents us with nothing that is supersensuous and shows man
as supreme in the world of sense, is right from a certain point
of view. But he who once permits his imagination to stray
beyond the boundaries of the sensible world is wrong if he
does not at the same time admit the possible boundlessness
of the supersensuous realm, but tries instead to put that
which is highest in the known world of sense into the
position of next neighbour to the keystone of the universe.
It is not our business to fill up that wide expanse with
dreams more or less daring and more or less uncertain ; but
THE INNER LIFE. 105
we must say that we regard as worthless any theory which — ■
vainly imagining that it has, by some dialectic method, possessed
itself of the equation to the curve which represents the law of
universal development — thinks to demonstrate that the human
mind is the crown and end of that which can know no
end — that human life and existence are the last link in the
great chain of self-developing Infinity. Let us give up the
presumptuous attempt to extract from such supposed certainty
of the high position which we occupy in the scale of creation,
the secret of our being, of our hopes and our destiny ; let us
rather set out with the admission that we are a feeble folk,
often wearing out our hearts with doubt, bare of counsel and
of aid, and feeling nothing so keenly as the uncertainty of our
origin, of our fate, and of our aims.
The same exalted and solemn light in which the concept of
humanity appears to the eye of speculation, illumines with
still more striking brightness the calm figures of primitive men
as tradition shows them to us at the beginning of history,
wandering over the still youthful earth within the precincts
of Paradise or in patriarchal simplicity. How quickly the
glory of this picture too is changed when we glance at the
countless swarm to which mankind have multiplied since
then ! In this noise and hurly-burly of most prosaic reality,
how hard it is for the imagination to retain the impression
which is so naturally produced by the contemplation of that
little community of the early world which we know so
well, and the poetic largeness of its simple modes of life !
"We are only expressing a feeling which must be familiar to
all when we recall the humiliating and confusing effect
exercised upon us by a concrete consideration of the un-
measurable multitude of mankind, amid the throng of whom
our own individuality seems to be swallowed up. It is not
perhaps the entirely solitary man who feels that God is
close to him, and that he is guarded and sheltered by direct
divine interposition, but it is likely that this happiness will
be experienced by one who, while involved in the sacred com-
munity of family life, feels that all the significant relations of
106 BOOK VI. CHAPTER V.
soul to soul which grow out of this community are interwoven
with his own inner life, and is not disturbed by any thought of
the thousandfold repetition in every corner of the globe which
makes this significant harmony of existence seem a mere
ordinary everyday occurrence in the course of events. As
our hearts are not large enough to embrace all with equally
active affection, so do we shun the idea of sharing with a count-
less number of other persons our own relation to the Infinite,
and it seems to us that the strength of the tie, and indeed our
very assurance of its reality, decrease in proportion to the
increase of the numbers to which it is extended. The more
mankind emerges from the retirement of patriarchal life, and
becomes conscious of the inexhaustible fertility with which,
from time immemorial, the earth has produced one race of
men after another, differing greatly in external form and
mental endowments, and yet all alike in essentials, indeed all
in the mode and conditions of their life resembling to some
extent those races of beasts which in still greater multitudes
inhabit the most remote corners of the earth, and which arise
and pass away in shoals — the more vividly all this is present
to consciousness, the less ready will men be to ent^r on a
consideration of the worth of their own existence, and their
mind will be gradually possessed by a belief that mankind
is but one of the transitory phsenomena which an eternal
primitive force, revelling in the work of alternate creation
and destruction, brings forth, only that it may vanish in its
turn.
In saying this I do not intend to suggest that at any period
of history this view has been predominant among men,
although it might in fact be recognised as giving the key-
note of thought at various epochs. I would rather point it
out as a view that may be met with in all ages, never perhaps
as an unquestioned faith, but rather as a widespread feeling
that casts its shadow effectively enough over all human effort.
Indeed, this mean opinion of themselves which men hold,
appears in a twofold aspect. In the first place, it appears
without being sharpened and developed by far - reaching
THE INNER LIFE. 10 "7
reflection, as a direct consciousness of their own lowness
and commonness, in the vast number of those who, confined
by the disfavour of circumstances to a narrow circle of thought
and compelled to a daily struggle with petty hindrances, can
only be said to endure life as a burden imposed upon them.
Familiar with the aspect of misery, they know how men are
ignominiously reaped down in shoals by the course of Nature,
whilst to him who is more happily placed the infrequent
spectacle of dissolution has at least the comforting and elevat-
ing solemnity of an event which is out of the common. All
the dark shadows of life, all the hardships inflicted by the
ordinary course of events, stand out in naked prominence in
their daily experience, and produce that passive resignation
with which in all ages the bulk of the human race endures
life and death. They do not live their life but they tolerate
it from its beginning to its end, having no comprehensive
aims, and only intent upon warding off in detail immediate
ill, and winning in detail proximate small advantages ; in the
same way they tolerate death as a necessity which it
would be hardly worth while to escape for the sake of
continuing such a life as theirs; for although they may
remember some isolated enjoyments, they would hardly find
that life held for them any great and permanent treasure of
delight which they would feel impelled to try and secure from
destniction. The same power that helps us over so many
dark and fathomless chasms in life softens also the gloomy
colouring of this mood of thought — I allude to the thought-
less forgetfulness with which the human soul entertains in
close conjunction the most diverge opinions, never bringing them
into clear contrast — a thoughtlessness which enables us to
give ourselves up fully and entirely to the passing pleasure of
the moment, although we entertain such a poor opinion of the
worth of our life on the whole.
That which we have here been considering as spontaneous
feeling, and an ordinary accompaniment of existence, reappears
refined by reflection and intensified to explicit belief in count-
less varied forms of theoretic conviction which for the present
108 BOOK VI. CHAPTER V.
we "will not attempt to investigate further. There can have
been no period in which there did not exist views according
to which human life was regarded as a passing wave thrown
up by an unknown ocean in its continuous movement ; but all
these views, with the slight worth which they attribute to the
individual as a mere mortal and vanishing phsenomenon, have
only exercised a noticeable influence upon life itself in cases
where they have been the living outcome of that natural turn
of mind which we have been describing, the causes and con-
sequences of which were by these views brought into clear
consciousness. But where this spontaneous feeling has been
other and better, where minds have been stirred by the large
interests of culture and civilisation, and have been admitted,
by favourable circumstances of nurture and education, to a
living participation in those interests — in all such cases
living life has been stronger than the pantheistic and material-
istic views developed in opposition to it by reflection or
scholasticism, and men have in reality lived and felt and
striven after another fashion than that set down in their own
theories concerning themselves.
I know that this will be denied, and that it will be main-
tained that all moral greatness and purity of life can be logically
combined with a faith that does in fact in perfect honesty
deny the existence of a supernatural order of things, our
connection therewith, and the continuance of our existence
/' beyond the limits of earthly life. I admit the fact of this
"^ combination, but not its logical consistency ; on the contrary,
it is that very inconsistency of our nature which so often
saves us from being perverted by our theoretic errors, which
makes it possible for us to combine action accordant with a
sense of the dignity of humanity with views the logical effect
of which would be to annihilate that dignity, and this in a
fashion which, as it seems to me, is wholly contradictory. It
is asserted that the obligation of the Moral Law is not altered if
we regard all mental life a.s merely so much mechanical action
of matter and its accidental combinations, having no higher end
than to persist, and to fluctuate hither and thither for as long
THE INNER LIFE. 109
a period as is made necessary by the collocation of the
material particles ; in this assertion, however, there certainly
is, not a logical connection of thought, but a forcible moral
resolve that has determined to hold fast by a reverence for
morality, spite of the materialistic theory with which it is
incompatible. It will perhaps be attempted to substitute, for
a supersensuous mysterious world which is to us the source
of the obligation of moral commands, the Dignity of Man and
a Self-respect whicli isolates him from dependence on any
superior, yet enjoins him to rule and keep in check the lower
nature in himself. I doubt, however, if a view which recog-
nises only a mechanical course of Nature can logically do
anything with such ideas as those of reverence and so forth
but reckon them among the morbid productions of imagina-
tion to which nothing real corresponds, and of which it has
already learnt to reject so many. I doubt further whether a
view which regards the individual as merely a passing phase
in the spontaneous activity of an Infinite Substance, could have
any logical reason for attributing to such a nonentity any
obligation to maintain a dignity belonging to it in its
individual and transitory character — a dignity which it
should or could maintain by its own spontaneous activity
— whether such dignity ought not much rather to have its
presence or absence laid to the account of the Infinite Sub-
stance itself. The logical outcome of all such views can only
be to let ourselves go as Nature prompts, and to use that
mysterious sparkle of independent substantiality which shines
within us, with what wisdom we may, for the attaining and
enhancing of physical wellbeing. Thus moral commands could
only be accepted as maxims of action on account of the
secondary consideration that they are useful on the whole.
Meanwhile it is not possible, nor is it our intention, to
discuss in this place the question whether these different
views of the supersensuous world are intrinsically right or
wrong ; our intention has merely been to refer to them in as
far as they are to be reckoned among the ordinary factors of
human development. And here we must repeat that we
110 BOOK VI. CHAPTER V.
doubt whether any one of these views which regard human
beings as altogether dependent and transitory has ever become
a really pervading sentiment of the whole nature, in spon-
taneous thought and action, as well as in reflection. When an
ancient poet, having scouted all ideas of deities and retribution
after death as useless terrors by which the smooth and peaceful
course of our natural pleasure in life is disturbed, turns upon
us and inveighs against the fear of death, and asks, Do we,
insatiable, desire to go on feasting for ever, and never to
retire with dignity, as satisfied guests, from the banquet of
life ? the effect produced is no doubt striking. But in asking
this, does he not forget that monitions to moderation and
dignity must fall very flat on the ear of him who knows that
in an hour he will cease to be ? Or, in using this simile, which
is quite out of keeping with his general tenor, is he not per-
chance secretly influenced by the truer thought that this life
is indeed a banquet from which, as guests who have had
enough, we must depart; but that we, not so transitory, depart
from it only to enter another state of existence in which
there will remain to us the memory of what we have before
enjoyed ? And on the other side, what poetic and glowing
expression has often been given to pantheistic views ! But
whilst they extol with devotional rapture the absorption of
the individual in the universal, is not that which they are
glorifying just the abiding and enduring joy which the mortal
experiences in its reunion with the eternal ? And do they not
hereby assert the immortality of that mortal, which, though
destined to extinction, is only destined to such an extinction
as signifies its eternal preservation in some form or other ?
This thought, which pantheistic poetry cannot escape, is one
which cannot be got rid of either by the most prosaic reason-
ing or the most commonplace views. People may seem to be
as thoroughly convinced as you will of their own impending
annihilation, and may speak of the disappearance of personal
existence in the lap of universal Nature, and one may indeed
imagine that that which used to happen may cease to happen, i
but one can never imagine that anything which has once existed
THE INNER LIFE. Ill
can cease to be. And however much people may attempt
to persuade themselves that the self-conscious Ego is in fact
only an event, a vanishing passage between atoms variously
moved, still the immediate consciousness of our personal reality \y^
will always remain invincible to these attempts, and we can
never think of ourselves as melting away in the great receptacle
of universal Nature without thinking too that we shall stUl be
preserved and go on existing in it in our dissolved condition.
I must repeat that I am not setting up these modes of
thought as true, but am describing them as facts of our
unsophisticated consciousness ; they may be right or wrong, but
at any rate they are what we go through life with ; our reflec-
tions are never quite free from a presentiment of something j ■
supersensuous. On the other hand, we are not in a position
to raise these presentiments to a condition of unquestioned n^s
authority, except by a summary act of faith ; it is the natural
condition of man to fluctuate between the consciousness of an
eternal destiny and the ever-recurring dread of being a mere
indifferent and perishing production of the general course of
Nature, both feelings being toned down by thoughtless light- C
heartedness. And even that apathetic mood of the majority
which I have described is broken by suggestions of such pre-
sentiments, and the monitions of conscience make it plain to
them now and again that they are not altogether like the grass
of the field and the perishing productions of the vegetable world ;
and conversely the security of the most earnest conviction of
the eternal significance of man's spirit is shaken by the
unmistakeable and peremptory clearness with which the course
of Nature seems to declare tliat no other fate can await the
living mind than the fate of sharing in that destruction which
befalls the living form, and of disappearing from the world of
realities without leaving a trace behind.
If we stay to consider for a moment that philosophic view
01 which the dominant characteristic is a vivid consciousness
of human meanness and transitoriness, we see plainly that it
is hardly entitled to speak at all of aims in life. Its scientific
teachings have indeed gone so far as to dissuade men from ail
112 BOOK VI. CHAPTER V.
carking care concerning such aims and all supersensuoua
interests in general, and to recommend them to restrict them-
selves to a regulated satisfaction of natural wants. But they
have seldom gone further, and have hardly ever succeeded in
silencing the opposition of a better feeling which always sets
itself against such a reduction of life to the condition of a sort
of peaceable and aimless vegetation. On the one hand, they
have had to give way to human nature so far as tacitly to
allow to the knowledge of truth, the charm of beauty, and the
majesty of moral commands, that superiority to all mere
natural impulses, however urgent, which the mind is accus-
tomed to attribute to them, allowing it in spite of the fact
that the superiority is not intelligible on their principles ; on
the other hand, they have never been able to put a stop to
practical efforts which far transcend the needs of a mere
vegetative existence. Although in theory men would often
have denied the existence of this inextinguishable feeling of
being bound up with an imperishable world, yet its activity has
been shown again and again, sometimes in provident care for the
wellbeing of a distant posterity — a care which seems to spring
up spontaneously in men's hearts — sometimes in the intense
interest taken in the general improvement of mankind ; and,
how often, in outbursts of ambition which have disturbed the
world ! The individual soul that considers itself to be a mere
passing production of Nature is seldom altogether indifferent to
future fame, and yet in what would the attraction of such
fame consist if it were merely attached to a name which no
longer had an owner ! In all these manifestations there is
revealed the suppressed belief in a world of spiritual interests,
a world to which its individual members are indissolubly
united, far as we may yet be from any clear idea of the way
in which what seems so transient becomes endowed with
eternal existence.
§ 3. But in the mysterious compound of feelings of which we
are continually conscious, that particular feeling of the nothing-
ness and forlornness of our earthly existence is not always
dominant. Over against the prose of this resigned mood
THE INNEE LIFE. 113
stands the wild poetry of superstition, as a second great mani-
festation of human self-consciousness. It has been long ago
remarked how surprisingly near the rankest superstition is to
unbelief, and how it seems to arise out of it. And, in fact,
the thought of the common and natural transitoriness of the
individual and of the perdurableness belonging only to the
dark and unfathomable Eternal are like two notes that ring
out together ; a gust of wind may make now one and now the
other swell fuller and overpower its fellow. But all super-
stition depends upon this, that the activity of that Infinite
Substance which at first was regarded as guiding the course
of individual things only indirectly and from a distance, as
it were with calm indifference, suddenly comes to be con-
sidered as immediately present in all the most insignificant
affairs, permeating the whole frame of phaenomena, and con-
necting its parts together with the mysterious force of an
all-pervading fervour, from which the individual creature,
surrounded and caught on every hand, is never able to escape.
This belief that we are encompassed on all sides by a
supersensuous world, among the clouds of which the near and
sharply defined outlines of our lives become lost, indiscriminately
and past recognition, is also a mood of thought which has, on
the one hand, predominated during long periods of human
development, and on the other hand, is in all periods ready to
come to the front again in isolated manifestations. This mood
has influenced life in different ways, according as the tempera-
ment and disposition of nations and their greater or less
appreciation of the clear factual relations of experience and
the primary moral demands of the soul have disposed the
imagination either to a calm receptive temper, or to a gloomy
or immoderate enthusiasm. Oriental extravagance endowed
its picture of the world with a wide background and luxuriant
wealth of colouring ; it introduced notions of the beginning of
the world, of the good and evil principles of all things, of the
fall of man from his first estate through Satan, of a history of
the world, in the sense of a coherent development of all visible
and invisible reality ; for it all these supreme thoughts which
VOL. II. H
114 BOOK VI. CHAPTEK V.
the human mind elsewhere only approaches with timidity,
appeared above the mental horizon of everyday life, wearing
the familiar aspect of well-known stories ; they were retained
there by innumerable ceremonies — sometimes by monstrous
expiations, by which men imagined that they won back sanc-
tification and a power over Nature (of which recovery, how-
ever, unprejudiced observation would not have been able to
point out the slightest trace) — sometimes by detailed precepts
which, petty, vexatious, and useless as they were, hampered
the most spontaneous movements of common life by reminders
of their pretended dependence on mysterious bonds of the
great universe itself. Grecian mythology took a different
course ; not without loss of instructive content, but with an
increase of gracious and artistic development, it restored to
freedom the greater part of human life, delivering it from the
rank oppressive growth of a mysticism which darkened the
world from pole to pole. Different times and different modes
of life have favoured different developments of this temper
of mind ; but wherever our earthly existence has been pene-
trated by the conviction of a close and thoroughgoing con-
nection between this existence itself and an universal cosmic
life, and the conviction has been systematized by attempts to
establish a mystic and theocratic regulation of common social
relations, the natural course of development has been hindered
by the imposition of artificial and to some extent unintelligible
tasks, which have thrown into the shade the true physical and
moral interests of unperverted human nature.
There arose from this source not only distorted theories,
which unconcernedly contradicted the most ordinary expe-
rience, but also a series of gloomy ascetic struggles, which are
among the most noteworthy phaenomena in the world's history,
and which in the interests of an ideal end inaugurated an
express combat against just those natural foundations upon
which the existence of the combatant depends. But on the
other hand, where a more propitious course of events has
given greater development to men's taste for daily labour and
for the pursuit of commerce and manufacture, interest in the
THE IN^'ER LIFE. 115
system by which a clear division of daily labour is marked
out for different individuals throws into the shade anxiety
concerning the connection of our life with an invisible and
mysterious order of things ; and this anxiety only reappears in
isolated manifestations of superstition, which persistently con-
tradict experience, without, however, producing much effect
on the whole. In this way of looking at life there is a
general preponderance of melancholy; and superstition, be-
lieving itself to be everywhere encompassed by the immediate
presence of the most profound cosmic relations, feels this
encompassing to be for the most part as a continual suspicion,
temptation, and menace, with which men are hemmed in by
some dark and destiny-laden power. But there is bound up
with this gloomy view a higher estimate, unconscious and
involuntary, of finite personality. The mysterious connection
of things seems to be everywhere concerned with this per-
sonality, and to hold it fast ; and for that very reason it seems
that this cannot be a commonplace, transitory, and insigni-
ficant element which the course of Xature makes and then
again unmakes, but must be an indestructible and real being
that of its own choice and free will ponders the perplexing
questions of the universe, and is in a position to incur inef-
faceable guilt by its own election. Thus superstition is full
of the idea of responsibility, an idea which cannot be recog-
nised by the view which regards every finite being as a mere
insignificant production of the Universal Substance.
§ 4. I now hasten briefly to a conclusion which is only
intended to form the starting-point of our final considera-
tions. From fluctuation between the two views of life which
I have been describing, there arises a state of equilibrium
which, though not unattainable for man, is perhaps only fully
reached in rare and favoured moments. We would distinguish
tthis third mood of thought as Religiousness. In this stage
consciousness of our own weakness is bound up with the
belief that we are called nevertheless to an imperishable
work in the world; and the conviction of an intimate con-
nection between our earthly life and the mysterious whole of
116
BOOK VI. CHAPTER V.
this universal frame no longer interferes with our care for
the small tasks of daily life. It is not the power of larger
knowledge which accomplishes the union of these conflicting
thoughts, but the power of a larger and more Kving faith,
which attributes to the voice of spiritual experience and of
conscience as great importance as to the testimony of the
senses, and at the same time does not twist this testimony in
order to make it accord with a pretended higher knowledge,
being content to believe that God has reserved to Himself
alone cognisance of the day and hour in which all our long-
ings and presentiments are to be fulfilled. The function of
earthly life in the coherent infinity of existence seems to be
of the nature of a preparation, of an educative probation, not
aimless and empty of significance as a vanishing present uncon-
nected with any future, but on the other hand, not to be an
end in itself, or of such binding force, that every error of the
school-life must have the influence of an irrevocable fate. From
this mode of thought arise the conscientiousness, the earnest
endeavour, and the patient love which the mind ought to
bring to bear upon the tasks of earthly life, together with
that still greater earnestness of mood and calm peace which
come to us from feeling that the imperfection of earthly effort
has the sting taken out of it; for it is not the outward
result achieved (which may be insignificant), but loyal honest
labour, which is both the end of such effort and the vocation
to which we are called.
But it is after all only for brief moments that we really
feel this sense of peace. I am not here referring to the con-
flicts and disturbances, and the ever-recurring unrest which
arise from the differences, smoothed over, but not reconciled,
between the conclusions of faith and the importunate objec-
tions of science ; for it is a keen sense of these differences
that is at the foundation of our attempt to get a clear idea
of the position and destiny of man. The less, therefore, do
we need to point out again in this place what violent dis-
turbances our peace of mind is subject to from this quarter^
But there is another human imperfection which we have
THE INNER LIFE. 117
often referred to, and must refer to once again at the end
of this survey of the moods which characterize our inner life ;
I mean that unsteadiness of our thoughts and feelings which
so seldom allows us to hold fast that which belongs to
our peace, and to make it sound on in deep unbroken har-
mony. Sometimes we think of the ends alone and forget the
means, sometimes we are absorbed in the treatment of the
means themselves, and lose all remembrance of the end ;
what is exalted dazzles us, and makes us lose sight of small
duties, and no less does the consideration of small things
blind us to that which is great ; tension and relaxation alter-
nate here as in bodily conditions, and our thoughts are not
the same on Sundays and on week-days. How much of that
which in hours of thought we acknowledge as our earnest
conviction seems for long periods together to slip out of our
recollection, being like a hoarded treasure which it is
enough merely to possess — and how rare are the moments in
which that supersensuous world in which we believe is
present to our consciousness as a living truth that really
touches our life itself! What we so often see in great
matters, delay in carrying out good resolutions, is of almost
universal occurrence in small matters ; with an honest belief
in the unity of our work, and of the connection there is
between all human efforts for the fulfilment of one and the
same destiny, we yet put off the consideration of many
questions, and our activities seem to work independently
and in isolation in the most various directions. Thus the
whole circle of the sciences, and each science in particular, lose
all conscious reference to their common centre, as though each
constituted an independent and self-sufficing sphere of
interests, and it is the same with art and the industries
which minister to the wants of external life ; so that while
on high days and holidays we recognise the supreme and
absolute end, we work on week by week for mediate ends,
separated by several removes from the final end. In saying
this we wish not so much to express a serious reproach, as
to indicate an imperfection from which human nature cannot
118
BOOK VI. CHAPTER V,
quite free itself by the mere force of good intentions. And
the confession of this very imperfection is just the concluding
duty of this sketch, the business of which has been, not to
describe ideals which we have to pursue, but to set forth the
opinions which as a matter of fact mankind are accustomed
to entertain regarding their ideals, and the efforts which they
actually make to approximate to these ideals.
CONCLUSIOK
THE point at which we have now arrived is not a final
resting-place, but an inclined plane, along which we
have to proceed further, and from which we now make a
hasty survey of the whence and whither of the path we have
been travelling.
The first important section of our considerations only
brought us to an unsatisfying conclusion ; it seemed that
Man was merely one among countless examples of what can
be accomplished by the universal order of Nature's mechanism.
"We saw, indeed, that laws alone never in any case produce
a real being; they produce such only by means of a pre-
existent Keal, actual, manifold, and primary, which subordinates
itself and its working to these laws, its capacity of action
being merely directed and regulated by them. But the whole
wealth of reality which we have thus to presuppose seema
at first to be a mere scattered manifold of fortuitous facts,
not joined by any bond of living unity so as to form a
second great department of the universe, in the same way
as the individual laws of the mechanical order of Nature
harmonize together so as to make a first fundamental depart-
ment. Since experience shows traces not only of a sub-
ordination of all individual elements under similar universal
laws, but also of their co-ordination into a systematic whole,
the parts of which are complementary to one another, this
harmony came to be perversely regarded as a blind outcome
of the original nature and collocation of cosmic elements;
these, it was held, must have a nature and position of some
kind, and having just that which they have and no
other, must necessarily result in this order, and not in
permanent chaos. The pertinacity of this unsatisfactoiy
120 CONCLUSION.
view V7as overcome at last ; and it was obliged to confess
itself as being in fact only the disguised and unwilling
expression of the acknowledgment that the final, the most
comprehensive and the fundamental fact of reality, is the
unity and inner coherence of creative Nature, which did not
throw into that realm of necessary laws an unconnected
multitude of examples to be experimented on, but set before
them the hidden germ of an ordered world, that they might
develop it. And if reflection thinks beforehand of the sub-
sequent combination of its individual conclusions, it will
add the thought that, speaking generally, this system of law —
to which reality seems to submit — is not in truth a pre-
existing necessity to which reality, being of later birth, thus
accommodates itself; that on the contrary the creative
Nature which seems to adapt itself to mechanical require-
ments, is the first and only Eeal, this mechanism being
merely the form in which its activity flows forth; and in
consequence of the thoroughgoing unity and consistency of
this activity, the form of it can be abstracted from particular
examples, can be isolated as though it were a universal
necessity, everywhere the same, and finally can be conceived
as a foreign and independent limit of that of which it is the
very nature.
It is this living reality that has been the subject of our
consideration; we have sought to find in it Man, and the
position occupied by his special nature as contrasted with the
equally special natures of other beings. The result, however,
wliich we have arrived at as the conclusion of our considerations
is almost wholly negative. Extensive as we found the influ-
ence of universal and uniformly acting conditions upon the
development of human existence to be, we found also that it
never suffices to explain this development without predis-
positions to civilisation of the most special kind which it
encounters in the human creature, but does not first produce
in him. But when, on the other hand, we attempted to
determine positively the connection of this human nature
with the whole of reality and its significant position in that
CONCLUSION.
121
whole, our reflections resulted in doubts and obscurity. We
Imow not wliat there is hidden from us in the countless stars
which touch our lives only when a ray from them reaches
our eyes by night ; how then should we know our place in
the whole great universe, with only a small fraction of which
we are acquainted ? We, living on the surface of this planet,
find ourselves at the head of an animal series the perfected
type of which is reached in our organization, but of what
import is this dignity in the animal kingdom, a matter of
which we hardly ever think during life, and which is of no
advantage to the progress of our development ? i'inally,
we feel ourselves divided mentally from this animal world
by a great chasm; but pursuing ideals which concern us
alone, on the one hand we find that we almost everywhere
fall short of that in which alone we believe that there is
worth, and on the other hand we remark how there vegetates
around us simultaneously that other kind of animate life
which knows not these ideals. Our own ends are not clear
to us ; innumerable things exist outside of us, the meaning
and destiny of which we know still less ; he who would know
himself must divine the plan of the whole great cosmic
frame which includes such various constituents.
We shall attempt in the last part of these considerations
to develop as much of this plan as has been made plain to
us by our survey of history, and by the connection of Ideas
which the intellectual labour of the human race has gradually
attained — thus uniting scattered threads of reflection, and
reconciling many an apparent contradiction.
BOOK VII.
HISTOET.
123
I
CHAPTEK I.
THE CBEATION OF MAN.
Obscnrity of the Beginnings and of the Future of Man's Life — Nature and
Creation — Steadiness of Development in Nature, and Aibitrary Divine
Interference — The Sphere of Nature and the Sphere of History — The
Genesis in Nature of Living Beings and of Man — Impossibility of setting
this out in Detail.
§ 1. XTIEOM all of us the beginnings of our life are
-L hidden, and beyond the few recollections of early-
childhood which we venture to trust, there settles down a
wide and unknown background of profound obscurity. Yet
an eye which could penetrate the gloom would certainly not
find it empty ; the most plastic period of our life has doubtless
been influenced by innumerable conditions which have left
behind them results that still continue to operate in us. It
may be that these blind and involuntary beginnings of develop-
ment become comparatively unimportant beside the deliberate
self-education of later life ; but, for good and for ill, we owe
to the impressions stored up in this prehistoric period many
a vague propensity of which we are conscious, and which we
reluctantly acknowledge, and many a lofty aspiration which
we obey as the voice of something higher than we ourselves.
And the future as well as the past is hidden from us ; we
know not whither our course will impel us. A glance at the
proximate objects which we have set before ourselves, marks
out some part of the path which stretches into our future, but
as we travel further along it innumerable unexpected impres-
sions throng upon us, distracting, enticing, suggesting new
aims, awaking fresh endeavours, and at the end of our way we
find ourselves at a spot quite other than that to which our
earliest desires pointed, and unable even to understand much
of that which once filled and stirred our whole soul. So
125
126 BOOK VII. CHAPTER I.
strange is the constitution of that Ego which the finite spirit
accosts as its Self, and speaks of as its Self. In the full con-
sciousness of inalienable self-identity such a spirit believes
that it moulds itself and its nature from the very foundation
by its own activity, and does not see that even at the times
when it is most conscious of development it does little more
than labour at modifying the surface of a germ which, unwit-
ting both of its origin and of its future, it finds implanted
within itself.
The same spectacle is presented on a larger scale by the
history of mankind. Neither the progress of exact science
nor the wider view afforded to human reflection by the ever
higher standpoints to which it gradually attains, lightens the
obscurity that shrouds both the origin of our race and the
final outcome of its development. We have only learnt that
there has taken place an inevitable and irreparable dislocation
of those graphic representations of the beginning and end of
all things between which, as between two fixed limits, the
boding imagination of men was wont to believe that the
swelling tide of human destiny could be hemmed in. And
perhaps the failure to hem it in thus is due to a feeling
which is the heritage of humanity and which humanity itself
secretly wishes to retain — thb ieeling that there are in the
world immeasurable regions which are veiled in twilight,
and a sense (felt by men who are midway between the two
profound abysses — safe because hidden — of past and future) of
rejoicing in the limited illumination which opens up, over
some few centuries of human existence, an outlook that is
much interrupted and fills men with forebodings.
To us at least it almost seems as though men's imagination
delighted to dwell on the great enigma of our origin and
destiny only because it is assured beforehand of failure, and it
would perhaps recoil with dread if a bold leap were really to
lead to a solution of the questions with which it timorously
and yet rashly meddles. As long as these outermost regions
are wrapped in total darkness we may interpret the outlines
of that which is hidden, in accordance with the longings of our
THE CREATION OF MAN. 121
own hearts; if light were to break in and convince us that
it is not as we had thought, it might easily be that the pro-
spect thus opened before us would seem too boundless, the
distances too immeasurable to afford us any longer the unre-
flecting security which had previously made us feel quite at
home in the great universal frame.
But we need not speak of this as of something that might
happen in case very unlikely conditions were to be fulfilled ;
the fact rather is that the discord to which we refer has
actually been produced by the initial steps ventured by
science in the endeavour, to throw light upon the origin of
mankind. Therefore we must so far yield to the longing
which continually draws us to these mysteries as to try and
separate between the possible answer to a general question
and the impossible satisfaction of a curiosity that extends to
details.
§ 2. It was at any rate only among the most unintellectual
nations that opinions concerning the origin of the world were
due merely to the unrest of ordinary curiosity which (without
any sense of the different degrees of importance attaching to
different questions) seeks to satisfy itself about all objects of
experience, small or great, by a circumstantial account of their
origin. In all cases where cultured intelligence has set forth
in poetic legends the beginning and end of things, it has been
moved by the deeper longing to show that the enigmatical
fraction of cosmic order which constitutes earthly history
comes forth directly from a higher world, and that after ful-
filling its appointed tasks, it will return again whence it came.
We have been brought up to believe the most exalted of all
these accounts. According to our faith the earth and its
denizens were the direct creation of the divine hand, the
earth being the only abode of life in the immeasurable extents
of space ; and the last day will give back into God's own hand the
results of earthly history, which is itself the sum of all history,
and which has at no moment of its course escaped the vigilant
eye of Providence. Creation and judgment bound the chang-
ing panorama of history and satisfy our hearts with a sense of
128 BOOK VII, CHAPTER I.
the unity of that unchanging Being in whom are comprehended
all the mutations of circumstances.
Is it true that this wide scope of thought has become
impossible for the spirit of modern science ? Or has it (as often
happens with great thoughts) only taken on an unaccustomed
form of expression, under which guise it continues to exist in
its integrity? Modern- science starts no longer from the
" without form and void " over which the Spirit of God broods,
but perchance, from a sphere of heated vapour which with
countless others is whirling round in space ; it no longer
marks off periods of the world's formation as the work of
different days of the divine creation, but measures them
according to the decrease of radiated heat, the formation of
liquids, the solidification of the earth's surface and its mani-
fold fissures ; it no longer deduces the origin of living creatures
from an immediate interposition of God, but ascribes them to
the gradual evolution of those productions which were brought
forth by the inherent powers of primitive matter, being at
first simple and becoming increasingly complex. Does all
this really decide the great question, Do we owe our existence
to Nature or to Creation ? and does it decide it in a way
unfavourable to the aspirations of faith ?
I think not ; on the contrary, the longing to emphasize
ever more and more the unmediated creative activity of God,
to the exclusion of all natural means, must admit that it does
itself only bind this activity the closer to limiting condi-
tions, after the inappropriate pattern of human action. It is
not enough that the evolution of Nature takes place according
to the will of God ; governed by a secret conviction that there
may be something which resists this will, if only through
inertia, this temper of mind desires to see the very application
of God's hand by which He either makes nothing into some-
thing, or introduces order among the formless elements of
things. But such actual application is necessary only for
feeble creatures whose will can of itself move nothing, and
who must therefore endeavour to accomplish a mediated result
by setting in action limbs of a body with which they did not
THE CREATION OF MAN. 129
endow themselves according to laws which they did not
set up. Such extremely undisguised anthropomorphism, and
limitation of divine action, will indeed, no doubt, be readily
given up, or even eagerly rejected ; but the more refined
representations which take its place are still influenced by
the working of the same mistaken idea. If God did not form
the world by the might of His hand, must He not at least
have breathed into it the breath of life — must He not have
spoken some Let there he — must He not have given an
external impetus of some kind, without which His will could
not have been communicated to things ? How obstinately does
our imagination cling to such requirements ! And yet all the
time we are perfectly conscious that it is not in the momentum
of His breath, not in the commotion produced in the world
by the sound-waves of His voice, that creative efficacy is to
be sought ; this efficacy resides only in the will of God itself,
and things do not need to be made aware of this, as of some-
thing eyternal to them, by physical hearing and feeling, in
order to obey Him who fills their being.
Now, if that which formed the world were neither the
visible hand of God, nor the breath of His mouth that might
be felt, nor His word that might be heard, but only His will,
silent and invisible, what kind of spectacle would have been
presented to a mind that had been so fortunate as to witness
the process of creation ? Nothing but the spectacle of things
that seemed to arise spontaneously from nothing, or that
spontaneously condensed out of invisible diffusion into visible
form, since no audible command called them forth from a pre-
existing storehouse — ^nothing but the spectacle of movements
which seemed to spring spontaneously from the elements
themselves and their invisible action and reaction, since they
were not communicated by any perceptible breath from God's
mouth — nothing, finally, but the spectacle of bodies which,
as no visible hand put together their constituent parts,
would seem to be produced by the reciprocal attraction of the
elements. Therefore the process of the formation of the
world would appear in no way different to him who conceived
VOL. II. I
130 BOOK VII. CHAPTER I.
of it as pervaded by the creative activity of God, and to him
who could see in it nothing but a successive evolution according
to natural law. If, therefore, we, setting out from experience,
feel ourselves compelled by scientific consistency to trace back
the chain of such developments to the very beginning of the
world, we need not fear that we shall on this account be
necessarily driven to adopt a conception which excludes the
dependence of the world upon God. On the contrary, we
arrive in the end at just the same conception that should be
presented to us from the beginning by faith in a divine
creation, if such faith understand its own aim. For the purer
and grander our conception of this creative activity is, the less
shall we expect at any moment a special manifestation of the
finger of God in the phaenomenal world ; but we shall, on the
contrary, believe that His almighty power is present in the
constancy of Nature's regular working, invisible, but not there-
fore less efficient.
§ 3. But — ^it will be objected — does this set our doubts
at rest ? Is the bitter thought taken away, that what is
great and what is small, what is exalted and what is mean,
all proceeds indifferently from the inlierent powers of thb
material elements ? Was there no more express divine
volition exercised in the production of living creatures which
are destined to the passionate struggles of an historical
development than in the formation of the inanimate surface
of the earth upon which their life is to be lived ? Did no
specially solemn circumstances distinguish the beginning of our
own existence, did no interposition of powers superior to the
uniform course of Nature mark a division at the point at
which creatures endowed with mental life appear upon the
destined theatre of their activity ?
In mentioning this last requirement I am not jesting ;
,we are all subject to fancy that great events are not quite
complete unless their entrance upon the stage of life is
glorified by a striking transformation both of the stage itself
and of the actors ; and even in the present case we are
subject to this fancy, although we must admit that here the
THE CEEATION OF MAK. 131
splendour of the new scene would be wasted, no one being
in existence upon whom it could make an impression. This
being so, we can with all the more force meet the first
objection to which we referred, by asking what is meant by
that inherent power of the elements to which men are so
reluctant to attribute the origin of the animate world ? The
fact is, that those who with pitying consideration would
convince us how utterly impossible it is that the beauty and
significance of living creatures could have arisen from the
mere action and reaction of the elements, combat us from
positions which we believe that we ourselves hold more
strongly even than they. For it is they whose view betrays
the erroneous presupposition that there could be action and
reaction of elements, whilst these elements are regarded as
isolated, and not comprehended in the One, and that such
action and reaction might lead to definite results. And
having inconsiderately abandoned to this mode of being and
of action (which they regard as possible) the one part of
Nature, they seek, arbitrarily and too late, to withdraw from
the same influence the other part of Nature, being alarmed
by an exaggerated estimate of difficulties which it seems to
them that nothing but a direct interposition of divine power
can remove. Too late ; for if elements, through their own
nature and without any concourse of God, are capable of
exercising certain activities, how are they to be subsequently
made dependent on divine government ? If the divine will
makes any call upon them for action which does not follow
from their very nature, will they not oppose to such calls,
not only mere passive inertia, but also all the resistance of
which an independent and active being is capable ? And
how could this resistance be overcome unless both God and
Nature were embraced by a higher law valid for both, which
should guarantee to the divine will a definite measure of
obedience on the part of Nature ? If one seeks to heighten
the idea of divine governance by representing it as acting
from without upon a spontaneously active world which is
opposed to it, and by ascribing to it forms of activity other
132 BOOK VII. CHAPTER I.
than those according to which this world itself acts, one ia
inevitably led to the conception of divine action above
indicated, a conception applicable not to the infinite God,
but to a restricted and finite being.
But it would be wrong to regard the mode of thought
discussed above as the only one which is opposed to our
own view. On the contrary, those who agree with us in
recognising God's working under the forms of Nature's
activity, may yet doubt whether this working restricts itself
to such forms and spends itself in them. The rejection of
the figurative representation of the application of God's hand
will not be considered a sufficient refutation. For your
imaginary observer — it might be said — there may indeed
have been no divine hand specially visible among the
phgenomena of the genesis and formation of the world, but
all may have seemed to him to result from invisible powers
of spontaneous growth. This, however, would by no means
prove that every single moment of such development con-
tained within itself all the necessary conditions for the
production of that which should follow, and that there was
no need of divine aid in order to complete the conditions
necessary to a result apparently, but only apparently, caused
by the complement of phsenomena. "We should be making
an arbitrary assumption if we supposed that after the
creation of things and the regulation of their evolutionary
relations, God would withdraw Himself for ever from the
world ; but, on the other hand, it would be possible and
probable that at every subsequent moment He should require
from things actions which were not contained as self-evident
consequences in their previous performances ; and, finally, we
could not doubt that these commands of God would be
unhesitatingly obeyed, just because the nature of things and
their capacity of action are a nonentity without Him.
But, we would reply, that completion by divine aid must
either be something which is according to rule, and the
addition of which at a definite point in the order of the
world had been determined by God from the beginning, in
THE CREATION OF MAN. 133
accordance with the eternal consistency of His being ; or it
must be something which is not according to rule, something
which He adds without finding, in Himself or in the phsenomena
to which He supplies it, a reason for choosing this particular
kind of completion and no other. In the first case this
divine help is included from our point of view in the
enlarged idea of natural order, since we hold that Nature
never works without the concourse of God ; in the second
case (which, indeed, is that which common opinion prefers), we
have to ask, What is the worth of the advantage which is
to be secured by such a view, and which is advocated with
jealous preference ? Shall we regard God as greater, if we
believe that He governs the world by a series of disconnected
commands ? or Nature as more exalted, if we believe that, as
a whole, it is at all times — or even only occasionally — inade-
quate to produce the phsenomena of the next moment ?
Whence comes it that the other form of divine activity (that
of the steady development from within of a pre-existing
germ) alway,? has to fight for acceptance in our minds with
a preference for uncertain repeated interpositions of divine
activity coming from without?
As a matter of fact, it is the ascription of this very
consistency to the divine activity which is repugnant to a
secret craving of our souls. To make all subsequent resolves
only the necessary results of one primal resolve, and all
subsequent activity only the inevitable result of an original
creative volition, involves a denial of freedom of action
which seems to us incompatible with the idea of a living
personal God. Our view threatens irresistibly to issue in a
superstition which regards the world as being merely the
unintentional necessary development of a spontaneously
expanding primal being, to which, at the same time, all
history seems meaningless, since that which had once been
included in this being at the beginning, as something which
must necessarily follow, could have nothing essential to gain
in the course of events in which it should undergo a special
process of production. The capacity of doing what without
134 BOOK Vn. CHAPTER I.
6uch doing would never have happened, of preventing what
without such prevention would inevitably have occurred, the
possibility of gaining in insight and in range of will, and
of ceasing to desire that which had previously been desired,
and finally the consciousness of a capacity of independent
determination, not only as regards the future form of the
external world with which our action is concerned, but even
as regards the consistency of our own nature — all this it is
that we seek in a living personality, that we think we find
in ourselves, and that we miss in a representation of divine
action which exhibits it as always bound by its own special
law. To secure these treasures of freedom and vital action
for God as well as for ourselves, we have recourse to modes
of representation that labour under obscurities and contra-
dictions of which we are not ignorant. This is why we
prefer the thought of an uncertain and disconnected divine
activity; for truly to us finite beings it seems as though
our freedom were most clearly certified by the inconsequence
with which we can alter and break off the course of our
development. This is why we do not even shun the danger
of degrading divine activity to the external elaboration of
a material world existing from eternity ; for we even fancy
that we have a fresh proof of our freedom and capacity of
arbitrary choice in the opposition which the inherent activities
of the external world offer to our exertions. This is why
we so often renew the attempt to reduce as far as possible
(since we cannot altogether deny) the sphere of development
according to natural laws, and to draw a sharp boundary
line between Nature as the realTn, of necessity, and History as
the realm of freedom.
In both there lies before us a succession of chansincj
events. But as far as Nature is concerned we should be
quite satisfied if it were only a collection of occurrences
which without being connected in systematic and progressive
development were merely confirmatory and concrete ex-
amples of the steady validity of certain universal laws. It
is only in the mental development of the human race that
THE CREATION OF MAN.
135
we feel a primary neefl of comprehending the series of events
as a history of which the end is more worthy than the
beginnin<:;f, and the whole of which would be worthless if it
were merely a repetition, in time and destitute of freedom, of
that which already existed — not subject to temporal limita-
tions and prefigured in full completeness — in its causes. All
the lavish passion of longing and remorse, love and hatred, with
which history is filled, we are unwilling to regard as wasted ;
and it would be wasted — ^yes, and the very existence of
mental life would seem to us an incomprehensible anomaly —
in a cosmos in which there was nothing to change, and which,
undisturbed by all this struggle of souls, was entirely taken
up by the leisurely development of already existing conditions.
And now having reserved for the history of this spiritual
life that freedom which it seems to need, we once more
extend our demands beyond our requirements ; we will not
cede to the sway of that detested natural necessity even our
physical existence or our origin. We would much rather
owe them to the fiat. Let us make man in our image. Even
in such a representation the creative activity of God seems
to us more near and intelligible, more full of life and warmth,
and our own existence seems to have a nobler and happier
origin than if we believe that we, like the rest of Nature,
have been produced by an unresting coherent development.
Now this distinction between Nature and ffistory certainly
points to real mental needs, the satisfaction of which we
shall consider later. But we can agree to the separation
of these two departments without acknowledging the false
boundary line, which, needlessly and contrary to experience,
marks off the origin of mankind as not belonging to the
sphere of natural development. According to the present
course of man's life, experience shows us that wherever it
is connected with the external order of Nature, it is wholly
subordinated to the rules of this order. Eaces of men arise
and pass away according to the same laws, and after the
same fashion, as races of animals; the external powers of
Nature are not more forbearing towards the pre-eminent
136 BOOK VII. CHAPTER L
creature endowed with a rational mind, than they are towards
the irrational animal ; their destructive influences affect the
life that is historically significant with the same impartial
indifference with which they dissolve combinations of lifeless
matter; finally, nowhere does Nature quit, for the gratifi-
cation of rational minds, the paths of her accustomed activity,
rejoicing our hearts with the wonders of a Golden Age in
which everything happens for our satisfaction, instead of
merely that event happening which is the inevitable result
of previous causes ; there is no way of bringing about trans-
formations of the external world corresponding to our inner
life, except by our activity availing itself of natural means
in obedience to the laws of Nature. Thus we, being in
our life, our sufferings, our achievements, altogether holden
by the power of natural necessity, should gain but little by
rescuing the origin of our species from the grasp of this
necessity. The freedom of such a distant past could be no
compensation for present constraint.
And just as little do we feel that our claims to freedom are
necessarily demolished if we give up this attempt. For we
originally desired this freedom only for our inner life, and.
indeed only for a small part of that. This spiritual life,
receiving stimulation from Nature, and limited in its reaction
to natural means, is not itself directly included in the order
of Nature. Between this stimulation and these reactions is
interposed, as a department sui generis, the internal elaboration
of the received impressions. There may take place here
innumerable occurrences which are more than the steady
continuation of effects initiated in us by the external world ;
there may take place innumerable connections of received
stimulations, in accordance with points of view which alto-
gether transcend Nature, resulting in the production of
impulses to reaction to which mere natural order would never
have led without this complementary interposition of mental
life. However highly one may rate this free action of mental
power in human nature, it wiU always receive due estimation
as long as it is limited to the world of thoughts ; but only in
THE CREATION OF MAN. 137
subordination to certain laws will the cosmic order admit of
its efficient access to external Nature. And however specially
we may imagine the history of mankind to be guided from
the loftier standpoint of divine wisdom, from a higher plane
than natural evolution, we may be quite satisfied if this
guidance takes place through action and reaction between God
and the spiritual nature of man, in such a way that the thoughts,
feelings, and efforts thus aroused and developed, also alter the
external position of mankind, to the same limited extent to
which our action is able to change the physical conditions of
our existence. Thus within the realm of Nature with its
uninterrupted coherence, there is certainly a possibility of
history, and we are neither justified in maintaining nor bound
to deny, without proof, that to this history freedom appertains;
but the external destinies of our race only belong to history
in as far as they depend upon our own actions.
§ 4. After these remarks we may return to the two questions
which we mentioned above. We can now answer the question
which refers to the general process to wliich we trace back
the origin of living creatures in general, including the human
race. This occurrence also we unhesitatingly conceive as
a necessary result, which at a definite period of the earth's
formation arose from the then existing collocation and recipro-
cal action of matter, with the same inherent necessity which
now connects the continued existence and the reproduction
of living creatures with the present distribution of material
masses and their relations to one another. The course of
Nature, indeed, from which we believe that living creatures
have sprung, is iu our view something richer and fuller than
that small fraction of it which is known to science ; so far,
such a course of Nature is not confined to working upon life-
less matter, but presupposes inherent activity in its elements,
and it will perhaps be the glory of the future to define the
special characteristics of this activity, and to determine the
laws of its influence upon the external operations of things.
Moreover, we do not maintain that all which the elements can
accomplish is to be measured by the narrow possibilities still
138 BOOK VII. CHAPTER!
left open by the rigidity which the most essential natural
relations have now attained. In earlier stages of cosmic
development, when (everything being yet in process of forma-
tion) there was both greater celerity of change and also a
prevalence of modes of connection which did not afterwards
recur, it may perhaps have been the case that the elements
produced effects different in nature and magnitude from those
to which the present course of Nature gives rise, limited as
this is to the maintenance of uniform conditions. However,
we do not by any means mention these fluctuating and never
definitely circumscribed representations in order to embellish
our own view in the eyes of our opponents, but rather for the
sake of pointing out that none of them can mitigate the rigour
which causes so much alarm. For if there is one thing that
we shall always hold fast by, it is that even these creative
habits of the primal course of Nature were events governed by
law, and proceeded from an activity that in its own course
laid fresh foundations, by means of the productions of its early
periods, for the more intense and complex activity of later
periods. Nature works from the beginning according to laws
which either (1) are unalterable, or (2) themselves alter
regularly, as the conditions alter which have arisen under
their sway, and are therefore to be regarded as regular and
ordered functions of their own results.
On the other hand, it is altogether impossible to answer
the particular questions prompted by curiosity concerning the
circumstantial course of events from which there gradually
arose the structure of organic beings and of man himself. A
view which does not attribute this occurrence to supernatural
and therefore in itself indescribable influence, but makes it
dependent on the concatenation of innumerable details, will
inevitably lay itself open to the reproach of rash and arbitrary
invention if it attempt to enumerate all these details, for the
real determination of which our own range of experience is
very far from furnishing adequate analogies. This fate has
overtaken all attempts to exhibit the gradual evolution of the
higher forms of living creatures from the lower, and the origin
THE CREATION OF MAN. 189
of these from the immediate action and reaction of the
elements. But there are two considerations which we desire
not to withhold from the notice of those who would found
an objection against the general conclusions of natural science
upon its incapacity to exliibit the details of these conclusions.
In the first place we may, without much difficulty, convince
ourselves that this difficulty in describing first beginnings is a
misfortune by no means peculiar to our theory, but is one
which it has in common with all others. It certainly sounds
passing strange when a daring investigator of Nature
describes the protoplasmic cell, which, having been formed in
the ocean and slowly borne to land, is there developed into a
quadruped or a man ; but the poverty of this attempt lies
rather in the total ineffectiveness with which it addresses
itself to the insoluble problem, than in the fact that different
assumptions might lead to a better conclusion. Hence it
seems a matter of indifference whether we attribute the origin
of animate life to the natural action and reaction of the
elements or to a peculiar vital force ; any representations
which we can frame of the gradual concrete progress of its
formation will be just as strange and untrustworthy in the one
case as in the other. If, according to the first view, the
elements combine spontaneously to form a protoplasmic cell,
or a germ, which then goes on to further stages of develop-
ment, according to the second view the vital force is just as
shy of revealing its mode of operation. For naturally we
shall not believe that this vital force forms the finished
creature with all its parts in an instant from the elements*
and if we seek to show how it works by a progression from
the simpler to the more complex, the cell or the germ (from
which in this case too we have to set out) seems no better
endowed and no more probable than the cell and germ which
in the previous case we derided. The Mosaic account of the
creation employs two different representations of the way in
which things arose. First God says, Ld the earth bring
forth all manner of herbs. "Would the results of the com-
mand to produce plants, thus communicated to the forces of
140
BOOK VIL CHAPTER I.
the soil, have differed in appearance from the conception of
natural science, according to which the separate elements of the
soil first developed into germs, and these again into plants ?
The attempt to work out this idea in detail is as hopeless
as all others of a similar kind. Man, on the contrary, is
formed by God's own hand ; but we do not need to repeat how
unsatisfactory is a comparison taken thus directly from labour
of the most ordinary kind. It therefore appears that all these
modes of thought are involved in equal difficulties when they
attempt to give sensible representations, that shall be credible
and probable, of processes which are separated by a gaping
chasm from the sphere of our own experience.
The other point that I wished to notice is, that we are
accustomed to estimate one and the same idea very differently
when it comes before us as a conjecture, and when it is offered
as the expression of a fact. What a succession of minute and
interdependent events is presented by the intricate processes
of formation, fructification, and development in the seed of a
plant ! How complex, and in many of its features unin-
telligible to us, is the development of animals by division
and coalescence, segregation, and aggregation, and various
changes of an apparently supplementary character in the
relative position of parts — some of which seem to waste away
after having rendered their mysterious service during a definite
period of development ! Now if any one, unsupported by
the testimony of the microscope, should have conjecturally
described the multiplicity of arrangements which that instru-
ment actually reveals, how those who consider animate life to
be only comprehensible as resulting from the misty and magic
sway of a single impulse, would have found fault with him
for advocating a mode of thought at once rash, tedious, and
intellectually poverty-stricken ! The fact of alternate genera-
tion among the lower animals having been established by
observation, scientific speculation finds it by no means diffi-
cult to discover retrospectively ingenious theoretic grounds of
interpretation, whereas beforehand any conjecture that such
variation might occur, would have been rejected as an impossi-
THE CREATION OF MAN. 141
bility, contradictory of the idea of sex, and of the whole
economy of natural history. Whether the original production
of animals and plants by the conjuuction of inorganic elements
will ever be proved as a fact which still takes place, we do
not know ; but if a day should ever come when it is proved,
then people will suddenly remember that it was a thing
always possible in the very nature of it, and that it never
involved the absurdity that people see in it as long as it is
only a scientific conjecture that is inconvenient to various
prejudices. Let us therefore trust our question to the future ;
let us leave science to make further investigations ; if it should
ever succeed in drawing a more definite picture of the origin
of animate life, people will accept with equanimity realities
coinciding wholly in essentials with processes which, now that
they can only present themselves as possibilities, are peevishly
rejected as wretched inventions of a low and unworthy mode
of thought.
Such being our views, we regard as useless any further
lingering in these outer courts of history, in which science
can discover merely shadowy outlines and no clearly defined
forms. We will not follow the astronomical investigations
which seek to discover how the world was formed, and to
decide whether the distribution and movements of the heavenly
bodies make it probable that there is a common centre of
this universal frame, or whether it is more likely that many
stellar systems, each independent in itself, circle round a
merely ideal centre of gravity by the force of reciprocal
attraction. As much as is certain in these considerations
only confirms what we knew otherwise, namely, that it is
upon a small eccentric spot, lost as it were in the immensity
of the whole, that this human life is developed, with all its
passion and lofty aims — a brief and serious monition which
points out to us an abyss of unknown possibilities, and warns
us that we should not take it for granted that earthly history
is equivalent to that of the universe.
Neither will we enter into geological investigations, and
immerse ourselves in a consideration of the different periods
142
BOOK Vn. CHAPTER I.
of the earth's formation, and in discussions as to how the
gradually altered condition of the atmosphere and of the solid
surface of the earth, furnished at different stages the conditions
of the production and maintenance of various successive organic
creations. The magic spell which descriptions of this vast and
obscure past always exercise upon our mind, would give to my
colourless picture a charm which I find it hard to renounce.
But these investigations proceed upon many uncertain assump-
tions and are laden with sources of error; and they are
therefore specially unsuited for the confirmation of definite
results at the present moment, when many noteworthy
discoveries have wakened attention without having caused
any decided clearing up of difficulties. Yet it seems that
man is one of the most modern denizens of the earth;
indubitable remains of our species have not been found deeper
than the later alluvial strata, which are still being slowly and
steadily increased in low-lying levels by progressive deposition
of the matter of abraded rocks which is carried down by the
current of swift streams. Therefore it seems that man was
not produced before a time in which existing climatic dis-
tinctions prevailed, and the vegetable and animal kingdoms
had developed in all essentials the forms which we now see
around us. We must leave it for the future to prove whether
this limitation can be removed and a much longer vista be
opened before us, in which there may perchance be hidden
many beginnings of races of men dijBfering widely from one
another. Without at present declaring for this view as the
more probable, we may yet feel that we ought to be prepared
to accept both it and the altered position which the small
section of historical development at present known to us would
occupy in such an enlarged life of humanity — a life which to
our imagination would be almost boundless.
And, finally, we should not lay too much weight on pre-
sentiments as to the future to which we may be tempted by
that insight into the connection between the different forces
of Nature which has now been attained. Whether reciprocal
transformations of energy or a consistent consolidation of all
THE CREATION OF MAN. 143
particular results of the course of Nature, will gradually pro-
duce a permanent preponderance of such conditions and
modes of motion in matter as are incompatible with the
continued duration of animate life, or to what other fate this
earthly sphere is destined — these are points concerning which
we can no more look for certain information than we can
regarding the very first beginnings. Let us therefore bid
adieu to these insoluble riddles, and turn from the external
history of the human race to that inner history of humanity
which, with its manifold changes, is included in the slower
progress of external Nature.
CHAPTER IL
THE MEANING OF HISTORY.
What is History?— History as the Education of Humanity— History as the
Development of the Idea of Humanity— Conditions necessary to make sucli
a Development valuable — Concerning Reverence for Forms instead of for
Content — History as a Divine Poem— Denial of any Worth in Historical
Development— Condition of the Unity of Humanity and of the Worth of
its History.
S 1. IVTOW what is the significance of this inner mental
N'
history of the human race ? What are the laws
of its course, or the plan which connects into intelligible
unity the varied wealth of its phgenomena ? Our age boasts
as its prerogative that it knows an answer to this question ;
but however dangerous it may be to rebel against modes of
thought to which vigorous and brilliant intellectual essays have
accustomed us, we must still confess that in regard to history
there is no lack of the most contradictory opinions, each of
which disputes even the elementary assumptions of the others.
I will not linger over the cool assertion that everything has
happened already and that there is nothing new under the
sun ; but remark that in opposition to the willingly accepted
doctrine that the progress of humanity is ever onwards and
upwards, more cautious reflection has been forced to make the
discovery that the course of history is in spirals ; some prefer
to say epicycloids ; in short, there have never been wanting
thoughtful but veiled acknowledgments, that the impression
produced by history on the whole, so far from being one of
unmixed exultation, is preponderantly melancholy. Un-
prejudiced consideration will always lament and wonder to
see how many advantages of civilisation and special charms
of life are lost, never to reappear in their integrity, when
any form of culture is broken up. Subsequent ages may com-
144
THE MEANING OF HISTORY. 145
pensate the loss by other and indeed by higher advantages ;
but this does not alter the fact that the earlier ones have
passed away never to return ; that which past times have
toiled for and won can never be inwoven with the work of
subsequent ages with the completeness necessary for continuous
and steady progress, but nearly everywhere the new life arises
out of the ruins of the old at the cost of painful sacrifices.
This melancholy impression received from history as a whole
is not much mitigated by well-meant reference to the fact
that in individual life too the bloom of youth must be
sacrificed to the strength of manhood, and this again to the
wisdom of old age, and that it is only the most favoured lands
that are permitted to see fruit and blossom and bud simul-
taneously on the same plant. Do not all these comparisons
only increase the grounds of our complaint ? If, however,
they comfort any one, is not the comfort they bring derived
from the thought that human history is itself only a natural
process to which we must accommodate ourselves, and about
the right and end of which it is of no use to ask ? But
for him who clings to the belief in a guidance which is ^
ordering this confusion of human destinies to some higher
good — how is Jie to interpret the spectacle which history
presents ?
§ 2. That history is the education of humanity, is the first /fj
phrase with which we provisionally pacify ourselves. And
indeed unfathomable designs of educative wisdom must ever
be a fruitful source from which to derive all the astonishing
turnings and twistings of the course of history. But if we
are not wholly satisfied with this general consolation which
would allay our doubt with the bare assurance that a solution
exists, if we seek to trace at any rate in the great outlines of
history that educative plan, how many hindrances do we
meet ! We know sometimes what has happened, and can see
how it led necessarily to the subsequent condition of things ;
we may often be certain of the greater perfection of what is
later in time, and even a dull mind may often perceive some
arrangement by which the new condition of things will draw
VOL. II. K
146
BOOK VII. CHAPTER II.
advantage from the old ; but who can calculate with certainty
what would have happened if particular circumstances had
been different, or can say what possible greater good may-
have been missed by the actual course of events leading to
something that was less good ?
I wish, however, to speak, not of the difficulties of carrying
out this view fully — such difficulties being in fact very great
for every view — but of the doubts which are raised by the
application of this idea of education to mankind. Education
is only intelligible to us when a single individual is concerned ;
when it is one and the same person who becomes better, who
bears the penalty of his mistakes and enjoys the fruit of his
repentance ; and who, if in the progress of development he has
to sacrifice some good which he possessed, may yet keep the
memory of it as something which he has himself enjoyed.
It is not so clear how we are to imagine one course of
education as applying to successive generations of men,
allowing the later of these to partake of the fruits produced
by the unrewarded efforts and often by the misery of those
who went before. To hold that the claims of particular times
and individual men may be despised and all their misfortunes
disregarded if only mankind improve upon the whole, is,
though suggested by noble feelings, merely enthusiastic thought-
lessness. The humanity which is capable of progress can never
be anything other than the sum of living individual men, and
for them nothing is progress which does not mean an increase
of happiness and perfection for those very souls which had
suffered in a previous imperfect state. But the humanity
which is opposed to individual men is nothing but the general
concept of humanity ; this concept, however, which can neither
suffer nor experience anything, nor undergo any evolution, is
not the subject of history. Only individual specimens of
humanity, humanity of different periods, can, when com-
pared together, show a steady progress towards perfection ;
but the earlier know nothing of those which succeed them,
and the later know little of the earlier. What then is it that
justifies us in regarding these disconnected members as one
THE MEANING OF HISTORY. 147
humanity, and what is the meaning of an education which
does not do just that which is the very business of education —
which does not attempt to replace what is more imperfect by
what is more perfect in the same pupil, but throws aside the
half-educated scholar in order to bring forth better results of
culture in another ?
And the same difficulty at once recurs if we look not at
the succession of ages, but at each particular age itself. There
has never been a period of history in which the culture
peculiar to it has leavened the whole of humanity, or even
the whole of that one nation which was specially distinguished
by it. All degrees and shades of moral barbarism, of mental
obtuseness, and of physical wretchedness have ever been
found in juxtaposition with cultured refinement of life, clear
consciousness of the ends of human existence, and free par-
ticipation in the benefits of civil order. Humanity, at the
different moments of its historical progress, is never like a
clear and even current, of which all the molecules move with
equal swiftness ; it is rather like a mass of which the greater
part moving on thick and slow is very soon checked by any
little hindrance in its course and settles into inactivity ; there
is never more than a slender stream which, glancing in the
sunlight, struggles on through the midst of the sluggish mass
with unquenchable life and energy. It is true that sometimes
this stream widens out, and then occur those favoured periods
in which, at least for us who stand afar off, a general
enthusiasm of culture seems to seize a whole nation. That
it dues not indeed really extend to all, even we who live later
can see ; that it does not exclude very dark shadows of
sluggishness, of debasement, and of misery we should observe
more clearly if we stood nearer.
Now nothing is simpler than to give an explanation of this
if we regard history as merely a course of events arising from
the concurrent action of external circumstances and the laws
of mental life. A culture which does not merely mean
natural goodness of disposition, but includes also knowledge
of things, estimation of the tasks and circumstances of human
148 BOOK VII. CHAPTER II.
life, and consciousness of the connection between the individual
and society and between society and the universe, is not
conceivable apart from the most varied influences of education
and of continued intercourse with one's fellows ; but the
hindrances which have their origin in the external circum-
stances of existence, and which always stand in the way of a
general prevalence of such favourable conditions, are unfortu-
nately too obvious to need further mention. Thus the existence
of a vast spiritual proletariat, which there seems no possibility
of removing, is an objection which the idea of history as the
education of mankind must find it hard to overcome. Human
action must be content to attain its end only in part ; but it
is not enough that the divine guidance of history should
accomplish its aims only on the whole or in the majority of
cases. Conditions of mankind which, independent on indi-
vidual freedom, follow with inexorable necessity from external
conditions, should be susceptible of interpretation as instances
not of the failure of this guidance, but of ends intentionally
aimed at by it. And in fact such an interpretation has not
been wanting. As different trees, it is said, have different
bark, and each, whatever its rind, grows green and blossoms
in content, so mental endowment and external good fortune,
and with them the degree of culture attainable for men,
are variously distributed; there is progress enough if, not-
withstanding all these irremovable differences, mankind as
a whole wins higher standpoints ; enough even, if while the
mass of mankind remain ever in an uncivilised condition
the civilisation of a small minority is ever struggling upwards
to greater and greater heights. In answer to such a view
what can we say except that it sets forth a condition of
things which, alas ! we cannot question, but that it neither
offers any explanation which makes this condition more
intelligible or more endurable, nor shows us how, upon such
assumptions, we can be entitled to speak of an education of
mankind.
Let us, however, for the present reckon as among the many
puzzles "which we cannot solve, this inequality in the endow-
THE MEANING OF HISTORY. 149
ment and good fortune of men, and content ourselves with
the progress of the few. But however great this progress
may be, we would, finally, ask of this view which we are
calling in question, why precisely it was necessary that there
should be an education of mankind resulting in progress,
and why an end should have been set before us which could
only be reached along the tedious path of historical develop-
ment ? And it will not satisfy us to point out that the slow
course of gradual improvement was the only possible way left
open by the nature of mankind and the constitution of the
external conditions of life. The divine power, which is
supposed to direct this education, created the world, and man,
and all the conditions of his life ; it was open to it to
order them all according as it would. If, then, it chose to
educate mankind by way of history, it did not so choose
because hindered by the disfavour of circumstances from
endowing us with perfection in the beginning, but because it
willed that history should be, and willed to bestow upon us,
in gradual development, a greater good than that would have
been which it withheld.
This inquiry has indeed been so often and so unanimously
answered that we shall perhaps give offence by approaching
with such circumlocution and delay a philosophical question
the reply to which seems thus certain. Man, we are told,
must become in knowledge that which he is in fact; it
is not enough that he should be and remain in unreflecting
simplicity that to which by his mental constitution he is
destined, but he must realize it gradually and consciously as
his own work. The dignity of man lies in this, that he
does not (like the lower animals) with unconscious impulse
work out ends towards which uncomprehended motives
and favouring external circumstances mysteriously concur,
but that doubting, erring, and improving, he learns to know
his destiny, his duties, and his powers.
A survey of our own individual life will certainly easily
convince us that such development from unreflective exist-
ence to explicit self-consciousness is a mental gain of a
150 BOOK VII. CHAPTER II.
unique kind ; but can we in truth transfer to the whde of
humanity the value which we see that it has for the indi-
vidual, and is there not in such a transference an inexactness
similar to that which made the notion of education inapplic-
able to a succession of different individuals taken en masse ?
For can this inner work of development (in the comprehensive
and self-conscious remembrance of which the moral enjoyment
of life consists) be carried out vicariously by one individual
for another, or by one generation for another? Or does
history perchance exhibit such a steadiness of connection that
the minds of later times pass at least in outline through
the same evolutional struggles by which their ancestors weie
stirred ?
It seems to us that nothing of all this happens. In the
first place, each individual enters into life without any con-
scious connection with the past, but with those natural
capacities, wants, and passions of his species which are little
changed in the course of history ; and which, in as far as they
are changed, are yet for him who is born with them just as
much an unmerited and unconsciously received endowment
of Nature as the dispositions of our forefathers were for
them. Thus furnished each goes through the experience of
his life, each passes through his own evolutionary struggles,
and all these also are essentially similar. The influence of
history first begins when the individual encounters the results
of the labours of his immediate predecessors in the conditions
into which he finds himself born, to which he has to grow
accustomed, and which he has to use and to combat.
Without doubt the form of development which the indi-
vidual passes through is modified in the course of history ;
but it is not by any means modified in such a way that every
one who comes later has a view of the course of human
development which is fuller and more conscious in proportion
as the time is longer during which past ages have been
endeavouring to struggle upwards through individual stages
of evolution. For by this spiritual labour, which wins
positions from which it can itself make a fresh start, con-
THE MEANING OF HISTORY. 151
scions knowledge is propagated either not at all or most
imperfectly ; what happens is that its finished results enter
as a great aggregate of prepossessions, of which the foundation
is forgotten, into the culture of him who comes after. They
may in this way often make it possible for him to mount
higher than those who preceded him; but nearly as often
they are, as inherited limitations of his intellectual horizon,
hindrances in the way of a development which would have
been possible for him if this historical dependence had not
existed. But in both cases the way in which the culture of
past times is for the most part handed down, leads directly
back to the very opposite of that at which historical develop-
ment should aim ; it leads, that is, to the formation of an
instinct of culture, which continually takes up more and more A
of the elements of civilisation, thus making them a lifeless
possession, and withdrawing them from the sphere of that
conscious activity by the eSbrts of which they were at first
obtained. No fortune, it is said, is transmitted undiminished V^
to the third generation ; and this is very natural ; for the
first inheritor is born and brought up in the presence of the
activity by which the fortune was accumulated, and if the
desire to increase it leaves him, the desire to preserve it
generally remains ; the second inheritor born in full possession
of the wealth knows nothing of the worth of the labour which
created it ; thus the third has to begin the same cycle afresh. . •
The same thing happens with the store of culture which
history accumulates. It is true indeed that the results of
the latter cannot be so easily dissipated, as on the other hand
they cannot be so completely transmitted ; but the elevating
freshness and joyousness, full of prophetic insight, that dis-
tinguish an age of invention and discovery, are not trans-
mitted to the ages which are its heirs. Scientific truths,
hardly-won principles of social morality, revelations of
religious enthusiasm and artistic intuition, are all subject
to this devitalization ; the greater the amount of this wealth
which is transmitted to later generations the less is it a living
possession, even when outwardly recognised and retained,
152 BOOK VII. CHAPTER IL
which it not always is. That which once, when it first arose
upon the intellectual horizon of the past, was in truth a
living enlargement of the soul, and a perception, full of mean-
ing, of some new aspect of human destiny, is, in the hands of
later generations, like a worn coin which one takes at its
nominal value, but without knowing what are its image and
superscription.
In no department is the progress of mankind more un-
questionable than in that of science, although even here it
has not been continuous, interruptions caused by long periods
of barbarism having often made necessary the rediscovery of
forgotten truths. But first of all we may note that this
progress has brought about the strange result that the whole
field of knowledge has become too vast to be within the grasp
even of those who are expressly occupied with its cultivation
How odd and yet laow accordant with fact it is to speak of
" the lofty position of science now-a-days." What is science ?
Not truth itself, for this existed always, and did not need to
be produced by human effort. So that science means simply
knowledge of the truth ; but this knowledge has become so
vast that it can no longer be comprehended in the knowledge
possessed by any individual Such is the strange life of
science now-a-days ; it exists, but for any individual it means
only the possibility of investigating and learning to know
each of its parts ; in no mind does it exist in completeness,
approximately in but a few, and hardly at all in the mass of
mankind. We see that now, as in all former ages which
were in possession of extensive and varied scientific know-
ledge, individual men take up particular branches, and on
those small battlefields fight out the most passionate com-
bats, combats which sometimes seem to jeopardize all that
has been gained by human culture. The progress of science
is not therefore, directly, human progress ; it would be this
if in proportion to the increase of accumulated truths there
were also an increase of men's interest in them, of their
knowledge of them, and of the clearness of their insight con-
cerning them. Without denying that some periods of history
THE MEANING OF HISTORY. 153
liave to a certain extent fulfilled these requirements, we can
hardly say that, looking at history as a whole, it exhibits a
steady improvement in this respect.
But it will be objected that the progress of mankmd
towards perfection is to be sought not only in the advance
of conscious knowledge, but also in the beneficent effects
upon men's condition which science leaves behind even when
it has itself passed out of consciousness. These effects have
been eloquently described, and we willingly admit that even
in the more tangible deposit of material improvements which
everyday life owes to advancing knowledge, there is, besides
the mere convenience and the increase of comfort, also a
certain mental gain and a certain civilising power ; the mere
presence of refined surroundings may have a modifying and
elevating influence upon those vague general moods which
make as it were the background of all our endeavours. But
while we do not deny the value of this progress, neither
would we overestimate it. Custom soon diminishes it. A
new discovery excites lively interest for a time, but it soon
falls back into the rank of those natural objects and events
by which we are always surrounded, the mysteriousness of
which no longer has any exciting effect upon us, owing to the
lack of novelty. At the most now and then in a moment
of passing absorption in a thing, we think. After all how
striking this or that discovery is — or. How it has helped on
human intelligence. But most commonly it happens that
men thoughtlessly enjoy the fruits of inventions with a certain
coarse unthankfulness, without a gleam of interest or curiosity
with regard to the mental labour which produced them, and
as though it were a matter of course that their poor life
should be adorned by such uncomprehended blessings.
Hence we are justified in affirming in conclusion, that
however great human progress may be, yet at all times
men are but very imperfectly conscious of this onward
movement, of the point in the path of advance at which
they may happen to be at any moment, and of the direction
whence they came and whither they are going. If it is
154 BOOK VII. CHAPTER II.
their destiny to become conscious of that for which they
are designed, it may indeed be that they attain such a con-
sciousness, but they attain it without themselves noticing or
feeling its gradual awakening; it cannot be said that men
grow to what they are with a consciousness of this growth,
and with an accompanying remembrance of their previous
condition. Therefore the notion of education, when trans-
ferred from the individual (with reference to whom it is in-
telligible) to mankind as a whole, solves none of those doubts
which the consideration of history awakens in us.
8 3. Will they be any better solved by another theory, the
favourite of the immediate past, which has long been im-
patiently awaiting our consideration ? According to this
theory the education of mankind is an antiquated and un-
suitable phrase, although what it is intended to express is the
truth. This phrase gives the idea that God arbitrarily sets
before men ends which He might have refrained from setting
before them, and leads them in paths for which others might
have been substituted. Hence the education theory involves
us in the misery of attempting to show the significance and
importance of a series of events which yet as products of
arbitrary will must remain inscrutable to reason, which can
comprehend only necessary consequence. Whereas, in fact,
the history of mankind (like all genuine evolution) is but the
realization of its own concept. All true existence, it is said,
manifests itself by emerging, as life, from that condition
of natural determination in which it originally is, unfolding
itself in a wealth of change and varied manifestation; and
finally returning as it were to itself deepened and enriched,
and enlightened concerning its own nature by the work of
development which it has passed through, and the fruits of
which it retains. It is by this law that mankind are stirred
and impelled to historical development. As the self-develop-
ment of the human mind, and as the very destiny and inner
necessity thereof, history can neither be a course to which we
are impelled by the arbitrary choice of an overruling purpose,
nor one to which we are impelled by the unintelligent activity
THE MEANING OF HISTOKY.
153
of external facts. But it becomes intelligible by reference to
the idea of humanity ; not only does this contain the ground
of temporal succession in general, but we may deduce from it,
for each and all of the stages of historical development, the
strict and complete formula which constitutes the explanatory
principle of all the peculiar features of these stages ; finally,
this law teaches us to understand not only that progress which
is the rule, but also the strange retrogressions and eddies by
which the continuity of this progress seems to be interrupted.
35ut in our opinion this last-mentioned service is not
rendered by the view now under discussion ; the fact rather
is, that the way in which it admits incalculable chance and
arbitrary will in history alongside of the strict development
of the idea of humanity, is that which first gives us occasion
to test the validity of its confident assertions.
With regard to all phsenomena we feel that we have a
twofold task — we have to explain step by step the possibility
and mode of their occurrence, and we have to unravel the
rational signification which is the justification of their exist-
ence and of all the assumptions which they presuppose. The
philosophical view which gives rise to the above-mentioned
conception of history, does not conceal its conviction that the
Meaning or the Idea, to the realization of which every chain
of events and every creature is destined, constitutes its real
being, and that to search out this innermost fount of life is
the supreme task of all (even of historical) investigation.
But it cannot at the same time conceal — however willing it
may be to do so — that it lacks a definite notion of the relation
of the Idea to the practical means of its own realization. It
must allow that all which happens in history is only brought
to pass by the thoughts, feelings, passions, and efforts of in-
dividuals, and that the ends towards which all these powers
with their living activities are striving, do not by any means
necessarily coincide with those towards which the develop-
ment of the universal Idea tends. And the only addition
which in the last resort it can make to this confession is
that the Idea does yet prevail — nay, does on the whole ex-
166 BOOK Vn. CHAPTEK II.
clusively prevail — notwithstanding, and in, and with, and
among all these confused, conflicting, and discordant struggles,
whose powerlessness easily leads to contempt for that which
thus cannot be turned to account. Hence this view has in fact
often enough declared that individual living minds really
count for nothing in history, that they are but as sound and
, smoke, that their efforts, in as far as they do not fall in with
the evolution of the Idea, have no worth and significance in
themselves, and that their happiness and peace are not among
the ends of historical development. The course of history is
as the great and awful and tragic altar on which all individual
life and joy is sacrificed to the development of the universal
( Idea of humanity. And it is just here that we find the expres-
sion of the essential difference which distinguishes this view
from the preceding one, with which in other respects it has so
much in common. He who speaks of education naturally means
the education not of a concept, but of some living thing which
is only marked out and named by the concept, and which alone
could be capable of rejoicing in its own development. This
interest in an attainable good which history is to realize, and in
a realm of living creatures who can enjoy the happiness of this
realization, we must, if we have not got rid of it already, learn to
sacrifice to our veneration for the Ideal-development theory.
I How much wc have it at heart to oppose this theory will
' be readily understood. Above all, we must note that only
C^ he who would reverence history as an enigma without seek-
ing for its solution, can be satisfied with the mysterious con-
cord between what is required by the evolution of the
Idea, and the results of individual efforts which are in-
dependent of it. On the other hand, he who looks for a
solution may take either of two courses ; whichever of
these he may choose, he is bound to begin by stating
clearly who or what the mind of humanity is of which history
is the development, and where this mind is to be found.
The first course begins with the statement that it exists only
in the countless multiplicity of living men, contemporaneous and
successive, of whose nature it is the common feature, and that
THE MEANING OF HISTORY. 157
it has no independent existence outside of, among, or beside
them. From an analysis of this general character of humanity
(for this is what the present view comes to), and at the same
time of the external conditions presented by the earth as the
stage of life, we should deduce the consequence that the kind
and degree of civilisation which would furnish the greatest
possible amount of development and satisfaction of all human
capacities would not be attainable in the course of a single
life, but only in a series of generations of which each would
start in its course from the stage of development reached by
that which had preceded it. Then we should bethink us that
this development would be worthless if it took place with the
unfailing regularity of a natural process, and that living minds
were not formed to realize a steady progress determined in
complete independence of any free choice on the part of the
agents, even supposing that such a progress were in itself
desirable. We should expressly point out the unconstrained
freedom of all the living elements, the action and reaction of
which does, notwithstanding, form the foundation of a steady
course of history. Now natural science sometimes shows that
the irregular minute and conflicting molecular movements of
a mass not only do not affect the uniform molar movement of
the whole, but are, for intelligible reasons, incapable of alter-
ing it. In the same way we should have to show that the
irregular will of the individual is always restricted in its
action by universal conditions not subject to arbitrary will —
conditions which are to be found in the laws of spiritual life
in general, in the established order of Nature to which this
life is bound by its immutable wants, and finally, in the
inevitable action and reaction between the members of a
soul-endowed community. This problem is not new, nor
have there been wanting attempts at its solution. Indeed,
this is the sense in which the calm and practised observer of
men and things is accustomed to understand history. By the
nature of men's minds, which is always essentially the same, by
the sameness of their needs, and by the constant similarity
v/hich exists between the circumstances of different lives, an
158
BOOK Vn. CHAPTER II.
obstacle is, sooner or later, opposed to the flood-tides of caprice,
and only those less violent movements can continue which corre-
spond to these conditions with their gradual changes. In this
view, then, history is regarded as a development of the concept of
humanity, not only in -the self-evident sense that nothing can
happen in the course of history which did not pre-exist as a
possibility in the general character of the human constitution,
but also in the sense that in general and on the whole only
those phases of development are durable and succeed one
another which correspond to the destiny which is appointed
for the spirits of men.
The view which we are combating scorned this course. It
was unwilling to regard history as merely the result of a
multiplicity of forces working together ; it preferred to con-
sider it as proceeding from the unity of a single impelling
power, pervading the whole course of historical development.
In that case the mind of humanity, of which history is to
cohstitute the self-development, must certainly be differently
defined. It will not help us here to give it the name of
Infinite, or Absolute, or the Universal World-Spirit, in as far
as this, being engaged in the more comprehensive work of its
own development, takes on the form of human existence in
order to pass through the series of phsenomena which are
necessary to it at this stage of its course. For if this world-
spirit is dispersed about in innumerable individual men with-
out existing complete in any one of them, how can it guide
the reciprocal action of all these (for their power of free choice
is not to be denied) in such a comprehensive fashion as to
bring about a development conformable to its own concept ?
It would clearly contribute to this result in is far as it is
present in all individual men as that mental organization
which is common to them all ; but it would thus only
confine their development within the bounds of what is
possible for such a constitution, without positively marking
out the course and the definite forms of the ilevelopment.
If more than this is intended, the higher unity oi history can
only be reached if that one spirit which ought, with deliberate
THE MEANING OF HISTORY.
.159
forethought, to pervade history and to interpenetrate it with
the unity of its own aim, is regarded as being in truth an
actual living spirit, having an existence of its own, among, or
beside, or beyond, or above individual spirits, and not involved
in the necessity of their development as being the substance
which undergoes development, but enthroned above them as
the power by which they are produced. In other words, this
second path leads back to the idea of history as a divine
education of mankind, as on the first path we were led to
regard it as a natural process in which everything happens
which logically results from previous circumstances. The
doctrine of the realization of the Idea in history appears in
these two distinct modes of thought ; but the adherent of the
doctrine will doubtless continue to maintain that it presents
not a confused blending of the two, but their combination in
a higher speculative unity.
But in sober truth this view, with its low estimation of
individual life as compared to the development of the Idea,
gives us but a stone in the place of bread ; and we must
consider this point more in detail, since we foresee that very
many will be honestly inclined to profess the opinion which
we censure. There are no errors which take such firm hold
of men's minds as those in which, as in this, inexactness of
thought Tind lofty feeling combine to produce a condition of
enthusiastic exaltation.
Tor clear knowledge it is necessary that to every concept
we should add in thought all those connections without
which its meaning would be unintelligible ; but owing to the
eager haste of thought and speech these connections are very
commonly passed over unnoticed. In our varied and complex
civilisation there are many thoughts which seem to have a
stamp of intellectuality and a certain striking elegance and
simplicity, because they detach from the soil of common
experience and transplant as it were into empty space, apart
from all explanatory surroundings, ideas familiar to us in
everyday life, where we observe, patiently and minutely, all
the conditions on which their validity depends. This fate
160 BOOK VII. CHAPTEK II,
has overtaken the idea of phcenomenon or appearance among
others. It is plain that in order to be intelligible this idea
must presuppose not only a being or thing which appears, but
also, and quite as indispensably, a second being by whom this
appearance is perceived. This second being may be called
the necessary place of the appearance, for nowhere except in
it does the appearance take place, being never anything else
than the image which the perceiving being, in accordance with
its own nature, draws for itself, of that other by which it is
affected. But this reference is almost wholly suppressed in
ordinary speech ; and when being and appearance are contrasted,
nothing is thought of but that one being which emits the
appearance as an emanation from itself — the emanation being
supposed to exist and appear on its own account, without
needing a second being, as a mental state of which only can
it attain reality.
Of course any mode of speech is harmless if men under-
stand what it really indicates, and limit its applications and
the deductions from it accordingly ; but both this under-
standing and these limitations are wanting in the present case.
What is called phsenomenon or appearance is at bottom only
the process which may become, or may cause, a phsenomenon
as soon as it affects a being capable of perception ; this pro-
cess is not the phsenomenon itself Now to the true notion of
phsenomenon there attaches a value which can by no means
be transferred to the process which precedes it ; that a being
not only exists, but exists for another, is not merely a fact like
other facts, but includes an element of pleasure ; it seems to us
that the worth of a being's existence (though not, of course, that
existence itself) is heightened and doubled when its image is
reflected in another, or when, speaking generally, its content
is not only there, but is recognised by some mind and is
advanced to be the object of some enjoyment, though it may
be only the enjoyment of understanding. He who asks.
Would a being exist if it did not appear ? can hardly mean
merely that the real existence of a thing consists in its going
out of itself, and in the emanation from it of an activity that
/
THE MEANING OF HISTORY. 161
is directed outwards. This going out of itself will rather be
understood as an emergence from the deafness, and blindness,
and night of a state in which it is uncognised and forgotten,
into the full clear day of awakened consciousness, of being
named and being known. For the poetical apprehension of
Nature the rising of the sun does not merely mean that the
sun which before was below the horizon now rises above it ;
it means also that it becomes itself visible and renders other
objects visible, and floods the world with an enlightenment
which, since it makes all things exist for one another, itself
constitutes day and awakening, and in fact the full reality of
that which before was, as it were, only potential. In the
same way, that appearance of a being, which we value and of
which we speak as of some great good, signifies always the
entrance of something real into a consciousness which takes \.
pleasure in it. This kind of appearance cannot be conceived
as the mere emanation of some being from which it flows
forth as a medium that shines by its own light — a kind of
light, in fact, the business of which is to give light to itself
and to the darkness, and of which this philosophy knows
so much, and optics nothing whatever. For an error it is
and will remain to treat that shining of light which exists
only in the perception of the percipient, or that semblanse
which exists only in consciousness, or that pleasure in a
phaenomenon wliich can be found only in conscious perception
of it — to treat all these as if they were occurrences that
could take place in empty space, merely proceeding forth
from one being without being received into any other.
Here we have to renew our old conflict with this mode of
thought. He who sees in history the development of an
Idea is bound to say whom this development benefits, or what
benefit is realized by it, I do not, of course, mean that there
should be merely pointed out to us in the later stages of
development, as the fruit of such development, some blessing
which was not previously extant, but that we should be
shown that the higher good consists in the previous absence
of this blessing, and in its gradual attainment by way of this
VOL. II. L
16,^ BOOK Vn. CHAPTER IL
evolution. But if we agreed to find enougli happiness in the
raere spectacle of a developing Idea, and to renounce any
further advantage to which it might conduce, yet even the
review of these thoughts as they march past would presup-
pose a world of spectators by whom it would be witnessed.
Who, then, are the spectators ? Either mankind themselves
while they are developing are conscious of their development
and enjoy the pleasure of this consciousness ; or God alone
surveys history while mankind undergo it unconsciously ; or
finally, there are individual human souls which are conscious
of the historical progress of the Idea, while the rest only
experience it as their fate and their lot in life.
The first of these answers cannot be given. Unquestion-
fibly mankind have in every age had some notions concerning
their own being and their destiny, notions which have come
to them from the conditions in life and the experiences which
fell to their share. We would not scorn these notions because
they do not constitute a collective consciousness, but merely
jin energetic mental bent which at the most is only intensified
to full reflection on particular occasions, and even then only to
one-sided reflection. But the mass of mankind remain quite
ignorant of the historical foundation of this feelincc which
pervades their life, and of its significant place in the whole of
historical development. Obscure traditions of the " good old
times," or unsatisfied longings for a better future, unsup-
ported by any knowledge of facts worth mentioning, are all
the philosophy of history with which the majority are
acquainted ; the subtle succession of the different phases of
development of the historical Idea is displayed quite without
effect as far as the consciousness of mankind on the whole is
concerned.
The second answer will be more readily given and more
willingly received, because it is apt to be understood as being
better than it is. For what view is there that might not join
in the modest confession that it is God alone who perfectly
understands the meaning of history ? But more than this is
involved. History being understood as the development of
THE MEANING OF HISTORY. 163
the concept of humanity which is cognizable by God alone, it
must also be the case that this development alone is the end
and aim of history, while all which finite beings do and suffer,
hope and fear, strive for and avoid, attain or fail of, is but as
part of the machinery and trappings which the divine mind
employs in order to bring before its own view this spectacle
of the evolution of the concept. I know that no one will
lightly profess this view in its undisguised repulsiveness as
his own conviction ; still in reality it is to only too large an
extent at the foundation of philosophies of history. It is not
indeed conceivable that in surveying the tragic course of
events the soul of the observer should remain wholly unsym-
pathetic and not be, at least occasionally, surprised into
warmth of feeling ; but how often have we been admonished
to rise superior to the softheartedness of this sentimental mode
of regarding history, and to learn that it is only the necessary
progress of the concept that is of consequence, and not the
happiness or misery of men ! And further, what is repulsive
in the picture which we have drawn is certainly less striking
from the fact that it is seldom God who is spoken of as the
spectator of this show, but generally a World-spirit, or an
Absolute, or a self-conscious Idea. The unbearableness of an
egoism which could use a world of sensitive creatures merely
as material for its own refined amusement is, of course,
softened when the nature of the egoist is so obscurely con-
ceived, and so removed from all similarity to ourselves, that
we are left without any standard for the estimation of moral
worth. And for the rest we gain nothing by this change of
expression. For an inscrutable impersonal primal being in
the place of the living God might indeed govern the world
and us as a supreme power, but could not be the source of
any obligations or any duties. Therefore the assumption of
such a being, even if it really explained the external course
fof history, would deprive the inner development of history of
a most effective spring. For however large a share chance
may have had in determining the course of events, something
at any rate is due to the honest efforts of mankind who with
164 BOOK VII. CHAPTER IL
a sense of sacred duty towards posterity have laboured to
preserve and to increase their possessions. If we were forced
to believe that all personal life is but a stage of development
through which an impersonal Absolute has to pass, we should
either cease our efforts, since we could discover no obligation
to co-operate in helping on a process totally indifferent both
in itself and for us, or — in case we held fast the treasure of
love and duty and self-sacrifice of which we find ourselves
possessed — we should have to confess to ourselves that a
human heart in all its finitude and transitoriness is incom-
parably nobler, richer, and more exalted than that Absolute
with all its logically necessary development.
We may pass over the third answer very briefly. No one
can seriously believe that history takes place in order that it
may be philosophically understood by philosophers ; the fact
is indeed that there is not even a philosophy of that which
has taken place.
But there is another consideration which will be opposed
to our rejection of all these answers. An Idea, it is said,
Eot only exists in the consciousness of him who apprehends
it or reflects upon it ; it is also really and effectively
present in things themselves and their connections. It is
present as an existing condition before the attention of
thought, which comes later, has been directed to it ; and it
is plain that it would continue its previous existence, and
that its validity would suffer no detriment, even if the gaze
and the reflection of a thinking being should never be directed
towards it, making the content of the Idea an object of its
own consciousness. If, therefore, only a few individual
minds, or even if no one at all, were conscious of the Idea
which is operative in history, it would nevertheless continue
to exist in order that, unconscious and unknown, it might
guide the destinies of the human race. Mankind as a whole
would then be comparable to an individual man who is
imceasingly conscious of pain or pleasure, or some other
sensation resulting from his bodily organization, without
knowing the Idea or plan in accordance with which the
THE MEANING OF HISTORY. 165
forces of his organism are combined to reciprocal action. We
ourselves, however, may be compared to physiologists who
investigate the laws of this action, and we should not regard
the Idea which orders the system of vital functions as being
the less efficient or the less worthy of investigation because the
living man generally remains unconscious of it, and because
it was unknown to us up to the moment of its discovery.
This analogy, which is a just one, needs only to be pursued
in order to refute the objection which it is brought forward to
support. For surely we should hardly hold that those rela-
tions of organic forces can, while they remain hidden,
constitute the aim of life, or that the living body is destined
merely to realize ordered activities working altogether in
obscurity. In the sensations which we experience in some
way not yet understood, in the pleasure and displeasure which
are the final result of some secret action of our organs, in the
supple activity of our limbs, and the joyous sense of that
power over them which is ours we know not how — in all this
it is that the life of the body consists. On the other hand,
all that unknown activity is to be reckoned as part of the
mechanical means which exist, not on their own account, but
in order that these higher results may be realized. In this
sense the secret development of an Idea may indeed be con-
sidered as the guiding clue of universal history, and this clue
may remain for ever unknown, provided only that the succes-
sion of benefits which are attached to it, and which go on
increasing, are enjoyed and known. But a view which
accepted this interpretation would not differ essentially from
that which regards history as resulting necessarily from the
co-operation of the spiritual nature which is in us and the
material conditions of life which are without us. It would
be distinguished from the latter view by only one peculiarity,
and that one of very doubtful value — it would believe, that is,
that the manifold impulses which have their source in the
human mind, and are operative in history, can be compre-
hended under the one name of the concept of humanity, and
that the separate investigation of those gradual changes which
166 .BOOKVn. CHATTER n. -
these impulses undergo in course of time, may be replaced by
the one general formula of a development, assumed to be
logically necessary, of that concept.
But just this interpretation, which we allow, is by no means
contemplated by the views referred to ; they imagine that they
have found in that hidden self-development of the Idea not a
serviceable means, but the final sense and aim of historic
evolution, not a guiding thread on which are gradually strung
the substantial goods of life, but the Supreme Good itself. And
I to this we must unceasingly renew an opposition often offered
before. In the order of the world a never-to-be-explained
mystery may possibly shroud the means used to attain the
ends aimed at, or the laws in accordance with which these
means work ; but it would be the most preposterous form of
mysticism to suppose that there could be ends in the universe
which, although no one knew of their content or fulfilment,
should yet continue to be ends, or blessings which were so
ruysteriously hidden that no one could observe them or rejoice
because of them, and which should yet continue to be blessings,
and indeed to be the greater and more sacred the less this
incomprehensible veil was ever lifted from them. That
which is to be a blessing has its sole and necessary place
of existence in the living consciousness of some spiritual
being ; aU that lies outside of spirits, external to them,
between them, before them, or after them, all that is
mere matter of fact, or thing, or quality, or relation, or event,
belongs to that impersonal realm, through which indeed the
way to blessings may lie, but in which blessing can never be.
[ As long as we have breath we will strive against this super-
' stition, which though so calm is yet so frightful, spending
itself wholly in veneration of forms and facts, knowing nothing
whatever of true, warm-hearted life, or overlooking it with iu-
I comprehensible indifference, to seek the innermost meaning of
I the universe in observing a secret etiquette of evolution. And
yet how often do we encounter this superstition ! We have
seen it shrink back— like a sensitive plant at a touch — when
natural science has cheerfully enlarged upon all the efficient
THE MEANING OF HISTORY. ^67
means upon which depend the joyousness of animal life,
its abundance of physical satisfactions, its sense of vigour,
its joy in the varied changes which it experiences. "What
this superstition thinks of importance is not that there
should be a vigorous, joyous, self-conscious reality, but that
there should be a show — that everything which exists should
recall symbolically something which itself it is not, should
ring in unison with activities which it does not exercise,
with destinies which it does not experience, with Ideas of
which it remains ignorant. And wlien in history tlie rich-
hued ardour and passion of human life are unfolded before
the adherents of this doctrine — the inexplicable peculiarities
of individual minds, the disturbing complications of human
destinies which, in many respects alike in their outlines, are
yet inconceivably various in their individuality — when this
great picture is opened before them, then they rise up and ask
if there is no way of reducing this grandeur back to something
poor and small — of reducing lacTc, in sober truth, for we go
backwards and not forwards if we allow the tedious emptiness
of a logically necessary development to be imposed upon us
as the final meaning and end of the universe. And therefore
will we always combat these conceptions which acknowledge
only one half, and that the poorer half, of the world ; only the
unfolding of facts to new facts, of forms to new forms, and
not the continual mental elaboration of aU these outward
events into that which alone in the universe has worth and
truth — into the bliss and despair, the admiration and loathing,
the love and the hate, the joyous certainty and the despairing
longing, and all the nameless fear and favour in which that
life passes which alone is worthy to be called life. And yet
no doubt our combating will be wholly in vain, for those
whom we oppose will ever seek afresh to cover the imperfec-
tion of their ideas with the cloak of a generous putting aside
of self ; they will always be ready to profess anew that there
is a meaning in saying that phsenomeua happen even when
they are not seen, that symbols are emUematic even when no
one understands them, that Ideas are expressed by matters of
168 BOOK VIL CHiPTER II.
fact even when there is no one upon whom the expression
could make an impression. This sounding brass and this
tinkling cymbal will ever be struck anew ; or rather this
brass which does not sound and this cymbal which does not
tinkle, for sounding and tinkling have their purest and highest
value for this mode of thought, when considered as what they
-^ are in themselves wlien no one hears them.
S 4. But are we not mollified by another conception, which
does justice to the incalculable variety and wealth of history
and redeems it from the poverty-stricken condition of being a
mere logically necessary development of a concept, and accord-
•^ ing to which history is a divine poem, produced by God's
creative fancy, with the spontaneity and life of a genuine
work of art ? One might be in doubt as to the class of
artistic productions among which this poem should be reckoned;
to some it has seemed to have the uniform flow of an epic,
to others to be as full of catastrophes as a tragedy ; again, it
has not unfrequently been regarded as a comedy by mocking
philosophers in sardonic moods ; and each of these views
has seemed, to those who held it, to have something in it.
Meanwhile it is plain that the phrase contains, in the first
place, merely a comparison of the impression made upon us by
history with the similar impression which we receive from
poetry. The peculiar character of the impression is made
clearer by the comparison, but not so the causes by which in
both cases it is produced. Perhaps we might more justly and
more usefully make the converse statement, and say that
poetry derives its power from its similarity to history. For
art is never a mere playing with forms ; it is true and genuine
only when we recognise its forms as the same as those upon
which the cosmic order is based, and according to which
those events happen which, taken as a whole and in the
breadth of their simultaneous complications as well as in
their temporal succession, are just history itself. Because
< the epic brings before us with simple clearness this vast and
wide and variously agitated stream of human destinies, without
offering instructive solutions of particular difficulties, it has
I
TIIE MEANING OF HISTORY. 169
the same effect upon us as history itself, which with equal
reserve hides the secret of its whole significance under a series
of sharply defined events which stand out in strong relief.
So far the comparison of history with poetry is nothing
more than a graceful play of thought, going from one "
unknown to the other, and expressing each in terms of
the other without really making either of the two more
plain. But the comparison has something more in view. It
aims not only at comparing the finished poem with the course
of past history, hut also at comparing the production of the
work of art by the imagination of the artist, with the origin of
history, due to an equally incalculable spontaneity of the divine <-
mind. Something would indeed be gained if the essential
peculiarity of that artistic imagination could be defined in a
way that might be understood without again having recourse
to imagination. We do not know that this has been done.
For if we consider the information which we have concerning
this mental activity — concerning the spontaneity with which it
produces what is fair and what is repulsive, inventing examples
of the application of necessary laws with boundless licence
— concerning the perceptible justice with which it proceeds
in the combination of these arbitrarily constructed events,
without our ever being able to take a comprehensive and
intelligent survey of the whole — we find that in these charac-
teristics and others which have often been noted, the mystery of
history is reproduced in all its features, only it remains, unfor-
tunately, just as much a mystery as before. We receive no
enlightenment with regard to the origin of this divine fancy
or its ends, nor with regard to the way in which the concep-
tion of it may be combined with our other ideas of God,
or with the rest of our philosophy. Therefore, though we
willingly agree with this view in what it denies, we are in
no wise enriched by what it affirms.
§ 5. And now, after so many vain attempts to interpret the ^
progress of history, we will consider that opposite opinion
which altogether denies history in the sense of a progressive
development on earth. This view, too, is by no means a mere
1^0 BOOK Vir. CHAPTER II.
peculiarity of mistaken thought, making a casual appearance
now and again ; in ancient as well as in modern times it has
reached the point of the most pronounced aversion to every-
thing mundane, an aversion which has heen enthusiastically
carried into practice. Innumerable heathen penitents and
christian hermits have retained in their solitude a deep and
pervading conviction that human life on earth does not, as a
whole, piogress towards any ideal of perfection which is here
either attainable or even only aimed at, but that everything is
vanity. They regarded only the constant and unmediated
return of the individual heart to God, and its exaltation to
the supersensuous world as progress, and all other earthly
life as but a continual repetition of the old imperfections.
This, too, is a philosophy of history. It is probably based
upon less profound combinations of thought than the opinions
which point to a progress which is supposed to be perceived ;
but, on the other hand, innumerable sacrifices have proved it to
be a most living conviction, and it will continue to receive
fresh proof of the same kind ; for it is ordinarily our last con-
fession when we depart from life and leave behind us all the
plans, the carrying out of which once seemed to us a work
of such greatness and importance.
Shall we give ourselves up without reserve to this denial
of earthly good ? Would there not hence result an inactive
contemplative disposition which, by causing too early a
renunciation of all mundane gain, would abolish the conditions
of struggle after that which is supramundane ? Such retire-
ment from the world is conceivable only as retirement from a
world which one has known, from a life in which one has partici-
pated. It is only a remembrance of the wealth of mental
life, of the happiness and misery, the hopes and illusions,
which the social interweaving of human efforts includes and
produces, that can afford to solitary contemplation an object
of reflection in considering which it may develop its ideas
concerning the supersensuous life. He who has experhmced
nothing is made no wiser by solitude, and communion with
the phsenomena of Nature, and with the thoughts which would
THE MEANING OF HISTORY. 17 1
be possible for a mind altogether withdrawn from human
society, could lead to no better peace than that which the /
inferior animals possess.
But, as a matter of fact, it was not inevitable that
depreciation of what is earthly should be intensijfied to
such contempt for all living activity. Men may recognise
that the social relations of human life offer the sole
though intractable material by elaboration of which they are
enabled to work out the ideals towards which they struggle
and aspire ; and this recognition may lead them to devote
themselves with all their heart and soul to the tasks of earthly
existence. We show the perverse pride of human exacting- y^
ness in only taking pleasure in work, and only valuing
it when we are assured that the results of our activity will
hold a lasting place in the history of the universe, and will
have imperishable value. If we estimate more modestly our
performances here, regarding them as mere prentice work,
then we can in all seriousness combine with the preparation
for a higher end that calm resignation which will patiently
endure that our attempts here should be without progress or
lasting results. In proportion, then, as we estimated more
highly the immediate relation of each individual soul to the
supersensible world, the value for mankind of the coherence of
history would sink ; history, however it may move forward '
or fluctuate hither and thither, could not by any of its move-
ments attain a goal lying out of its own plane, and we
may spare ourselves the trouble of seeking to find in mere
onward movement upon this plane a progress which history is
destined to make not there, but by an upward movement at
each individual point of its course forwards.
And, it is asked finally, is it not this unhistorical life that N
is actually lived by the greatest part of mankind ? For the
unrest and v.'iriety of revolutions and transformations, the
meaning and connection of which we are seeking, is yet, when
all is said, the history of the male sex alone ; women move on
through all this toil and struggle hardly even touched by its
changing lights, ever presenting afresh in uniform fashion the
172 rOOK VIL CHAPTER II.
grand and simple types in which the life of the human soul is
manifested. Is their existence to count for nothing, or have
we only for a moment forgotten its significance in scholastic
zeal for the Idea of historical development ?
By such considerations the inclination to an unhistoric
conception of human destiny is strengthened ; still this does
j^ not overcome the opposition of a moral sentiment which warns
us against giving up everything that we cannot understand,
and admonishes us to esteem the temporal advance of history as
a real good. Even that which holds us back from this recog-
nition, when we are considering its course scientifically — that
is, the unequal distribution, among successive generations who
know not one another, of an ever-increasing quantum of good
— is not felt as a misfortune in actual life. On the contrary,
^ that universal absence of all envious feeling towards future
generations which coexists with so much selfishness in detail,
is one of the most noteworthy peculiarities of the human
mind. And not only do we not in the slightest degree
grudge to this future the greater happiness of which we
ourselves can only have a prophetic foretaste, but it is further
the case that a vein of self-sacrificing effort for the establish-
ment of a better condition of things in which we ourselves
^ shall not participate, runs through all ages, having sometimes
a noble, sometimes a commonplace aspect, at one time appear-
ing as the conscious devotion of affection and at another as a
natural impulse, unconscious of its own significance and of
any definite aim. This wonderful phsenomenon may well tend
/ to confirm our belief that there is some unity of history,
transcending that of which we are conscious, a unity in which
we cannot merely say of the past that it is not — a unity rather
in which all that has been inexorably divided by the temporal
course of history, has a co-existence independent of time ; in
which finally the benefits produced in time are not lost for
those who helped to win but did not enjoy them.
This view will certainly not escape the reproach of marring
one of the fairest traits of human character by assigning to it a
basis of selfishness ; nor will it at the same time escape the
THE MEANING OF HISTORY. 173
suspicion of demanding from human hearts the magnanimity of
motiveless self-sacrifice when such self-sacrifice results from
love for others or for mankind without any thought of selfish
advantage. But these reproaches would show a misunderstand-
ing of the subject under discussion. We, too, would hold such
a thought of selfish gain far removed from the motives of our
action, but we cannot in the same way exclude it when we are
considering the structure of the universe. While we lay great
stress upon maintaining the principles of our conduct in all the
purity of unselfishness, we feel it equally important that the
world itself should appear to us as a significant and worthy
whole. We require our own happiness, not for the sake of our
happiness, but because the reason of the world would be turned
to unreason if we did not reject the thought that the work of
vanishing generations should go on for ever only benefiting
those who come later, and being irreparably wasted for the
workers themselves. All human longing to find a guiding
thread in the confused variety of history springs from the
unselfish desire to recognise a worthy and sacred order in the
system and course of the world. This longing has impelled
some who held different views from ours to sacrifice the sub-
stantial happiness of all individuals to the constant and
uniform development of a universal; but as we regard such
attempts as a misdirection of thought, we are impelled by it
to the opposite demand for a lasting preservation of that, the
continual destruction of which would render fruitless all effort
to develop even the universal itself Each, in order to keep
his own thought pure from selfishness, may exclude his own
happiness from this demand ; but he cannot avoid requiring
the preservation of the happiness of others, unless the world
itself, and all the flourish about historical development, are to
appear as mere vain and unintelligible noise.
This faith, being the interpretation of the results of historic
life, is connected with the self-sacrificing and provident love
which is the noblest spring of that life. The presentiment
that we shall not be lost to the future, that those who were
before us though they have passed away from the sphere of
^-i
] 74 .BOOK Vn. CHAPTER H.
earthly reality have not passed away from reality altogether,
and that in some mysterious way the progress of history
affects them too — this conviction it is that first entitles us
to speak as we do of humanity and its history. For this
humanity does not consist in a general type-character which
is repeated in all individuals, no matter how many they are,
or have been, or shall be ; it does not consist in the countless
number of individuals who are only brought together by our
thought into a unity which they have not in reality, since
as a matter of fact they are dispersed and some would
still be if the rest did not exist ; but it consists in that
real and living community, which brings together into the
reciprocity of one whole the plurality of minds which are
separated from one another in time, and in the particular place
of each in tliat whole being marked and reserved beforehand,
just as though the whole number had been already reckoned
over. And history cannot be a mere slender ray of reality
slipping on between two abysses of absolute nothingness,
past and future, ever consigning back to the nothingness in its
rear that which its efforts had won from the nothingness in its
van ; there must be a pre-established sum, in which the flux
of becoming and of vanishing away is consolidated to per-
manent existence. Where the human mind fortifies itself in
its efforts by an appeal to the spirits of ancestors or to future
renown, it does it with this idea ; an appeal to what is non-
existent is powerless — no appeal can be of any efficacy which
is not strongly penetrated by this thought of the preservation
and restoration of all things.
Such a faith is not easy in all ages. As long as the
limited purview of mankind embraced only the near distance
of a known past and the familiar surroundings of home and
clan, there was a powerful attraction in the thought that this
simple life, bounded at the one end by creation and at the other
by the last judgment, was a probation at the close of which
would begin the happy communion of all those who had been
divided from one another by the lapse of time. Our extended
intellectual horizon embraces a multitude of unlike nations.
THE MEANING OF HISTORY. 175
the indefinite ebb and flow of a far-flowing historical stream,
the ever uniform working of Nature, and the immeasurable
extent of the universe, and we can neither be satisfied with
such a brief and homely solution of complications which have
become infinite, nor can we find some different conception
capable of meeting our own more exacting requirements and
giving a clear representation of the ideal of which we are
conscious. Yet, notwithstanding, we . hold fast the primitive ]
faith, and do not find that we can replace it by explanations /
which have seemed more acceptable to the culture of our age ; I
on the contrary, it is only by presupposing the truth of this
belief that modern views can free themselves from the internal
contradictions in which we found them involved. For no /
education of mankind is conceivable unless its final results ) ,
are to be participated in by those whom this earthly course [
left in various stages of backwardness ; the development of
an Idea has no meaning unless all are to be plainly shown in
the end what that development is of which in past time they ^
had been the ignorant subjects. He who seeks a plan in
history, will find himself inevitably compelled to acknowledge (J^
this faith ; he alone can feel no need of it who sees in history
nothing but examples of universal laws of action, each
example due to the impulse of anterior forces, and not to the
attractive power of ideals as yet unattained.
But in truth our presupposition suilices only for the ^
removal of inner contradictions ; neither it nor our empirical
knowledge makes it possible for us to exhibit the plan which
history follows. Not our empirical knowledge ; for we are
well aware how small the sum of our knowledge is when
compared with all the wealth of life of which our planet has
been the scene, and how little the fragments which we know
make us capable of discovering the path that may have been
taken by the course of earthly history as a whole. And if we
did know all this which we do not know, it might still be doubt-
ful how far this earthly life could be understood as a whole
in itself and without needing the help of anything else to
explain it ; and our scientific insight is infinitely far ^rom
176
BOOK Vir. CHAPTER II.
penetrating all the ramifications of the connections by which
it may be bound up with a vaster universe, which perhaps
contains material for its completion. Thus history still seems
to us, as it has seemed in all ages, to be a path which leads
from an unknown beginning to an unknown end, and the
general views as to its direction which we believe we must
adopt, cannot serve to indicate the course and cause of its
windings in detail
I
I
and
B adv
H woi
L
CHAPTER III.
THE FORCES THAT WORK IN HISTORY.
Theories as to the Origin of Civilisation — Theories of a Divine Origin — Organic
Origin of Civilisation — Instance of Language — Importance of Individual
Persons — Laws of the Historic Order of the World — Statistics — Determinism
and Freedom — Uniformities and Contrasts of Development — The Decay of
Nations — Influence of Transmission and Tradition.
§ 1. nniVEiSr in antiquity reflection was in many ways
-■-i directed to the origin of that ordered life, in the
enjoyment of which men then found themselves, and there
jippeared even then the same extreme views by which opinion
is now divided. Human civilisation as a whole seemed so ^
wonderful when first apprehended that its origin appeared in-
comprehensible except as an express divine institution. Pioua
legends very early sought to find in the benefactions of the
gods the source of the commodities of human life, partly of
those whose origin is still an enigma to us, and also of many
others which would not seem to us to exceed the reach of
easily comprehensible developments of human powers. The
sense of the evil in society came to strengthen the melancholy
notion of a past Golden Age in which there lived innocent
men, with simple hearts, at peace with each other and with the
world, under the protection of the gods, until growing know-
ledge of the world brought coveting and strife — or perhaps it
was that these latter awaked men's slumbering capacities for
knowledge. With this picture of a fair beginning and an t,^
ill continuance was soon contrasted that of an origin of
brutal savagery, from which mankind, schooled by suffering
and experience and making good use of their lessons, gradually
advanced to the rich complexity of their contradictory,
wonderful, ill-fated civilisation. Both conceptions have
VOL. II. M
178 BOOK VII. CHAPTER III.
been repeated with innumerable modifications by succeeding
ages ; generally with a leaning to assumptions which inter-
fered with impartiality of judgment.
Even the old view, which opposed the theory of earthly
development to that of divine origin, set out from declared
hostility to all religious contemplation ; the rationalistic
Enlightenment (Aufkldrung) which long governed opinion in
modem times, was equally prone to express depreciation of all
which pointed to something more, in the dim beginnings of
history, than lucky chances and the ingenuity of busy brains.
This Enlightenment traced back the beginning of political life
to a convention entered into by honest men of remote antiquity;
language they traced to an agreement to use certain sounds as
the most appropriate means of communication ; the maxims of
morality were attributed partly to a general recognition of the
usefulness (accidentally discovered) of certain kinds of conduct,
partly to the precepts of far-seeing teachers ; and finally, the
origin of religion was referred to men's natural inclination to
superstition and the artful use of this by priestly cunning. In
all this, deliberate calculations, such as are known only to
a somewhat advanced civilisation, were made the producing
causes of civilisation itself, by the Enlightenment — which thus
failed in finding the solution of its problem. But it is not
this failure, destined perhaps to befall other attempts of the
same kind, which has sharpened the aversion of the present
generation towards this mode of looking at history ; it is
the obvious endeavour to represent all this (which must indeed
come to pass through the instrumentality of men) as though it
were the arbitrary product of human action. We cannot,
however, deny that the theory we are considering was due to
real need of enlightenment although it sought to satisfy the
need in a very inadequate fashion.
When the opposite view was revived, it exceeded all modera-
tion and all necessity by connecting the early history of man-
kind with supramundane beginnings, in ways which could not
afford the expected advantages even if motives for preferring
them, which were absent, had existed. In combating these views
THE FORCES THAT WORK IN HISTORY. l79
I would not refuse them the consideration which is their due.
That historical life was preceded by a primitive state of moral
holiness and profound wisdom, and that all succeeding ages
were taken up with the decay of this glory and a struggle
against the decay — such a wholly perverted view of history
as this will hardly find advocates in the present day. But if
there were such they need not be alarmed at the objection
that it is only development from the less to the more
perfect, and not progress in an opposite sense, that has all
natural analogies in its favour. He who has once come to
regard history as something more than a mere natural process,
who has made up his mind to regard it as part of a great and
divine plan of the universe, will also be secretly convinced
that to understand its course something a little more profound
may be needed than the simple formula of progress in a
straight line. That course may perhaps involve many wind-
ings which are only dimly intelligible to us, but which if
clearly understood would disclose a striking and living mean-
ing of infinitely higher value than the barren conceit of a
continuous advance uninterrupted by catastrophes. It is not
in vain that various ages and nations have worked out, with
devotion and longing, ideas of a fall from some better state of
existence, of temporal life as a penance, and of a final
reconciliation and restoration ; by doing so they have borne
witness that if the mind does not (thanks to material ana-
logies) forget its own being and nature, it is capable of
beheving something differing widely from a progress which
(having no loss to regret) is busied in producing with its own
hands all the goods that it requires. But historical investi-
gation, however far it has advanced, has come no nearer the
discovery of the existence on earth of an ideal primitive state,
■ and has in fact left it hardly disputable that our civilisa-
tion must have grown up from simple and indigenous
I beginnings along the path of a gradual and much interrupted
development.
§ 2. Such an admission, however, does not exclude super-
natural beginnings, only that in the place of an ideal
}
180 BOOK VIL CHAPTER IH.
condition of primitive men there would have to be substituted
t the thought of a divine education by which men's natural
powers should have been guided up to a point at which the
species had become capable of its own further development.
The addition, expressed or understood, of the opinion that
from that time forth the divine guidance ceased, shows us
that men imagine such guidance to have been exercised in
* primitive times in a more express and striking way than in
that later progress of history which it is just as impossible to
withdraw altogether from its influence. In order to estimate
this opinion we will consider it as manifested in more definite
views.
No one will attribute the beginning of human education to
intercourse with angels who walked in visible form upon the
earth. We find in primitive times, not infallible wisdom
which could not have been acquired from a merely human
standpoint, but signs of an active curiosity which sometimes
hit and sometimes missed the mark ; not a complete
systematization of society which would seem referrible tc
divine arrangement, but simple forms of life easily explicable
as the result of natural relations and natural sociality, and
more complex forms presenting a very human mixture of
pride and fear, cunning and violence ; not a faith the other-
wise unattainable truth of which must have come by revela-
tion, but religions in which aspirations after an ideal had
developed conceptions of very various worth ; finally, no
' primitive speech of divine construction, but from the begin-
ning a number of different manifestations of the common
faculty of speech. Faultless perfection in all these cases
might make it necessary to seek an explanation by reference
to constant intercourse with superior beings ; what we actually
find, however — mental activity generally, inventiveness of
intellect and vigorous constructive faculty, but not the
exclusion of error — all this does not demand such an
assumption.
But for this inapplicable conception may be substituted an
influence of the Godhead upon the human mind just as
THE FORCES THAT WORK IN HISTORY. 181
immediate though more hidden. We do not, it may be said,
seem to find in the course of psychic life as at present con-
stituted the conditions necessary for the initiation of a
civilisation capable of being hereafter transmitted with ease.
A state of the mental capacities differing generally from that
which we now see must have been the basis of such a
beginning, and this may perhaps have been transformed to
the existing constitution of mental life by the very reactions
naturally accompanying progress. This view takes two
different and more definite forms, neither very probable.
That the general laws according to which the events of
psychic life are combined in men and animals were different
in primitive times from what they are now (which is the one
form), is a supposition that to us seems incredible, and that
can in no case lead to any useful results. For other laws of
the train of ideas, if not reinforced by other and copious
sources of knowledge or by extraordinary mental activity,
would either (1) not lead to new and otherwise inaccessible
developments, or (2) would lead to developments merely
strange and singular; they could not lead to those from
which our historical civilisation has in fact grown up without
any substantial interruption. And the same would hold of
that other interpretation which sets forth that it is the moods,
the inclinations, the receptivity, and the aspirations of the
soul — which are subject to the general laws of mental life as
being the living objects to which these laws apply — that it is
these, and not the laws themselves, which were once constituted
and combined in a fashion different from that which obtains
in existing human nature. No doubt this significant psychic
nature may be very different in different individuals, since its
manifestations are not produced by general laws, although
they are formally determined by such, and the development
of their results similarly regulated ; but he who would
exaggerate the peculiarity of men's primitive, as compared
I with their present, mental state, likening it to the instinct of
brutes, to demoniac possession, or to the twilight of clairvoyant
182 BOOK VII. CHAPTER IIL
condition is not wildly aberrant and extraordinary phaeno-
rnena, but the beginnings of our own familiar development.
Therefore, without denying that the mental life of the earliest
antiquity may have been so different from our own that we
cannot fully realize it, we yet hold that the assumption of
unlikeness above referred to is not particularly useful even
when kept within the limits of moderation, and that when
carried to excess it is of no value whatever for the explanation
of that which we want to have explained.
I am compelled to regard with the same scruples a view
which seeks to find the nidus of that primitive mental con-
dition specially in the religious life, or in God's presence in
the devout consciousness of man. Certainly like-mindedness
in religion is one of the most essential bonds upon which the
union of a people can depend, and the greater the contrast
between the faith of any people and that of their neighbours
the more stubbornly often has such a nation kept itself
uncontaminated. But we should not be justified in asserting
that without the religious bond all other natural inducements
to social life would only suffice at most to constitute a horde,
not a nation. That language should have been the same for
all mankind in primitive times is not made comprehensible,
with regard either to its origin or its construction, by the
supposition of unanimity of faith ; and we are equally in the
dark as to what must have happened for a division of faith
(due to unknown causes) to have led to a confusion of tongues,
through which new and varying appellations were given to all
those objects of common life which were not in intimate
connection with the sphere of religious thought. It is easy
to give the general answer, that there is nothing so separate
and isolated in human life as not to be affected by religious
belief and its peculiar character. But if one is not satisfied
with the vague devotional thrill caused by this indefinite
expression of a true thought, one sees what degrees and pro-
portions there are in this connection of human things with
divine. Neither in life nor in science is it possible, necessary,
cr desirable that true religion should strive to exhibit what is
THE FOKCES THAT WORK IN HISTORY. 183
secular — the course of Nature and human freedom — as the
immediate shadow and reflection of what is divine; that it
should deny or grudge to these the comparative inde-
pendence with which, by native strength in the j&rst place,
they produce their own special results.
§ 3. We have yet to glance at a view, a favourite of
modern times, in which the idea of a mysterious beginning of
human civilisation approximates to the thought of natural
development. The rationalistic fashion of explaining every
coherent department in the whole frame of civilisation as
constructed out of a multitude of separately insignificant
accidents and inventions, having fallen into disfavour as a
caricature of mechanical action, it has become customary to
ascribe the forms of society, the growth of morality, the
construction of language, and the coherence of religious
belief, to organic development. Two points become prominent
when we ask what meaning can here be assigned to this term
organic — for which a long defence will have to be made if
at the last day account has to be given for every idle word.
In the first place, that which has an organic origin, being
withdrawn from the region of conscious invention and free
choice which belong to us as men, is supposed to grow
necessarily out of the innate constitution of our mental being.
And on the other hand, that also which is realized in the
intercourse of different individuals as an advantage of civilisa-
tion in which they all participate, is held not to result from
reciprocal action of which they are conscious or which can be
pointed out, but to be the immediate product of a mind that
is common to them all.
Now the rule within us of an unconscious necessity needs no
demonstration. Each individual sensation in us bears witness
to it, for we do not choose what the sensation shall be with
which we respond to the external stimulus ; every feeling of
harmony or discord which we experience is the involuntary
expression of something that takes place in us without our
comprehension or co-operation ; if a melody to which we are
listening is broken off unfinished, we are driven to seek for
184 BOOK VII. CHAPTER IH,
its conclusion, not because we understand at all why the
conclusion should be added, but because our soul, with un-
comprehended power, struggles to emerge from the state of
having begun some movement but not carried it out : and it
must be in the same way that in the case of more com-
plicated processes, causes of which we remain unconscious,
arouse our efforts and guide them with sure and arbitrary
power. Scientific research may perhaps some day succeed in
clearing up these obscure processes ; but however much may
be accomplished in this direction, the difficulties connected
with the beginnings of human civilisation would not be
lessened thereby. These difficulties are to be found in the
fact, not that a coherent whole of mental life is developed
in the individual soul, but that such developments occurring
in different souls coincide to form a common intellectual
possession. And it is plain that those who can find the
explanation of this in the notion of organic origin, labour
under a delusion.
Let us look at language for instance. Each individual
may be forced by an unconscious natural impulse to manifest
his mental condition by definite sounds ; but this manifesta-
tion becomes language only through the comprehension and
recognition of the hearer. Now capacity of excitation,
structure of thought, and connection of ideas, may be as like
as you will in members of the same tribe, but this harmony
would never impel them to choose with mechanical uniformity
the same sounds for the same ideas, and the same inflections
to express the same relations. For the spoken word is tlie
immediate reflection not of objects, which are the same for all,
but of the impressions produced by these, which are different
for different individuals. Indeed, in the same individual the
same stimulus does not produce at all times the same
impression, owing to his varying moods ; and language as it
grew up would greet objects with ever varying names if the
name once given did not blend so completely in our remem-
brance with the idea of the thing itseK that later, even when
we learn to know the thing from quite a different point of
THE FORCES THAT WOEK IN HISTORY. 185
view, the name recurs to us as one of its most constant and
important properties. And certainly also, with whatever
solemn obscurity we may imagine the organic speech-impulse
to operate, every sound must have been pronounced for the
first time by some individual mouth with lips thick or thin.
Originally it belonged to him only who had framed it ; it
could only become common property when others divined its
signification and repeated it with the same meaning. How
this happens is shown in a general way by the ease with
which children of very ordinary abilities master the materials
of speech without express learning, and grow familiar with
inflectional analogies. But the first origin of language still
presents special and unsolved difficulties.
If a great number of individuals with equal claims to
consideration had simultaneously taken part in its formation,
there would have been a variety of quite independent names
for some ideas, and hence a superfluity which would only
have been reduced by the subsequent necessity of reciprocal
intelligibility. This did perhaps actually take place to a
certain extent ; the heterogeneous store of roots which we
find in languages may be the result of a mutual adoption and
surrender of words formed independently by dijEferent men.
The same simple idea seems to have been originally denoted
by several distinct roots of different sound, which later
(because the supply was in excess of the need) came severally
to express the different shades of meaning attaching to the
idea ; thus it happens that there are not connected series of
words coresponding to connected series of ideas in such a way
as that, for instance, the names of colours should be more like
one another than like the names of impressions of other kinds,
or that the appellations of trees should have a greater etymo-
logical resemblance to one another than to the appellations of
birds. This systemless incoherence of the material of language
would indeed result if objects affected the linguistic imagina-
tion of a single individual not similarly, in as far as they
were similar, but in a way varying according to accidental
and varying conditions ; and we see that if language grew from
186 BOOK VII. CHAPTER III.
the concurrent contributions of many persons, there must
have been still more reason for this variety. It would have
increased past all possibility of comprehension if (as we
suggested above) the number of equally influential language-
builders had been considerable.
But there is no doubt that language did not spring into
existence like the statutes of a suddenly formed society, but
that it grew up gradually within a family, or clan, or tribe ; and
that as one generation succeeded another in the natural course,
the store of words already formed would be transmitted with
the same authority as other traditional arrangements. The
creative impulse soon dies out in any department when it
finds patterns provided, by imitating which its wants may be
satisfied. Therefore an existing word prevents others from
springing up to express the same idea ; or if they do spring
up, they disappear like the numerous words invented by
children, which are lost when their mode of thought grows
into harmony with that of adults. So it happened that only
so great a variety survived as resulted from a process of
mutual accommodation between the contributions of those
families (not very numerous) who had been independent
constructors of language.
But in this way we reach merely a generally used store of
words and not the grammatical construction of language.
There are very many different rules for denoting different
relations by compounding, blending, and modifying roots, and
each of these modes, again, allows of course of an innumerable
variety of applications. How among this abundance of
possibilities a logical construction of language could have
grown up is an enigma. Besides, one cannot believe that
such a construction could be produced in short time and by
few men ; but if we allow a long time, this does not make it
easier to understand how amidst the succession of different
generations and among a very numerous people, just one
single plan of construction out of the many possible, should
have gained universal recognition and mastery. One would
conjecture that in such a long course of time very many
THE FOEOES THAT WORK IN HISTORY. 187
varying attempts at construction would be made by many
different persons, attempts which could hardly have been
consolidated to the unity of one logical construction even by
the compensatory process of mutual accommodation. But do
we find this logical consistency existing throughout in the
grammatical construction of language, or are there here too
traces of a complex origin ? Do not most languages make
simultaneous use of different kinds of construction, using root-
modifications together with prefixes and suffixes ? Are there
not various forms of declension and conjugation having all the
same meaning and value ? In this abundance of forms — forms
which in all developed languages are the last to experience
the transforming influence of the principle which has come to
be predominant — we may perhaps find survivals of construc-
tions which were originally diverse. Is the superabundance of
cases, of tenses, and of moods really to be ascribed to an
inexpressibly delicate sensibility on the part of those with
whom language originated — a sensibility that from the very
beginning and as it were at one stroke provided, with syste-
matic completeness, for the expression of the finest shades of
thought — or can we not rather trace in these various forms
the remains of originally diverse attempts at formation of
language, which attempts — since they held their ground —
came as a consequence of their superfluity to be used for the
denotation of those fine shades of thought ? Eecent progress
in the investigation of language makes me feel more sure than
I did formerly that many of the latter questions may be
answered in the affirmative, and that many of the examples
adduced may be really conclusive; meanwhile what I have
said here is said not so much for its own sake as in order
to explain what that is which we are seeking, and which a
practised eye might perhaps really detect under other forms.
And however it may be in the special case of language,
our assertion will yet hold good in general. The origin of
every mental possession held by men in common supposes a
period in which by reciprocal appropriation, surrender, and
accommodation, the contributions brought by individuals and
188 BOOK VII. CHAPTER 111.
resulting from an organic necessity of tlieir nature, have
become blended into one coherent whole. It is only indi-
vidual living minds which are centres of action in the course
of history; every principle that is to be realized and to
become a power must be first intensified in them to individual
activity, and then, through a process of reciprocal action
between them, become extended and generally recognised.
How commonplace this remark is — yet it almost seems as
though through the unintelligent use of that comparison of
organic origin we had come to think that, when language
began, individual words fell ready made like snow-flakes from
the atmosphere of a general consciousness upon the heads of
individuals, or as if works of art, the results of national
imagination, could arise like clouds in the sky and grow
larger by the spontaneous addition of formless vapours.
^ 4. But this organic view of history would banish from
human life not only the mechanism of reciprocal action, but
with it also every element of chance. Among the most
choice accomplishments of the theory is the demonstration
{-post facto indeed) that events must necessarily have happened
as they did, and that being logically consistent developments
of the spirit of the age they could not have been prevented
by any exercise of individual free will. Now certainly no
individual power can make itself felt in history unless it
knows how to subserve some prevailing motive of action,
or is capable of in some way alleviating human suffering.
But on the other hand, those mighty men who through
inventive genius or obstinate constancy of will have had
a decided influence upon the course of history, are by
no means merely the offspring and outcome of their age.
In most cases the general spirit of humanity, the organic
evolution of which we extol, has produced no more than
a feeling of present pressure, a yearning mood, or a devout
desire for change. It has stated the problems, a solution of
which was wanted ; but the fulfilment of these desires and
the special mode of fulfilment are works the doing and desert
of which belong to a few individuals. In other cases there
THE FORCES THAT WORK IN HISTORY. 189
has not even been tliis precedent sense of helpless want, but
the heavy unintelligent opposition of the majority has been
laboriously overcome by the successful mental effort of a few,
who have thus given to that majority new aims of action.
And finally, where individual strength has actually taken up
the tasks of the age, there has perhaps seldom been an exact
accomplishment of what the moment required, no more and
no less ; in most cases there has been added much both of
good and bad which, extremely effective in itself, yet went
beyond the immediate need, or was altogether beside it. In
innumerable cases the anticipated development has been
interrupted ; the skilful calculation of far-seeing minds has
often been perverted by some strong tide of feeling from its
original purpose, and for long periods been used for artful
ends. Modes of thought which under appropriate conditions
were adopted by men of genius, have withstood progress for
centuries with incredible tenacity. Forms of art worked out
by great minds, but not of universal validity, have continued
to maintain their predominance when they had become out of
harmony with the altered dispositions of mankind ; and even
in science inherited errors drag on like a slow disease. What
we can thus observe now in history we would also claim as
explanatory of its beginnings. It is of course true that all
men had in early times similar capacities and wants, but all
did not take an equal share in satisfying human impulses; the
germs of civilisation did not, like the upward growth of a
young forest, shoot forth simultaneously over wide extents
with organic necessity and regularity, but the wandering,
incapable, uninventive impulse of the whole was indebted to
individual happy strokes of genius for its first distinct ideals
and the first satisfactions which paved the way of its advance.
Meanwhile this influence of persons no doubt varies in
magnitude in different domains of human activity, and accord-
ing to the divergent characters of different periods and the
multiplicity of conditions on which may depend the action
and reaction between individual force and the mass of man-
kind. It is dependence upon Nature which most universally
I
<l
190 BOOK VII. CHAPTER III.
rouses the inventive ingenuity of men, and the thoughts
which here help them to obtain what is most necessary arise
from such simple combinations of ordinary experiences that
the elementary furniture which we find among the most
different peoples — weapons, implements, woven stuff, and
ornaments — is easily intelligible as the production of a general
instinct without any special invention by individuals. But
all those higher and more refined aids which have led to a
more productive command over Nature, are connected with the
names of individual discoverers ; between its first beginnings
and the period of universally diffused culture to which we
are perhaps approaching, life has in this respect too had its
age of heroes. And as in other departments so here also
there is a gradual transition from one stage to the other.
When any sphere of thought (as for instance Natural Science
in the present day) has reached a grade of development which
furnishes not only innumerable factual items of knowledge,
but also general forms of investigation and clear indications of
the regions in which answers to yet unsolved riddles must be
sought, then the current of inquiry once set in motion pro-
duces in swift succession a multitude of useful inventions,
which seem to spring from the general mind. This seems to
be the case, because the multitude of individuals actively
interested, and the vigorous action and reaction between them,
throws into the background the particular contribution of each
several person. Further, the general laws which science shows
to be at the foundation of the vast commerce of modern
times, are familiar to every one in their application to the
simple relations of ordinary everyday life ; the ill results of
acting in opposition to them are so obvious in the case of
individuals, that a great number of slight modifications of a
man's course of action are the immediate result of any un-
successful attempt on his part to contravene them. Thus
it seems that the whole system of our arrangements for the
satisfaction of men's wants goes on improving progressively
by its own inherent force, and without needing to be pioneered
by the inventions of individuals. Nevertheless these laws.
I
TEE FORCES THAT WOEK En HISTORY. 19 1
like all simple truths, become hard to trace when with increas-
ing intercourse they have to be applied to a group of relationa
which are very numerous, and perhaps themselves either
unknown or modifying one another after an unknown fashion.
To have shown that these laws are valid, and how they are
valid, even under such circumstances, is unquestionably a great
achievement of science, and it has not been accomplished
without help from the creative genius of individual persons. ^
The arrangements of social and political life have also passed
through the two stages of development which we are here
distinguishing. The universal homogeneity of human nature
and its wants no doubt lead in the first place with uninventive j^
necessity to rules of intercourse which develop in the same
way and succeed one another in the same order everywhere.
But even if the purely indigenous development of a society
could be left altogether to the organic interaction of its own
individual forces, the political guidance of the society under
difficult external conditions, and the choice of the right path
at the right moment, would be always dependent upon the ■/ -I
wisdom or folly of individual men. Hence it was that
antiquity always set at the beginning of its political histories ^ —
the name of some individual lawgiver, not that they might
derive from the individual power of some master-mind, the
first foundation of order — since this indeed could of necessity
only be developed by means of the reciprocal action of a
number — but that they might derive thence the first firm
consolidation of that order, and such accommodation as had
been arrived at, of difficulties occurring in the application of
law to concrete cases. We scarcely need to add in conclusion,
that though often ill-defined forms of enthusiasm seem to be
of obscure origin, yet this is not the case with religions, which I ^r— -
never appear in history without some founder ; here too it
falls to the concentrated strength of individual minds to
satisfy wants which under similar circumstances are always
alike among the homogeneous masses of mankind.
The incalculableness with which, for human eyes at least, /_-
individual greatness influences history may seem to threaten
192 BOOK VII. CHAPTER III.
the logical consistency of all historical development, and to
reduce it to a continual fluctuation in different directions.
_t/ Yet any personal power requires for its efficacy the receptivity
of the masses ; the want of this or the presence of a hostile
disposition prevents the working out both of all the good and of
all the bad effects which a remarkable mind tends to produce,
and prevents likewise the realization of all the good exclusively,
or all the bad exclusively ; this is, of course, especially the case
with respect to anything which is in opposition to the require-
ments of the hour, or foreign to them. The more active the
reciprocal contact of men in society is, and the more intricate
their exchange of thought, and the larger the bodies of men
are among whom this contact and this exchange of thought
prevail, the more are those circumstances changed by which
the influence of individuals is conditioned. The scene of their
possible action is certainly enlarged, but the probable magni-
tude of their influence is decreased with regard to all that is
not a direct continuation or fulfilment of projects already
begun and wants already felt. For it is only where this is
the case that a man can reckon upon the collective strength
of a public opinion and sentiment which has already taken
into consideration all possible circumstances of life, and made
up its mind about them somehow, and which is not likely to
let itself be easily detached as it were from the soil to which
it clings by so many roots, and carried away by the arbitrary
will of a single individual into some new order of develop-
ment. Thus as the ascendency of leading characters seems,
even on an external view of history, to disappear as their
number multiplies, there arises a general activity of stimu-
lating and stimulated elements, presenting the appearance of
organic growth.
§ 5. Now the more the wholly incalculable disturbances
caused by free individual minds are in the end outbalanced
by the opposing invariableness of that human nature which
always remains the same, and those conditions of earthly life
which are always alike, the more are we entitled to inquire
for universal laws to which the historical course of things is
TflS FORCES THAT WORK IN HISTORy. 193
^uliordinated. ' The assumption of their existence is not j
incompatible with the idea of a plan by which history is i
guided. For though such a plan presupposes a unity of
history, involving the condition that each member of the
whole series can occur but once, and that no two are inter-
changeable, yet it may be that the above-mentioned similarity
between all the subjects of human history, and the parallelism
between the forces operating upon them, may produce resem-
blances between the course of one individual stage of develop-
ment and another, while if we take the whole series we find
that these resemblances are gradually repeated on higher and
higher levels, and are thus really specially distinguished one
from another. However, the attempt to mark out these
resemblances according to general historical laws is very much
impeded by the difficulty of determining the transforming
influence which the peculiarity of each member of the series
has on the course which we should expect to be taken by
those events with which he is connected, if we were guided
by the analogy of other examples. Hence, though history is
so much extolled as the teacher of men, but little use is made
by men of its teachings. Every age thinks that it must
regard the peculiarities of its wants and its position as new
conditions which abrogate the applicability of those general
points of view that are due to the reflection of previous ages.
And, indeed, many historical laws which have been spoken of
liX| are of very doubtful validity, and are hardly transferable from
'^" one period to another. They are often only applicable when
all the conditions of the individual case from which they have
Mt been abstracted are restored ; and when that is done they
cease to be laws, and become mere descriptions of that which
has happened under certain circumstances, and which we are
by no means justified in expecting to happen again under
^P similar circumstances. This inexactness appears in all cases
in which people, without being able to go back to the separate
effective elements of a complex event, attempt merely to
discover the final outcome of the course of events, by a com-
■ parison of experiences in the gross; the inexactness can only
K VOL. II. N
194 BOOK VII. CHAPTER m.
be avoided in these cases in the same way as in other cases!
We want a Social Mechanics which can enlarge psychology
beyond the boundaries of the individual, and teach us to know
the course, the conditions, and the results of those actions and
reactions which must take place between the inner states of
many individuals, bound together by natural and social
relations. Such a psychology would furnish us, for the first
time, not with graphic pictures of individual stages of historic
development and of the succession of the different stages, but
with rules which would enable us to compute the future from
the conditions of the present ; or to speak more exactly, not
the future from the present, but a later past from an earlier
past. For even in the construction of ideals it is best not
to be exalted above measure ; we shall never bring any such
mechanics to so great perfection as to be able by it to sway
the future ; it will be enough if it enable us to explain the
concatenation of past occurrences when they have occurred,
and if with reference to the future it establish probabilities,
action in accordance with which is wiser than any other
course.
Now it is natural that we should first seek to establish the
rule of such universal laws within short periods, during
which we may regard the whole sum of conditions upon which
the course of events depends, and which we cannot analyse
exhaustively, as an unknown factor which remains almost
invariable. And here men think they have discovered that it
is only where our view is bounded by a strictly limited
horizon that the appearance of freedom and indefiniteness is
presented to us ; that if in dealing with events, we take large
numbers and wide surveys, we find that not only does the
physical life of mankind proceed with well-established regu-
larity in life and death, in the relative numbers of both
sexes, and in the increase of population, but that also the
manifestations of mental life are determined by universal
laws, even to the number and nature of crimes committed in
equal spaces of time. Not indeed by immutable laws ; for
just as there is a slow change in the sum total of unknown]
THE FORCES THAT WORK IN HISTORY. 195
circumstances by which events are conditioned, so also there
is an alteration from time to time in the formula which
expresses the law of their occurrence. There is nothing, how-
ever, to prevent our conceiving of these very alterations of
laws as themselves subject to another and more compre-
hensive formula, since the changes of that sum total of con-
ditions on which these laws depend are due almost entirely
to the effects of those states of human society which
themselves come and go according to law. If by the
method of taking large numbers it has been made out at
what age, on an average, great poets produce their greatest
work, what is to hinder us from seeking to discover, not only
how many remarkable men of every kind (expressed either in
whole numbers or in decimals) appear in every century, but
also how in the course of thousands of years this proportion
alters according to some law ? We may easily imagine how in
this way all kinds of formulae may be arrived at, expressive of
the acceleration and breadth and depth and colouring of the
current of historical progress — formulae which if applied to
particulars would be found to be utterly inexact, but which can
yet claim to express the true law of history as freed from
disturbing individual influences.
Very closely connected with this way of regarding the
matter is one of the very worst of all the views which banish
freedom from historical development. That veneration of
forms instead of content — itself one of the most dangerous
errors to which our thought is liable — which is vindicated by
the view alluded to, could not be exaggerated in any more
senseless way than by the final acceptance of a mere realiza-
tion of statistic relations as the aim and the informing Idea
of history. He who, following oriental Pantheism, believes
not only that he encounters, as a matter of fact, in the order
of the world, an eternal alternation of genesis and dissolution,
but thinks that he may also regard this form of occurrence as
being itself the most profound meaning and the true secret of
K reality — he can at least give himself up with misty feelings
■ of enthusiasm to the awful and exalted pleasure which the
I
196 BOOK Vir. CHAPTER IlL
thought of such a course of events produces in us. He who
after any other fashion believes that he finds in history nothing
but the rule of an iron necessity, must hold that this is in
itself full of meaning ; he seeks to find this meaning in some
kind or other of justice, according to which the content and
nature of any condition of things being what they are, allow and
demand the effect which takes place. To such a concatenation
in thought, the motives of which at least are reasonable, the
mind may conceivably sacrifice the idea of its own freedom il
it finds in this scheme no place for it. But on the other
haud, it would be an instance of unparalleled perversity to see
the guiding ideals of the order of the world in the establishment
of regular numerical relations, or in the fact that events happen
in accordance with such relations. And yet here I am not alto-
gether beating the air, and my fear that even this attempt — the
attempt to make us thus believe in such " shadows in the cloud "
and nothing else — will be essayed, is not quite without founda-
tion. For we do actually meet, not infrequently, with what
is the beginning of this very error. It is with some pride,
and not without something of the thrill of awe which may
accompany the discovery of an ultimate mystery, that people
caricature careful investigations (the value of which we do
not depreciate), declaring that the tale of yearly crime is
paid by mankind with greater regularity than that of govern-
mental imposts. It is plain that in saying this they think
they have affirmed not a mere fact resulting from unknown
conditions and changing as these change, but a fundamental
law which with mysterious power can always find the means
of its realization, and work itself out whatever may be the
opposition of unfavourable circumstances.
This erroneous view will indeed hardly be put forth as a
doctrinal assertion concerning the meaning pf history ; but it
secretly disturbs just judgment in the matter by causing a
confusion of thought, and this the more easily because it is
not equally wrong with regard to all departments of events.
For among those phsenomena of human life which show such
regularity in their recurrence, we may certainly regard some
THE FOECES THAT WOEK IN HISTOEY. 197
as being subordinate ends of the cosmic order, oi merely
means to tlie realization of higher ends, and that will hold of
them, to a certain extent, which we denied to be of universal
validity. Most of such phsenomena, however, may be com-
pared to the impeding friction which, though it is no part of
the designed performance of a machine, must yet always bear
a certain determinate proportion to the size of the machine as
long as the work of this can only be accomplished by
mechanical means. But it is worth while to investigate a
little further the insignificance of the extent to which this
additional determination does away with existing difficulties.
The equality of numbers of the two sexes may certainly be
reckoned among those arrangements of Nature in which we
see means designed for the attainment of the higher ends of
life. But as even the causes are unknown which in any
particular case determine the sex of the child, so, much more,,
are those circumstances unknown which determine these
causes (that lead to different effects in the different cases) in
such a way as to obtain the unvarying gross result. The
logical rule which directs us to anticipate that diverse possi-
bilities, when there is no actual reason why one should occur
more frequently than the others, will all be realized with
equal frequency in the future, is no doubt for us a necessary
subjective maxim — and we have to regulate our belief in the
probable future occurrence of these cases by this maxim, for
Ij^^; the sake of practical ends ; but it contains no shadow of
explanation concerning the mechanism of those conditions by
which the equal frequency of two events is really brought
about in the cases in which it happens. And we get no help
from our general presupposition that the very possibility of
all reaction is based upon an essential and inherent con-
nection between all existing things. This presupposition
does indeed provide us with a general formal reason for
expecting that anything which happens in one part of the
world will react in accordance with some law on every other
part thereof; but — just because it seems so unquestionable that
all things in the universe are connected with one another — we
I
II:
^'
198 BOOK VII. CHAPTER in.
only remain all the more at a loss to explain the particular
and favoured connections which are closer and more effective
between some portions of the world than between others, and
upon the presence of which each individual determinate event
must depend. It therefore continues quite obscure by what
determinate arrangements mankind comes to form a complete
whole of such a kind that a preponderance of one sex which
has accidentally happened here, calls forth there, simul-
taneously or subsequently, a counterbalancing increase of the
other sex, the external conditions of life being so very dis-
similar, and we being entirely destitute of any idea of how
the necessary action and reaction could take place. And yet
not only does the fact exist, but we are doubtless justified in
considering that in it (if in any case whatever) one of Nature's
ends is attained^an end for the fulfilment of which pre-
ordained means will not be wanting.
The course of the spiritual life of society is still more
obscure. "We believe that from the number of actions of a
particular kind observed in a certain period which has just
elapsed, we can conclude to a certain number of similar actions
in an immediately succeeding period of equal length, only
because the sum total of natural and social conditions, upon
which they depended in the former case, alter but slowly, and
in short periods imperceptibly. But where such change occurs
spasmodically, we do not expect that a forecast made in reli-
ance upon the past will be applicable. Still this caution does
not remove all difficulty. Even the modified statement would
be fully justified only if we could regard the sum of unknown
conditions as a compelling force which would itself command
a definite result in a definite time ; which further, finding the
total resistance opposed to it to hold always a similar relation
to its own magnitude, would be capable of exercising in
every unit of time one and the same fraction of its energy ;
which could then moreover always make actual use of this
capacity by ever seeking and finding, like the pressure of a
compressed fluid, the points of non-resistance, wherever those
may be ; and which finally, for every portion of the result
THE FORCES THAT WORK IN HISTORY. 199
already produced would lose a corresponding portion of its
potential energy. Now in the case before us, how many ol"
these conditions are given ?
Let us take as an example offences against property. The
evils of the existing distribution of goods in a society have
active force only in as far as their pressure is felt. If then
we make not poverty but the feeling of want our point of
departure, can we say of this active force that there corre-
sponds to it as its natural effect a certain number of thefts
without any regard to the total amount of unlawful gain ? If
it further happened that in a certain condition of civilisation,
this power always encountered equal resistance, what would
be the explanation of the fact that it always finds for its
exercise the same number of favourable opportunities, and
that these should always be presented to persons incapable of
resisting them ? If, on the other hand, we suppose that there
always occur a great many more opportunities than are taken
advantage of, and that the numbers of those accessible to
temptation are equally in excess of those who actually offend,
it becomes only the more difficult to understand how the
number of offences already committed can so restrict the
number of those yet to come as to cause the attainment of a
definite sum total. So the connection of events which pro-
duces uniformity in the numbers of such actions, is altogether
unknown to us.
Just as little are we satisfied by the numerous attempts to
make the validity of such laws harmonize with individual
freedom of will. If (as has been done) we regard the com-
mission of a certain number of offences as an inevitable neces-
sity imposed upon society, it does not help us at all to add
that this necessity only necessitates the actions but does not
predetermine the agents. If human freedom cannot get rid
of the sum total of offences, the fact that the particular agents
are not predetermined does not leave individuals free — the only
thing that still remains doubtful is, whose unfreedom will be
taken advantage of next ? It has been said that if an insect
were to creep over any part of the circumference of a circle
200 BOOK Vn. CHAPTER HI.
drawn with chalk, it would see all round it nothing but
irregularly distributed molecules of chalk, though for an eye
that took these in all at once, from some distance, they would
be arranged in the regular definite order of a circle. If these
dots were beings endowed with souls, it might be imagined
that taken separately they had scope for free choice of their
position in the circle, while taken altogether they were bound
to contribute to the formation of a predetermined outline.
We reply that if an orderly arrangement of many elements
actually exists (for the circle has been drawn), it is indeed
easily intelligible that this arrangement can only be fully
taken in from particular points of view. But the unorder of
the elements when looked at from other points of view, is not
by any means the same thing as the freedom of those
elements. All those dots of chalk are perfectly fixed in such
relations as are necessary for the structure of the whole ; they
all lie in a narrow ring-shaped zone confined both internally
and externally by a bounding line that has no breadth. How
they are grouped within this zone is, as regards the form of
the whole, to a certain extent indifferent, and it is just to the
extent of this indifference that they are indeterminate. Kow
if the dots were living beings, this comparison would only
teach the simple truth that they had freedom of action in
those directions in which nothing had been fixed by general
laws ; thus if it chanced that such a law required in any
society a certain number of thefts, the agents would be free
'lot with regard to their thievish resolutions, but with regard
to whether for instance their thievish exploits should be
accomplished on horseback or on foot.
The dislike with which we hear of laws of psychic life,
whilst we do not hesitate to regard bodily life as subordinate
to its own laws, arises partly because we require too nmch
from our own freedom of will, partly because we let ourselves
be too much imposed upon by those laws. If we do not find
ourselves involved in the declared struggle between freedom
and necessity, we are by no means averse to regarding the
actions of men as determined by circumstances ; in fact all
THE FORCES THAT WORK IN HISTORY. 201
expectation of good from education and all the work of history
are based upon the conviction that the will may be influenced by
growth of insight, by ennoblement of feeling, and by improve-
ment of the external conditions of life. On the other side,
a consideration of freedom itself would teach us that the very
notion is repugnant to common sense if it does not include
susceptibility to the worth of motives, and that the freedom of
willing can by no means signify absolute capacity of carrying
out what is willed — either of the carrying it out in conflict with
the obstructions of the external world, or of that other and
internal carrying out by which the will suppresses the oppos-
ing movements of the passions. Therefore not only the
possible objects of men's endeavours, not only an idea of the
means to their attainment, are suggested to the mind by a
number of stimuli involved in the culture of the individual
and of society, but also that effective strength of the free will by
which it withdraws itself from being determined by passionate
impulses, is dependent upon the collective culture of society.
Hence there would certainly be no irreconcilable contradiction
between the assumption of freedom of will and the other
assumption that the sum of active conditions which operate
in any given state of society, hinder to a certain degree the
effectiveness of all free action, and produce a pretty uniform
amount of mere instinctive action.
flB It would notwithstanding still be wholly incredible that the
struggle of will and moral consciousness against all these
obstructive elements should be as exactly predetermined with
regard to its result as those statistical laws indicate. For the
'■P fact is that these laws do not measure at all that which we
should expect to be so predetermined. Such laws originating
for example in a comparison of tried and sentenced offences
presuppose that the number of crimes which become known
B bear an unvarying relation to the whole number of those com-
mitted, and of this primary assumption no proof that is by
any means cogent is possible ; indeed, if they are designed to
prove anything with regard to human freedom, they must
202 BOOK VII. CHAPTCK IIL
just as constant a relation to the number of tliose which have
been resolved upon or prevented, or have miscarried, and
indeed to the wliole multitude of m.ore or less serious tempta-
tions that have arisen in the recesses of men's minds. Not
only do they not do this, but deeds of murder and man-
slaughter being counted by the hundred, there are grouped
together under those class-names cases of the most various
degrees of moral turpitude, the mere number being no criterion
of the sum of evil committed in a given time by a given
society in any direction. Only that such evil being a kind
of friction inseparable from the life and progress of society,
we may assume this sum to be connected by some definite
law with the amount of movement in any society ; but this
would by no means hold of the mere number of cases in which
the incidental ill effect takes tangible form under definite heads
of crime. Therefore even if the constancy of this number
should be confirmed by a fresh appeal to experience, we should
still have to regard it as a fact of which we do not compre-
hend either the mode of production or the significance ; we
should never think of regarding it as an historical law in the
sense of a predetermination of that which is to be. However
the fresh appeal itself (which has been quite recently made)
convinces us of the extreme overhastiness with which the
statistical myth has been built up from deductions which
cannot be relied upon. We have yet to obtain from exacter
investigations the true material for more trustworthy conclu-
sions— material which should take the place of the statistical
myth above referred to.
I 6. The investigations of which we have been speaking
referred only to limited periods of time. The succession of
longer periods markedly different in historical features has
seemed to reveal not less definite laws, which I may here pass
over more briefly. They are of interest only in as far as they
have reference to the individual tendencies of human life,
which we shall have to consider later ; the more widely they
attempt to formulate the progress of humanity, the less real
explanation do they generally contain. Thus one man talks
I
THE FORCES THAT WORK IN HISTORY. 203
of a law of uniformity in development, another of its sharp
contrasts ; others prefer the trinity of thesis, antithesis, and
synthesis. It seems clear that all these are not modes of
occurrence to which events are bound to conform, as if there
were in the mere forms themselves something which it were
worth while to realize. Eather in as far as they have any
real existence, they are ultimate forms which appear as social
action and reaction progresses, from causes for which we have
yet to seek. If we attempt this search we shall find that the
significance of such laws is partly very unimportant and
partly not of demonstrable universality. Thus it seems hardly
worth while to decorate with the name of a law of uniformity
the very simple observation that the culture of a later period
is commonly a further development of the impulses received
from preceding periods ; at the most it is only useful as
emphasizing briefly the limiting condition to be found in the
fact that the actual transmission of what already exists must
precede further development. For historical progress is not
(as people sometimes fancy) to be compared to a miasma that
hovers in the air and seizes humanity unawares, either all
mankind simultaneously, or particular sections by turns ; it
has always taken place only within that narrow circle where
favourable circumstances permit the regular transmission of
attained civilisation, and of efforts directed to the relief of
permanent wants ; and it has only spread as far and wide as
geographical conditions, accessibility of countries, facility of
communication, density of population, and multifarious inter-
course between men in war or peace have given occasion.
The law of contrast that people sometimes, without any
difficulty, allow to have validity at the same time as the law
of uniformity, without drawing any boundary line between
the conflicting claims of both, is not less simple. Speaking
broadly, it only applies where simple forms of life, which in
themselves admit of unbroken uniformity of existence, are in
any way disturbed, and men's minds have become agitated by
the longing for new satisfactions. Then their inventive power
produces peculiar forms of civilisation, corresponding to the
204 BOOK VIL CHAPTER IH.
momentary wants of the people and the mental temper of
the time, without satisfying in an equal degree all the
wants of human nature. The longer and the more fully
any such characteristic civilisation has stirred up, satisfied,
and exhausted all the receptivity towards it of which men's
minds were capable, and the more widely it has set its stamp
upon all external social relations and customs of life, the
more sensibly do men feel the pressure of its one-sidedness ;
and the more vigorously do there come into prominence
those spiritual pretensions (still fresh and unsatisfied, and
seeking to impose a different mode of life) which this one-
sidedness had forced into the background. But the articu-
lation of any civilisation of long standing forms a whole
that is too far-spreading and too widely rooted for newly
arisen tendencies to overcome it in all points, and to set
up easily in opposition to it a new and different and
consistent philosophy. Generally the influence of such new
tendencies is disintegrating and destructive ; it is only after
a long interval that a new system is established — a system
that is not now the opposite of that which preceded it,
because the time that has elapsed between the two baa
smoothed down the more extreme contradictions. In refer-
ence to individual departments of life we see more clearly
the need of change which impels the human mind not
only to continual removal of narrow and one-sided arrange-
ments, but also to an aversion for truths that have grown
old. As one gets tired of a good garment that one has
been wearing for a considerable time, and finds that another
which has been long laid by seems to have a wonderful
charm of restored novelty, so the satiation of one side of
our spiritual nature produces a burning thirst for just as
one-sided satisfaction in another direction; and not only so,
but there comes in addition a general inclination for para-
doxical return to long-forgotten standpoints, and thus moods
and opinions are kept in a continual state of fluctuation.
Steady development belongs almost exclusively to those
sciences which are capable of practical application in
THE FORCES THAT WORK IN HISTORY. 205
ministering to our wants, and in which unrestricted change
of " modes of thought and points of view " would produce
painful consequences. On the other hand, men's views of life,
the tone of society, artistic ideals, opinions concerning what
is supernatural, views of history, taste in the enjoyment of
Nature, and forms of religious worship — all these are subject
to the influence of constantly changing moods — sentimentality
or noisy activity, prophetic enthusiasm or realistic modera-
tion ; and it often seems as though the most profound
penetration were shown in seeking the truth just where no
one suspects it, that is in errors which the previous genera-
tion had succeeded in refuting. Thus there arises the
alternation of characteristic forms of civilisation in history,
and thus we understand how it comes to pass that in the
course of progress not all the several charms of life, on the
exclusive development of which earlier times may have
expended their whole strength, can be preserved and handed
down in equal vigour ; on the contrary, they often have to
be sacrificed altogether to other requirements of human
destiny, on which succeeding times rightly lay stress. This
surrender of previous gains is explicable to us as a result
of human weakness ; that it is not merely a partial failure
of historical progress, but also an essential feature in the
course that this progress must take, according to its very
meaning, is an assertion which we can only regard as
resulting from that perversion of thought, which undertakes
to justify everything that actually exists.
More strange is it that not only the forms of civilisation but
also the torch-bearers of civilisation change as history goes on.
Not only are mankind as a whole never found moving forward
together at the same stage of progress, but also the nations — at
least those of antiquity — which have blossomed into civilisation
have without exception sunk back from the summit they had
reached to varying depths of barbarism and commonplace.
Men are certainly in too great haste if they found upon these
facts the historical law that each nation, like each individual,
has its life, in which strength first increases and then decreaf^es;
^
206 BOOK VIL CHAPTER III.
nnd it is still worse if, supported by this comparison, tliey
venture to pronounce sentence on the future of nations which,
having passed through some phase of their culture, are seen to
be making new and tentative efforts. It is not clear either
what reasonable signification this growing old of nations can
have for the plan of history, nor what is the inner connection
by which, as a mere matter of fact, it is universally brought
about. Since in an individual man it is one and the same
organism to which must be referred all impressions from with-
out, and all reactions of its own activity, we can understand
how in such a case there may be certain relations between the
actin<T and reacting parts which would necessarily make that
summation of experienced states result in the gradual alteration
and disintegration of him who is the subject of them. But
why the vital strength of a nation cannot always remain
vigorous seems from this consideration only the more
obscure ; and certainly it does remain vigorous in those who
for centuries have gone on in the monotony of some simple
civilisation. The growing old of nations is plainly not
included in the idea of a people as a predetermined necessity
of development ; and where it takes place it is the result of
particular conditions of life, due not only to the peculiarity of
the stage of civilisation which has been arrived at, but also in
part to external circumstances. Nature strives to furnish
afresh each new generation with the old capacities of the race,
and ever to present anew vigorous and unspoiled subjects for
further development. She does not altogether succeed ;
bodily vigour and mental power may diminish through the
fault of a dissolute past ; even without such fault, long
habituation to some definite form of national culture may
gradually transform the mental dispositions of a people in
ways which we are unable to trace, and make it difficult to
find a new equilibrium of healthier conditions of life when the
internal corruption of that culture works out, and causes its
disintegration. But nowhere do we find justification for
assuming that these national diseases are incurable, and that
\ when one flower has faded a second cannot follow. If the
THE FORCES THAT WORK IN HISTORY.
20'
natious of antiquity have not fulfilled such a hope, the reason
was that not only did their culture become disintegrated
through its own inner deficiencies, but also their national
integrity was broken up by the destructive conquests of
enemies more robust than themselves. That any national
civilisation may flourish, it requires both political power and
material wealth ; but when the general condition of the
world does not allow of the reinvigoration of its power, or
when the opening of new roads of commerce and the
abandonment of the old ones dries up the previous sources
of wealth, and innumerable incitements to industry fall
away, then the nation which any such fate befalls will seem
to pine and dwindle incurably. Yet it will be capable of
reviving to fresh life if the wheel of fortune makes a new
turn favourable to it.
"We must add to these considerations yet another ques-
tion concerning the forces operative in history. Shall we
attribute the similar elements which are found in the
customs and legends of different nations, to transmission
from one to the other ; or shall we regard them all as
indigenous productions which having sprung up anew, again
and again, have everywhere assumed similar forms on
account of the essential sameness of human nature ? No
one will really doubt that, taken broadly, both views are
to be accepted to some extent ; the real difficulty is where
to draw the line between the claims of the two. Both
modes of thought have often tried their strength on one
particular example, the legend of a flood, which is spread
far and wide among peoples very remote from one another.
Eiverside valleys subject to frequent and considerable
inundations have been the homes of all the earliest
civilisations ; nothing could seem more natural than that this
supreme danger threatened by the elements should be every-
where recorded in national legends. It is not quite so
easy to explain, without supposing transmission, the great,
although not absolutely uniform, similarity of the particular
details with which legend fills in the history of the occur-
j
208 BOOK VII. CU AFTER III.
rence; hence people have been inclined to believe in a
common origin of the different Asiatic accounts, and to
assume that these were subsequently varied. But the
American Indians, too, relate the same story ; it was sur-
prising to find that in one of their legends, Tespi — the man
who was saved from the flood like Noah — when the waters
begin to abate, sends forth first a bird of prey ; this bird
does not return, because it is feasting on the dead bodies
of the drowned ; then Tespi sends out other birds which also
do not return; it is only the humming-bird that comes back
with a leafy branch. The correspondence is striking enough
to make one suspect communication, perhaps at a very late
date ; but at the same time the whole character of the
legend is so thoroughly Indian that its being of native
growth is not in the least improbable, and if chronology
would permit we should perhaps be more inclined to think
of Indian traditions having influenced the Mosaic account
than of the converse having happened. So it stiU does not
seem improbable that even such striking coincidences may
have arisen independently in many unconnected mythologies.
And yet I confess that I regard with mistrust the unre-
stricted generalization of this way of judging. It is true that
the natural surroundings of all nations are pretty much the
same ; but it does not follow so clearly that the impressions
produced by them must, on account of the sameness of men's
mental nature, everywhere lead to the same estimation of
events, to the same trains of thought, and, finally, to the
employment of similar artistic and figurative expressions.
The points of view from which men, notwithstanding their
human likeness, may regard Nature are manifold enough ; the
possible impressions produced by the same event may vary
infinitely with mood and circumstances ; the direction which
may be taken by the course of thought that they stir up is
incalculable ; every correspondence that goes beyond the most
inevitable deductions from facts seems always to require an
individual proof of having arisen without communication or
transmission. Appeal has indeed been made to general
THE FOECES THAT WORK IN HISTOEY. 209
psychological laws in accordance with which the impression
produced by facts, the reflection following the impression, and
the final expression by figure and comparison, must be con-
nected together ; it has been attempted to interpret the course
of all human fancy by a kind of general symbolism supposed
to produce similar embodiments of similar thoughts in the
most diverse mythologies ; but here too the question recurs,
Are we not, in the cases which this assumption seems to
confirm, mistaking the effect of secret transmission for a proof
of independent correspondence ?
The general scope of tradition in history is diflBcult to
estimate. The very existence of complete and flourishing
civilisations is forgotten in lands which were their home, and
only a fragmentary remembrance of them preserved in the
records of neighbouring nations, and for us great spaces of
past time are wholly blank. On the other hand, isolated
features (neither the most important nor the most common) of
earlier civilisations have been saved amid the general wreck,
and reappear among the most different nations. Our nursery
tales contain echoes from the very earliest antiquity ; the same
fables that exercise our own reflection in youth were once
told in India and Persia and Greece ; many popular super-
stitions of to-day have their root in heathendom. With
regard to much of this we know how it has been preserved
and communicated, with regard to much we do not ; and hence
we not only learn to appreciate the great amount of transmission
which has gone on imperceptibly, but we also remark that (as
in all ruins) it is not always that which is the most imposing
and the strongest and the most coherent that has been pre-
served, but that very often individual fragments of what was
I once the common property of mankind — fragments which look
strange in their isolation — may unquestionably be dispersed
among the widely differing civilisations of later nations.
I
VOL. II.
CHAPTEE IV.
EXTERNAL CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT.
Common Origin of Mankind — Assumption of Plurality of Origin— Variety of
Mental Endowment — Guidance of Development by External Conditions-
Geographical and Climatic Furtherances and Hindrances — Examples of
Peoples in a State of Nature.
S 1. "rTriSTOEY, in the sense of a coherent development,
-■-J- connects but few sections of mankind. The west
of Asia and the seaboard of the Mediterranean were the only
places in which during thousands of years varying forms of
civilisation followed one another, each transmitting to its
successor its own gains and impulses to fresh progress. Out-
side this focus of civilisation innumerable other nations have
either gone on living again, century after century, the common
life of their kind and nothing more, among favourable or
unfavourable surroundings, or they have perhaps struck out
particular forms of development, but withoiit connection with
the favoured nations, and without contributing in any essen-
tial way to the further progress of these when they came into
contact. Hence if we take a survey of history, it is pre-
sented to us not under the image of a single stream embracing
all mankind and carrying them forward with steady action
and reaction, though with different velocities, in the same
direction ; it rather seems to us as though various currents
flowed from various sources, remaining long without any
reciprocal influence — until now in our own age all nations
begin for the first time to be brought within view of one
another, and the way begins to be prepared for a universal
reciprocity of action between the different sections of man-
kind.
Even classic antiquity had this impression of the conditioi
210
EXTERNAL CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT. 211
and fate of the human race when political conflicts and the
curiosity of travellers brought to light upon the narrow stage
of the then known world many peoples differing widely in
appearance, language, and customs. In this impression there
was nothing that seemed strange to the mind of antiquity, to
which human existence appeared to be merely a production of
the great mother. Nature, coming forth from her infinity and
returning to it again ; in the view of antiquity the numerous
races of men (destined merely for the passing joy of life, and
not for the accomplishment of tasks of eternal significance)
may have sprung each from the soil of its native place, with-
out any original connection, and as manifold witnesses of the
inexhaustible fertility which Nature displays in her produc-
tions. It is only where some individual race in the course
of its social development has acquired a sense of the lasting
connection of its members, that national tradition seeks to
strengthen this feeling by the supposition of a common origin;
but the thought of a comprehensive unity of mankind was so
far from these times that if two nations were found to have a
connected origin, it was thought to be quite a discovery, just
because it could not be in the least presupposed. It was
Christian civilisation that first developed with decisive clear-
ness the thought that all nations made part of one whole, and
that evolved from the concept of the human race the concept
of humanity, with which we are not accustomed to contrast a
)rresponding concept of animality. For the name humanity
Expresses just this, that individual human creatures are not
lere examples of a universal, but are preordained parts of a
^hole ; that the changing events of history which men experi-
Ince are not mere instances of the similarity or dissimilarity
*of results which spring from similar or dissimilar conditions
according to the same universal laws of Nature and of life, but
sections that have their place in a vast coherent providential
governance of the universe, which between the extreme terms
ol creation and of judgment allows no part of what happens
to escape the unity of its purpose. While Christianity
developed this conviction, it at the same time connected it
11^
212 BOOK VII. CHAPTER IV.
with tlie Hebrew account of man's origin, in whicli early and
cognate views (strange to classic antiquity and far above it)
had prevailed, without, however, having got rid of all the
narrowness of exclusively national conceptions. The wish to
hold all the numerous races of men together by the bond of
likeness in kind and species, became intensified to the desire
to trace back their origin to a single ancestral pair. Even this
duality seemed to the Mosaic record too wide a beginning ;
according to this record the mother of the human race came
forth in a wondrous fashion from the one father of us all, who
was himself made directly by the hand of God.
The beauty and religious depth of thought from which
these representations sprang will never fail of their effect upon
our mind ; but if the necessary development of human imagina-
tion involved a representation of the beginning of our exist-
ence under such figures, then it may be doubtful whether the
Mosaic picture reveals an historical reality, or whether it can
only be justified as affording satisfaction to an inevitable
craving. The doubts which have long assailed this interpre-
tation of our primitive history justify the brief consideration
which we now subjoin.
If the human race has really descended from one pair, what
moral results would follow from the fact, and at the same
time become impossible if it were denied ? In the course of
propagation the splitting up into plurality by which the unity
is succeeded is as much a fact as the unity itself. Hence as
long as we are in the habit of making historical facts the
sources of moral commands, the second fact would bind us to
divisioB just as much as the first one does to unity, and
indeed even more so, since the plurality increases as time goes
on ; and it is the future and not the past in which the theatre,
or at any rate the objects of our action, are to be found. On
the other hand, if mankind arose from many unconnected
beginnings — being however, as it now is, such that the different
races, endowed with capacities similar yet not altogether the
same, can only find full development and perfect satisfaction
through the reciprocal action and reaction of all upon all — even ,
I
EXTEENAL CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT. 213
if this were the case, should we not be equally justified in
assuming that the moral destiny of men must be fulfilled by
the union of all in one humanity ? Undoubtedly we should :
men would still be brothers in the same sense in which
they would in the contrary case ; for since they certainly are
not brothers in a literal sense, the name signifies merely the
recognition of that spiritual organization which is given to all
of us alike, and of the worth of that personality which we
have to reverence even in its most insignificant form. Accord-
ing to these facts, which are actual, and in as far as they are
actual, we have to regulate our conduct ; but we never have to
regulate it according to uncertain historical circumstances
which, perhaps have been — the reality of which would not
in the least increase the imperativeness of our obligations,
while a successful refutation would necessarily plunge into
confusion the mind which had based its sense of obligation
upon them.
But among the things that have been we deliberately
reckon that singleness of origin, supposing it to have been a
fact. The more earnestly we seek the unity of mankind, the
more must we desire that that which we find should be real
and living and eternally present ; for him who only seeks it in
the first pair, the unity must always be something that merely
has been. For the influence of this unity has nowhere con-
tinued to operate in history. It has not held mankind
together, and has neither insured to them as a whole a steady
common development, nor to the different branches knowledge
concerning each other; scattered abroad, in parts of the earth's
surface most remote from one another, the different nations
have passed their life, each unacquainted with the existence
of the rest. But, in fact, wherever any of them have early
come into contact, we find national hatred existing as the
guardian of national peculiarities which no race is willing to
sacrifice for the sake of another; the earliest times are filled
with incessant conflicts of races, even of those whose actual
relationship could be historically proved ; as one wave of the
sea makes way for the next, so in this wild tumult one nation
K sea ]
214 BOOK VII. CHAPTER IV,
after another has been swept away. So little has that assumed
community of origin worked in the outward destinies of the
human race ; and it has been just as little active in men's
feelings. In the most ancient times a foreigner was regarded
as altogether without rights ; it is only very gradually, and in
proportion as history gets further and further from the
beginning, that there are developed ideas of humanity as a
whole, and of the regard which we owe to its representatives.
A glance at these facts leads very naturally to the question,
Should we not place the unity of mankind in the future as an
end of action to be sought after, rather than seek it in the
past, where it can never be more than an ineffective and
ornamental beginning of our existence ? What is it that we
should lose if we had to sacrifice a unity of beginning which
subsequent progress has everywhere contradicted ? It cer-
tainly would not be difficult for poetic fancy to imagine a
chain of events which would exhibit man's original lapse from
unity as a significant part of some secret purpose in the
divine governance. But while we fully admit the worth of
the religious thoughts that can be embodied in such represen-
tation, we should yet, when they are put forward as history,
require proof of their truth independent of the proof of their
significance.
The assumption of originally distinct races of men,
differing mentally as well as in bodily formation, each
arising in a region suited to it and attaining the kind and
degree of civilisation which its capacities made possible, has
not unfrequently been opposed to the theory of mankind's
original unity as corresponding more naturally with the
view which history presents to us. This assumption has
been set forth in various forms, of which each has its special
interest.
It has been found necessary, in the first place, to dis-
tinguish two great families of mankind, the active family
of white men and the passive family of coloured men. It
is supposed that the latter, dreamily patient and inert, loving
home and inaction, possess nothing of the ever active
L
EXTERNAL CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT. 215
inventive restlessness which is the heritage of the white
race ; that it is this latter race alone which, impelled by the
spirit of progress, has spread over the world in all directions,
stirring up, educating, subduing, and supplying the sluggish-
ness of the coloured nations with germs of civilisation whicli
they would have been incapable of producing themselves.
Indeed, the latter have been compared to the monocotyledons
of the vegetable kingdom, those grasses and reeds which
growing in countless multitudes give a green hue to un-
interesting landscapes, with their monotonous luxuriance ;
the white races, on the other hand, which alone produce
individuals of historic importance, who are of account taken
separately, are compared to the class of dicotyledons which,
and which only, produces trees with their picturesque indi-
vidual forms. How easily this comparison — by reference
to the vast pine forests of the North and the isolated palms
of the South — might be so elaborated as to give it quite
another meaning ! We should learn that the external con-
ditions of habitat and climate may degrade even dicotyledons
to a homogeneous crowd that is counted only by thousands,
and that even monocotyledons may under a favouring sky
develop to forms which excite our admiration. Though we
may, however, admit provisionally that this bifurcate view,
without being applicable in detail, yet expresses on the whole
a real historical fact, still we consider that it is illogical
if it thinks that it can hold fast the unity of the human
race, while it separates a branch db initio useless from the
only fertile one, by a chasm greater than that which generally
exists in Nature between two species of the same genus,
supposing neither of these species to have been influenced
by culture and discipline.
According to another and more self-consistent theory which
gives up the bond of a common origin, the different families
of men sprang up independently of one another at different
spots on the earth's surface ; besides the Caucasians perhaps
only the Mongolian race being indigenous to Central Asia,
whilst burning Africa produced the Black man, and America
216 BOOK VII. CHAPTER IV.
fostered the Red man from the first, the islands and coast
lands of the South Sea and the Pacific Ocean having been
gradually peopled from some unknown centre in the neigh-
bourhood of the Sunda Islands. This view again has, so
far, neither been able to prevail, nor have others prevailed
over it, it has not even succeeded in defining exactly the
content of its own doctrine. For neither has it been con-
clusively shown that the different races could not have sprung
from one root, nor are the difficulties which stand in the
way of a wide diffusion of mankind while yet in a help-
less condition, so great as to prove the necessity of the
isolated origin of each nation in its own native place. On
the contrary, there still come within our experience many
facts which establish the possibility of migrations to great
distances by land and sea, even under the most unfavourable
circumstances. But on the other hand, there are wanting
a sufficient number of clear indications concerning the actual
process by which mankind was divided into unlike sections,
and concerning the paths by which they were actually dis-
persed over the earth. There seems so far no prospect of
the discovery of one single primal language ; the similar
elements of civilisation which are found among nations
separated by great distances from one another may indeed
to some extent point to early intercourse and communication
of thought, but cannot prove the common origin of those
between whom the intercourse took place. Eeasons and
counter-reasons being so evenly balanced, it must be left
for the future to decide whether the assertion of an inde-
pendent origin of different races deserves to be accepted ;
on the other hand, however, the content of the assertion
itself has remained hitherto somewhat indefinite, on account
of the uncertainty which exists as to the number of primitive
races which should be assumed, as to the way in which
these became mixed, and as to the degeneration which
occurs to a limited extent. The choice of the five races
above referred to, was perhaps arbitrary ; it is possible that
others may have just as much right to be brought forward ;
EXTERNAL CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPi>IENT. 217
and it is just as arbitrary to consider, as this view generally
does, that the appearance of the different races should be
conceived of as an almost simultaneous creation of all
mankind ; it may be rather the case that each race belongs
to a particular geological period. If this were so, those
which we know may have been preceded in the very earliest
ages by many others of which we know nothing, either
because they have left no traces behind them, or because
the monuments which testify to their existence are buried
in the soil of the great continents of Asia and Africa,
the palaeontological investigation of which has hardly yet
begun. The present state of science does not allow of any
decisive judgment on these matters ; our views are kept in
a state of continual fluctuation by unexpected discoveries
which throng one upon the other, and which we shall not
be able to interpret with certainty until their increased
number has made their connection clearer. Sometimes we
seem to get glimpses of an immense vista rousing vague
anticipations, extending to prehistoric times of our species
of which we have at present no knowledge ; sometimes
these avenues through which we had had a glimpse seem
to shut again, and the far-reaching views which they opened
before us, close in, leaving nothing but representations of
trivial events that have taken place within the short historical
■period which we know. At such times it is useless to
insist upon having, at any price, some decisive answer; the
only thing that is of use is to look steadily at the various
possibilities, and to forecast the consequences which a future
onfirmation of any one of them would have for our philosophy
as a whole.
This we have attempted, and though we believe wo have
ascertained that the original unity of the human race is
I «^not one of those thoughts the truth of which is necessary
I for the satisfaction of our soul, on the other hand we by
I no means share the hostile feeling that we so often see
I IP displayed in disputing this unity, which after all may possibly
be a fact. Mankind would really lose nothing whatever
218 BOOK VII. CHAPTER IV.
by the establishment of the one -origin view, in which (though
it is by no means indispensable) long ages have believed
and rejoiced ; and just as little would they gain anything
if by proving their dispersed and plural origin their fate
should be externally assimilated more closely to that of the
grass of the field, the blades of which we cannot count so
as to form a unity. We cannot share, we can only under-
stand, that hostility ; it will very naturally arise wherever
a mistaken zeal for certain forms of conception (in which
religious truth is supposed exclusively to reside) attempts
to settle without reference to the verdict of science, certain
questions which ought undoubtedly to be submitted to
scientific judgment guided by observation. This zeal, while
it injures science, gains no advantage for itself; for since it
cannot avert the coming results of investigation, it will at
last find itself in the disagreeable position of having to
regulate its faith according to the discoveries of the hour.
It would escape this fate if it were more clearly conscious
at the outset that the real treasures of faith are independent
of any special forms of the historical course of events, and
above all cannot be exclusively attached to any one form
in particular.
§ 2. With the assumption of a plural origin of mankind
is commonly combined the other assumption of original
differences of endowment of the different races. This com-
bination finds special contradiction in a view which, without
caring about the original unity of mankind historically
considered, believes that it must hold fast the unity of kind
and the original equality of all men's capacity for civilisa-
tion. According to this view, to trace back the varieties of
development which individual nations have experienced to
innate and permanent differences of their bodily and mental
organization is, as it were, a shortening of the arm of science,
the business of which rather is to explain the divergence of
mankind from one another as regards their way of life, by
pointing out all the natural and social influences which have
worked upon the originally similar natures of men. It
lavel
is I
EXTERNAL CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT. 219
certainly not necessary to lay special stress upon the truth
which is unquestionably involved in this demand upon
science; it is perhaps more to the purpose to observe that
even this correct principle of investigation may be carried
too far.
The principle is fully justified in the investigation of all
those pha3nomena which we may still observe recurring and
reproducing one another, in connection with and conditioned
by other phsenomena, but cannot on the other hand impose
on Nature itself any greater simplicity of origin than Nature
really has. He who assumes a peculiar vital power for the
phsenomena of organic life may soon convince himself that the
supposed activity of this power is determined on all sides by
physical conditions, and here it is that it becomes necessary
for him to explain the consequences of this power as results
which spring from co-operating causes in accordance with the
Bame universal laws to which those external influences are
subject. But he who traces back all plants to one primal
plant, and all animals to one primal animal, on the one hand
diverges from experience which presents no facts that require
such a supposition, and on the other hand affirms a process
which, even independent of experience, is by no means
necessary on general grounds. For that Nature itself, like
human thought, should in working progress from the imperfect
to the perfect, from the simple to the composite, from the
homogeneity of the universal to the manifold variety of
the particular, is only a probable conjecture, in as far as
Nature requires to utilize the imperfect, simple, and homo-
geneous, in producing the more complex perfection of the
individual. Where we cannot assume that this real and
solid advantage accrues from Nature's following such a path,
we have no reason to attribute to it as necessary the same
course as is taken by our own thought in observing, comparing,
and classifying the perfected reality upon which it comes to
work. Nature does not make first things and then their
H attributes, first matter and then the forces inhering in it ;
B just as little is it necessary and self-evident that it should, in
I
220 BOOK VII. CHAPTER IV.
the first place, embody in some single primary form the universal
generic concept under which our thought may subsequently
group together a plurality of species, effecting later the historical
development of the species from this primary form, by the
supplementary influence of further conditions. Rather does
Nature (not destitute of the necessary and essential means of
direct production) undoubtedly begin with all the rich variety
of creatures which are equally possible as embodiments of
the universal
Though, however, we vindicate the possibility of this
assumption, yet we do not recommend that it should be
thoughtlessly employed. The principles according to which
we must estimate mental life in general would above all
things never permit us to deny altogether to certain races
certain mental capacities, attributing to others an exclusive
possession of them. The most general laws, according to
which the events of mental life happen, are valid alike for
men and animals to such an extent, and the connection
between the different forms of mental activity is so close and
many-sided, that if we take two kinds of mind which, in
relation to many departments of this activity, present such a
perfect similarity as we find in the different races of men,
we shall see that these two cannot well be separated (with
regard to any other department of the same activity) by the
existence or defect of some innate capability. If there is a
difference of original endowment, it is without doubt to be
found in that which most strikingly distinguishes from one
another even individual members of the same race ; that is,
in disposition and not in the nature and mode of operation of
the mental powers in general, which are common to all By
disposition we mean that particular combination of impulses by
which the mental powers have the direction of their activity
determined, as well as their ends, and the vigour, variety, and
constancy of their exercise; and all this may be different in
different races, partly on account of inherited peculiarities of
organic formation, partly on account of original idiosyncrasies of
mental nature. And it is this which also determines the amount
EXTERNAL CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT. 221
of attainable development, according to the direction in which
it predominantly guides the interest of the whole mental life,
and according as it makes the mind more receptive towards
relations of things the observation and treatment of which
must inevitably lead it further, or causes it to find satisfaction
in occupations and forms of life which contain no living germ
of progress. The attempt to extend higher civilisation to nations
which have hitherto remained wholly strangers to it, has been
frustrated much more by the difficulty of arousing lasting
interest in the benefits of our own culture than by want of
the insight necessary for understanding it.
Now whether in point of fact these varieties of disposition
are irremovable differences of original endowment, or whether
even they are but the accumulated effects of constant external
conditions, is a question which historical experience so far
can hardly decide. The nations which hitherto have had a
long term of life constantly reveal to us, amid all the striking
changes of civilisation which they undergo, a tenacious per-
sistence of peculiar characteristics which often merely change
the scene of their manifestation. However estimable may be
the attempts made to explain the varieties of human develop-
ment by reference merely to the effect of those circumstances
by which life is conditioned, they have not hitherto enabled us
to dispense with the assumption that there are special varia-
tions of generic human nature which were given as the
material upon which those conditions had to operate in the
various branches of mankind.
Our judgments, however, on all such questions are never
based altogether upon scientific grounds, but depend also on
unspoken moral needs and doubts. Even the aversion to
allow, in the case of mankind, the possibility of original
variety, depends on a reason of this kind. If different
B creatures differ from one another by an altogether distinct
generic stamp, it is not thought surprising if some lack the
advantages of others ; it seems that each should be contented
y with that with which his nature has provided him. The
different races of men, however, seem to be as near one
222 BOOK VII. CHAPTER IV.
another as possible, on account of the predominant similarity
of their most essential characteristics, and what is of still more
importance, they are capable of a common life of reciprocity
in work and enjoyment ; here a difference of mental endow-
ment, which would be not merely a difference, but also a
gradation of more and less, would seem like an unjust
abridgment, as regards the less gifted races, of the means
necessary for the fulfilment of that business of human life
which is common to all men — means upon which all therefore
seem to have an equal claim. This consideration, is not
without weight ; indeed, we willingly allow that the supposition
is inexplicable that a race of men may be for ever hindered
by some concealed defect of their organization from reaching
a civilisation for the attainment of which they seem to possess
rU externally cognisable capacities ; yet the enigma referred
to is so often suggested to us by history, and in forms so
obtrusive, that our failure to understand it must not lead
us even in this case to deny its existence. For still
more inexplicable than those inherent natural hindrances to
progress are the numerous cases where, on the one hand,
individuals of the most favoured races remain far below
the general level of endowment of their race, and on the
other hand, whole nations are for centuries hindered by
external circumstances from attaining a degree of civilisation
by no means beyond the reach of their actual mental capacity.
If we can neither alter nor deny this fact of the tyranny
of external conditions, we have just as little reason for
regarding the limiting power of original natural endowment as
inconceivable.
§ 3. The aversion to allow innate differences in the dis-
positions of nations is not obscurely connected with that
increasingly popular mode of thought which would dispense
with all predetermination of future development in the human
mind, and would leave it, as selfless and plastic material, to
be altogether formed by external conditions. As men's taste
varies in art, so it does also in the way of looking at history ;
and although we may easily admit that each of the opposed
EXTEKNAL CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT. 223
views may be justified within certain limits, yet in neither case
are there wanting unjustifiable transgressions of the limits of
validity. Early historical idealism often proceeded as if the
spirit of man dwelt upon earth devoid of wants, and in an
atmosphere of purest ether, and as if, following nothing but
the impulses of its own nature, it produced the melodious
succession of its own significant developments, unabridged by
any opposition, and only incidentally condescended to the
prose of mundane circumstances in order to transfigure them
to a reflection of its own splendour. In opposition to this
idealism, the realism of our own time asserts, and rightly, the
stimulating, restricting, and guiding power which those same
mundane circumstances exercise upon the uncertain and
want-laden nature of frail humanity. But neither is it
necessary that the idealistic view should be held in the
exaggerated form which we have just noticed, nor has the
opposed view either the duty or the privilege of carrying its
necessary and well-founded warnings to the point of that
mephistophelic scorn with which men sometimes dispute the
efficacy of all nobler springs of development — of all except
such as depend on imperative need.
Only plants are destined to live by the favour of external
circumstances, without reactions that bear the stamp of
living activity, and accommodating themselves to moderate
hange of such circumstances, but helplessly succumbing to
he effects of greater change. Hardly anywhere in the
animal world is the satisfaction of natural wants attained
without some individual effort on the part of those satisfied,
■land in some kinds of animals this activity is so developed as
to have become an instinct of co-operative labour. But in these
very operations — to which, indeed, the animals are stimulated
by outward impressions, but the mode of which is determined
by themselves in accordance with an unalterable impulse of
their nature — the agents seem to us less free and active
than in those less striking performances by which they (within
narrow limits) modify the operations referred to in accordance
with changing circumstances. Mankind, not being directed
li
V
224 BOOK VII. CHAPTER IV.
and restricted to one definite occupation by any similar
prompting of Nature, see before them the whole earth as the
sphere of their activity, and must find out by manifold
experience that which Nature itself has imprinted on the
souls of brutes ; that is, necessary ends, efficient instruments,
and the most useful division of labour. They do not come
to this task unprovided, but they come without having received
an impulse from Nature to use these means in some one
direction only ; with an unbiassed sensuous receptivity and
a capacity of bringing received impressions into reciprocal
relations of inner connection, they are forced by their wants
to seek out unknown sources of satisfaction. It is certainly
true that instinct leads more easily to the satisfaction of wants
than the reflection following experience, which errs in a
thousand ways ; but every error that fails of the end at
which it aimed, finds in its path truths which would have
remained undiscovered if an infallible natural impulse had led
the mind straight to its goal. Hence even the simplest
occurrences of daily life develop in the most uncivilised
nations at least much skill in using the properties of things
according to general physical laws, even though these laws (as
e.g. those of equilibrium or of the lever) may never become to
them explicit objects of consciousness. And all knowledge
thus gained, just because it did not exist as innate endowment
of the mind, but came to be formed through contact with
things, and thus was matter of living experience, is felt to be,
as it were, the production of our own activity.
At first the individual may, by a kind of superficial and
hasty construction, gain shelter and support from his imme-
diate surroundings; but a growing society, with its ever-
increasing multitude of wants and the fresh demands which
it develops, finds itself obliged to appropriate also, by weU-
considered division and combination of its powers, the less
obvious utilities of natural products. By bringing large
extents of land under permanent cultivation — by connecting
distant regions for exchange of commodities — by increasing
the value and convenience of their immediate surroundings
EXTERNAL CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT, 225
through manifold elaboration of the material they have appro-
priated— the members of such a society are ever transforming
larger and larger extents of the earth's surface, as it were to
another and more home-like Nature, to the scene of a life of
social order. In proportion as this happens, the dependence
of man upon the elementary material world that surrounds
him becomes lessened ; he becomes accustomed to have most
of his wants satisfied, not by direct application to this external
world, but at third hand by the co-operation of social labour ;
he with his ideas, feelings, cares, and plans belongs far more
to this new and secondary order of things, to the concatenated
whole of human society, than to primitive Nature, which,
while it is the basis of his existence, seems ever to withdraw
further and further into the background.
It is, then, only when this early progress has transferred
the centre of existence from the natural world to the artificial
world of society that distinctively human life begins, and the
possibility of its further development. For the inferior
animals are as capable as ourselves of enjoying without
preparation that which created Nature freely offers ; it is the
distinctive task of humanity to create for itself the world in
which it is to find its highest enjoyments. In order to do
this, mankind had to restrict the manifold possibilities of
existence and action contained in the course of events and of
our own impulses by thoughts of what is right and fair ; they
had by multiform elaboration to transform the productions of
Nature, together with the soil which brought them forth, into
a world of commodities, the attainment, preservation, and use
IJflbf which combined the dispersed powers of individuals to a
connected whole of occupations depending upon one another ;
(put of the social contact which occurs in the course of Nature,
nd which is increased by the dawning community of labour,
community of life had to be developed that sacrificed many
a liberty which Nature aUows us, and imposed on itself many
an obligation for which Nature gives no reason. So the
human mind reared above the tangible sensible world of that
I MPhich actually exists the not less complex ramifications of
I E VOL. n. P
226 BOOK VII. CHAPTER IV.
a world of relations which ought to exist because their own
eternal worth requires their realization. And this whole
artificial order of life which man had to create in addition to
created Nature has only in isolated moments of despair, due
to conscious failure, seemed to the minds of men to be an
arbitrary and revocable structure of their own invention ; on
the whole, social order has appeared to the human mind to
be an altogether irrevocable natural necessity.
Now plainly we could not expect the construction of this
spiritual cosmos to result from spontaneous evolution of the
human mind without the stimulating and guiding influence
of various external causes. It is not as though there were in
us a natural impulse to progi-ess which, like a pressed spring,
strains to the rebound; but like bodies that cannot of
themselves quit their state of rest, or that, when once set
in motion, exert force upon the obstacles which they encounter,
80 the impulse to progress in the human mind, and the direc-
tion wliich it will take, are due to the velocity of the
evolutionary movement in which the mind is already involved.
It in certainly true that we may regard the ideals of the
Beautiful, the True, the Good, and the Eight as an innate
possession of our soul, but only in the sense in which it is
generally allowable to use this expression innate. They are
not presented to our consciousness from the beginning as
distinct representations, but only after our moral nature has
been stirred on many occasions to approve or reject various
modes of action do we think of them and recognise in
them the principles according to which our judgment had,
previously proceeded. And if they had actually been innate
in our consciousness as living representations that were in'
it from the beginning, of what value would they be for our j
development? The comparing activity of thought may,]
indeed, separate the feeling of reverence with which every- j
thing that is beautiful, right, or good inspires us from thesej
particular occasions of its exercise, and attach it to the general^
notions of beauty, right, and goodness ; but as none of these \
ideals has reality except, when embodied in definite examples,!
EXTERNAL CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT. 227
to which it gives significance, so neither would any of them
have for us a definite content if we were not able to recollect
individual instances of its realization. And if we think of the
worth of all ideals as united in the unfathomable wealth of the
divine nature to a blessedness which was before the world
began, we are used to expect, even of this nature, that it should
manifest itself in the creation of a world of varied forms ; it is
this which seems first, by means of perceptible relations between
its different elements, to give to the hitherto formless univer-
sality of the ideal content an abundance of definite characteristic
manifestations, and thereby a fulness of reality which it had
seemed to lack while it remained self-contained. The human
mind cannot accomplish such a mysterious creative act ; it
would have been vain to set it the task of excogitating with
inventive fancy from the formless tendencies in which its
innate ideals must have consisted, a multitude of cases of
their possible realization. For in fact our whole existence,
historical and unhistorical, is occupied in receiving the influ-
ences exercised upon us by the circumstances of the material
world in which we are placed, these circumstances constituting
the stimulations which first call forth our activity, the guiding
conditions which fix the possible aims and content of our
being, and finally the material on which we are continually
impressing, in individual and limited forms, the image of the
ideal. Much that is beautiful, much that is good, much that
is just, admits of realization ; but only such beauty, such good,
and such justice as may be contained and comprehended in this
world of sense and the relations subsisting between its perish-
ing inhabitants. He who desires to see realized the beautiful in
itself, or the good and the just as they would be in themselves
without the realization being at the same time occasioned and
restricted by some actual relation for which it is valid, deeires
something as contradictory as he who wishes that the speed of
any movable object, the movement of which is only made possible
by that contact with the ground which at the same time
retards its motion, should be accelerated by the total removal
of this resistance.
228 BOOK VII. CHAPTER IV,
Human development, then, requires occasioning causes, and
historical idealism is wrong if it takes offence at this depend-
ence of the progress that has been made upon conditious
which the human mind has not devised for itself, but has
found upon its path. But the conditions of the begi::ning
and of the progress of culture are not quite the same. When
mankind have actually reached any stage of civilisation they
are generally urged on by the impulsive force of this civilisa-
tion itself to a further stage, in which, with an already
awakened consciousness of ends to be attained, they seek the
satisfaction of yet unsatisfied wants ; on the other hand, the
first steps towards development can only be made possible by
the favour of natural circumstances, by which also their direc-
tion is in the first instance determined. No rules of justice
are conceivable at the beginning of civilisation without direct
reference to objects of need or enjoyment, the use of which
must be determined by a consideration of various claims ; but
it is Nature that by her niggardness or bounty must fix the
worth of the productions which become the first objects of the
dawning sense of justice with its regulative activity. There can
be no individual development to a fixed order of life without
connected labour; and it is external Nature which, by the
special character of its products, and by the necessities which
it imposes, determines how great a share of life is to be
devoted to the task of mere self-preservation, and how much
is to be left for enjoyment ; determining also by the kind of
work which it allows or requires, whether the human mind
shall be pent up in a narrow circle of ideas and activities, or
shall be spurred on to a life of many-sided and inventive
action. The development of artistic and religious views
depends only to a smaller extent, and not in its most essential
features, upon the immediate impression which natural sur-
roundings make upon human imagination ; yet mediately tho
influence of these surroundings is great ; for upon the geniality,
ease, and elasticity of customary life, and the forms of inter-
course which they allow of, depend the variety and vigour of
that mental reciprocity within a society which is indispensable
1
EXTEIINIL CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT. 229
for the formation of any coherent philosophical views. As,
finally, the individual's sphere of thought becomes impover-
ished when it lacks the stimulating interruption of inter-
course with others, so also for the progressive civilisa-
tion of nations, it is necessary "that their different modes of
philosophic thought should be brought into contact, and per-
haps also, according to an oft-conjectured natural law, that
there should be a physical blending of races not too alien
from one another. Where the nature of the country affords
means of communication that facilitate this reciprocal action
between nations, we see the civilisation of mankind fall
earliest into a course of coherent progress ; on the contrary,
it has remained for thousands of years in the same uniform
condition in regions whose boundaries, inhospitable and
difficult to pass, have restricted the inhabitants to a constant
employment of the same means to their ends and the same
conditions of life.
All these thoughts, even in that more detailed presentation
of them which we must here renounce, have long lost the
charm of novelty — they have lost it since the time when the
modern realism of historical investigation began to make the
dependence of progress upon the geographical conditions of
the earth's surface a favourite subject of its inquiries. Mean-
while, however thankworthy these may be, they do not quite
suffice to explain the capricious course that history has
actually taken. Mankind cannot accomplish that which is
impossible ; hence we see how it is that a country of which
the poverty and ruggedness make life difficult can produce
no indigenous culture, but can only adopt one which has
germinated and grown strong elsewhere. The presence
of favourable conditions in other places, however, by no
means explains how it is that they are made use of. The
human mind is far from being so desirous of development
from the very beginning as to be hurried away, by the favour
of natural circumstances, to make all the progress which these
render possible. Men may for long periods of time use with
careless indifference natural products which seem directly to
230
BOOK VIL CHAPTER IV.
suggest some definite application of their powers, without
discovering this application ; not even necessity is the mother
of invention in the sense of leading men generally to seek
satisfaction of their wants by reflection which may be the
herald of subsequent progress ; on the contrary, so great is
men's natural sluggishness that, satisfied with warding off
the most extreme misery, they will long endure the continual
recurrence of sufferings which it would be by no means
difficult to avoid by a moderately intelligent use of means
which are actually at their command. "We deceive ourselves
therefore if we think we see in favourable geographical con-
ditions— the advantageousness of which is immediately
obvious to our practised observation — an impelling power
which without reckoning upon happy receptivity of dis-
position in men could force them to develop, as if by natural
necessity, in some definite direction and at some definite rate.
And least of all can the special colouring which growing
culture has taken among different nations be altogether
deduced from a corresponding speciality of external conditions.
We must admit that similar conditions have produced different
results, the germ of which must be sought for first in the
liistorical lot of nations, and last in the incalculable aggregate
of those inner springs of action which stirred their spiritual
life and in turn helped to determine national destiny.
§ 4. If, without any pretensions to completeness in the
enumeration of infinitely varied facts, we now take a glance at
those nations whose life— either unhistorical, or if historical
interrupted — will afford us no opportunity of considering
them more in detail at a later stage, we shall find that their
fate is partly, but only partly, explicable by reference to the
circumstances of their external condition. Without a certain
density of population which brings men with their wants and
claims, and their varieties of temperament and experience, not
only into frequent contact but into lasting intercourse, both
hostile and harmonious, the growth of higher civilisation
among men is impossible. It was but few climates that
afforded to infant societies the favouring conditions necessary
EXTERNAL CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT. 231
for this — making life easy by spontaneous fertility of soil, by
a mixture of good and bad in the climate arousing wants
without making the satisfaction of them very difficult, and
finally (by the variety of the products and impressions which
it afforded) establishing a sufficient variety of mutually com-
plementary occupations and dispositions.
The frigid zone cannot be like a home to its inhabitants, in
whom want does indeed rouse ingenuity in satisfying the most
pressing needs, but at the same time frustrates every effort
after beauty and fulness of life. Forced dependence upon
those few productions of a niggard Nature which it is possible
to reckon upon, makes the labour of preserving life difficult
and too much alike for all. One can hardly imagine what a
Greenlauder's life would be without the seal. Shapelessly
huddled up in furs of seal and reindeer, and tied into the skin
covering of his kayak, a narrow pointed hunting boat capable
of holding only one man, he navigates the Arctic Ocean in
pursuit of the seal with inimitable skill ; then he creeps back
into his winter hut, constructed of stones, driftwood, turf, and
skins, and feeds upon his greasy spoil, by the light of lamps
that are always burning, the moss wicks of which are fed by
seal fat ; and the subject of conversation is a description of
the hunt, graphically given and attentively listened to — " Thu.""
he sat — thus he stretched himself out and threw the harpoon."
And in the happier future world which he supposes will be
in the depths of the sea, he expects a superabundance of
birds, fishes, seals, and reindeer; and it is only in his hope
that the short summer and sunshine of his present home will
there be continuous, that he betrays his sense of the climatic
burden under which he bends. This gloomy picture of a
miserable existence is pretty much the same for all the
northern coasts of the old world, amid local differences of
position and instruments ; these wildernesses have nowhere
been able to produce a higher condition of human life, and to
those races which by some unknown fate were driven into
them they have only left the remnants of civilisation attained
previously in more favoured abodes. The small amount of
i232
BOOK VII. CHAPTER IV.
subsistence furnished by a wide extent of country has every-
where prevented the density of population necessary for the
beginning of political organization ; all having to work at very-
similar occupations, and being separated from one another and
from all foreign culture by the difficulty of intercourse, the
scattered families have neither been able to advance to an
educative division of labour, nor had they any motive for
the development of social forms and ideas of right for the
application of which no cases occurred. Natural goodness of
disposition and various mental gifts have not been sufficient
to prevent men in this existence of constant bodily hardship
from coming to regard the coarsest enjoyments of the senses
as the only really good things in life.
The people of the South Sea islands, though in a graceful
instead of a repulsive fashion, are really quite as backward.
When they were first seen, happily disporting themselves in
the sea with easy agility — behaving with hospitable and
gracious sociality on land — passing away the time in dancing,
round games, songs, and cheerful talk — not given to assiduous
labour indeed, yet managing their small plantations with skill —
liardly needing clothing or shelter, but showing taste in what
Ihey had — healthy, strong, and active, even their most aged
men contented and good-tempered — when they were seen
thus, they seemed to have retained a paradisiac condition. A
nearer acquaintance showed the dark side of this fair picture.
The confined extent of the islands had indeed caused greater
pressure of population and hence active commerce ; but the
fineness of climate had made work too little imperative, and
the uniformity of weather and natural products had caused
the lives of all to be too much alike. The islands were too
small to be the scene of great enterprises, and there was no
large continent accessible, capable, by the foreignness of its
natural features and its inhabitants, of giving to the minds of
the islanders d, stimulating enlargement of their intellectual
horizon ; their isolation in the midst of the ocean could hardly
develop anything beyond a peaceful and unprogressive
existence. But such a simple idyllic life is a defensible mode
^
EXTERNAL CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT. 233
of existence only when considered as a temporary withdrawal
from some familiar civilisation : where it is everything it is
not an existence worthy of mankind. Where each individual
brings into circulation as his contribution only the natural
capacities of his kind, without having worked them out to an
individuality which is all his own by some special labour of
development, each will be esteemed as nothing more than a
mere example of his kind, that may be used and worn out ;
and the life of the whole, like that of a herd of animals, only
with the higher mental characteristics of the human race, will
in the end have no higher sources of enjoyment than those
with which it is furnished by Nature. Hence neither science
nor art nor morality has been developed from the not incon-
siderable mental capacities of these islanders, and it is but
few who have lived through that idyllic life in innocence —
with all the prevailing good nature and friendliness, it was
possible for societies to exist, formed for the indulgence of
immoderate sensuality and pledged to child-murder, and
there was wide-spread cannibalism. So, like other fair pro-
ducts of animate Nature, they sported together with all the
gracefulness of their kind, only to devour each other at last.
There was added another source of misery unknown to the
polar nations. It was said that at an early period there had
come from the north-west, from the mythical island of
Bolotuh, where the gods feed upon ethereal swine, a light-com-
plexioned race which spread over the islands and supplanted
and enslaved its original inhabitants, who were of darker
colour. By innumerable intermarriages, the external differ-
ences of the races were obliterated ; but a strict system of
caste was kept up, not founded upon differences of culture
and hardly upon differences of occupation, but upon degrees
of purity of descent. This system gave to the nobility, the
Eries, rights without duties, and to those of lower rank duties
without rights; to the former immortality and deification
after death, while to the latter it did not even allow a human
soul during life. Jealously guarding their rank among them-
eelves, the nobles on the whole treated the people without
234
BOOK VII. CHAPTER IV.
cruelty, although occasionally murdering these soulless beings
without hesitation ; and still more inexhaustible than the
arrogance of the Eries was the patience of the subject caste,
any of whose possessions a noble, by the taboo which contact
with him could impart, might appropriate to himself and
make it unlawful for the former owner to touch. Secular
power was overridden to some extent by priestly influence,
as is the case with all uncivilised nations among whom
pretended mental pre-eminence is, on account of its greater
rarity, more highly esteemed than bodily vigour, which is
common enough ; but here as in the north, this priestly
influence represented not moral truth but that superstition
which arises from a dread of the unknown powers of Nature,
and which, driven by an ill-regulated imagination into erratic
courses, has led nearly everywhere to a multiplication of
horrors but nowhere to any wise regulation of life. So that
here we find subtle complications of social order, attractiva
simplicity of life, and complete absence of all the higher aims
of existence combined into a whole that abounds in con-
tradictions.
The vivifying contact with foreign nations, customs and
views, which the Polynesians lacked, was enjoyed in vain by
the Negro races and the Indians of North America. The
shores of the Mediterranean beheld one after another the
brilliant civilisations of the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greeks,
Piomans, and Saracens ; they were certainly separated by a
wide wilderness from the country inhabited by the Negroes,
yet for thousands of years active intercourse was carried on
notwithstanding this obstacle. All this influence of culturoJ
nations, which certainly extended far into the interior of
Negroland, produced no civilisation among the black tribes,
neither the formation of great states, nor a dawn of native art
and science — at the most nothing more than some scanty
industries for the adornment of life. The same passions which
move men everywhere, in Africa too caused wars and the
successive predominance of the various tribes, from very early
times; but whilst in the history of white men the dominion
EXTERNAL CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT. 235
of each great nation has been perpetuated in lasting and
characteristic monuments, and has marked a memorable stage
of social conditions, all these changes have been without
result for the black races, and the tide of their national
existence, after the waters had been disturbed for a moment
by some unusual undertaking, went on rising and falling again
just as they had done before.
In the explanation of this great historical fact, opinions are
still found violently opposed to one another. The assumption
that black men have less capacity of development is scarcely
worthy of refutation, if it is understood in such an exaggerated
sense as would justify the abomination of slavery. There has
been sufficient experience, even under this unfavourable con-
dition in America, to forbid us to regard a fixed limitation of
intellectual endowment as a permanent hindrance to the
development of the black races. It would be only in peculi-
arity of disposition which everywhere determines the force
and direction of the application of mental capacity, that we
could seek for conditions that have made an independent
beginning of civilisation impossible for the Negro, and the
appropriation of an alien civilisation difficult for him. To say
the least, good nature, by which he is distinguished, is in the
early stages of history never inventive ; it is far more the evil
desires of ambition and of unscrupulous egoism that nerve all
the forces of the mind to attack, and induce men to search out
every means of defence. White men have conquered the
world, not by their superior morality, but by the obstinate
perseverance with which they attacked all those who could
only oppose passionate ebullitions and unconnected sacrifices
to their merciless penetration and the consistency of their
well-laid plans. The Negro's temperament gives no promise
of any such results. Sanguine and changeable of mood, he
is excited and diverted by every fresh impression, and is just
as little disposed to steady labour as he is to pursuing chains
of thought along those important intermediate links which do
not charm by their own interest, and yet are indispensable for
connecting that which is in itself more valuable. His warmth
236
BOOK VII. CHAPTER IV.
of heart malces him accessible to religious awakening; but
from the unruliness of his imagination, even these feelings are
more likely to be the source of acts of isolated self-sacrifico
than of a course of life ordered in detail In a temperament
of this description there are, without doubt, many features
unfavourable to an independent commencement of higher
civilisation, but also some which are sufficiently favourable to
subordination under powerful and originative minds, to justify
us in expecting either an imitation of foreign culture, or a
gradual indigenous development under the consolidating pres-
sure of an intelligent despotism. But hitherto neither of
these events has taken place. The incapacity of the negro
state of Hayti to attain a condition of permanent order has
certainly too many obvious causes in its hasty formation
amid a population vitiated by slavery, to prove conclusively
that all similar attempts of coloured men must be equally
resultless, supposing they were made under more favourable
circumstances, such as have hitherto been lacking. On the
contrary, in Africa itself the existence partly of despotic and
partly of more democratic polities, shows that an external
formal regulation of society is not wholly incompatible with
the genius of the race, only there lacks that content of life
which alone is worthy of man, and is capable of high
development by means of these forms. That the Negro did
not borrow this content from European civilisation is expli-
cable partly by reference to the hostile fashion in which this
came to him, and partly by the too great violence of the
contrast subsisting between the complex variety of this
civilisation and his own simple way of life. We see the hard-
living masses of the white nations retreating with a similar
lack of receptivity before the culture of the higher classes, as
though it were a manner of life belonging to a different species
of animals, and living on according to their own fashion,
which they can understand. Finally, that in their native
countiy Negroes have never by any progress of their own
developed germs of higher civilisation, may be to an important
extent, though hardly altogether, explained by the geographical
EXTERNAL CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT. 237
conditions of that country. We find these conditions partly
in the enervating effect of the hot climate, which does not
admit of the vigorous work either of body or mind that is
possible in a more temperate region, partly in the natural
fertility of the soil, which too easily affords satisfaction of the
few wants which men feel in tropical countries, partly in the
early age at which bodily maturity is attained, the period of
education being thus abridged, and independent life allowed to
begin too soon. Finally, we certainly find one of these con-
ditions in the difficulty of carrying on communication over
the unbroken stretches of the African continent, a difficulty to
which it is due that the different tribes with their various
fashions and customs (which, however, do not differ to any
great extent) cannot come much into contact either with one
another or with the views of men of different race. Whether
that temperament which has made the Negro nations so little
fitted to advance has resulted from these circumstances, so that
under better climatic conditions generations which have had
time to get rid of their inherited native temperament would
be capable of much progress ; or whether there is in their
organization some impassable barrier to high development,
which will compel them always to remain at a low level —
these are questions which can only be decided by the future
of the race itself. It would certainly be unfair to conclude
from the past absence to the necessary future absence of
historical development, and to seek the ground of this
absence only in natural incapacity without having regard to
obstructive influences ; but when men (carried away by the
certainly not inevitable assumption that all mankind are
similarly organized, and by horror of the abominations of
slavery) forthwith conclude that the Negro race will in the
future reach that higher development which has not been
attained all through the many centuries of past history — then,
on the other hand, it seems to us that the conclusion reached
is not convincing. With regard to morality, by which
the laws of our future conduct are determined, this last
assumption may be preferable, since it in one which cannot do
238
BOOK VII. CHAPTER IV.
harm. As far as the consideration of past history is concerned,
the point in dispute is not so interesting ; for an originally
existent capacity, which has for thousands of years been so
obstructed by unfavourable conditions that it could never
attain development, is in an historical point of view no less
a puzzle than an originally poorer endowment of the race
would be.
S 5. For the most part the Eed men of North America
have resisted European civilisation even more expressly
than the Negroes, and have not themselves developed any
that is of much importance, although their condition
may have been better before their social relations had
been altogether disturbed by the ascendency of the whites and
their perfidy. The superior appliances of European civilisa-
tion, matured under more favouring conditions, have made
North America a rich country ; the densely- wooded nature of
those regions, with lack of water in the west and cold in the
east, put difficulties in the way of an indigenous civilisation.
Our cereals were not produced, and the scanty crops of maize
in the north did not lead to permanent cultivation of the soil ;
potatoes and the domestic animals of the old world were
unknown, and the allied native kinds of animals not very easy
to tame. But there was a superabundance of game, and the
hunter's life, everywhere for the sake of self-preservation the
primitive form of existence, continued here to be the sole
form. This was unfavourable to civilisation in every way.
"Without other sources of supply, even the best hunting
grounds could support only a few persons to the square mile ;
populations never reached the degree of density necessary
for the development of society, and were kept from the
stationary form of life and its educative influences. The
tortures of hunger, which are depicted terribly enough in their
legends, made the care of a family a burden; the noble
liberality which the less skilful hunter expected from the
more fortunate, and which the latter cheerfully exercised,
deprived the unskilful of motives to greater exertion, and the
skilful of that useful egoism which attracts to further enter-
EXTERNAL CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT. 239
prise by the pleasure which increase of gain awakens. The
necessity that the men should always be ready to fight caused
all the ordinary work of life to fall upon the women, while
the poorness and scantiness of the goods which they had to
take care of, afforded them no opportunity of making their
womanly guardianship of much account. The wide dispersion
of the population and ignorance of the use of metals prevented
any great development of manufacturing industry. Eestricted
to the most childish modes of sticking and joining things
together, even fastening the laboriously cut stone heads of
their axes into the cleft of the wooden handles with strips of
leather or fibres of plants, they busied themselves only in the
weaving and plaiting of ornamental stuffs, which was an affair
of patience and of simple taste. The only things on which
they expended labour were arms, ornaments, and the most
indispensable implements, being generally more inclined to
suffer than to take much trouble for their own relief. The
custom of shedding blood in the chase, and the unavoidable
disputes concerning the boundaries of hunting grounds — a
serious matter for people to whom hunting was a bitter necessity
of existence — ^gave them a fierceness of disposition which led
to mutual destruction. Thus their life went on without his-
torical progress, like the movement of a man who is swimming
against the stream — movement which suffices indeed to keep
him up but does not carry him forward.
They are not universally ignorant of the sources of their ill-
fortune. " Do you not see," said one of their chiefs, " that the
white men live upon corn, and we upon meat — that meat
requires more than thirty moons to come to maturity, and
often fails — that each of the wondrous grains which they plant
in the earth gives them back more than a hundred-fold — that
the animals upon whose flesh we live have four legs to escape
with, while we have only two to follow them with — that
wherever the grains of corn fall, there they remain and grow —
that for us winter is a time of toilsome hunting, for the white
men the time of rest ? That is why they have so many
children and live longer than we. Truly before the cedars of
240
BOOK VII. CHAPTER IV.
our village die of old age, and before the maples of the valley
have ceased to yield sugar, the race of the corn-sowers will
have supplanted the race of the meat-eaters, unless the
hunters make up their minds to sow too."
It was but few who did make up their minds. The free
life of the wilderness has often had a permanent attraction
even for Europeans ; the real benefits of our mode of life
pass away almost untasted even by many among ourselves,
being buried under a multitude of small restraints ; to the
Indian especially the latter must have been more obvious than
the former. And strange enough in other respects is the
temper with which he meets foreign influence, whether this
temper is an original endowment of the race or results from
the long-continued action of the circumstances of his life.
The silence, the reflective humour, the immovable pride of
the red warrior may have been produced by the hunter's life,
with its requirements of patience, attention, and foresight, of
presence of mind under surprises, of fortitude under suffering ;
but both the customs and legends of the Indians show an
inclination to fanaticism which does not seem to result alto-
gether from these habits, nor to be due to the mere brooding
of an unoccupied mind. " Ah, my brother," said a chieftain to
his white guest, " thou wilt never know the happiness of both
thinking of nothing and doing nothing ; this, next to sleep, is
the most enchanting of all things. Thus we were before our
birth, and thus we shall be after death. Who gave to thy people
the constant desire to be better clothed and better fed, and to
leave behind them treasures for their children ? Are they
afraid that when they themselves have passed away sun and
moon will shine no more, and that the rivers and the dews of
heaven will be dried up ? Like a fountain flowing from the
rock, they never rest ; when they have finished reaping one
field, they begin to plough another, and as if the day were not
enough, I have seen them working by moonlight. What is
their life to ours — their life that is as nought to them ?
lUind that they are, they lose it all ! But we live in the
present. The past, we say, is nothing, like smoke which the
EXTERNAL CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT. 241
wind disperses ; and the future — where is it ? Let us then
enjoy to-day ; by to-morrow it will be far away."
This is not the language of stupidity. On the contrary, if
it were presented to us in Greek verse, we should admire in
Latin commentaries the fineness with which it derides the
perversity of the white men of whom so many in their haste
to get forward lose all remembrance of their goal. But it is
certainly true that this mode of thought could not be favour-
able to the development of social life, as long as it held its
ground and was supported by the combined influence of all
surrounding circumstances. Meanwhile the attraction south-
wards which animated the migrations of the European nations,
moved these tribes also in ancient times, and whilst North
America saw no indigenous political development, we are
dazzled by the splendid spectacle of the kingdom of Mexico
in the central region of the great continent, and numerous
ruins bear witness that there once flourished other centres of
civilisation, of which the history is lost to us.
The mild climate of Mexico, where the land is narrowed
between two great oceans, the four-hundredfold return which
maize not unfrequently yields, and the banana, which in a
given space of ground produces twenty times the nutritive
matter of wheat, here admitted of a settled population
increasing till it became very numerous. Life was divided
between work and leisure, and division of labour became
possible ; wants grew with the production and offering for
sale of goods ; there came into existence nearly all the
arrangements which conduce to social intercourse and
luxurious enjoyment of life. A disposition to cultivate
flowers began to appear in addition to careful husbandry and
orcharding and culture of medicinal herbs ; the weaver's art
produced magnificent garments of gorgeous colouring com-
posed of cotton interwoven with feather-down ; gold ornaments
and precious stones faultlessly cut might be put on before
obsidian mirrors. At feasts the tables were decked with
costly utensils, and these feasts were conducted according to
a complicated ceremonial, and with all the adjuncts of
VOL. IL Q
242 BOOK VII. CHAPTEE IV.
civilised entertainment ; the general tone of society was
courteous, and the morality of domestic life (which was held
in great honour) was marked by propriety and moderation
and was a subject of instruction. The exchange of products
was accomplished by means of markets held at fixed times.
At these times in the large and populous towns, of which
more than one seemed to the Spaniards to emulate Granada in
its palmy days, many thousands of persons moved about
among the various stalls which belonged to different trades
and were arranged in orderly fashion, and in this busy mart
there was wanting neither police supervision, nor a special
Court of Justice that sat continuously for the settlement of
any disputes that might arise.
According to the Toltekian legend, the founder of this
civilisation was the hero Quetzalkohuatl, with fair face and
long beard, who came to the country from some unknown
and distant region, accompanied by many followers clothed in
long garments. Whatever may be the historic kernel of this
tradition, the limitations of Mexican civilisation seem to bear
witness to its native origin. Quetzalkohuatl was said to
have come over the sea ; but the Mexican merchants, in other
respects so enterprising, did not navigate the ocean ; there
had not come into the country from over the water any of
the domestic animals of the old world, nor even the thought
of taming native species ; the bales of goods were conveyed
by human carriers along the broad highways ; our cereals
remained unknown, maize being the only grain until the
Spanish conquest. The Mexicans did not know how to
obtain iron, they worked the land with implements of copper
and bronze without the help of draught animals, setting not
sowing the seed, providing for irrigation by dikes and trenches;
finally, they did not adopt any of the modes of writing
employed by earlier civilised nations, but developed for them-
selves a system of written signs. Thus none of the elements
which are generally most easily communicated by foreign
civilisation came to them from without, and we may regard
their civilisation as the native development reached by the
EXTERNAL CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT.
243
genius of the Indian race under favourable climatic con-
ditions.
On the other side of the equator similarly favouring
natural conditions enabled the seaboard country of Peru to
attain a remarkably flourishing civilisation ; but the pastoral
nomads who in the old world seem to have been the first to
undertake the task of bringing several centres of civilisation
into communication with each other, did not exist in America,
and no intercourse took place between Mexico and Peru. On
the other hand, in the great eastern half of South America
the spirit of man was cowed by the overpowering might of
natural phaenomena. Monstrous rivers with resistless inun-
dations, vast and trackless forests, the irrepressible vegetative
vitality which causes every cultivated piece of land to be
quickly overgrown with a rank luxuriance of weeds, the
number of large beasts of prey, and the countless multitude
of insects, winged or creeping, which speedily devour a
whole harvest — all these hindrances still stand in the way
of development in Brazil, notwithstanding the European
industry which has long flourished there, and much , more
must they have frustrated the early attempts of isolated
tribes.
If it were necessary to make this hasty sketch complete,
Europe and Asia might increase the aggregate of unhistoric
life by the addition of many nations who still live on in
their old abodes with the same manners and customs which
they had at the beginning of history. They would thus
confirm afresh the impossibility of speaking of a past History
of Mankind, since it is only among a small fraction of the
human race that that connected series of events has occurred,
which with an unwarrantable generalization we sometimes
call the History of Mankind, and sometimes under the name
of Universal History regard as signifying the development of
all reality and the unfolding of the World-spirit. Erom the
future, however, we may expect, as the best which it can
bring, the difi'usion of European civilisation over the whole
earth. Eor the only native dawn of development of the
244 BOOK VII. CHAPTER 17.
1
coloured race in America was completely destroyed by the
bloody hand of Europeans, before the time to come could
decide what were its capabilities of further development ;
and no one will imagine that the Negro race, being every-
where exposed to the injfluences of European culture, is now
likely to develop a special national civilisation. But the
Negro has at least some reason to hope that his race will be
perpetuated, while according to a very general opinion
Indians and Polynesians are doomed by the very genius of
history to die out before the higher race of the Caucasians.
The truth is that those coloured races were reduced to such
an extreme degree of weakness simply by the frightful cruelty
of their white conquerors and the numerous diseases which
they introduced, or which — from some unexplained causes —
are usually developed when races of men that are widel;y
different first come into contact. In the Middle Ages a
similar fate befel European nations more than once ; but they
had time to recover, for there was not in their rear any race
still more Caucasian than themselves, seeking with the same
consistent cruelty — partly natural and partly doctrinaire — to
execute upon them a supposed sentence of history. Where
such a chance of recovery has been given to the coloured
races, they also have begun to slowly increase again ; where
they are really melting away like snow, there are to be found,
first and foremost, frightful secrets of European colonial
government — but the fulfilment of an historic doom will be
found only by him who counts every accomplished matter of
fact among the necessary phases of development of an Idea
that rules the world.
CHAPTER V.
THE DEVEEOPMENT OF HISTOET.
Stationary Civilisation and Nomadic Life in the East — Semitic and Indo-
Germanic Races — Ancient Greece and Rome — The Hebrews and Chris-
tianity— Character and Early History of the Germanic Nations — The
Germanic Nations in the Middle Ages — The Characteristics, the Problems,
and the Difficulties of Modern Times.
^ 1. TN the old world, too, we see how the beginnings of
-*- human civilisation depend upon the favour of
natural circumstances. It is between the Yangtsekiang and
the Hoangho, in the lowlands of the Indus and Ganges, in
the plain that lies between the Euphrates and the Tigris, and
in the valley of the Nile, that we find the nurseries of the
earliest civilisations. Fertilized by regular inundations, in
restraining and utilizing which men's powers were for the
first time combined for the co-operative production of careful
hydraulic constructions, these river-lands brought forth in
luxuriant abundance the vegetable products that were
sufficient for human support in those climates which by their
mildness reduced all physical wants to a minimum of
complexity. In China and India the yield of rice was far
above a hundredfold ; the quantity of fruit borne by the date-
palms in Mesopotamia and Egypt was enormous ; Herodotus
extols the splendid crops of corn and barley in the Babylonian
plains ; he is silent, he says, regarding the wonderful growth
of millet there, because he does not wish to be disbelieved.
Such an abundance of edible natural products, besides which
each country possessed also some special advantages, favourable
to civilisation in other respects, allowed these countries to
attain a density of stationary population which early led to
a complex development of social relations.
The accounts given by ancient writers, and a consideration
243
246
BOOK VII. CHAPTER V.
of the monuments which have been discovered, equally con-
vince us how early the civilisation which grew up in these
countries attained that perfection in the adornment and
re<Tulation of the surroundings of man's life which we some-
times consider to be an exclusive privilege of the enlightened
present. Of the dim shadow that in our thought is wont to
lie upon the gray and distant past, not much could have been
observable in that past itself ; it was bright and noisy, and in
many places the externals of civilisation were developed with
a perfection which could only be attained in an age sensible
of having awakened to full consciousness, in contrast to the
unawakened life of the past. Partly collected in large and
populous towns, clothed in garments of cotton, or silk, or'
linen — sometimes simple, sometimes a marvel of taste and
splendour — these nations walked the earth with a most lively
susceptibility to all the grace and beauty of existence ; the
habitations of the rich were devoid neither of the variety
of household furniture, which self-indulgent ease requires,
nor of the mere embellishments of luxury, and the thousand
charming trifles which imagination asks for the beautifying
of life; their social meetings lacked hardly any of those
means of amusement with which modern times are familiar,
nor was their intercourse devoid of that ceremony which
distinguishes human converse from the gregariousness of
beasts. But all this brightness was not without its shadows ;
tDn the contrary, even in those times, the splendid remains of
v/hich we admire, men suffered under the pressure of the
same social evils from which in the later periods of history
they have never been able wholly to get free.
The fewer the indispensable necessities of life are, the more
easily they are satisfied by the spontaneous productiveness of
the soil, the more mildness of climate tends to make these
natural productions sufficient, and the less — in fine — general
civilisation (as yet undeveloped) requires provident care for
the future and for descendants : so much the more rapid will
l)e the multiplication of an impoverished population, who will
be forced by every temporary deficiency of their ordinary
I
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY.
247
sustenauce, and by every unusual disaster, to offer their
services to those who have property, each underbidding the
other. Even if it had ever been the case that a society, of
which all the members had perfectly equal rights and claims,
had shared equally in the means of production in a new
country, the natural course of things, by the different increase
of different families and a thousand other accidents, would
soon have introduced inequality of fortune. But it hardly
seems that this eve" has been the case, the first permanent
settlements having apparently grown up under other conditions
more adverse to equality.
Those favoured river- valleys of which the luxuriant fertility
invited to steady cultivation, are in Asia separated from the
inhospitable north by an extensive zone of steppes and
pasture lands which, solely by their innumerable flocks of
tameable and useful animals, afford support to a numerous
population. Men have dwelt here from time immemorial ;
pastoral tribes who still in many particulars remind one of
the customs with which their most remote ancestors first
appear in history. Made hardy by the discomforts of their
roving life, and brought up to warlike vigour, and many of
them being tribes of horsemen, in ancient times, as now, they
moved about as nomadic hordes among the settlements of
fixed civilisation. The chief towns of the latter were secured
by impassable mountain boundaries from the continued
repetition of petty attacks, to which perhaps they would
have succumbed : but any considerable natural calamity
which lessened the number of the flocks upon which the
nomads depended, or any increase of population making richer
sources of supply necessary, induced large bodies of the war-
like shepherd tribes to make incursions into the countries of
developed civilisation.
The history of Asia is full of the conflict between these
two forms of life. Often in ancient times have the rich lands
of Western Asia been trodden under foot by hordes of
mounted Scythians; the growing prosperity of China was
threatened by Mongol attacks ; the already highly developed
248
BOOK VII. CHAPTER V.
civilisation of Egypt was subject for centuries to the assaults
of the Hyksos ; it was with the warlike nomads of Central
'Asia that there began that migratory movement which, after
the fall of the West Eoman Empire, initiated a new period of
European history ; and not much more than five hundred year?
have passed since there broke upon the eastern confines of
Germany the last billows of that tremendous storm which the
mighty spirit of Genghis Khan, supported by the united
strength of all his tribes of wild horsemen, had brought upon
the world. Thus the impulse which the unceasing restless-
ness of these nomadic races has communicated to the external
destinies of mankind seems to be extraordinarily great ; but
on the other hand, in the history of civilisation no remini-
scence of progress is attached to their name. In this region
they have only made destructive incursions, and then have
either sunk back again into their unhistoric existence or have
fallen in with the civilisation of the nations with whom they
mixed, without giving it any new direction. It was only the
Arab nomads, who were of another complexion — burning
religious zeal transformed them with amazing rapidity into
conquerors of a great part of the civilised world. Without
possessing advanced native civilisation, they appropriated
many elements of western culture with a receptivity due
perhaps to their southern origin, and gave to that which they
had appropriated the characteristic stamp of their own mind.
These occurrences of later times must have had their
analogues also in the earliest historic ages. Most civilised
nations, according to their traditions, consider themselves as
settlers and not aborigines in the countries which they have
made famous. In many cases they came with an already
developed civilisation to these countries, and found them
inhabited by aborigines who, notwithstanding favourable
natural conditions, retained the savagery of their primitive
condition. So the Aryan Indians, when they spread
south of the Himalayas, drove out a native race of
blacks, who retreated to the most inaccessible mountains of
the Deccan; and so in Egypt some Negro race may have
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY.
249
enjoyed the first-fruits of the rich soil, though the develop-
ment of its historical life may have begun with the im-
migration into the country of men of Caucasian race who
later regarded themselves as autochthonous ; and traditions
concerning the settlement of the Mediterranean coasts are
full of the struggle between alien civilisation and aboriginal
barbarism. But the converse process has also occurred ; it
has repeatedly happened that tribes from pastoral districts or
mountain regions, men of natural vigour and capable of
development though as yet undeveloped, have fallen upon the
more enervated inhabitants of the plains, and have carried on
in their own name the civilisation which the latter had first
established. It is not the more frequent but the rarer case
when those nations which have first expended their labour
on the soil of any country, have subsequently maintained
themselves in possession of it, and kept in the van of the
civilisation which its gradually unfolded resources have made
possible. These circumstances have been influential in the
formation of social order.
Tribes of hunters and of nomads are apt to develop at a
somewhat early stage of civilisation an aristocracy of rich and
leading families ; and just as naturally are they inclined to
regard mental endowment which boasts connection with an
unseen power, with greater awe than bodily strength and
warlike courage, which for them are quite in the ordinary
course. Nomad life offers but few inducements for developing
these differences of social consideration into really valuable
privileges ; but in the transition to stationary life, the heads
of tribes and the priests have always drawn tighter the loose
reins which they held, and have succeeded by various means in
bringing the fertile land entirely into their own power, and in
compelling the great majority into their service as unpropertied
labourers or dependent tenants. Among nomads the interests
of all are too similar, and their simple way of life too readily
scrutinized by all for it to be easy for budding despotism to
make the individual members of the tribe permanently ser-
viceable to its own ends; but a settled population involved
250
BOOK Vn CHAPTER V.
in a multiplicity of complicated relations, soon becomes unable
to take a comprehensive view of its own capacities and wants,
and the difficulty for each individual of reckoning with
certainty upon the intentions of others causes them collec-
tively to fall an easy prey to the narrow class-interest of the
few who understand one another. So it came to pass that in
the most fertile regions, stationary life fell under the power of
the priesthood, and of an hereditary nobility belonging to
the order of chieftains ; where the nature of the country was
favourable, the next step in advance concentrated the secular
power, which is always jealous of partners, in one person,
and produced the knitting-up of the spiritual power (which
is everywhere conscious that it can only be effective as a
combined unity) into an orderly system of strong corporations.
The inequality of splendid and wretched lots, which thus arose
in society, was finally only intensified when a conquering
nation oppressed the conquered with the right of the stronger
and the pride of nobler blood.
Hereditary callings are natural to dawning civilisation.
Partly with the object operated upon, as in the case of tillers
of the soil, partly with the instruction which coincides with
family education, where the transmission of knowledge by
schools separate from the home is as yet non-existent, the calling
of the parents is transmitted to the children ; free choice of
some other employment is prevented both by the narrowness
of men's intellectual horizon, which embraces only that which
is famiKar, and forces them to attach themselves thereto, and
by the natural jealousy with which not only the different
classes of society, but also the various trades, strive to keep
themselves exclusive. These customs have, moreover, swayed
in many ways the civilisation of later times. They occurred
in the dawning culture of Egypt and India ; but it was only
in India that the contrast between the conquered race and the
native population (which here was even greater than in the
valley of the Nile), and, moreover, the influence of priestly
views, developed such customs into those irremovable dis-
tinctions of caste, which, while they made certain callings
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY.
251
obligatory, oppressed all lower castes with the graduated
contempt of those which were above them. China alone
never laid these fetters of caste and status on its industrial
population, knowing no hereditary differences of rank and
calling, and all being under general state guardianship ; this
was perhaps a happy incidental effect of the absence of
religious fanaticism and warlike thirst for glory. It was only
here that access to learning (though to learning of not
much value) was thrown open to all, and instruction early
diffused and favoured. In India there stirred an infinitely
deeper intellectual life, that with its strange mixture of
extravagant imagination and penetrating subtlety, embracing
the secrets of heaven and the vanity of earthly life, affected
only the favoured upper classes of society ; in Egypt and
Babylon science and writing, the laboriously developed means
of communication, were in the hands of the priests. Common
life lacked the stimulus which might have been given to it by
the wisdom which was kept secret, and this in its turn
certainly lacked quite as much the impulse to progress which
it might have received from intercourse with the thought of
the people. Industry was not backed by any knowledge
worth mentioning of the efficient powers of Nature ; it was
facilitated by but few technical artifices, and animated by no
spontaneous artistic impulse. Astronomy alone became early
a subject of instruction, but it teaches only what happens and
cannot be altered ; a knowledge of mechanical forces which
man may use for his advantage was still wanting ; lucky
discoveries might be treasured and transmitted, but no know-
ledge of the principles of mechanical action invited men to
progressive improvement in practice. The want of instru-
ments similar to our machinery obliged actual manual labour
to be employed everywhere, with a disproportionate expendi-
ture of time and strength, and however great might be the
luxury of the wealthy, the growing increase of remuneration
could not repay the arduous labour expended on the pro-
ductions required. Artistic activity was soon drawn into
the service of religion ; and hence, and from love of splendour
252 BOOK VII. CHAPTER V.
on the part of despots, it was stimulated to great works, though
limited to certain established forms. Some few of these, as
waterworks and roads, were of general utility ; most, like the
Pyramids of Egypt, and in the new world the Teocallis of
Mexico, and enormous temples and palaces, only bear witness
to the harsh oppression which, when there was no advanced
knowledge of practical mechanics, extorted such prodigious
results by lavish expenditure of human strength.
It is with varying feelings that we transport ourselves into
these times. As long as it is only their productions that are
before us, we admire ; these seem to our imagination to bear
witness to a mighty creative impulse in which all men with
one accord must then have revelled. If we consider the
means by which it was all produced, then it seems to us that
any state of society must have been unspeakably miserable
which allowed the sorely oppressed majority to be tyrannically
used for the satisfaction of the aimless fantastic vanity of a
few, which abolished the natural equality of men by cruel
distinctions, and restricted their activity by innumerable
checks and hindrances. But it may be doubted whether
history would have made any progress if its beginning had
been a quiet and peaceful sort of life in which every individual
produced and consumed undisturbed whatever was necessary
for the satisfaction of his frugal wants ; mankind needed to
be made aware that their vocation is not the mere supply of
physical needs. The systematizing division into castes cer-
tainly restricted men, but then it also first brought into the
world the idea of a vocation, and it taught men not to
think that in merely being men they had attained the end
of their existence. The iron oppression of despotism used
men as mere instruments, but it also was first to combine
them together as members of one whole; the extravagant
pride of rulers dragged men away on expeditions that aimed
at conquering the world, but this thought of the sovereignty
of the world was perhaps the only way in which hostile
tribes, still in conflict with one another, could be brought
partly to the enjoyment of comparative prosperity by the
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY. 253
attainment of external order and security, and partly to a
feeling of the connection of all mankind — a connection which,
as with a binding law, overrides the caprice and hatred of indi-
vidual races. And finally, the petty restrictions with which
priestly ordinances beset life in all directions have in the East
given rise to and maintained in the most effective manner the
feeling of a constant connection between earthly existence and
a universal history extending beyond mundane limits. The
school of this first stage of education was hard and bloody ;
but on the one hand the progress of mankind for a long time
dragged on the same social evils under other forms, and on
the other hand without such a school the beginning of civilisa-
tion is even harder to conceive than its progress. It was
through it that there arose for mankind the first really valuable
content of life ; extolled by one, cursed by another, having for
the great majority the imposing aspect of natural necessities
of inscrutable origin, established social organizations captivated
the imagination by the splendour of their monumental con-
Btructions, and the will by the force of their attraction.
This it is that we are accustomed to point out as the
characteristic feature of the East and of its philosophy. The
ordering of life which men established seemed to them — that
is, the thing created seemed to the creators — to be a self-
evident and unconditional necessity, and the freedom of the
individual seemed to be swallowed up by the superior power
of that universal the outlines of which each individual must
help to fill in. Social arrangements were regarded not as
historical and alterable human constructions ; all seemed
to bear the stamp of supramundane sanctity ; whether the
whole order of existence appear as in China to be an im-
press of the being and rule of an impersonal Supreme, the
copying of which restricts all caprice of personal activity
to a faithful following of ancient customs and transmitted
wisdom ; or whether, as in India, acquiescence in the melan-
choly condition of oppression was due to the mystic tradition
according to which different sorts of men proceed from more
and less noble parts of the deity ; or whether, as in the
254
BOOK VII. CHAPTER V.
pompous inscriptions with which the kings of Egypt and
Persia used to cover the rocks, the ruler, as the direct repre-
sentative of the Most High God, considered his commands to
be binding on all the world. And as each private individual
was reckoned as of little account in himself, so it was even
with these rulers ; it was not as persons but as office-bearers
that they stood at the head of humanity. In the East, when
the insignia of supreme power have passed from one person
to another, obedience and submission have always been trans-
ferred along with them, apart from any fidelity to individuals.
This sense of being embraced in a vast and predestined order
was on the whole undisturbed by any spirit of disintegrating
criticism ; the vast extent of the countries, the difficulty of
communication, and the want of means of intellectual inter-
course prevented this feeling from bsing opposed by any
flexible and progressive public opinion. Customs and sys-
tems of thought were maintained unaltered by tradition ;
morality and secular law were not separated from religion
and worship. Great as was the division of industrial labour
into distinct callings, in practical politics the most diverse
governmental functions overlapped ; general abstract points of
view for the treatment of similar problems were not de-
veloped, and even in its most craftily contrived arrangements
the oriental art of government (like the lives of individuals)
shows a matter-of-fact simplicity which aims solely at its
particular end, without any attempt at shortening the way by
the help of general maxims.
Though this is the general character of the impression
produced on us by a consideration of eastern nations, yet that
impression must, of course, include many strong contrasts and
counter-currents, since the men who lived there and then
were in all respects the same manner of men as ourselves.
The oriental character was not so wholly immovable and
torpid as it seems to us at this distance of time. The ancient
civilised states of Asia were not without mental revolutions,
which for us, indeed, do not materially alter their general
aspect, but for the men who experienced them were just as
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTOKY.
255
much periods of active progress as European development is
for us. Our attention is diverted from these circumstances by
the consideration that but very few of them have been of
service to the subsequent progress of mankind. Almost all
those civilisations, shut up in themselves, passed through their
various phases of development in isolation; China, on the eastern
edge of the continent, was from the beginning out of com-
munication with the rest of the world; India did indeed
come in various ways into contact with other countries, but
without any important effects ; it was only Egypt and Asia
Minor that gave to the West most of the elements of their
civilisation.
§ 2. Only two great families of people — long in conflict with
one another — the Semitic and the Indo-Germanic, have been
instrumental in the further progress of history ; and even of
them many branches have diverged from the main line of
development, some continuing the practice of old accustomed
forms of life, some in course of time disappearing altogether.
In ancient times the south of Western Asia, from the moun-
tains of Armenia, belonged to Semitic races. And even if we
leave undecided whether the primitive culture and the lan-
guage of Egypt were attributable to them, yet the high
development of Mesopotamia, the mighty Babylon, remains an
early monument of their strength. From the narrow coast-
land of Phoenicia Semitic merchants went forth on bold and
adventurous voyages to all the islands and shores of the
Mediterranean Sea, and beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, and
the traces of industrial settlements which they left behind in
then obscure Europe may have guided in many ways the
later civilisation of the Grecian world. When the rich cities
of the little Phoenician mother-country had fallen from the
giddy height of luxury and self-indulgence which they had
reached, and had succumbed to an invading and hardier race,
the colony of Carthage, the mistress of the Western Mediter-
ranean and its coasts, long withstood in tremendous conflicts
the growing might of Eome; when this struggle, too, was
decided, and the secular power of the Indo-Germanic races
256
BOOK VII. CHAPTER 7.
was firmly estaUislied in Europe, the whole of the western
world gradually submitted to the spiritual supremacy of
Christianity, which took its rise and found its first advocates
and ambassadors among a Semitic people. And even once
again, in the Middle Ages it seemed doubtful whether the van
of historical progress would henceforth be led by the still
oriental genius of the Semitic race through the incursion of
the Arabs, or by Indo-Germanic vigour, which had first attained
full development in the West.
Whether the nations which now possess Europe were
preceded by an aboriginal population of different race, we
know not. Comparative philology teaches that the European
nations are, with few exceptions, branches of one stock, which
more than four thousand years ago fed their flocks in the
favoured regions on the western slo^e of the Himalayas. One
branch of this stock of Aryans, the " excellent," as they called
themselves, gained possession of the land watered by the
Indus fifteen hundred years before the commencement of oui
chronology, and about the same time another branch developed
into a well-ordered and flourishing nation in the more westerly
Iranian highland. India soon dropped out of the course of
history in the isolation of its own fantastic development ; on the
other hand, the Iranian tribes succumbed to the attacks of
their Semitic neighbours on the west, before the permanent
supremacy of their race was established in the great Persian
Empire. If we lack historical information concerning even
this first division of the two tribes which were nearest to one
another locally, and which likewise continued to be in language
and thought most closely allied both to one another and to
the parent stock, still more obscure are the times at which
and the paths by which the migrations of others to the far
west took place. The Celtic tribes which pushed on as far
as the Atlantic Ocean, and hence were probably the earliest
among those who immigrated westwards through the continent
of Europe, have won no special place among the great civilised
nations. Their development (in which at one time in their
Gallic abiding-places they were certainly in advance of their
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY.
257,
Germanic neighbours) was interrupted by the impulsive force
of Eoman civilisation ; the remains of their dialects and
customs are dying out. Later the Germanic immigration,
and later still the Slavonic, reached Central Europe ; earlier
than this, the as yet combined Greek and Eoman branches of
the Aryan stock had spread over the ^gean Archipelago,
the Hellespont, and the shores of the Black Sea, and split up
into those two nations to which belongs the first brilliant
instalment of European development.
§ 3. The great Asiatic civilisations have, it is true, developed
many a treasure of knowledge, of order, and of beauty ; but
it was among the Greeks that mankind first opened their eyes
full upon earth and heaven with that fresh, lucid, priceless
awakedness of the whole living mind that we ourselves can
feel and sympathize with. The various tribes of the Greek
race lived through a long period of somewhat slow develop-
ment, the beginnings of which are obscure, until the exertion
of united strength, called forth by the pressure of foreign
power, accelerated the onward impulse of that marvellous
civilisation which, though its vital strength was soon exhausted,
long continued to scatter its blossoms far and wide over the
world.
As blazing suns may have been produced by the condensa-
tion of fiery vapour, so in Greece we see the immensity of
oriental dimensions reduced to moderate and proportioned
forms instinct with the most intense life. The theatre of
development was a small district that could never boast any-
thing like the number of inhabitants that an oriental monarch
would have been content to rule over. Greece did not possess
the fantastic wealth of alluring and terrifying wonders, which in
the East had an enervating influence on organized energy, and
amid which imagination ran riot ; the nature of the soil —
which yielded a good return to labour without being luxu-
ridntly fertile — accustomed men to industry ; a mild climate
and bright atmosphere were favourable to fine physical
development and to the training of the senses to accurate
observation. The conformation of the country, which was
VOL. IL K
25d BOOK VIL CHAPTER V.
broken into deep valleys and numerous mountains, caused
small communities to be shut up together in the closest
proximity; the unequalled extent of coast-line and the
rich profusion of islands were favourable to intercourse
between the inhabitants, whilst here — as everywhere —
nearness to the sea was decidedly inimical to lasting union
under one government. Thus did this land, a rare jewel of
terrestrial conformation, nourish many independent commu-
nities, within the narrow bounds of which the awakened
nationality of the Greek -speaking race early developed
extremely active public life — the Greek mind esteeming
comprehension by means of language and knowledge of
causes to be the crowning excellences of man, and social
communion and intercourse with one's fellows to be the very
flower of life's happiness. The age which regarded the
heroic times as having immediately preceded it, and which
celebrated in song the deeds of the heroes, was not without
graceful forms of intercourse and demeanour; the continual
friction and reciprocal action produced by interchange of opi-
nions caused the nation to withdraw itself ever more and more
from the yoke of transmitted custom as it gained new points
of view, and it began to reconstruct with conscious art all its
social and political relations ; soon, having become accustomed
to doubt and to critical analysis, it called in question all the
foundations of ordered human existence, and was ruined by
a sophistical excess of free thought, which here rose supreme
over all constancy of existing relations and duties, just as in
the East the traditional objective order of things had fettered
all freedom of subjective conviction.
To indicate to some extent in a single phrase the historical
position of a phsenomenon so complex and full of life, is what
we can hope to do only if we attempt not to exhaust its
many-sided content, but merely to emphasize the difference
between it and preceding times. Considered in this restricted
sense, those no doubt are right who find in Greek life the
first youthful self- comprehension of the human mind and the
first dawning of that light of self-consciousness by which man
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY.
259
examines both his own destiny and the claim which existing
natural relations have upon him. In the most various depart-
ments we see both this critical impulse and its youthful
freshness.
However much of knowledge and of skill and of wise
maxims earlier nations may have possessed and employed
both in the regulation of social relations and in systematic
art, the thought of seeking out the very grounds and bases of
our judgment of things, and of combining them demonstra-
tively and deductively in a system of truths — the foundation
of science in fact — will for ever remain the glory of the Greeks.
The immortal services which they rendered in this direction
belonged certainly, then as nowj to individuals, tiot to the
crowd. However, to have produced the individuals — and
of them not few — who aimed at and accomplished such
great things, belongs, whether as good fortune or as merit,
to the historic idea of the Greek nation. Among the
special national characteristics of the Greeks were always
that active insight and dispassionate spirit of investigation
which examines every fact on all sides, tests every dictum,
analyses every prepossession, and by an ineradicable inclina-
tion to try and understand every particular by reference to
general causes and in its connection with the whole, led to
the conscious formation of general notions^ to proof, to classi-
fication, and, in short, to all those methodical forms of thought
by which the theory and science of the West will be for ever
distinguished from even the most imaginative sagacity and
the most intellectual enthusiasm of the East.
They brought this spirit of investigation into all depart-
ments. Not only did they lay the foundations of logic and
mathematics with remarkable exactness, but at the same time
they interested themselves in the exhaustive treatment of
domestic economy, the organization of the body politic, and
the problems of moral education, as subjects of systematic
science. A quick and unbiassed eye for matters of immediate
experience helped them to free themselves from slothful
acquiescence in inherited prejudices and the unreasoning
260 BOOK VII. CHAPTER V.
passion of superstition, which, mixiDg things human ai"n3
divine with confused ardour, furnishes neither peaceful faith
as regards the one, nor intelligent equanimity as regards the
other. They shook off ever more and more the influence of
oriental mysticism, which, with rank growth, everywhere
sees and shuns incomprehensible and oppressive secrets in
the smallest trifles, and created what was to this as prose is to
dithyrambic verse. I do not mean prose composition, which
also they did at last laboriously develop, but the judicious
way of looking at the world which receives that which is
inspiring with enthusiasm, that which is sober with sobriety,
that which is earthly as earthly, that which is mechanical as
mechanical — which does not treat everything with the same
excitement and grandiloquence, but calmly estimates different
things according to their degree of importance. Thus they
early separated the secular life from the religious, as far as
the two can be separated, and freed themselves from oriental
theocracy ; thus their impulse towards political freedom sup-
pressed by degrees all those differences in the rights of indi-
viduals which they had received by tradition ; thus in art
much which was great and splendid, which the East cherished
passionately but expressed chaotically, they preferred to leave
altogether, in order to devote themselves to more manageable
tasks in which they could make the special orderly rhythm
of beauty as supreme as they tried to make the laws of truth
over the facts of science.
But this spirit of investigation is in its very nature of
double significance. It must assume an unconditioned and
objective truth in things themselves, for without this its
critical labour would be aimless ; at the same time it must
be the individual subject who by his recognition and confirma-
tion first establishes this truth. The Greeks were not able to
escape the influence of the double impulse here involved — the
impulse on the one hand to reverence for that which is in
itself true, and on the other hand to the ever-busy search for
a truth that is yet more true ; and herein, as in their bright
artistic freshness of life, they exhibit the youthful age of the
THE DEVELOrMENT OF HISTORY.
261
human race. For youth in struggling upwards, often —
when it has thrown aside the dreamy prejudices of child-
hood— hecomes presumptuously doctrinaire, over-estimating,
in the consciousness of growing insight, the instruments
of knowledge, thinking little of the immediate and indemon-
strahle evidence of obvious truths and feelings ; and while
seeking ideals, unable to recognise as ideal anything that it
cannot by proof and deduction transform into a product of its
own reason. This over-estimation of pure thought and its
instruments, logical forms, itself in many ways impoverished
the science of the Greeks ; they too often thought that they
knew the thing itself when they had merely analysed the
movement of thought by which we seek to approach the
thing. In practice, however, reverence for individual dex-
terity of thought, and for dialectic skill in dealing with things,
far exceeded respect for the nature of things themselves.
The active Greek mind had discovered in rapid succession
a multitude of standpoints from which to estimate all
human affairs, and sometimes the establishment and develop-
ment of art, sometimes any novel paradox was held to be
of more consequence than the approval of an incorruptible
conscience, the simple sense of duty, or immediate con-
viction. They thought that they could everywhere begin
afresh from the very beginning, and that they both could
prove everything and needed to do so; they connected moral
teaching with theoretic speculation and its uncertainties ;
they had little feeling for historical relations which cannot
be charmed away by the magic of a theoretic dictum ; every
fresh fancy to which any logical support whatever could be
given, seemed to them entitled to be tested as a new principle.
We often hear them enjoining upon one another respect and
reverence towards ancestral traditions and the historical
continuity of social conditions; but a glance at the multi-
tudinous variety of political, social, and ethical experiments
made by them as time went on shows how little these
admonitions were attended to; and when by some chance
they were attended to, this was due to their having the
262 BOOK VIL CHAPTEE V.
attraction of presenting some other momentarily new point of
view.
It had not always been so. Before the Persian wars the
undeveloped state of society, and the prevalence of a busy,
hard-working way of life had counterbalanced this excessive
mental activity; but at that time the Greeks had not yet
reached the turning-point of the historic race they had to run.
The score or so of years that elapsed between their conflict for
freedom and the Peloponnesian war comprise the time of short
but brilliant bloom when the Greek spirit of liberty in its
onward evolutionary struggle had not yet developed pernicious
fruits. But lasting prosperity was impossible ; the distin-
guishing excellences of the people were ruined by their
unbridled sophistry. None of their virtues touches us more
or was more of a novelty in history than their patriotism, and
their readiness to sacrifice themselves for the good of a com-
monwealth that was founded on freedom of intercourse between
the citizens and on comprehension of the benefit resulting from
participation in common joy and labour and recreation and
danger. But however highly they esteemed their fatherland
and national freedom, yet each one understood national pro-
sperity after his own fashion, and sought to realize this ideal
after his own fashion ; there were incessant revolutions, and
these caused the rights of individuals to be in a state of con-
stant fluctuation, and often produced such terrible crimes that
the bloody history of real events forms a melancholy contrast
to the splendid insight which we admire in the works left by
Greek genius to posterity. Without the individualist spirit
which impelled single towns to emulation for the palm in
civilisation and artistic distinction, Greece would not have
reached the eminence which she did ; but when there came
changed conditions, not admitting of such a dissipation of
strength, the Greeks did not learn to suppress that selfish
envy which had everywhere associated itself with the less
ignoble form of the affection. Their imagination, indeed,
continued susceptible to the great national thought of the
freedom of all Greece j but they knew too many points of
!
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY. 263l
view from which it was possible to justify anything and
everything, and they had lost the simple sense of duty which
robs all sophistry of its strength. They had early allowed
to the Persian king an influence in their internal affairs which
Ptome never granted to the Punic enemy of her kingdom ;
and Greece — abounding in examples of treachery on the part
of her distinguished men, depopulated by constant dissensions
and by immorality that was sometimes sophistically justified
and sometinaes practised shamelessly, and lacking steady dis-
cipline— fell an inglorious prey to the attacks of Italy.
§ 4. We are accustomed to regard the Eoman nation as
the potent temporal power which, after it had destroyed the
independence of the Greeks, afforded protection to Greek
genius, enabling it, as it were, to- concentrate itself, and
laying at its feet a conquered world. And, in fact, what the
Eomans contributed from their own resources to the treasures
of civilisation may soon be reckoned up ; but the worth of
what they did contribute is not lessened by its lack of variety.
They accomplished a work which was impossible for the
Greeks ; they combined the nations of the earth in the com-
munity of a vast political life, and in the most diverse countries
left seeds of civilisation which were not slightly sown, but
took such deep root that their living branches have ramified
through the whole history of later times. When Alexander
of Macedon, leading the combined forces of Greece, and
dreaming of a union between East and West, sought in his
rapid triumphal progress through conquered Asia to spread
Greek civilisation to the confines of India, the dazzling
splendour of his individuality, so strange and full of genius,
blinds us to the hopelessness of an undertaking of which very
soon the only traces were to be found in legends in which the
wondering nomads of Asia praised the hero who had come
from afar. The Eomans never indulged projects to be carried
out at such a distance from their natural sources of supply;
after they had, in hard-fought struggles for their own independ-
ence, subdued Italy and warded off Carthaginian supremacy in
Europe, they progressed but slowly — impelled by circumstances
264
BOOK Vn. CHAPTER V.
and lingering by the way — to that universal dominion which,:
when once established, was maintained for centuries. Such
great historical results indicate the historical significance of|
the nation itself, and indeed, compared to Rome, Greece lived
from hand to mouth, passionately pursuing immediate ends,
while the political activity of the Eomans was guided by a
wider view, taking in the future, in which they were con-
scious that their destiny lay. The Greeks lived, as on
some terrestrial Olympus, only for the sake of beauty and
of working out their own development ; to the Romans the
known world, all the countries bordering the Mediterranean
Sea, seemed to be an actual field of labour, setting before them
definite tasks of acquisition, guardianship, and government.
From ancient Italian civilisation they had received the idea
of a mysterious lapse of time through ages marked by distinct
characteristics ; they felt themselves to be the bearers of this
historical development and co-operators in its production, and
their poets are hardly so loud in praising Rome's existing
greatness as in emphasizing perpetually its undying future.
And the result has proved that they were right. Greece,
having perished as a terrestrial power, still lives on in the
mind of the civilised world, though without any striking
influence upon the conditions of our lives ; but a countless
number of our social and political arrangements, and a great
part of our mental life, may be traced back along a line of
unbroken tradition to Rome ; and to places where there are
no flourishing towns that owe their origin to her, modern
civilised nations have carried with their language the lasting
influence which they themselves received from her; Latin
words and forms of speech are heard on the banks of the
Ganges, and mingle on American plains with the labials of
Indian dialects.
Human action is either guided directly by the idea of some
desired result, and then easily comes to consider the means
as sanctified by the end, or it follows general principles of
universal validity, and will refrain from carrying out an
intention as long as this can only be done by transgressing
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY.
265
them. The artistic bent of their minds inclined the llreeks
to the first way ; the Eomans are distinguished by the con-
viction that a valid result can only be attained by respecting
the fixed relations prescribed by the nature of those elementa
which co-operate in its production. We shall have occasion
later to see how far this thought penetrated their whole life
and action ; in the present rapid survey we only wish to recall
to mind the pearl of Roman civilisation — the development of
law. For knowledge of the truth that is and operates in
things and events, the Eomans, as compared with the Greeks,
did nothing; but the thought that the world of relations
brought into existence by our actions, is just as much governed
by a complex and inviolable order independent of our will as
the forces of external Nature are in their general statical and
dynamical relations — this thought owes its existence to the
Eomans. They did not, like the Orientals, regard existing rela-
tions as irrevocable decrees of fate ; neither did they, after the
fashion of the Greeks, consider actual rules, established insti-
tutions, and acquired rights as having the pliability of wax^
and a capability of being moulded differently according to
men's caprice, if they hindered the realization of an ideal j
the Eomans regarded both — both the variation which the
needs of human nature demand, and the fixed condition which
refuses change — as two valid forces between which men had
to steer by means of law. They did not begin at the apex of
the pyramid — at the ideal or desirable form of the state as a
whole, logically deducing from this the just rights of the
citizens, but they first of all established on general principles
those relations between individuals which arise in the living
intercourse of daily life. It was real needs, the requirements
of circumstances, which subsequently impelled them to limita-
tions of those private rights, in order to attain the prosperity
of the whole which is itself the sum of all the individuals ;
and the final form of commonwealth aimed at was in every
age that which combined in satisfactory practice respect for
transmitted rights, provision for new wants, and the conditions
required for the growth and continuance of the whole. Thus
266
BOOK VII. CHAPTER V.
there arose that unparalleled social struggle between the
patricians and plebeians, in which violent passions — on the one
hand a haughty insistence on privileges, and on the other a
consciousness that participation in these privileges must be
got by fighting for them — were held in check by regard to the
necessary stability of political life, by recognition of the
sacredness of law, though it were only formal law, by un-
swerving obedience towards governmental authority which
had once been recognised, and finally, by a stern patriotism
from which all thought of treachery was far removed.
The results of this evolutionary struggle were not as
fortunate as the character which found expression in it was
noble. The inadequacy of the republican political construc-
tion which had been suited to- earlier and more limited rela-
tions was only compensated, as the state grew and enlarged,
whilst the great men — of whom the patrician race produced
many — used the space for independent action which was left
to them to show brilliant examples of self-sacrifice and
inherited political wisdom. This famous aristocracy fell
into the background, as circumstances came to require rathei
the concentration of power in one hand than a general dis-
tribution of rights. In contrast to a new nobility of wealth
without ennobling traditions that began to arise, the numbers
of the unpropertied increased. The almost uninterrupted
state of war which marked the early days of Rome had never
favoured peaceful labour and industry ; when at a later date
Greek civilisation and acquaintance with the customs of so
many different nations had undermined the old simplicity and
strictness, when the treasures of the East and the products of
the pre-eminently industrial countries poured in, and swarms
of slaves in the palaces of the rich practised every kind of
craft, a class of free labourers could find neither respect for
their position nor a market for their products ; even the
ancient agriculture of Italy and the independence of the
country population suffered from the accumulation of enormous
wealth in the hands of individuals, and the expenditure of
this wealth on useless luxuiy. Between the inordinate self-
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY.
267
indulgence and ambition of the aristocrats, and the bessrar-
liness of a populace that could be won over to aid in any
destructive project, the order of free citizens, which was the
strength of the state, disappeared ; and after long and bloody
conflicts, the republic, shaken by the unprincipled struggles
of individuals after power, fell under the dominion of the
emperors, with undeveloped or impoverished forms of
government.
For centuries as these rulers succeeded one another, mad-
ness alternated with discretion, cruelty with clemency, and
Eoman civilisation had an opportunity of showing what
power of endurance and of resistance there was in it and in
its creations, even after the animating impulse had died out.
Whilst general enervation went on increasing, the discipline
of the Eoman armies still continued for a long time victorious
over external foes ; under the pressure of arbitrary political
rule, the legal consciousness still went on developing to
scientific clearness and completeness ; amid the decay of
morals there shine forth many examples of noble manliness
that bear witness to the enduring power of a great past; and by
similarity of regulations, by great roads of communication, by
the general diffusion of one language and of one culture
taught in numerous schools, all the countries bordering the
Mediterranean Sea were connected together into one great
whole of common life, which in the isolated happy intervals
of peace and benignant government might with justice rejoice
in the consciousness of such a degree of human happiness as
had never before been attained. If, however, this state of
society still contained the seeds of permanence, yet as far as
human eyes can see, there were in it no elements of fresh
progress ; it was from outside the circle of nations which
had thus far developed civilisation, that there came, through
Christianity, the shock with which ancient history concludes
and a new period begins.
§ 5. Among the theocratically governed nations of the East,
the Hebrews seem to us as sober men among drunkards ; but
to antiquity they seemed like dreamers among waking folL
268
BOOK Vn. CHAPTEE V.
"With thoughtful imaginativeness these latter had considered
the causes of the world and the sources of their own life and
death ; and feeling themselves to be parts of the great divine
universal frame, they accompanied with wild rituals of sensu-
ality or self-torture all the convulsions of its mysterious life —
the yearly change of decay and revival in Nature, the struggle
of the bright and beneficent with the dark and hostile powers ;
and over and above this wisdom which was current in daily
life, the exclusive learning of the priests seemed to hide
innumerable further secrets. All this was regarded by the
Hebrews with the most extreme indifference ; the mighty and
jealous God who desires uprightness of heart, who pursues
sin, and is avenged on iniquity — He indeed it is who has
created the world and has caused all kinds of herbs and
animals to spring up, and has formed the stars of heaven,
because He willed that everything should be very good. But
the imagination of the people was not absorbed in the con-
templation of this creation, in which His glory was expressed
only as it were by the way; to them God was a God of
history, to whom Nature is as the mere footstool of His power,
but the life of men, the life of His chosen people, the one
object of His providential care. The whole superfluity of
mystic natural philosophy, which so uselessly burdened the
other religions of antiquity, was cast aside by the Hebrews,
that they might devote themselves to the great problem of
the spiritual world — the problem of sin and of righteousness
before God ; they felt themselves involved, not in the whirl
of everlasting natural cycles, but in the advance of historical
progress ; they did not trouble themselves about secrets which
concerned only past events, but all the more deeply were they
interested in the problems of the future ; and these problems
were not to remain hidden, but the prophets were impelled
by divine inspiration to announce to all, for their comfort the
final attainment of a heavenly kingdom, for their repentance
the commands of God. After the times of the first patriarchs
with whom God had entered into covenant, the national mode
of life had undergone many changes. The patriarchal
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY. 269
sheplierds of the early times had, after the Egyptian oppres-
sion, become a warlike nomadic race ; they had then formed
])ermanent settlements and cultivated the land ; finally, they
were inspired with the commercial spirit of their Semitic
neighbours, and, like the Phoenicians, became scattered over
all parts of the then known world ; the fundamental thought
of their national life — their covenant with God, the conscious-
ness of an historical destiny, and the hope that this would be
realized — they had not forgotten, but on the contrary had
become more and more confirmed in after many waverings at
the outset. The civilised nations of antiquity, whose ingenious
mythology and philosophical notions of divinity lacked no-
thing but simple faith in their reality, began to have their
attention drawn to a nation that possessed in so high a degree
the living conviction of which they themselves were destitute,
and to which the ideas of God and His kingdom were not the
mere ornamental poetical framework of a wholly secular view
of life, but the most deep and serious reality. In the
gradually sinking Eoman Empire the Jewish faith gained
consideration and adherents, although its national character
was a drawback to it. But now the predictions of a Messiah
had been suddenly fulfilled ; the new covenant w'th God was
proclaimed by enthusiastic disciples as an historical reality,
and not merely a new doctrine added to the many other
doctrines of the past ; and the tenor of their announcement
did not contradict the hope of finding the true satisfaction of
lonfjinfi desire in the final union — of which the secret had
been long lost — of mundane and supramundane existence.
The excellences and the weaknesses of existing Eoman civili-
sation combined with some special historical circumstances to
favour the spread of Christianity; but of more efficacy than
all these was its own inherent power, due to its startling
contrast with the hitherto received view of the world, and its
consoling agreement with the secret thoughts that had been
wont to rise in rebellion against that view.
Everything which a religion has to give it offers to the
understanding in doctrines, to the heart in its characteristic
270
BOOK VII. CHAPTER V.
tone, its consolations, and its promises, and to the will in
commands. The original doctrines of Christianity were not
very multifarious. All those questions concerning the origin,
coherence, and significance of Nature which Judaism had
already passed over were also left undecided by the Gospels.
Speaking only of the kingdom of heaven, it exalted the
community of spiritual life as the true reality, in the glorious
light of a history embracing all the world, and let Nature and
its evolutions quietly glide back into the position of a place
of preparation, the inner regulation of which will be revealed
in due time. Neither did it speak of divine things as if it
would measure out the Infinite demonstratively in concepts
of human reason ; all questions concerning the relation of
God to mankind, which had already exercised in various ways
the ingenuity of ancient culture, it passed lightly over with
figurative phrases borrowed from human relations. Thus it
seemed to reveal even less than that culture had already dis-
covered. But in speaking of the sacred love which wills the
existence of the world for the sake of that world's blessedness,
and has its justice restrained by pardoning grace, it emphasized
so much the more certainly that one thought the uncondi-
tioned and ever self-asserting worth of which can do without
the confirmation of proof (which is very foreign to the nature
of religion) ; and the content of that thought as the only
thing that is really certain, at the same time guides the
activity of sagacious investigation in a definite direction.
So Christianity ofiered infinite stimulus to the under-
standing without binding it down to a narrow circle of
thought; and to the heart it offered full as much. For,
according to Christianity, the sole truth and the source of
reality with all its laws was something of which the eternal
worth must be felt in order to be known ; from the reality
thus known through feeling, man's understanding can
reach back to that which is divine, and can very often
conclude from it to the divine, as from the ground of
demonstration to that which is demonstrable. In this it
met the eternal longing of the human heart, and satisfied it
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY. 271
in a fashion wholly new. The consciousness of finiteness has
always oppressed mankind ; but however much moral con-
trition we may find in the enthusiasm of the Indians, how-
ever much dread of self-exaltation in Greek circumspection,
however much fidelity to duty in Eoman manhood, yet every-
where this finiteness was felt to be merely a natural doom
by which the less is given into the power of the greater, and
its existence irrevocably confined within limits, whilst
within these limits the finite is destined to attain by its
own strength its highest possible ideal. The Indian sought
to extort eternal life by frightful penances; the Greek was
afraid of rousing the envy of the gods by pride, but he aimed
at perfecting himself as man, and it seemed to him that virtue
might be taught as any craft may be ; the Eoman, knowing
nothing of a blissful life of the gods beyond his own, went
self-renouncingly to death for duty's sake, an honest man
whom yet no god had helped to be what he was. The
characteristic of humility and submission, that is lacking
even in the most mournful expressions of this sense of
finiteness in antiquity, was brought for the first time by
Christianity into the heart of men, and with it hope came
too. It was a redemption for men to be able to tell them-
selves that human strength is not sufficient for the accom-
plishment of its own ideals ; hence from this time mankind
no longer seemed to be an isolated species of finite being,
turned out complete by the hand of Nature, and destined to
reach unaided, by innate powers, definite goals of evolution.
Freed from this isolation, giving himself up to the current of
grace, which as continuous history combines infinite and
finite, man is enabled to feel himself in community with the
eternal world, which he must stand outside of as long as he
desired to be independent or believed that he must be so.
And since the mere belonging to a particular race was row
no longer a source of justification or condemnation — salvation
needing to be taken hold of by the individual heart, which
must be willing to lose its life in order that it might find it
again — there now began to be developed for the first time
272
BOOK VII. CHAPTER V.
tliat personal consciousness which thenceforward with all its
problems — freedom of the will and predestination, guilt and
responsibility, resurrection and immortality — has given a
totally different colouring to the whole background of man's]
mental life. This momentous content has indeed never
reached the clearness of calm comprehension in the minds of
all mankind to whom it was proclaimed ; but even those who
tried to resist it have never been able to get rid of itai
influence ; it has remained the centre about which the
civilisation of later times has always revolved, in hope or
doubt, in assurance or fear, in zeal or scorn.
To him who so regarded the eternal connection between
earth and the kingdom of heaven, all earthly history must
seem but as a preparation for the true life, not valueless,
since it aims at this goal, nor yet burdened by the tremendous
seriousness of absolute irrevocability. Therefore Christianity
proposed to the will only such commands as require per-
manent goodness of disposition ; from the ordering of human
affairs by ceremonies, law, and government, it stood indefi-
nitely far. It could do without that which the heathen
theocracies were compelled to demand ; since what it asked
for God was God's, it could give to C£esar that which was
Caesar's. As for it God was not primarily revealed in
Nature in the manifold forms of His creation from which the
grounds of reverence might be deduced, so life was not
primarily an established order of moral relations within which
man might walk with a sense of security along paths definitely
marked out ; but to man's inner life was entrusted the work
of gradually raising the forms of society to relations which
were in harmony with his spirit. Therefore the attitude of
Christianity towards the external conditions of mankind was
not that of a disturbing and subversive force, but it deprived
evil of all justification for its permanent continuance. It did
not forthwith abolish the slavery which it found existing, but
in summoning all men to partake in the kingdom of God, it con-
demned it nevertheless ; at first it let polygamy continue where
it existed ; but this must necessarily disappear spontaneously
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY.
273
when the spirit of Christian faith made itself felt in all
relations of life. And this conflict is still carried on in many-
directions, for the perversity of human nature, which is ever
much the same, opposes to the better way all the resistance of
which it is capable ; but there is one permanent advantage by
which the new age is distinguished from antiquity. That
which is better and juster did indeed make a way for itself in
ancient life, but almost exclusively in those cases in which
the oppressed struggled manfully with the oppressor; the
provident humanity which, without seeking its own happiness,
takes the part of the suffering section of mankind, and requires
and exercises deeds of justice and of mercy, was something
very foreign to the ancient world, and in the new world it has
no more powerful source than Christianity.
In conflict with mundane circumstances and human passions,
and yet linked to both as the instruments of its realization,
no ideal can, in the course of its historical development,
remain faithful to its full perfection. Christianity, forced to
justify itself to the civilisation of the ancient world, became
entangled in the attempt to establish dogmatically the articles
of its belief, in the hopeless effort to force upon its professors,
instead of the inexhaustible fulness of living thoughts which
the gospel can arouse in each, a complete system, many of
the regulations of which were as barren in regard to practice as
the productions of ancient sophistry. The simple division of
labour which had arisen in the primitive Churches from the
duties of the society in regard to worship of God and ordinary
life, was transformed into a gradation of fixed offices as the
diffusion of Christianity increased ; in opposition to the
universal human priesthood of the gospel, there was a fresh
separation from the laity of an order of priests, and in the
edifice of the hierarchical church the empire of the Holy
Ghost stiffened into a slavish, earthly mechanism. But these
deformities of Christian life, which a later age might imder-
take to rectify, were but as the tough rind which alone
enabled that life, amid the ruins of the falling Eoman empire,
to save itself for its future.
VOL. II. S
274 BOOK Vil. CHAPTER V.
S 6. The Germanic nations — the often victorious, often
conquered, but never subdued enemies of Eome — at last
completed the work to which they seemed destined, by dis-
integrating that empire of ancient civilisation which had
lasted for a thousand years. But they were not in a
condition to substitute from their own resources a new
civilisation for that which was passing away. The long
death struggle of the Eoman empire — which the Germans
themselves, as the most valiant of the auxiliary troops,
prolonged for a considerable time — had indeed brought them
into many-sided contact with the elements of ancient
civilisation and the teachings of Christianity, but the mass
of that great people which spread victoriously over the
Eoman provinces had yet remained true to the simple life
which they had lived on without historic record from time
immemorial. No one knows what events filled up the long
succession of centuries which lay between their first detach-
• ment from their original abode in Asia and their appearance
in the history of European civilisation. It is probable that
being long without a settled home, harassed by tribes who
were pressing on them in their wake, they maintained their
valour and warlike vigour in the struggle for existence ;
but that in the northern settlements, where they finally estab-
lished themselves, they made little progress towards polite
manners. At the time that the Eoman empire began, and
was revelling in all the treasures of the known world, the
Germanic tribes still lived by the chase, by the produce of
their herds of cattle, and by a somewhat rudimentary
agriculture ; they no longer roamed about homeless, but had
fixed dwellings ; as, however, their settlements were much
dispersed, and they had no towns, they had none of that
industry \^hich is developed as a consequence of density of
population and division of labour. Accustomed to hard
simplicity in food and raiment — having even to economize
the iron which they used in their weapons, since they did
not know how to procure it for themselves — they braved
the inclemencies of the weather in rude huts, being some-
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY. 2V5
times driven by hard winters into subterranean caves.
Inclined to sociability, they yet found little to occupy them
except fighting, games, carouses, and listening to heroic
songs which repeated the great deeds of that same simple
life. But with this meagre culture they yet combined
qualities of character which were destined under more favour-
able future conditions to bring special benefits to mankind
in the course of history. They possessed in high measure
the love of freedom which contents itself with guarding
from foreign influence its own liberty of choice in the
conduct of life, but they had not the envious impulse
towards equality which cannot endure that others should
have the advantage in anything. It seems as though for
the sake of that independence they had purposely refrained,
in the simple arrangements of their society, from numerous
steps in advance which, while bringing greater fulness and
development of life, would have prejudiced the independence
of many ; but they submitted to the superior power of gifted
leaders of their own free will, and with the most perfect
fidelity ; and, without recognising hereditary sovereignty or
nobility, they yet had high respect for the heroic blood of
famous families. This trait of willing service and absolute
personal devotion is widely noticeable throughout their
history, and as this is only possible in personal relations it
has in later times always made the German nations more
disposed to associate in somewhat small circles than to
combine into one great whole. In the same way it always
remained difficult for them to become enthusiastic about
general principles which were not presented to them embodied
in some personal form ; but when such an enthusiasm did
take possession of them, it was all the more lasting, for it was
a long time before they came to know how to take up any
cause half-heartedly. They were bound to give their whole
soul to anything which they took in hand. It may be
admitted that with such a disposition they were well pre-
pared for the reception and inner elaboration of Christianity,
without denying that in the early ages of the Church it
276 BOOK VII, CHAPTER V.
was the more southern nations of the Eoman provinces that
produced those men of lofty enthusiasm and deep earnestness
who, as Fathers of the Church, were the forerunners of
Christian life in the north.
The tremendous movement of national migration now
caused the Germanic peoples to spread, in successive great
waves, repeatedly breaking one upon another, over all the
provinces of the Eoman empire. They were not able to
hold any of these southern conquests, being everywhere in
a minority compared with the native population ; but for a
long time the union of the civilised world was broken by
them, and over the rich countries bordering the Mediter-
ranean Sea, which Eome had brought together in the noon-
tide light of organized intercommunication, there fell a long
twilight, in which some countries disappeared from the view
of the others, and many elements of a previous common
civilisation were lost.
The great and varied admixture of peoples and modes of
life which the increase of the Eoman empire and the grow-
ing development of intercourse had produced, had already in
the closing period of ancient civilisation begun to disturb
the simple, pliable, and self-confident spirit of antiquity, the
one condition of which had been an isolated national develop-
ment in accordance with a natural bent. Before the period
of this disturbance a system of consistent philosophic views
had been instrumental in causing the production of finished
works of art exquisitely proportioned; clear and definitely
determined tasks had given harmony and character to life
itself ; notwithstanding the inexhaustible variety of detail,
reality as a whole — with its store of attainable good things
and those desirable forms of human life to which it gave
scope — was spread before men's eyes with the perfection and
completeness of a well-arranged picture. Yet this whole
mode of thought had certainly rather suppressed than satisfied
the wants of the human heart The self-distrust which had
earlier overtaken Greek life found its way into the Eoman
world too in the time of the emperors. Unquestioning faith
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTOEY.
277
in tlie supremacy of Eome gave way to cosmopolitan con-
siderations ; the narrow but robust system of tliought which
constituted national morality was invaded by philosophic
reflection ; artistic imagination, which suffers most of all from
mental indecision, changed its calm mirroring of reality for
dissatisfied and passionate flights beyond the world of fact,
and commingled accepted forms of representation in attempts
of a new kind. Eeligious belief had long since lost its
certainty ; with the most baseless superstition was com-
bined a restless longing to win back from any known or
unknown worship prevailing among men the certainty which
had been lost. Then Christianity came, and the new
spiritual growth had to force its way up through the rents
of the ancient system of thought, the external integrity of
which was finally destroyed by the invading torrent of the
German barbarians. If this blending of all imaginable forms
of life could not fail to change fundamentally the genius of
what remained of the ancient nations, it could likewise not
fail to be difficult for the conquerors to know what attitude
to take towards such boundless variety. These conquerors
came down upon the Eoman empire without any definite aims,
partly yielding to necessity, partly urged by the struggles
towards expansion of a strong nature that sought to appease
its impulse to action by violent and powerful but yet object-
less exercise. Now there lay before them the down-trodden
classic world, with all its rich treasures of Nature, of art, and of
life, and with the countless elements of civilisation which it
still contained ; in exercising themselves upon this battle-field
they for a long time gave to history that stamp of adventurous
romance which — with its wealth of free and original powers,
its inharmonious struggle after great and passionately pur-
sued yet mutually inconsistent ends, its variety of strange
forms of life, and its incoherence — distinguishes the Middle
Ages from the period of ancient history.
§ 7. When after three centuries the stream of national
migration had come to a stand, there had become united under
Frankish rulers districts in which indeed Germanic blood pre-
278
BOOK VII. CHAPTER V.
pondorated, but the inhabitants of which could hardly feel
themselves bound together by any common tie except when
they were obliged to take the field together against an external !
foe. Especially in those German countries which had only
come into contact on their confines with Eoman dominion, the
absence of towns caused the continuance of that old life of
meagre social intercourse natural to a sparse and scattered
population. The differences of disposition of different races,
the lack of common administrative interests, and the difficulties
in the way of exchange of thought, prevented the development
of any active public spirit. Charlemagne was able by his
individual power to hold all these provinces together by help
of arms, and in peaceful activity to enrich them with the
germs of a subsequent flourishing civilisation ; but to breathe
the vital strength of a self-maintaining political whole into a
society of which the constituents had so little need of one
another and so little dependence upon one another, was a task
beyond his strength. Hence, when the re-establishment of
the Eoman imperial dignity in him once more gave a supreme
ruler to the world, the new unity of the human race was just
us much the imaginative ideal summit of a not yet existing
society, as previously the first institution of the same dignity
had been the natural conclusion of a long social history,
from which it grew without any appearance of novelty. And
this character the empire of the Middle Ages maintained
throughout. It only temporarily possessed the power corre-
sponding to its ideal position ; but though this was a merely
imaginary picture, it yet really lived in the imaginations of
men ; the thought of the majesty of a single temporal govern-
ment was by no means an empty dream, even although it
could not be carried into effect, but — like conscience, against
which the passions are always in rebellion without being able
quite to silence its enunciations — this ideal picture, while
lacking actual power, hovered before men's minds in the
Middle Ages, and reverence for it always kept much self-
will within bounds and called forth many an act of self-
sacrifice.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY. 279
As a matter of fact, the real articulation of life did not start
from this point, and hence work itself out to unity, but it
worked up from below, developing into innumerable small
circles, with different degrees of slowness and difficulty in
different countries. Italy, with its long cultivated soil, with
many ancient towns still existent though depopulated, with its
commerce which partly had been preserved and partly was
growing up afresh, and with the civil organization of its com-
munities which had never been quite destroyed, was the first
to collect together these rich remains of former culture, and
developed a vigorous intellectual life in numerous small states,
the emulation of which was favourable to culture whilst it
hindered political unity. The great inland countries of the Con-
tinent, on the other hand, suffered from the ungenial nature
of their more northerly climate, from the difficulty of internal
communication, from the want of great social centres, from the
inconvenient character of their medium of exchange, in short,
from all that torpor of existence in which consists the dark-
ness that generally seems to us to brood over the Middle Ages.
Thus the inland countries too, like Italy, but from different
causes, were at first able to form only small states.
The original communities had consisted of free owners of
the soil ; in conquered territories the victors were rewarded
and their wants supplied by enfeoffment of tenements and
lands ; the undeveloped state of society made it necessary for
the guidance of affairs that there should be personal representa-
tives of the supreme power, and these held office at first
temporarily and afterwards permanently ; they too were
provided for partly by property in land, partly by rights over
certain districts ; finally, in developed feudalism, the once
homogeneous community was transformv3d into a complicated
and graduated system of persons endowed on the one hand
with privileges, and on the other hand burdened with obliga-
tions, both privileges and obligations binding those to whom
they attached to some definite parcel of land. The country
was covered with countless strongholds of the feudal lords ;
in the solitude of these the sense of family unity, of honour>
280
BOOK 711. CHAPTER V.
of purity of blood, and of reverence for tradition grew ; tlie
position of wives and mothers increased in importance ; a feel-
ing of solidarity among persons of the same rank — carrying
with it in the knightly order a consciousness of having some
duties with regard to human culture — bound individuals
together into a certain community of life ; traditions of romantic
reverence and of uncompromising manly fidelity gave some
moral content to life ; and there even revived a taste for poetry.
But neither general culture nor the development of public
life made much advance under this form of society. National
life had ceased to exist ; the chasm between the feudal lord
and his vassals was bridged over by no recognised law and
seldona by kindly care ; between the individual communities
of serfs there existed no bond of common consciousness or of
legal connection. Even the order of feudal lords, united by
social intercourse and similarity in mode of life, felt only that
'hey were an order, not that they were part of a political
"vhole for the benefit of which it was their duty to make sacri-
fices. Few territories were large enough for the development
of a civilised life of their own ; the co-operation of several
was hindered by the independence of the lords — ^the obscurity
of their mutual obligations — the lack of a general and unques-
tioned system of law which as these obligations gradually
grew up should have developed along with them — the impossi-
bility of carrying out sentences, when they had been pronounced,
in any other way than by the exercise of force — and the ease
with which a number of individuals about equal to one another
in power could combine to resist legal force, which could be
brought to bear only with extreme difficulty. It was only
within very small communities that definite and intelligible
relations existed, the state as a whole possessing only the most
unwieldy machinery ; care for the general welfare was crippled
by the want of an established and regulated system of taxa-
tion, and external policy by the lack of a standing army and
by the intricate arrangements of the feudal host ; for the
administration of justice there were wanting established
tribunals representative of the general sense of justice, and in
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY.
281
almost all cases legal jurisdiction was disputable, or actually
disputed, or owed its recognition to force.
In this state of things, notwithstanding all its disorder, a
certain characteristic sense of justice was not lacking. The
Germanic nations, with no inherited treasure of ancient civilisa-
tion, no gift of abstraction due to such an inheritance, no eye
for principles, had been placed historically in circumstances
which forced them to rapid development. They could not
discover the universal principles of justice offhand, but every
relation which had become historical forthwith seemed to them,
whatever its irrationality, to be de facto just ; it would not
have arisen if it had not at the time corresponded to existing
needs. Added to this was the fact that Christianity appeared
to them less as a body of doctrine than as a history of past
events — as among those transactions by which Providence, and
not the nature of things themselves, gives laws to the course
of human affairs. All that we are now accustomed to judge
by universal laws of morality and justice was regarded in the
Middle Ages as dependent upon divine institution, upon
human appointment, upon investitures and treaties, upon the
significance of particular occurrences. On account of the
continual change of circumstances such a foundation for the
arrangements of human life could not fail to be a most fruit-
ful source of incessant opposition to justice which had become
unjust ; it produced the countless outbreaks of unbridled
caprice which mark the Middle Ages. But where the opposi-
tion took a more peaceable course, this too did not proceed from
abstract principles, but sought to meet the requirements of the
hour by transforming particular existing laws through fresh
enactments, which were themselves of equally restricted applica-
tion. This kind of procedure pervaded in the most various
forms every department of life. When towns began to flourish,
and redeemed their territories from complicated obligations
towards the feudal lords, and love of work and the moral
deepening of character gained in busy spheres of labour became
the fairest adornment of the closing period of the Middle
Ages, then we see this full life crystallize into a multitude of
282 BOOK VII. CHAPTER V.
sharply defined corporations, each having its own internal
system and legal relations to others, both regulated by contract,
and all surrounding themselves with innumerable trade cus-
toms and symbols, and as a whole developing into organisms
of which the real significance was sometimes clouded by
numerous irrational additions having a merely historical justi-
fication, yet — taken altogether — becoming individualized into a
most intense life. And in the imagination of the Middle Ages
it was not men only but things also which had special rights
— rights which were not merely measurable by natural qualities,
but were in a sense historic ; to times and places were attached
privileges, obligations, and liberties of all descriptions.
Within this world of external life mental culture was for
a long time attended to only by the Church. The Eoman
empire, after the recognition of Christianity, had begun to
give important political posts to the clergy, who were
gradually forming themselves into a separate body ; their
activity, stirred up by lively enthusiasm for what gave so
much worth to life or by aspiring ambition, in many ways
took the place of the slack civil authority ; rich endowments
gave them independence and the means of doing good works.
Although it was a long time before the hierarchical edifice was
complete, the authority of the Eoman chair soon took firm
root in the West, and the numerous missions which went out
from every newly-established settlement felt themselves to be
members of one whole. Without having been thus organized
into a church, Christianity would hardly have weathered the
storms of those times, and could have exercised but little of
its beneficent influence upon temporal life. By the help of
transmitted culture, and through the resources (whether its
own or not) which its authority enabled it to command, the
Church was able partly to keep invading barbarism at bay,
partly to press forward itself and fill the still darkened northern
countries with those churches, monasteries, episcopal residences,
and agricultural settlements from which there were diffused
not only the art of husbandry, but also that of gardening, not
only the elements of knowledge, but also those of technical
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY.
283
crafts, and under the walls of which gradually reviving trade
held its markets, whilst within their gates the sick and weary-
found tendance or healing. Thus in the early period of the
Middle Ages the Church was in many respects at the head of
progress and of civilisation; from it proceeded the majority
of such establishments as were of general utility ; from it the
ignorant sought teaching, for it alone possessed the treasures
of transmitted learning ; to it alone could the longing go for
consolation and for the resolution of their doubts, for it alone
had studied all the relations of human life, and with active
enthusiasm, combined the results of its reflection into one
comprehensive philosophy ; finally, it was to the Church
that the oppressed appealed for help, for it was the Church
alone that, amidst the general licence and the thirst for
adventure, recognised and taught a truth that was valid for
all men and a divine order of things independent of all human
caprice, obeying these in a life of strict discipline, and not
unfrequently asserting them with courageous self-sacrifice in
defending the weakness of the oppressed against the violence
of the strong.
Passing lightly over the eventful history of the Church
during the Middle Ages, we find that at the end of this period
its relation to secular life had very much changed ; whilst the
latter was making remarkable advance, the Church had fallen
into the rear, and had become a hindrance to progress. It
no longer led the van of science ; the religious philosophy
which formerly, in contrast to the scattered and wholly secular
culture of antiquity, had so beneficially striven to grasp all
reality and to embrace and classify all knowledge, was,
after the slow decay of that culture, incapable of giving any
satisfactory insight into the connection of the external world ;
and at the same time the secular learning of antiquity which
continued to be propagated, being merely transmitted and not
cultivated with that zealous interest which has re-creative
efficacy, lost in breadth and precision : whilst in secular life
new relations were being formed and new facts discovered, the
ecclesiastical sources of instruction were becoming impoverished.
284
BOOK VII. CHA.PTER T.
Even the cure of souls had lost its energy. With penetrating
zeal the fathers of the Church had once defended the faith
against all the doubts of ancient culture ; and it was certainly
advantageous to Germanic barbarism that there should bei
presented to it some definite profession of belief, but the hard
and fast formulation of dogmas which thus became the cut
and dried content of tradition, diminished even among the
clergy the intensity of spiritual life ; and the people were
deprived of the little that still remained of such activity, by the
use of the Latin language and the care with which the Church
reserved to itself the secrets of religion and the administration
of the means of grace, no longer preaching to the laity of the
inner life of faith and of a new birth of the soul resulting
from its own struggles, but denying them. Grievous faults
had also appeared in the lives of the clergy, and they were no
longer either the recognised pattern of conduct or the hope of
the oppressed. They had not indeed become an hereditary
ecclesiastical caste, but recruited their ranks from among the
people, although no longer by means of congregational election ;
but the inferior clergy who lived among the people were
wanting in influence and insight ; those who were invested
with superior dignity, and as feudatories occupied many
political posts, often favoured insubordination to secular
rule, but not the freedom of the laity in ecclesiastical
relations.
There had never been any lack of vigorous struggles between
these two great powers. The conflict between the empire and
the Eoman Church had led to no decisive victory of the one
or the other. The empire, with its claim of sovereignty over
nations between which there was no bond of union except
Christianity, could not on such grounds be triumphant over
the Church which demanded the same supremacy in the very
name of Christianity ; the Church had on its side the naturally
unifying power of religion, and used the national differences
to which in their secular development freedom should be
allowed, as an instrument against the defectively established
supremacy of secular power. But when the empire had been
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY.
285
obliged to let its claims drop, secular life had attained an
importance of its own in a number of national developments,.
as the natural representatives of which the princes of the
different countries could more efficiently resist the encroach-
ments of the Church. The opposition of these temporal
powers to the attempts at renewing a theocracy succeeded in
proportion as they identified themselves with the national life
of their respective countries ; they disabled themselves where
they joined with the spiritual power of the Church in the
obstruction of progress. This progress itself was due partly
to a further development of previous conditions which had
gone on unnoticed, and had also been favoured by a striking
succession of historical events and discoveries. Unceasing
wars, which no longer had the character of national migrations,
had kept the nations in reciprocal contact ; the internal action
and reaction of society was increased by the revival of trade
and the growth of flourishing towns ; the Crusades had for
a long time united Christian nations in common enterprise ;
not only were Italy and Byzantium, with their inherited
culture, again brought into contact with the more northern
nations through these causes, but the East also, with its dif-
ferent customs and its treasures and marvels, roused in the
nations of Christian Europe a spirit of emulation and a doubt
as to the exclusive validity of the state of things which had
been established among them by custom and tradition ; the
geographical horizon was still further enlarged by the discoveries
of the Portuguese navigators ; and finally the discovery of
America presented to human imagination, to the spirit of
adventurous enterprise and to industrial activity, openings un-
dreamt of before, and which were to help men to become both
externally and mentally wholly detached from the traditions
of antiquity. At first, indeed, they tried to bring their new
life into connection with antiquity, whose treasures of thought
liad never quite vanished from human memory ; but now, on
the one hand, they entered with greater zeal into the growing
activity of mental life, and on the other hand the increasing
danger from the Mohammedans with which Byzantium was
286
BOOK VII. CHAPTER V.
threatened, and its subsequent fall caused what remained of
Greek learning to be transferred to Italy. Then began that
revival of learning which first restored to thought (which had
grown stiff and clumsy) formal flexibility and adroitness, and
inundated life at once with great Ideas, with comprehensive
views, with critical contempt for all existing goodness and
beauty, and with an audacious imitation of the errors of anti-
quity. The creative force which might have given worthy
content to the new forms was very backward in most directions ;
in Italy alone the confusion of social conditions was to some
extent compensated by a magnificent flight of creative art ; yet
there were laid those foundations of higher mathematics and of
natural science which were destined to produce the most im-
portant instruments of the new civilisation. Finally, the torpor
which had long hung about the exchange of thought was
removed by the discovery of printing ; from that time public
opinion could exercise its influence upon all the relations
of life, and the awakening spirit of criticism which was to
distinguish the period just beginning was armed with its most
powerful weapon.
§ 8. The various germs which the end of the Middle Ages
had produced, gradually bore fruit in a succession of great
revolutions. They did not develop simultaneously or alto-
gether in harmony with each other ; the human mind in its
onward struggle is capable of the inconsistency of maintaining
in one department the same new views which in others, yielding
to old-established custom, it eagerly persecutes. But amidst
all such contradictory and retrogressive currents there
developed, with ever-increasing power, as the distinguishing
characteristic of the new age, that Enlightenment, destroying
in order to reconstruct, which sought to h'eak the dominion of
all prejudice and to undermine every ill-founded belief. The
spirit of modern times, to which it is essential to be con-
stantly reflecting upon itself, has often enough used these
phrases as watchwords indicative of its own characteristics,
and the indication is perhaps accurate for good as well as for
ilL Por both the strength and the weakness of our position.
THE DEVELOPilENT OF HISTORY.
287
both our hopes and our fears as regards the future, depend
equally upon that unchained spirit of criticism which, investi-
gating all the relations of life with self-conscious purpose,
more easily accomplishes the inevitable demolition of error,
than the reconstruction of truth, and, in the zeal of its
analytic incursions, runs the risk of injuring unperceived the
most necessary foundations of ordered human existence. We
have, perhaps, reason to give more scope to hope for the future
than to fear ; but above all it seems clear to us that we have
not yet seen the conclusion of the developmental struggles into
which the impulses of the immediate past have plunged us.
It was religious needs that first kindled the flame. The
Reformation sought to lead men back from the secularization
Df the Church and the externalizing of ecclesiastical life to the
purity of primitive Christianity. Though the positive teaching
of the Reformation, far from professing to be a production of
individual reason, was in fact mere submission to the authority
of revelation, yet being in declared opposition to the existing
order of things, it could not avoid formally recognising
individual examination and decision as the starting-point even
of religious life. It freed conscience from the obligation of
submission to commands (proceeding not from the gospel but
from tradition and from ecclesiastical speculation) which it
was attempted to force upon men; and laid upon them instead
the obligation, which was at the same time a privilege, of
appropriating to themselves the content of faith by their own
struggles towards development and their own inner experience.
In doing this it ventured to hope that the result of this
struggle would be agreement with that which it esteemed to
be eternal truth, and to which it held fast ; but it was bound
to acknowledge that, though it might lament, yet it could net
condemn the opposite result. The principle of free investiga-
tion of the gospel could not escape expansion into perfect
freedom of conscience, in the acceptance or rejection of all
Christian and finally of all religious truth whatever. For a
long time the Reformation, conscious of the value of its faith,
struggled against this conclusion ; to it too the disposition to
288
BOOK VIL CHAPTER V.
persecute for faith's sake was not unknown, and when the
battle for the freedom of personal conviction had been fought
out, there remained doubts as to the legitimate sphere of thisl
freedom. And these occurred first in the renewed Church
itself. The very investigation of Scripture as the sole founda-
tion of faith required the co-operation of subjective interpreta-
tion ; a Church which adopted this principle could neither
exclude all variation of dogmatic conviction, nor could it
easily mark out definitely the limits within which such
variation should be allowed for the future. In such doubts
we ourselves are still involved ; the only men who are sure of
themselves are those who hold the most extreme views, either
demanding a stricter unity of the Church at the expense of
individual freedom, or an atomistic dispersion into innumer-
able small communities in favour of individual freedom at the
expense of the universal Church. And yet between these two
extremes Protestantism has gone on living and developing ; for
in holding fast to the principle of free investigation notwith-
standing all the perplexities and difficulties of its ecclesiastical
polity, it has secured the adherence of all the rich culture
which has arisen from the stimulus given by itself and from
the schools which were for the most part established by it.
The relation of religious profession to the state was affected
by the changes which the state itself experienced, or through
which it was first developed. In the Middle Ages influential
connection between the different departments of life and
the consciousness of solidarity occurred almost exclusively
in individual minor communities, the praiseworthy and
active public spirit of which could not make up for the
absence of important and varied relations, and the external
connections between which remained uncertain and un-
organized. From this incoherent condition there sprung up
the formally systematized State, with its comprehensive
administration of differently endowed and mutually com-
plementary districts, and its regulated employment of means.
It arose first in the form of that absolutism which regarded
the country and the people as the private property of the
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTOET. 289
ruler, and either used them despotically for the glorification of
the throne, or filled the part of guardian towards them with
well-meaning carelessness. Certainly in the suppression of
innumerable petty sovereignties by a few great ones there was
a gain in general order and security ; but, on the other hand,
the pressure exercised downwards by these great powers was
continued, and the independence of the several communities
disappeared before the centralization of national power. The
age of the Eevolution in shattering despotism shattered also
those limits of free movement which it should have allowed
to remain ; in demanding equal justice and equal rights for
all, an unlimited field for all activity and an open course for
talent of every description, it took a hostile attitude towards
all specialities of historical development in which it saw only
hindrances to that freedom at which it aimed, and it carried
on the work of centralization to the point of planing down as
far as possible all characteristic differences. After men had
seen how in the wide workshop of America success had
followed the attempt to build up a construction of social order
without restraint from historic tradition, and guided purely
by the needs of the moment, without any greater limitation of
personal freedom than those needs made necessary, and after
France had gone back to the universal rights of man for the
foundation of society, and had broken with history even in
the externals of life, it seemed as though for the future the
State would be only a great society for gathering in the treasures
of Nature and carrying out the exchange of varying produc-
tions, established and governed by the wiU of all, and really
without any moral duty of self-preservation, being indeed
entitled to dissolve itself at any moment ; yet with all
this the fact was that the real freedom of individuals was
tyrannized over by the common will of the majority. But
the glory of the tremendous results which France achieved
in its defensive struggle, soon brought back, in the national
pride which it stirred up, a new and deeper consciousness
of political coherence ; other countries had not to atone so
severely for the mistake of setting equality above personal
VOL. II. T
290 BOOK VIL CHAPTER V.
freedom, but tliey attained more slowly to the development oV
this freedom and to the rejection of many limitations which
had grown up historically, and, without any absolute right,
obstructed social movement.
The history of these struggles, which is full of vicissitudes,
does not come within our present hasty survey ; that they are
not even yet ended is a wide-spread and oppressive conviction
of the present age. The spirit of criticism which called them
forth has triumphantly maintained many general principles, but
has not been very happy in the discovery of living forms in
which these principles might receive a satisfying realization in
fact. It has been established that the outline of the State is
not irrevocably sketched out beforehand by history, to be merely
filled in by the living activity of the people, but that the State
is rather the comprehensive final form v/hich social order has
to take on in order to satisfy those aims of national life which
are historically possible — that State guidance and administration
must always have regard to the changing needs of the hour, as
well as to that connection with the historic past by which the
nation is constituted a nation — that there is necessary a
division of power which on the one hand allows to existing
men (who have a right to live) a modifying and innovating
influence, and on the other hand allows to the representatives
of the permanent element in historical development a restrain-
ing and guiding influence — that as much scope must be given
to voluntary combination and the self-government of com-
munities as is necessary for the production of all the com-
modities and the satisfaction of all the wants which they are
naturally able to produce and to satisfy, and that just as much
must this freedom submit to the limitations which the safety
of the whole requires. But in the representative constitutions
of our own time political art has either not yet attained to
adequate forms, capable of ensuring the fulfilment of these
ideal ends, or the forms appeared too soon, before the spirit
that knew how to make a perfectly right use of them was
developed. And as an effect of the oppression that has
gone before, mistrust and not trust still continues to be the
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY. 291
Lul of co—o.alH.; the jealous gua^amg of fo„„.
political rights still outweighs understanding of and sympathy
with the real ends for the attaining of which the existence of
these rights is necessary ; qualification for taking part in
public business has not increased in the same proportion as
the extension of the right to do so. Neither life nor education
accustom the people sufficiently to the consciousness of im-
portant national ends. Skilfulness of co-operation in the
prosecution of particular undertakings has no doubt increased ;
but the nature of trade, which connects the subsistence of the
individual with a wide-spreading ramification of remote and
foreign conditions, uproots the sense of citizenship which
existed in earlier times, and which, arising from having all the
interests of life in common, bound together the members of
local communities ; the diffusion of information has certainly
made progress, but the inner progress of knowledge has been
all the greater, because notwithstanding this diffusion the
greatest part of the culture of which nations are proud remains
wholly unknown to the majority of the people. How very
indeterminate the line still is between what government should
reckon among its duties and what should be left to the
voluntary activity of th& subject is shown by the unsettled
disputes about free education, the political rights of different
religious professions, and the necessity or dispensableness of a
coincidence between political boundaries and the geographical
limits of unmixed nationalities.
Not only lifci but science also, has felt the influence of
awakening criticism. During the Middle Ages minds had been
ruled by traditions handed down from antiquity, and for a long
time but little fresh result of investigation was added to them.
From this time forward there comes out in ever growing
strength that critical impulse of the Enlightenment, which in-
deed could never be so wholly absent in science as in other
departments of life ; the ingenuous setting forth of truth of
which men believed themselves to be in possession gave place
more and more to questions concerning the general cognisa-
bHity of truth and the final principles of all judgment.
292
BOOK VIL CHAPTER V.
Science now first began to assume the character of an investi-
gation which tests with careful exactness the worth and
trustworthiness of its sources, considers the possible paths of
progress, and is anxious to confirm its results by proofs and
counter-proofs of every description, estimating even the
amount of error which it is in danger of making in these
proofs themselves, and allowing for such error in its deduc-
tions. By this procedure science has introduced into even the
most familiar departments of human thought the idea of
universal laws to which reality is obedient in all particulars,
and a lively conviction that results can only be obtained by
using things according to these laws. In doing this it has
been able not indeed to destroy superstition, but to set bounds
to its public and formerly bloody activity ; by its astrono-
mical discoveries it has given to imagination a new and
enlarged background for cosmic theories ; and by the develop-
ment of mechanics and chemistry it has produced a boundless
supply of instruments for the production of new commodities
and the enlargement of commerce, and hence for the enlarge-
ment of men's intellectual horizon altogether, and for the
increase of general wellbeing. And whilst finally it came to
make not only external Nature, but also the course of events
in history more and more the object of reflection, and sought to
trace back to universal laws the action and reaction of human
activities, and the production and exchange of commodities, it
gave rise to that progressive spirit of conscious calculation that
is not content to continue passively in any merely instinctive
condition of being or doing, but must actively mould the
future by independent use of all available means. Even
within the range of this cheering human progress, sceptical
and materialistic ideas and the dreams of socialism and com-
munism show that neither firm foundations of knowledge nor
practicable plans for the removal of undeniable social evils
have as yet been in all cases discovered.
§ 9. The hasty survey of the external course of human
development upon which we have ventured has convinced us
how far hitherto human conditions have been from attaining
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY. 293
tlKit satisfactory state of equilibrium which may be regarded
as the completion of historical development needing only to
be kept up and worked out, not to be wholly transformed.
Will this development progress steadily, or will it share the
fate of those great civilisations which have preceded us in
history, and which, destroyed partly by internal dissolution
and partly by external force, have had a fertilizing influence
ipon the renewed attempts of later times only when they had
^fallen into ruin, and even then very gradually ? No one will
[profess to foreknow the future, but as far as men may judge,
it seems that in our days there are greater safeguards than
there were in antiquity against unjustifiable excesses and
• against the external forces which might endanger the con-
itiuued existence of civilisation.
The civilisations of antiquity existed in national isolation ;
the general difficulty of intellectual intercourse diminished, in
the Middle Ages, the benefits which might then have been
derived from the unifying power of faith ; now at last the
different divisions of the world which have so long lived on in
f separation are striving to be something to one another; and
the all-pervading current of interested traffic and of zeal for
[discovery is beginning to establish that external coherence of
the human race by which the hitherto disconnected develop-
: ment of different sections may in the future become combined
iinto a history of mankind. Already the wide diffusion of a
'Culture which is on the whole homogeneous, and in which so
many nations with all the varieties of national temperament
participate, will prevent disturbances of development which
may befall any of them in particular from becoming hindrances
to human progress in general. And thus the power of
barbarism over culture is broken. In consequence of the
defective development of their knowledge of Nature, the
civilisations of antiquity had not the weapons which would
have enabled them in all cases to defend their intellectual
wealth successfully against the savagery of the uncivilised
world ; modern culture has through the progress of the
technical arts become so well armed and so warlike that the
294 BOOK VII. CHAPTER V.
inundation of civilised countries by tribes in a state of Nature
has long ceased to be a probable danger ; on the contrary, the
assuredness of the influence exercised by civilisation as a
whole upon the destinies of all parts of the world grows from
day to day, though the regions thus affected may be too
extensive to be as yet thoroughly pervaded individually by
such influences.
And if by this extension in space, human culture has
become established on too broad a basis to be easily washed
away altogether even by a tremendous wave of barbarism, it
has also attained internally, as the result of all its evolutionary
struggles, a balance which throws its centre of gravity deeper
than in the past, below the surface depth which is commonly
disturbed by sudden currents. From the best features of
many scientific researches which have failed in detail — from the
increasing clearness of our retrospective survey of history and
of human error — from the experiences of life itself which
teaches us, in the exchange of necessaries, to have a due
appreciation of what is foreign — from the wonderful advance
in interchange of opinion which disturbs the one-sideduess of
narrow intellectual views, bringing many currents of thought
into beneficial mutual action, and unceasingly urging men to
the exercise of comparison — from all these roots there has
grown up, in the spirit of the present age, that peculiar
temperament or dominant mood which we may distinguish by
the name of Modern Humanism.
The difference between human development and the mental
constitution of the lower animals consists chiefly in this, that
the soul of animals is roused directly by a limited circle of
perceptions to sudden and disconnected action ; whilst the
human spirit, far less endowed by Nature with instincts con-
sciously directed towards their ends, has first to collect a
copious store of experiences in the daily school of life, and by
calm elaboration of them to work out gradually the motives
of coherent action. An intensification of this self-control
which distinguishes human activity as a whole from animal
impulse is in a certain sense, and to a certain extent, a
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY. 295
distinguishing characteristic of modern civilisation. Not
indeed by any means because greater thoughtfulness is among
the special merits of modern men and women, but because
without any merit of theirs all the circumstances of life,
education, and tradition under the influence of which they
find themselves, are full of motives adverse to precipitate
action, exercising externally as much influence in hindering
the unrestrained outbreak of individual desires as they
exercise internally in diminishing the effect upon the mind
of innumerable exciting impressions. After all imaginable
interests in life have been discussed and criticised from the
most different points of view, and all these discussions and
criticisms have, however much weakened and obscured,
become part of the common consciousness, the world is less
easily interested and less credulous than it was before; always
indeed fertile in the production of strange views and heady
schemes, but more moderate in its admiration for and its
devotion to the improbable. In its bad form — that used-wp
condition in which all higher aims and all motives to action
generally have lost their stimulative force — we may find this
peculiarity of our own age repulsive, and all the more so in
proportion as we know it only in the present and from living
experience ; but as a matter of fact it is the case that this
aweary-ness of a great part of mankind has not been lacking
in any age which has produced a multiform civilisation
abounding in sharp contrasts. And it has never either now
or earlier taken possession of the whole race ; but now more
than previously there has developed alongside of this sterile
passionlessness an allied but more earnest temper — tolerant,
circumspect, and self-controlled — which among so many un-
finished social constructions yet makes possible for us a life
abounding in worthy pleasures, and keeps up our hopes of
continuous progress.
This refined conscience of modern society makes itself felt
in the most various departments of life. Not that it is able
to get its commands obeyed without any trouble, or that the
men of to-day are incomparably superior to those of the past
296
BOOK VII. CHAPTER V.
in tlie excellence of their private morality ; on the contrary,
human nature is ever the same, and continues to resist the
restraints imposed upon it with all its inherited passion andj
perversity, and evil and folly. But now it feels the reins
drawn tighter ; while every new generation is born with the
old impulses and the old imperfections of its kind, each is
forced to recognise the truth of the progressive moral insight
with which growing civilisation gradually interpenetrates all
the relations of life, as with a conscience that is ever
becoming more fully awakened, and the utterances of which
force themselves even upon the unwilling. Perhaps modern]
humanity falls further short of the increased demands of this
conscience than the humanity of previous times did of the
simpler and less complex demands of the conscience of its j
day, and a desponding view may attempt to depreciate
modern civilisation even in comparison of the natural open
savagery of past times, regarding such civilisation as mere
surface polish and hypocrisy; but to us it seems that the
very fact that hypocrisy is needed is a mark of progress, and
that much that is base is now obliged at least to cloak itself,
whereas formerly it would have ventured to show in its true
colours. Upon the steady progressive development of this
conscience, upon the pressure which it exercises on willing
and unwilling alike, our hopes for the future rest ; to a certain
extent human action will be obliged to conform to it.
Ambition with its lust of oppression will always remain ; but
the days are numbered in which men will attempt to justify
slavery as such in the eyes of public opinion. The political
destiny of nations may yet have many melancholy revolutions
in store, for in order that practical injustice may be effectually
prevented, comprehension of the existing position of affairs in
any particular case and the improvement of favourable
opportunities must be in accordance with the general con-
viction ; still it is to be hoped that sentence of condemnation
has already been passed on all invasions of the freedom and
honour of individual life. Many attempts to interfere with
liberty of conscience, to re-establish exploded religious dogmas.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY. 297
and to revive strange forms of worship may yet be made ; but
they will never permanently succeed beyond the lines which
some will find drawn by the spirit of independence, others by
scientific taste, and the rest by the general sense of moral
fitness which belongs to modern Humanism.
Such are our hopes for the future ; but what is the end
of all ? Is there any such end in the sense of a goal which
is to be reached, of a state of perfection which will be the
conclusion and as it were the final accomplishment of all
preceding historical struggles — and if such a perfect condition
of things should be reached, will it last on to all eternity ? Or
is there no such goal, and will the progress of mankind cease
for no other reason than that of having exhausted all external
means of advance, and will the imperfect condition then
reached (which the inherent defects of human nature will not
permit it to transcend) present that action of mankind (at
last become uniform) which it is destined to carry on ad
infinitum ? Or, finally, may not things go on for ever as they
have done in the course of history hitherto ? Will not every
civilisation that seemed to have been destined for eternal
duration always be brought to ruin by some unexpected fate,
and with every advance in one direction will there not be
bound up a loss in some other direction, so that the sum of
human perfection and of human happiness may always be
a tolerably constant quantity, if we take, one with another —
success and the exertion it necessitates, gain and loss, the
growing wealth of civilisation and the increasing difficulty of
full participation in it ?
The boastful days are over in which speculation flattered
itself that it possessed the answers to these questions. Our
intellectual horizon has gradually become wider again. We
have bethought us that the history to which we can look back
as sufficiently well known to form a judgment upon is of very
limited extent ; it embraces the classical nations, the European
Middle Ages, and the immediate past. In this small and
coherent fragment of development in which the parts are con-
nected by tradition, it may well be that we can trace a
298
BOOK VII. CHAPTER V.
progressive advance. "We do indeed all lament that the]
beauty of antique life has passed away — a beauty which meaj
have never been able to recover in modern times, in whicl
more northern countries have become the scene of the most
active development ; but seeing that the ruin of antique life
lies before us as an accomplished fact, we might easily point
out the defects of civilisation from which that ruin proceeded.
These were only partially avoided in the Middle Ages — a period
which, notwithstanding its want of political and social stability
and unity, notwithstanding its strange mixture of profound
mental life and indescribable barbarism, yet shows us a splendour
of Christianity and a variety of individual development with
which we can sympathize ; and shows them as being, though not
perhaps themselves actually higher stages of development, yet
hopeful steps toward such. Far other was the aspect which
this period wore in its own estimation; more than once it
seemed to the minds of men, horror-struck by the boundless
misery which existed, that the end of the world must be close
at hand. The gradual development of the modern European
political systems and of modern society was without doubt
another swiftly advancing wave of evolution, when looked at
in comparison with the immediately preceding period ; borne
upon its summit the speculation of the age might momen-
tarily have taken a view of history according to which it
would seem that no further development was to be attained in
the future, but that the evolution of the human race had, in
kind at least, reached its conclusion, and that the only growth
remaining for it was an extension on all sides. But since
then we have become more cautious with regard both to the
past and to the future.
Growing acquaintance with pre-classical civilisations is
already beginning to arouse in us misgivings of having under-
valued them in many respects. It is certain that they exhibited
such a full and complex and active life that it is impossible
to regard them as a mere unimportant prelude to European
history. Our acquaintance with them is still but too meagre,
since their literatures, which are the only thoroughly trustworthy
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY. 299
witnesses of tlie depth and character of mental life, are partly
lost to us and partly are difficult of access ; hence we are now
unquestionably as much in danger of over-estimation as we were
formerly in danger of inconsiderate neglect. But a philosophy
of human history can give no satisfactory results concerning the
course and the amount of its actual progress before these long ages
of past time have become known, and their performances been
compared with what we have hitherto regarded as the advances
of later periods. On the other hand, the progress of mechanical
art which has provided new means and resources, and of the
economic sciences which have produced a better adjustment to
human needs of the means for their satisfaction, has caused
our attention to be directed more than ever towards the future ;
the aggregate of all that it has to do, alter, procure, and
arrange has never been present in such distinctness and
importance to the consciousness of any previous age ; no time
has lived so fully as the present in definite plans for the future ;
we feel ourselves more stirred up to try and promote progress
for the future than to investigate the steps it has made in
past history.
So now again the future stretches out before us, more full of
significance than ever, and we can fill it with dreams of bound-
less progress. But the course of history has already been so long
that in looking back upon it we shall soon find ourselves obliged
to confine our hopes within a narrower compass ; for plainly
the regions within which there is any great probability of
unlimited progress are very definitely circumscribed, and for
all others the probability is but very slight. The splendid
initiation of the rule over matter and its forces which rejoices us
in the natural sciences, having been made once for all, we may
reckon upon a rapid succession of new discoveries. Trom these
may be anticipated a varied increase in the conveniences of
life, greater facility in the satisfying of our wants, and
purposive alteration of many of our customs ; the enriching of
some favourably situated countries by increased use of natural
resources and the addition of others to the abodes of civilisa-
tion ; increase of the population of the earth, and a manifold
300 BOOK VII. CHAPTER V.
heightening of the activity of commerce. All sciences which
combine facts of experience according to clear and simple
laws of thought have the prospect of making continuous
advances towards perfection ; they will not only extend their
knowledge of particulars, but will also learn by the discovery
of new laws to understand better the coherence of all reality.
These general results may be expected to exercise a favourable
and gradually increasing influence even upon those sciences
which, transcending experience and real existence and search-
ing after God and divine things, early accumulated a store of
valuable thoughts, but during the thousands of years that have
passed since then have not been able to make any important
addition to their early stock ; and the progress may also be
shared by that practical wisdom which has to deal with the
necessary aims of our action, the binding commands of con-
science, and beneficent social constructions.
But whilst this world of truth and of Ideas increases, human
nature will not change, and life will always remain a long way
behind the ideals that are set before successive generations.
There will never be one fold and one shepherd, never one
imiform culture for all mankind, never universal nobleness ;
but strife and inequalities of condition and the vital strength
of evil will always continue. And we do not think this
prospect desperate ; for it does not seem to us that aU history
is so bounded by the limits of earthly life that we needs must
see the dawn upon earth of its brilliant closing scene, that
golden future which we dream of. On the contrary, as long
as men are bound by their bodily organization to the material
wants of life, their perfection and happiness must also be
bound up with imperfection and iU, just as inevitably as any
of our modes of progression both presuppose and at the same
time overcome external friction. Both our virtues and our
happiness can only flourish in the midst of an active conflict
with wrong, in the midst of the self-denials which society
imposes on us, and amid the doubts into which we are
plunged by the uncertainty of the future and of the results of
our efforts. If there were ever to come a future in which
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORY.
301
every stumbling-block were smoothed away, then, indeed,
mankind would be as one flock ; but then, no longer like men
but like a flock of innocent brutes they would feed on the
good things provided by Nature, with the same unconscious
simplicity as they did at the beginning of that long course of
civilisation, the results of which, up to the present time,
wo shall now briefly consider, as a sequel to the review
we have already taken of the external destinies of the human
race.
BOOK YIII.
PROGRESS.
SOS
CHAPTEE I.
TRUTH AND SCIENCE.
Stages of Philosophic Thought: Mythologic Fancy; Cultured Eeflection ;
Development of Greek Thought ; Science — Over-estimation of Logical
Forms and Confusion of them with Matter-of-Fact — Philosophic Problems
of Christian Thought — Limitation of Thought to the Elaboration of
Experiences — The Exact Sciences — The Principal Standpoints of Philo-
sophy, and its Efforts in trying to reach a Knowledge of the Nature of
Things — Idealism and Realism.
§ 1. rriHOSE various embryon impulses from the develop-
JL ment of which all human civilisation has grown
lip, have always sprung to life simultaneously as products of
one common root, the unchanging nature of mind. Different
periods of history may be pointed out in which one after the
[other, religion, art, science, law, and social problems, have
become for the first time so distinctly present to the con-
sciousness of mankind, that they seem to have been then first
[discovered or invented, to the advantage of future ages ; but
! even in the very beginning of civilisation there could not have
Been altogether absent any one of those activities of the
human soul which later became more clearly differentiated one
[from another, taking separate paths to various ends. And all
are in continual mutual action as far as their requirements
and results are concerned ; and this most actively in just those
times of dawning civilisation in which as yet none of them
have found either cause or possibility of independent further
development, in the possession of the wealth of some special
department and in the peculiar mode of procedure made
necessary by the nature of that department.
So if we try to survey this complicated whole of human
civilisation as far as lies within the scope of our general
intention, we cannot follow any one of the stems from which
it has sprung without meeting ramifications by which each
VOL. II. u
306
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER I.
communicates with the rest. Yet still in the history of the
development of the whole mind, the development of scientific
knowledge takes a certain specially favoured position. What-
ever may be the several roots from which spring the creative
impulses of art, or the moral convictions of religious belief,
they are all, as regards the fulness and trustworthiness of their
development, dependent partly upon the extent to which this
knowledge subordinates reality to its sovereign influence, and
partly upon the clearness with which each has come to com-
prehend itself, its tasks, and its instruments. To scientific
knowledge therefore as the general form under which all
activities of the mind reciprocally test each other, reflect upon
themselves, and bring their results together for transmission,
the beginning of the present considerations may be devoted.
In view of the immensity of the subject, we shall only briefly
refer to that gradual extension of cognitive knowledge which
with every fresh conquest both furnishes human activity with
new aims and also gives a different colouring to our whole
philosophy. But even the progressive self-comprehension of
scientific knowledge, and the development of a definite con-
ception of truth for which we are seeking, and enlightenment
concerning the intellectual means to these ends which are at
our command — even these points we shall only be able to con-
sider with a one-sidedness of which we are fully conscious,
selecting a few points of view specially suited to our purpose.
Of three essentially different ways of looking at reality
which the awakening consciousness of mankind has gradually
come to adopt, we find the earliest in that mythologic philo-
sophy to which at the very beginning of this work our attention
was directed by more restricted considerations. Intensifying
the impressions of perception so as to influence the whole
mental mood, imagination — here going beyond perception —
makes to the reality which it finds those additions which seem
to be demanded by the vague feeling of a contradiction
between that reality and the tacit presuppositions of our
minds. For every myth which gives a new and poetic
form to some phsenomenon, bears witness to the activity of
TRUTH AND SCIENCE. 307
human cognition, that can seldom be satisfied with direct per-
ception because the content of this but seldom harmonizes
with those unanalysed demands which our mind brings with it
to the comprehension of reality, whether as innate endowment
or as the rapidly acquired fruit of previous experience. But
mythologic fancy has not a clear consciousness either of the
full content of the truth which it thinks it must recognise in
phsenomena, or of the definite contradictions of truth v/hich cause
mere facts to seem to demand some mythical and explanatory
transformation. The soul rejoices in the enjoyment of its own
activity, and is without suspicion of the numerous conditioning
causes which go to produce its happiness — a happiness which,
though it seems to arise without trouble and as a matter of
course, is yet a result laboriously produced ; — it is accustomed
to see changes of the external world arise from its own
activity, and hence as yet it knows no truth other than life, and
no problem of cognition other than that of recognising in all the
forms and events of Nature an energy analogous to its own. It
seems to it that nothing has a claim to exist except that which,
if not itself mental energy, may yet be understood as the
action of some mind or as the traces left by some such action ;
only those qualities and events seem to it natural which
have sprung from the activity of a living soul, or which
have arisen in some course of events incidentally set going
by spiritual activity intentionally or unintentionally. It is
true, indeed, that the unfamiliar character of particular natural
phsenomena may cause the attention of the imagination to be
specially directed to them, but that which incites men to give
them mythic expression is to be found not so much in the
particular characteristics which constitute their unfamiliarity
as in the fact that they seem to appear without any explana-
tory history, which by connecting them with spiritual life
should afford a justification for their existence. The notion
of an unconditioned factual self-dependent existence remains
unaccepted ; unrecognised the thought of a nature of things
which, independent of all spiritual life and preceding it as oi
much more primary necessity, should produce the succession of
308 BOOK VIII. CHAPTEE L
plisenomena as its own inherent logical consequence. Not that
the assumption of such a necessary connection of things has not
( constantly afforded secret aid to mythology in the combination of
its personifying ideas. For in fact the briefest account cannot
explain any striking natural phaenomenon by a history of how
it arose without assuming that the connection, transition, and
succession between any two events which it brings together
are to be comprehended by reference to an order of events
which is of universal validity. But fancy (whilst in all its
flights it tacitly relies upon that necessary connection of all
things ujjon which also ordinary practical life must depend
at every step) altogether overlooks this part of its own pro-
cedure, and is not conscious of the indispensable help which
this nature of things affords in giving reality to imaginative
constructions ; for such a philosophy anything which seems
full of meaning and significance has within itself all necessary
I. guarantees of its truth and reality ; and it is that which is
V living, or produced by what is living, that is pre-eminently full
of meaning.
If this way of looking at the world were something that
i merely had heen, it would be hardly worth this renewed
mention ; but the same impulses which led to it at the
I beginning of civilisation still continue to influence every
human mind, even after the discovery of other points of view^
In all ages the popular imagination explains the phaenomena
of Nature as resulting from something that had previously
occurred. Since this or that happened, the bird sings such a
song, the blossoms of such a plant are white instead of red ;
since something else, the bean has been slit in two and the
salamander has had a spotted skin. But this tendency of
thought, which in such examples pleases us as poetic licence
for which we make allowance, has a much stronger hold upon
us in other ways. There comes to all of us a time in our life
in which a general dissatisfaction begins to overshadow the
reality which we had previously accepted and enjoyed in all
simplicity, while yet a hitherto hidden light seems to shine
through the gloom. Innumerable particular perceptions
TRUTH AND SCIENCE. 309
' ^ which we have not specially noted have filled us with a
feeling of the surpassing reality of beauty and goodness and
holiness ; innumerable others, just as unanalysed, have
produced in us disconnected impressions of the confusion and
uncertainty and evanescence under the burden of which all
reality suffers. And now this world of perception is to us no
longer the world of truth, but a mere world of perplexed
phsenomena ; but we are able to look through it to another
and better world of real and ideal existence, to which the
enthusiasm of our soul would fain take flight. We of the
present day, however, are in our education and the conditions
of our life in the midst of the results of a labour of thought
that has lasted for centuries — results which surround us like
an atmosphere of the presence of which we are not conscious ;
and we are thus not likely to be carried by any flight
of such enthusiasm to a mythology which would be dispersed
and dissipated if brought into contact with daily experience,
with which it is in contradiction. But still we find ourselves
travelling the same path which fancy took when it created
such a mythology, in our youthful attempts to transform the
supposed real world of our dreams and forebodings into a shape
in which it may become an object of distinct intuition.
Youth strives to get from particulars to the whole, and not
to the universal ; it seeks more earnestly for the one meaning
of any phaenomenon than for the numerous conditions of its
realization ; and it would always much sooner discover the
unity of the thought which binds together the disconnected
fragments of the cosmic course as living members of a beauti-
and harmonious whole, than inquire after the unattractive
conditions, upon the universal validity of which depends the
possibility of all beauty and of all connection of parts into a
whole. Memory will tell each of us that our youthful dreams
took this turn. We should hardly have been able to say why
exactly it was that we were not satisfied with what reality
ofiered ; still it was the case that reality could not justify
itself to our unanalysed dissatisfaction, and still less was it
comparable with the indescribably fair content of the dream
r
V
310
BOOK VHL CHAPTEK I.
\
which hov-ired before us in indistinct splendour. And then
led away by the splendour of this dream we set to work to,
as it were, develop afresh from it the whole fulness of
reality ; for what else could the unrest be which filled us
and urged our imagination to artistic production, than that
very creative principle itself which is embodied in this world
of phsenomena ? And what we attempted seemed to succeed ;
as note can be joined to note to frame a melody, so one form
gave rise to another, and one thought to another, and seemed
to interpret to us the secret meaning and the inner connection
of phsenomena. With the most unsuspecting confidingness
we put our trust in the poetic justice which was the law of
our imaginative constructions, and accepted it in lieu of that
proof of their truth which we lacked ; deaf to every reminder
of universal laws (which without being themselves the highest,
seemed to limit that which was highest), we passed by with
utter disregard those actual facts which were in contradiction
to our dreams. Thus we shared the conviction of mythology
that that alone which is worthy truly exists ; only that while
mythology sought the worth of all existence in the joy of
some animate life which it conceived of as similar to our own,
the present more advanced development of thought led us to
other ways — less obvious, though perhaps not more true — of
embodying the ideal, which we reverenced as exercising un-
conditioned power over all reality and as the secret source of
its evolutionary energy. And just as mythology forced the
analogies of human spirit-life upon natural objects the furthest
removed from any likeness to us, so we have imposed upon
the nature of things the meaning and connection which our
mind in moods of dream and misgiving demands for the
satisfaction of its unanalysed needs. And in this lies the
strength as well as the weakness of these attempts, which are
not peculiar to youth but are frequently repeated by science,
chough in the more modest forms which an increased
experience of life forces them to assume. Their strength, I
say ; for having sprung from a powerful agitation of the soul,
which intensifies all the deepest longings of the mind so that
TRUTH AND SCIENCE. 311
they become a living mood, these efforts are real experiences
in quite another sense than the thoughts which calm reflection
attaches to phsenomena at a later stage, with greater reserve,
and as it were more on the surface ; this living intuition
may divine many a truth, many a relation between things
which more deliberate thought would discover either laboriously
or not at all. For in truth it must be even as we were
taught by the feeling which animated our dreams — it must be
that that which is worthy is that which truly is, and there
will come a time when the soul which has learnt to know
itself will be able to return to this re-acknowledgment of its ^
primal faith. But it will have to overcome the weakness
which led its early efforts astray. Instead of being as it were )
mastered by the feeling, it must seek to become master of it ; )
it must not let the seeds of truth spring up from the soil of a
passionate mood, in a series of poetical developments, along
with seeds of the most casual errors and of "idols of the
cave," but must learn to follow the course of things along the
path which it really takes.
\ 2. Helped by the thought of long ages of past time, a rich
inherited stock upon which we can draw, it is easy for us to
give up an inadequate standpoint — a standpoint, however, after
reaching which historical development of human consciousness
had to traverse a long distance before attaining a more tenable
position. The mythological beginning, both in history and in i
the life of the individual, is followed by a period of active and V
inquisitive reflection; meditation, no longer supplementing the -j
world by poetic inventions, gives itself to a consideration of
the course of events, and gradually works out to greater
clearness the idea of a nature of things, with regard to which /
the proper attitude of the human mind is one of docile
recognition. In mythological philosophy it was only the
notion of Destiny which had any reference to a necessity
regulating the connection of things ; but this view of necessity
was not such as to be favourable to the development of know-
ledge. For Destiny, wholly devoid of cause or reason, did not \
bind the course of events to general laws, which ad universally J
#
312 BOOK Vni. CHAPTER L
valid truth would rule in unnumbered similar cases, but it
connected together particular events by a link which, because
destitute of law, must be also incomprehensible. Not know-
ledge but prophetic inspiration, not thought which from a|
basis of reason calculates what must happen but intuition
that becomes aware by signs of some approaching event, was the
faculty to which this necessity revealed itself. Gradually ati
first, by steps which cannot be historically traced but may be
conjectured, a fitful awe of incomprehensible fate passes into
the clearer thought of a necessity which as being the nature
of the thing is no longer regarded as joining things together
fortuitously, but as joining, according to general points of view,
things which have a connection with each other. This trans-
formation of view, with which for the first time self-existent
truth as an object of scientific knowledge is brought face to
face with intelligent cognition as the instrument of its com-
prehension, was no doubt due to an impulse originating in the
fact that life itself urges men on the one hand to an industrious
-y cultivation of Nature, and on the other hand to the establish-
ment of social relations. Both were impossible without the
practical application of general rules of judgment, of which,
later on, dawning reflection had to become conscious as forming
the principles of its procedure. And these rules denied equally
both the unregulated supremacy of a blind fate, and the self-
sufficiency, the power of self-realization, which had been
attributed to everything that had intrinsic worth.
In contrast to the temper of youth, this new conception of
the world commonly appears in the development of the
individual as the culture which results from life and the
experience of life, and there is between the two phases an
undeclared hostility. The idealism of youth, with its confidence
of being able to bring all reality into subjection to its fairest
dreams, is broken in upon by the realism of riper age which
gives calm recognition even to what is unimportant when it
occurs as a fact, as one of the unalterable fashions of the
world's course. Tor there comes a time in our lives when the
heart grows weary of fiction, and hungers and thirsts for
TRUTH AND SCIENCE.
313
reality ; there is an indescribable joy in the consciousness of
having gained insight into a part of that which not only stirs
our longing, but surrounds and upholds us with the incom-
prehensible charm of reality, and the mind of the observer is
conscious that such a feeling raises it infinitely above the
pleasing but unstable moods which once filled its being. To
the reproach of having become unreceptive to the ideals of
youth, it rejoins that it has now learnt instead the virtue of
renunciation, and does not forcibly transfer to the world the
results of subjective intuition, but is content to learn with awe
and humility, from a comparison of experiences, as much of
the nature of things as they themselves reveal. And now
indeed the individual can hardly expect that in his limited
sphere of experience the secrets of the universe should be
fully unveiled to him. Fixing his attention at different points
of experience, he will have to content himself with discovering
the proximate causes of some special groups of phaenomena
without reaching the ultimate principles upon which their
whole variety depends. This fragmentary method charac-
terizes the teaching of life throughout. Many trains of
thought starting from particular natural processes, energetically
follow out the connected course of these processes for a time,
but come to an end when they have found the axiomata media,
beyond which abstraction from perception cannot proceed.
Various maxims arise from the consideration of conduct, often
bringing together and answering cognate questions with great
acuteness of discernment, but unconcerned both about first
principles and about their own contradictions of one another.
But even in the very want of connection and unity which
marks this living development there is a charm which fills it
with a sense of wellbeing — the charm of half revelation. If
to our view the topmost summits of reality are veiled in mist,
they appear as a whole only so much the vaster and more
infinite ; even the contradictions to which we are led by a
consideration of its diflferent parts strengthen the sense of
submissive security with which we consider, and merge our-
selves in, a world so vast as to be able to present to us such
^
314
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER I.
different aspects on the different sides which it turns towards
us. Eeverence for the inherent truth of anything is greater
in this mood than it was in the enthusiasm of youth, and he'
who has experienced it will find that the suggestive poetry of
this prose is more profound and more full of content than the
sparkling foam of youthful dithyrambs.
S 3. In the history of mankind we can trace this evolution
of consciousness nowhere but in the gradual development of
Greek science. It seems that Greek philosophy, following
this path of a living development having many starting-
points, was occupied (until it reached its culminating point
in Plato and Aristotle) in trying to arouse everywhere a
consciousness of the existence of a truth, and of a nature of
things, which constituted possible objects of human cognition.
Making guesses and using the analogies of perception with
more or less penetration, it made repeated attempts to obtain
a provisional formula for the content of truth before it turned
its attention to consciousness itself, and inquiring into the
nature and instruments of human cognition, passed from the
fragmentary activity of living development to the coherent
method of scientific investigation. For the rapid survey
which it is our present object to make, its particular doctrines
are indifferent ; what is important is the general condition of
human culture and insight which its procedure reveals.
Poetry had early succeeded in expressing the results of
life's experiences in striking pictures and in general reflec-
tions. And when the first Greek sages appeared enunciating
gnomes — such as that which blames all excess, or that which
connects every suretyship with some fatality, or that which
exhorts men to self-examination — what they said seemed
to contain much less than was already familiar to the poetic
consciousness of the nation, and thus they appeared to be
behind the civilisation of their own time. But if this had
really been the case, they would not have received the
admiration which has connected their names with the dawn
of philosophy. The first awakening of the scientific spirit
always causes surprise, not by its unusual wealth of new
TRUTH AND SCIENCE. 315
matter, but by its special mode of regarding that wliicb is Y'
already known. Compared with the wealth of thought which
the national mind possesses in its poesy and employs in life,
the infancy of science always appears inexplicably meagre ; >(
it is only a high degree of perfection which enables it
(by means of discoveries which it alone can then make)
to be supreme among the mental activities of life. The
rich variety of Homeric characters and the soul-painting of
Sophoclean art had caused the Greeks to see clearly and
sympathize warmly with all the depths of spiritual life, long
before its dawning speculation could answer (even with the
most inadequate and superficial conjectures) the question \ '
what the soul is in itself. But such special instances are
unnecessary. Language itself shows in its structure and use
the great chasm that exists between the wealth of spontaneous
living thought and the poverty of reflection which strives to
analyse its own procedure. Without the trouble of seeking,
and with the certainty of a somnambulist, the most uncul-
tured mind finds and uses forms of expression which language
has invented for him, indicating the finest shades of difference
in the relations of things, of events, and of thoughts; but
even with the help of the most complete apparatus of words
of " second intention," he would be wholly incapable of
rendering to himself or others any precise account of the
content of the thoughts which he expresses (as easily as he
breathes) in forms of language the use of which has become
a living habit to him. From this mere thinking life to self-
conscious thought a decisive step was taken by those first
sages. When they expressed their familiar and to some
extent unimportant truths as simple sayings detached from
poetical surroundings, constantly repeating them with the same
emphatic simplicity, they gave to their content a new form
and with this a new value. They roused the attention of the
mind to the fact that the general maxims with which so
often before it had as it were toyed unsuspectingly are not
mere breathing-places for the soul when roused to excitement
by a consideration of events ; but that they are in all serious-
316
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER I.
ness real laws of the cosmic order, fragments of that self-
existent truth, that nature of things, to the recognition of
which the fully awakened consciousness had to apply itself.
Hence these sayings, although founded on particular cases of
experience and referring to them in their phrasing, plainly
had a general symbolic meaning ; they showed that in other
departments as well — everywhere in fact — similar conditions
governed the connection of events.
The study of Xature passed through the same stages as
the study of human life. When we see all phsenomena
derived sometimes from water, sometimes from air, now from
fire, and then from the confusion of chaos, or by determination
of the indeterminate, we are surprised at the poverty of this
conception of Nature when compared with mythology, which
knew all this and much more, and which reproduced the
characteristics of phsenomena with much more penetrating
subtlety. We may think it strange that when Anaxagoras
declared vov<; to be the principle of the universe, without
being able to apply this thought to any particulars of per-
ception, he should have seemed to his contemporaries to be
announcing something great and new; for not only had
mythology always had the same notion, but it had also
been able to show, after its own fashion, how vov'i works in
Nature in individual cases. But only after its own fashion ;
it is easily seen that notwithstanding all the poverty of its
content the dawning philosophy was new because of the
different mode in which it apprehended things. Whilst
fancy hitherto had merely gone on to dream after dream
of phsenomenal beauty, reflection now became ever more
and more conscious of that universal necessity which, as the
nature of things, gives order, tension, and stability to the
whole world of phaenomena ; and the unskilful essays which
followed one another in rapid succession helped to form ever
clearer and clearer notions of primal matter, primal force, and
universal modes of motion from which individual creatures
and events proceeded, as results brought about after various
fashions. But there still went on working the youthfulness
TKUTH AND SCIENCE.
317
of thought, which hankers after intuitive perception and is
led away by circumstantial histories of the origin of things
from investigating the final conditions of their reality. In
order to indicate that content of the really existent which it
strove to grasp, the mind turned at first to remarkable
pheenomena of internal and external experience ; and brought
into prominence as the essential principles of the universe
those comparatively permanent and universal phsenomena by
which, as Matter or Cause, the rest were in various ways con-
ditioned. From such notions as that the really existent is
water or air, more practised reflection has in course of time
risen to more abstract determination ; the Infinite, the One,
Measure, Order, gradually took the place of the more sensuous
early notions. But all these changing dicta belonged, as far
as form went, to the " contingent aspects " of growing develop-
ment. Of course each of these principles was chosen because
it seemed to possess the qualities which the prejudices of
natural thought require in that which is to be accepted
as the supreme principle. But these principles were not
analysed, nor comprehended in all their fulness, and one or
another guided individual thought according as it seemed
from some accidental cause to be more clear to consciousness ;
the particular thought which corresponded to his own obvious
requirement was one-sidedly regarded by each as the whole
content of the supreme principle, and he thus came to regard
the whole principle as being embodied in the phaenomenon
which rendered that thought most strikingly perceptible to
the senses.
In this process of reflection there were traces of recent
emergence from mythical philosophy ; from which also another
heritage had descended to it — that reverence for symmetrical
and rhythmical forms of occurrence in the order of events
which would very naturally arise when the mind, though it no
longer sought in the world a direct copy of its own spiritual life
and its own joy in existence, yet strove to find (as it were in
compensation for this) in the independent nature of things
which it began to recognise, a perfection peculiar to that nature.
318
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER L
In the real existence which men sought for, the ideas of all
goodness and beauty and holiness were so blended with the
idea of reality, that the aesthetic relations of form indicated by
the former expressions, seemed to belong also to the essential
nature of reality itself. This notion of the necessary symmetry
of the really existent (which no doubt contains a kernel of
truth the more exact determination of which is worth a
searching investigation) is an assumption which has influ-
enced the philosophic conceptions of aU periods, and it has
not lost its power in modern times ; the early ages of antiquity
were wholly swayed by it. Long after people had begun to
speak of the laws of things, these laws were not understood
as general rules of the behaviour of phsenomena which did
not in themselves require any definite form of phaenomenal
occurrence, this being determined by the peculiarities of
the special cases to which they were applied ; they were,
on the contrary, regarded as definite, symmetrically ordered,
harmonious rhythms in the occurrence of phaenomena —
rhythms intuitively perceptible which, since they embrace
the universe, determine the direction of every individual's
movement. For a long time the tendency of reflection
was to class the fates of individuals under great existential
habits of the universe ; the attempt to explain the final
form of cosmic order as resulting from the reciprocal action
of individual circumstances, was made later. At the stage
to which we are now referring, the thought of the whole
which with predetermined form and development precedes
the parts, quite outweighed the thought of general laws,
which first enable the parts to form a whole or the whole
to be built up of parts.
§ 4. Tradition connects with the name of Socrates the
record of the step by which living reflection was first led into
the methodical path of scientific cognition. Earlier specula-
tion had imagined that it could only discover that nature of
things which is the source of all concrete objects by a
process of g«essing, which had to penetrate through all kinds
of phaenomenal obscuration, in order that, far behind them, it
TRUTH AND SCIENCE. 319
might find the being itself. The objects of Nature that sur-
round us, and the events that take place among them, were
then connected with the real being, not indeed by something
that had happened, but by something that was continually
happening — whether this was conceived under the form of an
element that, passing through many intermediate stages, had
transformed itself into the multiplicity of individual things, or
as an order and a rhythm that can only be fully perceived
in the great whole, and that seems to vanish in parts and
individuals of that whole, through inexplicable contradictory
fluctuations. Now for the first time it became clear to
men's minds that the nature of things is present everywhere,
that its connection with the existing world is not a connection
dependent on history, but is of the essence of the world — that '^
this nature consists not in any one element, not in any one l
definite form of existence, but in a Truth which, ever the /
same in small things and in great, joins all parts of the
world, and is the very nerve of connection between them.
It was from this third standpoint that cognising knowledge
first became possible ; for now for the first time there was a
cause and basis for ever-present necessities of thought, instead
of the merely historical cosmic facts which formerly men had
been able to guess, to describe, or to observe without com-
prehending them. Yet it was very long before the fruits of
this new standpoint became to any extent matured, and the
injurious effects, which the deficiencies of the first historical
harvest in this field left to posterity, have not even yet all
disappeared.
That the objects of observation and the various images
which fill our thoughts may be co-ordinated under general
class concepts, and that the content of these concepts is
eternally the same, and is what it is, freed from all the
mutation and change to which its particular manifestations
in actual fact are subject — these two apparently insignificant I
discoveries mark the beginning of the new period. These '
two insignificant discoveries, I say; for they on]j- revealed
what the living course of human thought had always pos-
320 BOOK VIII. CHAPTEB L
sessed ; and yet they both had very important results. For
long as it was since language had begun to indicate in words
the general concepts of things (as indeed it was inevitable
that it should), consciousness had still continued unaware of
what it was about; and even for the contemporaries of
-Socrates it was hard to see that the convenience of using a
-common name for different things arose from their depend-
ence upon something which was common to them all, and in
all self-identical. And inevitably as both reflection and
practice had tacitly assumed the unchanging self- identity
of every notion and every determination of things, yet the
theoretic consideration of reality had led to confused ideas of
an eternal flux of all things, in which the mutability of
reality had come to be regarded as involving also the muta-
bility of truth, and every fixed standard of fluctuating
particulars was lost sight of. As opposed to this incapacity
and that confusion, the conscious emphasizing of universally
valid truth (narrow as the view of its content might as yet
be) appeared as the first basis on which a firm position might
be taken up, and from which further advances might proceed.
After men had long been striving to grasp the highest real
existence at one bound, as it were, there began the logical
period of thought, in which it became possible for men to
attempt first of all to make clear what must necessarily be
required in that which was the goal of their desires ; and then,
and only then, to ask whether that which satisfies these
requirements is to be found, and if so, where ?
This newly-gained insight set two tasks for further develop-
ment to accomplish : first, that of becoming conscious of the
forms and principles of procedure which are indispensable for
observation and for the connection of our thoughts in order
to reach that which the thinking mind should accept as
truth ; the foundations of this logical science were laid in a
masterly manner by antiquity, but the science was left far from
complete. Just as unavoidable was the second problem —
the inquiry as to the worth which all these laws of thought
(inevitable for our intelligence) possess as regards the compre-
TRUTH AND SCIENCE. 321
heiision of truth and acquaintance with things themselves ;
and neither in ancient times, nor in the long course of
development which science has since then passed through,
has this investigation reached a solution of manifold doubts,
which in their most general form we must now consider, as
far as they can be made intelligible without systematic scien-
tific investigation.
If in common life we seek by a comparison of apparent
signs, by the use of numerous analogies, and by inferring
back from results to their causes, to ascertain some secret,
hidden, or forgotten fact, we do not doubt that all the indirect
courses thus taken by our thought are means which are only
necessary for us who seek ; necessary because of the position
we are placed in as regards the object of our search; we do
not suppose that the nature of the thing itself which we are
desirous of explaining has gone through a similar series of
steps in the course of its development. The course which
our thought has taken is therefore regarded by us as merely
our subjective mode of procedure, and as the result of this we
hope indeed to arrive finally at a knowledge of the nature of
our object ; but we do not imagine that our labour, while it
is in progress, is an exact reflection step for step of that inner
process of development by which the object was formed, or of
the inner coherence by which its actual existence is main-
tained. This notion of the relation of thought to its object,
which appears unsought in such cases, contains in combina-
tion two assertions which are sometimes separated into two
opposed views. Every useful instrument must fulfil two
requirements ; in the first place it must be suited to the hand
that is to use it, and in the second place it must be suited to
the nature of the object to which it is to be applied. Just in
the same way the processes of thought must be determined
both by the nature of the thinking subject, and also by the
nature of its objects. But the peculiarities imposed upon it
by these several conditions cannot be quite the same.
The intelligence of finite beings is not placed at the centre
of the universe, and cannot grasp at once the whole of reality
VOL. II. X
322
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER L
in the true and natural relations of dependence which suhsist
between all its parts ; placed amid phsenomena it finds itself
face to face rather with the derivative properties of things
than with their nature, and much oftener with results than
causes ; it is forced to become acquainted successively with
the parts of a coexistent whole. Thus there arise in our
thought an immense number of necessary activities of dis-
crimination, combination, and relation, which are all merely
preparatory formal means of knowledge, and to which we can
by no means ascribe real validity in the sense that their
succession presents a reflection, exact or resembling, of the
internal processes and reciprocal action upon which the reality
and development of objects themselves depend. But on the
other hand, it is just as plain that when these laws of thought
are capable of leading to a knowledge of things, they cannot
be mere subjective forms in the equally one-sided sense that
they arise from the organization of our mind as innate modes
of its activity without having any original relation to the
nature of the objects with which they are destined to deal
On the contrary, thought and existence certainly seem to be
BO connected as that they both follow the same supreme laws ;
which laws are, as regards existence, laws of the being and
becoming of all things and events, and as regards thought,
laws of a truth which must be taken account of in every
connection of ideas. All reality is connected according to
these laws in such a thoroughgoing fashion, and with such
unbroken logical consistency, that our thought may at its own
choice use any mesh in the network as its point of departure,
and proceed therefrom in any direction it will ; and as long as
on its part it makes those laws the rules of its progress, it
will always be sure to arrive at any other point of reality
which it seeks, however much the direction and the windings
of its own motion between the two points differ from the
real connections by which reality itself connects one of its
divisions with another or causes one to proceed from another.
The calculation of the peculiar properties of a plane figure by
means of a diagram may serve as an illustration of this. To
TRUTH AND SCIENCE. 323
help our demonstration we draw lines in the figure, and the
larger the number of equally useful constructions among which
we can choose, the less can we regard any of them as essential
parts of the figure. We attain the correct conclusion by a
concatenation of propositions which does not in the least follow
any real process of construction in the object; but so in-
exhaustible are the possibilities of connection in any geo-
metrical object, that our thought, setting out from any selected
point, may take the most various ways of covering the object
with a network of relations, and can always rest assured that
at every halting-place in its circuitous course it will find some
essential relation, and that at the end of the whole methodical
procedure it will infallibly reach the truth for which it was
seeking.
But this relation of thought to its objects is clear to us only
so long as we can keep in view the complicated whole of such
considerations, in the order in which we used them in our
demonstration; for there arises the appearance of quite a
different state of things if we go back to the separate elements
of thought from the combination of which that whole has
grown up, that is, to the forms of the idea, the concept,
the judgment, the syllogism. It will seem to us as though
a complex train of reasoning can only take an arbitrary course
on the whole (arbitrary, that is, within wide limits), because
it directly expresses and realizes in these its component parts
those laws which thought has in common with existence ; and
it will seem that the circuitous course of our thought can
^coincide finally with the nature of the thing only because
[those component parts harmonize with it ; hence allowing only
[of such modes of combination as belong to the logical con-
'sistency of this nature of the thing, however much freedom
there may be in other respects. Therefore when our thought
combines individual ideas into one whole, when it integrates
[many similar ideas to one general concept, joins concepts
!to make judgments, and judgments to make syllogisms, it
will easily believe that in these processes it is copying the
very inner relations of its object; and each of these logical
324
BOOK Vlir. CHAPTER I.
-^
forms will, on account of the mutual relations into wliich it
brings the component parts of the train of reasoning, he
regarded by thought as a reflection of some element of the
relationship which exists between the constituent parts of the
object.
I reserve for the present the proof of the illusiveness of
this semblance ; if for the moment we assume its decep-
tiveness, the injurious consequences in which it involves
us are clear. For whenever we consider the reciprocal
relations of those parts of ideas which we have combined into
one whole, or the process by which, dropping or adding
characteristics, we transform one idea into another, we shall
be inclined to believe that we are thereby enabled to under-
stand not only the structure of our idea, but also the
inner articulation of the object ideated, not only the
procedure of our own thought, but also the course of the
facts which actually occur, as the object comes into existence
and develops. This confusion between clearing up our con-
cepts and analysing the corresponding objects is an error of
reflection which is very natural, and recurs in the most varied
forms; and it may be allowed to occupy a certain phase
in which, when men's attention has been fiist called to the
presence in our mind of a reign of law to which all truth
must conform, they are very easily led to over-estimate a dis-
covery so important. If we say that the knowledge of things
belongs to Metaphysics, and that the doctrine of the forms
of thought to be used in knowledge belongs to Logic, then we
may say that antiquity has very generally erred in thinking
that it could answer metaphysical questions by logical
analyses of ideas. And in this lies the cause of the unfruit-
fulness which strikes us when we look to antiquity for any
furtherance of knowledge as regards facts — an unfruitfulness
which we find side by side with a splendid exhibition of
intellectual strength. Being quite unable in this hasty survey
to give any account of the latter, we must content ourselves
with indicating some of the by-ways into which later times
have been misled through the influence of antiquity.
b
TRUTH AND SCIENCE. 325
Plato's doctrine of Ideas was the first attempt to grasp the
nature of the thing in general concepts — a grand attempt
which, though unsuccessful, yet exercised an influence for
long ages to come. There were strong inducements of two
kinds to make such an attempt. In the first place, observa-
tion of living creatures has in all times given rise to the
thought that nothing but the living generic concept can be
the combining force which in every individual unites pro-
perties and vicissitudes into one whole of orderly development,
causing in each the realization of the same form of life,
notwithstanding the transforming influences of varying an(J
casual external conditions. But again Plato's doctrine of
Ideas, as opposed to the sophistry which was analysing away
all sense of duty, rendered splendid service by attempting (in
obedience to the second and equally strong motive) to point
out that the worth of human actions is not temporarily
determined by arbitrary institutions of local prevalence or
changing taste, but that it depends on universal immutable
moral Ideas of an absolutely good and just and beautiful,
and only exists in proportion as these Ideas which are always
self-identical are reflected in the various and changing
forms of action. In these two cases the question is of
phaenomena and events which we can easily imagine to be the
work or aim of reality ; we find no difficulty in understanding
the generic concept of living creatures as a type which the
cosmic order seeks to realize in innumerable copies ; still more
are we inclined to do homage to the other conviction (to
which enthusiastic expression has so often been given) — the
conviction that universal original types of the Good and the
Just and the Beautiful, are to be conceived as the exalted
patterns which our actions have to imitate. So that here
general concepts seemed to contain the essence of the thing,
I because this very essence consisted in the universality of an
ideal which was intended to be realized in innumerable
particular cases.
But it is not all the objects of reflection of which we can
frame universal concepts that favour this way of looking at
g26 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER L
them ; so that if we disregard the fact that in the instances
sited the nature of the content ennobles the form of the con-
cept, and look at this form as indicating universally the
essential nature of things, then in consistency we must go
further than we would. That every particular thing which is
beautiful and good and just, is beautiful, good, and just only
through participation in eternal Ideas of Beauty in itself, Good
in itself, and Justice in itself, was a notion which could inspire
Plato with enthusiasm ; but that a table is only a table and
that dirt is only dirt through participation in the eternal Idea
of the Table or of Dirt was a difficulty which Plato himself
encountered but did not remove ; these concepts of common-
place realities which from a logical point of view are just as
legitimate concepts as any others, could not well be reckoned
as imperishable original types in that world of Ideas of which
the phaenomenal world is but a dim copy. These, however,
were just the cases which early directed attention to the fa ;t
that the realm of thoughts and concepts with the whole
ordered system of its internal connections is not a reflex of
the realm of existence, but bears to it that different relation
which we referred to above. Our own voluntary actions
adapt the materials of Nature to our ends in many ways, and
thus among other things produce the table, of which there was
no original type among the integrating constituents of universal
order; but everything in the world is so connected according
to law and rule, that of these products of art with which we
enrich reality there may be just such concepts as of the
original constituents of reality, and general logical laws are no
less applicable to these concepts than to the Ideas. And
further, the course of our thought arbitrarily compares together
things which are quite unaffected by the comparison, or brings
them into relations which are quite unessential to them, and
thus produces the concept of dirt, which certainly does not
express the nature of anything ; and yet such a notion is a
help to thought which we are justified in using; for as long
as we use it with reference to those considerations to the
arbitrary prominence of which it owes its existence, all the
1
TFvUTH AND SCIENCE. 327
laws that thought prescribes to concepts hold of it, and their
application leads to correct conclusions.
Between truths which are valid and things which exist ^
Greek philosophy always made very inadequately the dis-
tinction which our language marks plainly enough by these
two expressions ; valid truth always seemed to it to be a v
particular department of existence. And it is with this very f •%
distinction that we are here concerned. It is upon the fact
that the same supreme truths hold of the ultimate bases of
both thought and existence that the general possibility of
their mutual relation depends ; but the relation does not
consist in this, that a fixed number of concepts as existing are
to us things, and as thought are the ideas of things ; on the
contrary, our concepts may be increased indefinitely without j
any addition to the sum of existence. And further, setting out
from innumerable arbitrarily chosen standpoints, we may
build up the same whole by constructions of particular ideas,
varying according to the variety of these standpoints ; and
thus there may be many definitions which define the same
object with equal accuracy and exhaustiveness. None of
these definitions is the nature of the object, though each is
valid as to it, because there is no object of which the nature
can be conceived by means of an Idea that is isolated, and
unconnected with all others, and characterized only by eternal
self-identity ; but each object has its nature and its truth
only in as far as there are general laws of reciprocal behaviour i\/
which are valid as to it and all others, and according to
which it not only is distinguished from others as a coherent
whole, excluding all others from itself, but also reveals itself
and enters into connection with others. Thanks to these
laws, thought can form innumerable new concepts, since under
their guidance it makes arbitrary lines of communication
between things, and is conscious of each movement which it
thus accomplishes as the idea of a certain connection between
the things. Of these new concepts, Plato's great successor i
Aristotle would perhaps have said that they were indeed
potential in the nature of the thing, but in point of fact were
328
BOOK VIII. CIIArTER L
first made actual by the subjective procedure of thought. A
consideration of this relation would have led in the first place
to a clearer distinction between that aristocracy of Ideas on
the one hand which (as the generic concepts of living
creatures and of determinations of moral value) are among
the eternal types that are original constituents of the cosmic
order, and on the other hand that proletariat of concepts that
increases indefinitely the more curiously thought plays with
the infinite possibilities of comparison and connection among
things. But this distinction (as to the first part of which we
reserve some important doubts) would have been crowded out
by a second, which admonishes us to consider not only the
form of the concept, but also the form of thought of the
judgment, and to search for the truths — expressible only in
this form — without which no intercourse between existing
things and no cosmic order is conceivable, one of the things
which we owe to this form of judgment being the possibility
of valid concepts.
§ 5. This world of concepts not only could not be brought
into adequate connection with reality, but further, it did not
attain the internal articulation necessary for a typal world of
Ideas. It remained a collection of motionless Ideas between
which nothing takes place in the present, and nothing is fore-
shadowed as about to take place in the future, and which only
cohere among themselves by means of logical connections of
subordination, and compatibility or incompatibility. All the
transitions from one to another which thought finds or estab-
lishes between the objects of perception are but misused by
having their meaning likewise petrified into eternal and ever-
lasting Ideas, which take their places calmly beside the rest
without thinking that their business was not to be links,
members of the series, but only copulas between other members.
Thus the eternal self-identical Idea of identity stands beside
the equally eternal and self-identical Idea of unlikeness, and
along with them the eternally motionless Idea of movement ;
none of them makes an effort to exist after a fashion suited to
its content, as a relation of predication between two other
TRUTH AND SCIENCE. 32S
points, or as the movement of sometliing in some direction.
Aristotle was sensible of these deficiencies; a taste for the
observation of Nature, and systematic occupation with the
forms of thought, drew his attention to the numerous relations
which connect the individual elements of reality into one living
whole, and to the ways in which these relations are expressed
by our thought. He knew that Ideas are not existent but
valid, that a truth is expressed not by a concept but by a
proposition ; he searched language for all those expressions
by which we indicate the manifold relations between things
which we find or assume ; he frequently distinguishes between
the dependence upon one another of the different parts of a
complex thought and the order in which the elements of the
corresponding reality condition one another. But his practical
philosophizing no more avoided confusion between the logical
analysis of thought and the investigation of things with
reference to the form of judgment, than Plato did with
reference to the concept.
In the judgment we combine two ideas by means of a
third ; we attribute to an object a property or a condition or
the manifestation of an activity. As long as these predicates
have once for all been received as unchanging and belonging
to the subject in its integrity, the judgment expresses no
event, but only analyses our idea of an unvarying content ;
and as long as this is the case, it may escape our notice
that there is need to ask specially what exactly there is in
the object itself correspondent to that which (with obviously
figurative expressions) we call its possession of some property,
its sufferance of some condition, or its manifestation of some
activity. If on the contrary we attribute to a subject
assumption or loss or alteration of predicates — that is, when
we describe an event — we have a more unmistakeable interest
in knowing what it is that actually happens to this subject
— the very object itself — to justify our imitative thought in
now conceiving of it under a second idea which has arisen
from a previous idea of the same object by the addition of
new or the dropping out of old marks. It would be difficult
330 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER L
to show that the Aristotelian philosophy generally satisfies this
requirement. Much occupied with the concepts of change
and of becoming, it yet in analysing them makes no inquiry
as to what it is that justifies us in their application. We are
told indeed that in change, properties always pass into their
opposites ; for a brief moment we indulge the hope that this
remark indicates at least the path and direction which are
taken when there is alteration, thus revealing a truth which,
since it could not have been the product of mere thought,
must have been directly gathered from the nature of the
thing ; but it speedily appears that nothing more was meant
than that naturally nothing can become what it already is, but
only something that it previously was not. Thus this some-
what inadequate information merely expresses the result of an
analysis of our idea of becoming, announcing that in it two
different individual ideas succeed one another in such a way
that when the one comes the other goes. But what is it that
in existence and reality so corresponds to this course of out
ideas that we are able to believe that the ideas are a copy of
the reality ? We do not know ; the transformations which
our idea of an object undergoes when the object changes, are,
in the last resort, regarded as if the alterations of the object
itself on which they depend were quite similar to them, and
as if a knowledge of them could take the place of a knowledge
of the objective alterations. When a white object becomes
black then in our representation, in the mosaic of marks which
constituted its mental counterpart, we, as it were, erase the
mark of white colour, and replace it by one of black ; if we
then ask what has happened to the object itself, in virtue of
which we have been able by this alteration to make our idea
correspond to it again, it seems that the process was essentially
just the same; the white departed from it, and the black came
instead. That properties inhere in and are connected with the
thing quite otherwise than the marks (or parts of presented
ideas) are related to the concept, is a fact of which now and
then a theoretic suspicion has been expressed, but this has had
no important effect upon practical philosophic investigation.
TRUTH AND SCIENCE. 331
The celebrated concepts of Bvvafit<i and ivipyeia, M^liich as
Potentiality and Actuality are still favourites of philosophical
dilettanteism, bring these barren considerations systematically
to the investigation of all objects. If a thing passes from one
state into another, the conditioning causes of the later state
are contained never wholly but always partially in the earlier
state ; if they had been contained wholly in it, then the
earlier state could never have been, but the later would have
existed from all eternity without any need of coming into
existence ; since they were only contained in it partially, there
was something in the earlier state which contributed to the
later without actually bringing it into existence. If we com-
pare the two, the ingenuity of thought cannot fail to set down
the possibility that the second state may at some future time
arise, as an actujil mark of the first state. The nature of such
an abstract concept as that of possibility, which makes it very
difficult to handle, here conceals the barrenness of this pro-
cedure which in other and similar instances is very obvious.
In any case of a & that was greater than c and less than a,
these properties of relation were regarded by the ancients as
characteristics originally existing in h, and they greatly
wondered how it was that b could be at the same time a
greater and a smaller. In the view of modern thought, these
same properties of relation belong to h only when it is com-
pared with a and c, being then new expressions for its really
unchanging magnitude. It is after an equally shallow fashion
that the possibility or SvvafiK of the later state is contained
in the first. The real task which cognition has to accomplish
in comparing the two is to indicate definitely what the earlier
state was ; and to prove that being what it was it formed a
part of that circle of conditions, which (subsequently com-
pleted by the accession of other conditions) helped to form
the whole cause of the second state, and hence could subse-
quently produce the realization of that state, which earlier in
the absence of the complementary conditions it could not do.
On the other hand, it is wholly useless, and merely produces
delusion as to the real problems of knowledge, to assume
332
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER L
generally for every reality merely a previous corresponding
possibility without inquiring what are the actually existing
facts upon which the possibility of the subsequent change
depends.
It may be objected that Zvvafii<i and ipepjeva or iurekixeia
are not merely the bare concepts of possibility and actuality
but intuitions of something more profound. It is true that
as Plato's Ideas sometimes denoted all concepts merely as such,
and sometimes denoted a selection of what should be typical
concepts, even so that more general signification of the tech-
nical terms above referred to which follows from Aristotle's
own illustrations, is limited to certain actually favoured cases.
For instance, there is nothing to hinder our regarding the
state of rest of a system of elements as its ivTeXixeia, and the
motions leading to this as its hvvafii^ in which the rest is
already present but not realized. But this is not Aristotle's
meaning. In his view, the mind that can penetrate to
essential assumptions concerning the worth of things, regards
activity as the sole and only reality which ought to exist,
inactivity merely as movement which is as yet undeveloped
Thus with the concept of Bvvafj,i<; as a possibility which in
itself may be a capacity, not only of action, but also of inac-
tion, there is blended the concept of force, which is no longer
a mere possibility, but an impulse to realization, a living
faculty. But this transformation of the concept makes it more
seductive indeed, yet not more fruitful ; it only beguiles us
the more into being satisfied with explanations which are no
explanations. The soul is in this sense the eVreXe^j^eta of the
organic body. If we interpret this to mean that everything
which is found in the body as an actual relation of the
elements out of which it is constructed, is used, assimilated
or enjoyed by the soul according to its worth, significance,
and possible results, partly in conscious perception, partly in
feelings of pleasure and the reverse, partly in free activity —
then we have a proposition which sets forth the problem of
psychology, but does not furnish that explanation of it which
we desire. For that the facts are thus we all know without
TRUTH AND SCIENCE. 333
the help ol philosophy ; the work of investigation "begins just
where this formula ends ; what we want to know is, by what
concatenation of definite and assignable actions and reactions
that fact of the translation of organic outwardness into spiritual
inwardness comes to pass. In a similar fashion the logical
analysis and comparison of our concepts are but too often
proffered as real explanations of their content.
The ancients did not to any extent worth mentioning develop
theories which, by the subordination of varying circumstances,
present a circle of numerous phsenomena as the results of
general laws or as deviations from a type. Hence the con-
fusion between logic and metaphysics, which we have already
noticed in treating of concept and judgment, meets us again
later in full force when we come to syllogism and the sys-
tematic connection of objects. For undoubtedly errors are
committed in presenting the formulae resulting from the
investigation and disentanglement of a series of events as if
they were the very nerves of inner connection between the
events themselves — in frequently accepting that orderly classi-
fication which facilitates the survey of given reality, as though
it contained the essential meaning of the things themselves —
in often regarding the insertion of some definition in its proper
place in any system as being in itself an addition to real
knowledge, even when it adds nothing whatever to the pre-
viously known qualities of the object defined. Moreover, the
meshwork of the draught-net of method is often taken, with-
out more ado, to be the very articulation of the objects which
it encloses ; and not a few philosophical works take the
grouping of problems for their solution.
This kind of over-estimation of logical forms is perhaps not
the least injurious, but it is the most excusable. He who
takes the connections between ideas in concept and judgment
for real relations between the things presented in idea, regards
as a process in things that which by its very nature can never
take place in them after such a fashion, and is wholly mis-
taken. But he who regards the connection of an order which
is systematic or regulated by law, and which he can transfer
V
334:
BOOK VIIL CHAPTER I.
to given facts as the really conditioning principle of the objec-
tive connection of things, only over-estimates the significance
of a proposition which is valid both as to form and content.
For as to form, no one doubts that the form of law and
systematic order is just as binding and valid for the inner
coherence of reality as for the connection of our ideas; the
only question, therefore, is whether the content of the laws and
order assumed by us have such claims to objective value.
Now, supposing that a is the principle — inaccessible to us
— by which the phsenomena w, n, o are really conditioned, but
that & is a circumstance accessible to our observation, which
as necessary consequence or in some other way is inseparably
connected with a, we may succeed in representing m, n, o as
dependent upon &, and in doing so continue to be in harmony
with existing facts. The law expressing this dependence
would be perfectly valid, although in a higher sense it would
not be true, for it would derive the phaenomena, not from their
really supreme principle, but as it were from a vassal thereof.
It is, however, such validity as the above, and not such truth,
that we ascribe in a general way to the laws and orderly
classifications of science ; in practice they merely lead from
some point of departure in facts to some conclusion in which
there is a return to facts. It is of little consequence whether
any one thinks that the course of reality itself between those
points of departure and conclusion is also determined by the
law, or that the real inner connection of the manifold is
expressed in systems. Since one soon sees that many laws
may be expressed differently from different points of view,
and that the same group of phsenomena may be arranged
with equal significance in various classifications, this preten-
sion is easily given up. None of these forms and laws are
held to be expressive of the true order of things to the exclu-
sion of all the other forms and laws, but reality is understood
as a whole that from very different points of view may be
represented in connections ever different but ever orderly
The traveller who goes round about a mountain, if he goes
repeatedly backwards and forwards and up and down, sees a
TEUTH AKD SCIENCE. 335
number of different profiles of the mountain recur in an order
which might have been foretold. None of them is the true
form of the mountain, but all are real projections of it. But
the true figure itself, as well as all these apparent ones,
would consist in some relation of all its parts to one another.
This true figure, the actual inner relation of things, may per- ^jf
haps also be discovered, and then, of course, this true objective
law of reality would be preferred to all derivative and merely
partial though valid expressions of it; meanwhile we comfort
ourselves with the thought that the nature of truth is such as
to make possible innumerable apparent manifestations of itself,
and a valid movement of knowledge from one to the other.
§ 6. It was mythology that first in the exercise of unre- %
strained fancy added a world of real existence to the world of i ^
ph.ienomena which had become enigmatical ; with greater /
moderation the reflection of subsequent wider civilisation x
opined that there was a nature of things to the heart of I
which we cannot penetrate by poetic insight, but only touch
here and there at the surface by means of a thoughtful
comparison of facts ; finally dawning science tried to sub-
stitute for the uncertain groping of these attempts, methodical
investigation, which was guided by a clear consciousness of
the conditions under which our thought can contain truth.
From this position, which had been won once for all, and
could never be given up again, human knowledge was
hindered from making further advances by deficient insight
into its own relation to that nature of things for which it
sought, and it attributed to the movements of thought a
significance with regard to facts which they did not possess.
It was only at a comparatively late date that this error was
clearly perceived and avoided — at least in some departments
of human knowledge ; the old mistakes have never been
universally remedied, and there have never been wanting
acute minds which, deceived by the venerable rust of
antiquity which has accumulated upon them, have beheld
in those very errors the golden grains of a truth to bo
religiously transmitted and further developed.
336
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER L
Even the ancients made tlie question whether we are capable
of a knowledge of the truth the subject of wide-reaching and
oft-repeated reflection. But they ended in scepticism and not j
in advance towards a positive conclusion ; and even in the
arguments with which they contest or doubt that capacity of
knowing the truth, they frequently betray afresh the habit of
refi'arding the logical connections between our concepts of things
as real states of the things themselves, thus creating anew
difficulties which would be avoided if the assumptions made
were better grounded. A renewed and very powerful impulse
towards the prosecution of these investigations arose in the
world of Christian thought, when Christianity had to effect a
reconciliation between the content of its own practical faith
and secular scientific thought — doing this partly in the
struggle with heathen civilisation, and partly as a natural
result of men's inextinguishable impulse towards knowledge.
The contrast of the world of appearance to that of real
existence had among the ancients arisen chiefly from theoretic
considerations ; and it was in fact only the really existent
about which human knowledge (which looked for nothing in
real existence but its own concepts) ascribed to itself clear and
exact cognition. The world of phsenomena was consigned to
fluctuating and uncertain opinion. Christianity developed
this contrast almost entirely from moral points of view ; not
as unknown, not as empty form, no^ as an object of search,
but known through revelation and experienced by faith, the
world of real existence appeared in consciousness, opposed in
its holiness and majesty to the created universe. Yet known
and revealed only in this its glory, not in the secrets of its
construction; being capable of having its value experienced
in feeling, but hard to be grasped by the thought which
strives to ascertain the conditions upon which this value de-
I'ends. And yet the call to do this was more pressing than
ever; the true world was no longer a mere holiday thought
for leisure time, which people might entertain or not as they
liked ; and the more tasks it set for men in this life, the more
indispensable was it to investigate its connection with the
TRUTH AND SCIENCE. 337
everyday world of appearance, which could not henceforth be
neglected as simply an object of varying opinion, but had to
be examined into as the soul's sphere of work on earth.
This new seriousness distinguishes the investigations of the
Christian era ; notwithstanding the increasing clumsiness of
thought, they seem, as compared with the many - sided
dexterity or antiquity, like some weighty business of life
beside some sport of chivalry by which men's leisure was
adorned. Almost wholly occupied with the most difficult
problem of thought — the question concerning the connection
between the world of worth and the world of fact — this long-
continued and mighty effort of the human mind was yet
unable to attain its object ; and it was prevented by this
predominant direction of its endeavours from providing the
convictions which it developed concerning the relation of
thought to existence with any positive results.
Conscience and revelation held up to consciousness ideals
of action and of existence, the truth and eternal validity of
which seemed the one and only fixed point in all the
fluctuations of human reason; but the attempt to bring the con-
tent of these unchangeable requirements into harmony with the
forms of thought according to which we are forced to appre-
hend reality and its coherence, revealed the impossibility of
getting near to that immutable goal by the help of such
resources. A number of dogmas arose in which the deep
conviction of the worth and truth of an intuition which
is rather sought after than experienced, struggles with the
incapacity of thought to express without contradiction that
which men had in their minds and were seeking after. But
the burden of this confusion was laid not upon existence, but
upon cognition ; assertions of the absolute unknowableness
of God, and exaggerated utterances which seek for the marks
of truth in that which is repugnant to common sense, concur
in bearing witness to men's conviction that the worth and the
essential truth of the higher world are indeed revealed in
faith, but that the laws of connection obtaining both within
it and between it and material existence remain unattainable
VOL. iL y
338
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER I.
by science. In the more restricted question concerning
the validity of general concepts which was debated between
the dijBferent Nominalist and Eealist sects, these investiga-
tions are brought into closer connection with the questions
which we have been hitherto considering. Do the general
concepts of kinds and genera exist previously to the individual
things, as etern£il types according to which the things were
formed by God, or did they arise in our minds after the
things themselves were in existence ? and are they empty
names which signify nothing, or do they, without containing
the essence of things as their types, yet exist in things after
such a fashion that they can spring up in us as valid
modes of apprehending things ? This last opinion met with
acceptance as well as the others ; but the germ of truth
which it contained remained undeveloped. On the one hand,
y traditional custom directed attention almost exclusively to
the concept, the most unproductive of the forms of thought ;
diverting it from the consideration of the judgment and the
syllogism, which by their mode of connecting their content
f would have made more clear the distinction between the
: validity of a truth and its identity with the object ; and on
the other hand, the investigation of the world of outer experi-
ence had not advanced far enough to assist the more abstract
-^^ course of thought with the illustrative force of analogy. It
was not until the end of the Middle Ages that there arose
this new kind of science, which, worthy as it was and destined
to give a new form to all investigation, remained for a long
time restricted to the domain of Nature. Kespect for ex-
perience, the idea of universal law, and the renunciation
^ involved in accepting the exact investigation of the connec-
\ tions between phaenomena by way of compensation for that
knowledge of the nature of things which men despaired of
attaining, are the characteristics that distinguish the spirit of
the new movement.
^ Experience, indeed, could never have been a matter of
indifference to men who have to live their lives and find their
way in the world of facts, and the little-regarded wisdom of
1
TRUTH AND SCIENCE. 339
common life had even in ancient times gained much from
experience ; but the more exalted wisdom that was transmitted
in the schools, in its attempts to build up a copy of the world
was not careful to test by observation and experiment the
validity possessed by its assumptions in reference to existing
reality; it was enough if these could justify themselves to
thought, and the conclusion from the conceivableness of a ^
proposition to its validity in the system of the universe was ^^
generally drawn without any hesitation. Thus men did indeed
recognise that things had a nature of their own, and that it
was this which ought to constitute the object of knowledge ; ;
but the content of this nature was determined in a one-sided
fashion by reference merely to subjective thought and men's '
sense of probability. There was unquestionably a deeper
reverence for truth in the newly attained consciousness that, (
for the demonstration of any thought its conceivability needs j
to be supplemented by proof of its efficacy and validity in
the world of fact. Men Jbegan to feel the charm of reality.
The ancients had been puffed up wuth the strange notion that
they had rendered some service by developing a world of pure ^
thought that needed no connection with experience ; for this
idea there came to be substituted the conviction that knowledge
had only been reached to the extent to which those connec-
tions of things apprehended in thought could be confirmed by
fruitful agreement with the results of observation.
In this the new investigation of Nature was entirely of one <
mind with religious reflection ; it took its stand upon external I
sensible experience, just as religious reflection did upon the )
inner experience of the life of faith ; that which the eye saw
or the heart felt could not be taken away or diminished by
any subtlety of thought ; on the contrary, the results of all
I scientific labour must be in agreement with these already
established and immoveable positions. But the investigation <
of Nature had an advantage over the examination of the inner ^
life; there were presented to the senses an immeasurable
variety of sharply defined phsenomena susceptible of exact
measurement ; equally perceptible by all, when some easily
340
BOOK VIIL CHAPTEB I.
recognised sources of error had been cut off; recurring in
regular series corresponding to their inner coherence, and
capable of being freed by arbitrarily chosen experiments
from the ambiguities to which direct observation is subject in
consequence of the crossing of different series of events. The
experiences of the inner life, neither recurring regularly nor
separable from the incalculable peculiarity of the individual
mind, offered much greater difficulties to investigation; and the
believing heart had to be contented to hold them in opposition
to the requirements of thought, or without their being in
adequate connection with these requirements, whilst the
investigation of Nature succeeded in developing positive
methods for the reduction of its problems.
The connection of natural phsenomena into one coherent
whole was a favourite task among the ancients also; but
they blended two questions with injurious effect. They
sought first of all to grasp some primal activity or primal
event which should be not a mere indifferent fact, but
should also produce an aesthetic impression of its value ; from
this beginning the particulars of reality were to proceed in a
succession, to the order of which was attributed the double
office of showing on the one hand how the significance of
every phaenomenon depends upon preceding ones, and how on
the other hand in its realization it is an effect of these.
This mixing up of an ideal interpretation of events with a'
causal explanation could not afford to antiquity the fruits
which in our own time it has always refused. It was only
Atomism that even among the ancients took another course ;
favoured by fortune which is not always gracious to the mosba
deserving, minds of a lower order in this school — mindsJ
infinitely inferior to the incomparable genius of Plato andij
Aristotle — yet hit upon the fertile thought which was
be a lasting gain for all future time. I am not speakingj
of their direct teachings concerning the nature of things, ofl
the atoms and the void, and of the subsequent rude and!
unskilful working out of these ideas and of their conse-
quences ; on the contrary, the only important thing is the
/
I
TKUTH AND SCIENCE. 341
fundamental notions of their procedure as regards method. ^
They first of all laid down as their established belief, the
maxim that the origin, preservation, mutation, and destruction
of natural objects could not be primarily explained by means
of Ideas as though mere significance were sufficient to trans-
form a postulate into reality, but that on the contrary every-
thing that happens, whatever its significance and value may be,
whether it is great or small, noble or common, right or wrong,
depends for its realization on the universal rules of a mechanism
working uniformly everywhere. And further, they accustomed
men to see in the inexhaustible multiplicity of mathematical
distinctions which may be applied to the properties, states,
and movements of elements, a middle term (or a collection of
infinitely variable middle terms) by which minor premisses may
be supplied to major premisses expressing universal laws; these
minors affording to the majors not only definite guidance
towards the establishment of various results, but also enabling
the whole special and definite result to be deduced in each
particular case.
Later times learnt the value of these fundamental notions
in the development of the idea of universal natural law. For
although the general concept of law could never have been
unknown to a civilised people, yet its application in the
investigation of the existing world required that it should
have assumed a particular character which did not belong to
it till a late period. If there exist between two real elements
connections which vary in such a way that their various
values may be measured by a common standard ; if further
those elements can experience or assume states or properties
which in the same way form varying series of members sus-
ceptible of comparison, these members having any measur-
able differences ; and if moreover a change in the states or
properties of the thing is involved in any change in the
connections — then there will either be a constant formula
according to which the magnitude of the change of states
depends upon the magnitude of the change of connections, or
there will be another constant formula according to which
342
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER I.
-^
the ratio of this dependence itself varies regularly with
the change of any condition that admits of degrees. This
general expression, to which every natural law is reducible,
clearly reveals the limitations which science imposes upon
itself, its tasks, and its performances.
And first comes its dependence upon experience. For
science cannot guess what elements and what connections
between them must be contained in the order of the world ;
it waits to learn this from observation, and for itself desires to
be nothing more than a development of the results which
become necessary when circumstances actually occur, the
non-occurrence of which would involve no contradiction in
thought. And it is not sufficient that experience should show
to science determinate elements in determinate connections ;
for even what will happen under such conditions science has
no means of guessing ; it is, again, experience which must
teach science what kind of change in the states of things
is produced by the presence of this determinate connection,
and it is the comparison of many observations which first
leads to a knowledge of the general law according to which
the worth of these results depends upon the worth of their
conditions.
But the possession of a general law would be worthless if
it only served to sum up the particular cases from which it
had itself been abstracted. What is much more important is
to comprehend the whole varied content of every complex
phsenomenon as in the course of events it now arises and now
passes away again, owing to the crossing of many and various !
conditions. Science cannot seek the solution of this problem
by reference to that which the inner nature of things requires,
or that which is included in the necessities of its development,
or in the reasoned plan of the universe. Science does not.:
know what it is that is valid in all these connections. But it
knows that the unknown inner being of things (as far as it is
revealed in their properties and connections, which are quanti-
tatively comparable) must inevitably have the consequences!
which accrue, to everything that has magnitude, from the
TEUTH AND SCIENCE. 343
summation of similars, the cancelling of opposite symbols, and
the combination of differences so as to produce a mean result.
It is only at this one accessible point that science can lay hold -)
of reality, and hence it imposes upon itself the other limita- [
tion of being only a mathematical not a speculative develop- J
ment of given data. To an individual connection there
attaches as a matter of fact a definite result, arising we know
not how, and the magnitude of which is dependent upon the
magnitude of the connection ; if there is a complication of
many such connections, science deduces a new connection as
the effect of this complication, and from this proceeds a new
result capable of predetermination as regards form and magni-
tude, and likewise arising we know not how. Thus the whole
theory is an investigation of how far the order of the changing
course of the world, which springs from the varying action and
reaction of its parts, may be apprehended by means of empiri-
cally recognised constant connections of unknown elements,
without searching into the inner nature of things, and the
end to which this nature is destined. As far as variation of
phsenomena goes, every occurrence is for science a result the
producing conditions of which it searches out ; as soon as
facts and connections which are unchangeable and always
valid, are either encountered by science in observation, or
found to be assumptions on which existing facts may be
adequately explained, these facts and connections are regarded
by science as ultimate principles at which its investigations
may stop. It does not seek further to deduce this final
reality itself, for the domain of that causal connection by
which alone it is led, ends where change ends ; the coherence
which beyond this domain may subsist between the unchange-
able elements of reality, could only be such as should have \
its order and mode of connection justified by the worth of the )
significance which they possess. Science has not the least ,
reason to deny such a coherence, but its investigations do not
refer to this, but to the operative economy by which
phsenomena must be connected in every case, whether an
intelligent Idea prescribes the work of the world, or whether
(/
344
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER I.
{
all that takes place is merely the result of causes that lie
behind, and does not work towards any goal
Whilst these thoughts had been gradually developed much
had changed. The world of phsenomena, once the object of
obscure and varying opinion, had become the field of the most
exact investigation. Plato and Aristotle — in opposition to the
Heraklitean doctrine of the eternal flux of things, which as it
seemed to them unjustifiably did away with the validity of all
immutable truth — agreed that there can only be a science of
that which is eternally self- identical ; more modern times
emphasized the opposite doctrine, saying that reality is of
interest to science only in as far as it changes ; of that which
is eternally self-identical we can merely have cognisance;
eternal truths are of worth not under the form of a motionless
order, in which the particular occupies a fixed position of
subordination to the universal, but only as principles of
change in accordance with which things alter their states.
In this contrast, the meaning of which cannot be here guarded
against all misunderstandings, is to be found the real advance of
science in its new stage; in the admission that only phsenomena
can be developed from phsenomena, and that we remain wholly
ignorant of the nature of things, we find the limitation under
which this advance is to be recognised. To describe the results
which have been obtained in this way would be as unneces-
sary as it is impossible ; it is not only knowledge of Nature,
but also mental and social life, which have experienced the
influence of the new mode of thought ; and even where its
more concrete instruments of search have not yet penetrated,
it has already introduced its methods and spirit of investiga-
tion. The manifold procedure of induction, the subtle devices
of experiment, the fertile ingenuity of calculations in pro-
bability, constitute the stock of an inventive and active art of
knowledge which the energetic and Promethean spirit of
modem times has added to the not less admirable structure
of ancient logic. By these means science advances, whilst
unfortunately the traditional philosophy of the schools knows
little of them, and satisfies itself with continually renewed
TRUTH AND SCIENCE.
345
reflection upon the wisdom of past times, pushing aside the
problems which this cannot advance. And finally, these
investigations which primarily concern phsenomena only, have
not been unfruitful even with regard to those reflections
which we desire should be carried on concerning the world as
a whole and the significance of its order, and concerning real
existence. On the other hand, it is to empirical investigation
and its mathematical interpretation that we owe our only
trustworthy view of the magnitude and construction of the
universe, the connection of the effects that take place in it,
and the complete circle of mutually compensatory processes
which actually occur — facts that have not indeed received an
interpretation, yet for all that facts — facts the knowledge of
which has provided philosophy with a basis for its explanations
of cosmic order quite other than that which in ancient times
could be furnished by its own assumptions concerning the
necessary nature of things, and real existence. To know facts
is not everything, but it is a good deal ; to despise this know-
ledge because one desires something more befits only those
fools mentioned by Hesiod who can never understand that the
half may be more than the whole.
§ 7. Philosophy is a mother wounded by the ingratitude of
her children. Once she was all in all ; Mathematics and
Astronomy, Physics and Physiology, not less than Ethics and
Politics, received their existence from her. But soon the
daughters set up fine establishments of their own, each doing
this earlier in proportion as it had made swifter progress
under the maternal influence ; conscious of what they had
now accomplished by their own labour, they withdrew from
the supervision of philosophy, which was not able to go into
the minutiae of their new life, and became wearisome by the
monotonous repetition of insufficient counsels. And so when
every offshoot of investigation which was capable of life and
growth had separated itself from the common stem and taken
independent root, it fell to philosophy to retain as her
questionable share the undisputed possession of as much of all
problems as remained still inexplicable. Eeduced to this
V
346
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER I.
^^
v/
dowager's portion, she continued to live on, ever pondering
afresh over the old hard riddles, and ever resorted to afresh in
calm moments by those who held fast to a hope of the unity
of human science.
The experiential sciences had investigated the connection of
phpenomena ; they showed how many and what kind of links
constitute the chain of events which connects any cause with
its final effect ; but what it is that holds together any two
contiguous links escaped them ; they told neither what things
are in themselves, nor in what consists that action between
them by which alone the condition of one can become the
cause of a change in the condition of another, Eeligious and
moral life had developed the belief in unconditional worth — •
an unconditional ought, which if there is any meaning in reality
must be the most real of all things ; but the world of
creatures and of facts in which alone it could be realized was
opposed to it as quite alien, neither derivable from it nor, as
it seemed, even compatible with it. This condition of things
contained incentives to a constant repetition of two questions
— first the question as to the intrinsic nature of existing things
whose manifestations to us are the subject of our observation,
and secondly the question as to the connection in which this
world of existing reality stands to the world of worth, of what
ought to be. And all attempts to answer these two questions
always stirred up forthwith a third question, that as to our
capacity of knowing truth, and the connection of this capacity
partly with existing reality and partly with that which reality
ought to be and produce.
Our thoughts receive the stamp of certainty by being
reduced to either the already proved certainty of others, or to
that of immediate truths which neither need nor are susceptible
of proof. The trust which we repose on the one hand in the
laws of thought by means of which this reduction is accom-
plished, and on the other hand in the simple and immediate
cognitions to which this leads us, may be guarded by repeated
and careful proof from the influence of prejudices of which the
persuasive force is accidental and evanescent ; but on the other
d
TRUTH AND SCIENCE.
34^
hand no proof can guard against a doubt which suspects of
possible error that which men have always found to be a neces-
sity of thought. A scepticism that does not demonstrate from
individual contradictions which may be cited the erroneous-
ness of specified prejudices, and hence the possibility of
correcting them, but goes on causelessly repeating the simple
question whether in the end everything is not really quite
different from that which we necessarily think it to be, would,
in banishing certainty wholly from the world, also destroy all
the worth of reality. That, however, this cannot be — that the
world cannot be a mere meaningless absurdity — is a moral
conviction, which is the ultimate ground of our belief in our
capacity of cognising the truth, and in the general possibility
of scientific knowledge. But this conviction does not define
the extent of such knowledge.
It is only our own existence of which we are immedi-
ately conscious ; all our information as to an external world
depends upon ideas which are only changing conditions of
ourselves. What, then, is our guarantee that this image
of an external world is not an innate dream ? He who
is cautious asks whether this is so ; he who is incautious
asserts that it is ; he forgets that our experience must
be the same in both cases, whether there be things without
us or not; even a real external world could only be
reflected by us in images resulting from affections of our
own beicg. Hence the nature of all our ideation being
subjective, it can furnish no decision concerning the existence
or non-existence of the world which it believes that it reflects.
But the attempt to regard the image of the world as a native
production of the mind alone has always been speedily given
up again by scientific^instinctu;- for in order to attain this
end it has always been necessary to assume the existence
in ourselves of just as many impulses foreign to our
mind, and not derivable from it as in the common view
we are believed to receive from the external world. Ee-
serving for future consideration the important points in this
view, we now go on to speak of the conviction (to which
K
^
c^-i-i:)
348 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER L
philosophy has always speedily returned) that our ideas arii
from action and reaction with a world independent of ourselves,
But if this is so, can our ideation be more than an effect
of thiugs, can it be a copy which resembles them, and can the
truth which we are capable of knowing consist in an agree-
ment between thought and thing ? We speak of the image
of an object when any construction of other material makes
the same impression upon our perception which the object
itself would have made ; thus as far as we are concerned one
thing becomes the image of another through having a similar
effect. But can the effects produced in us by both be ever so
exactly like the things, that the eye of an independent observer
would regard our cognition as an image of the object ?
Wherever action and reaction take place (and cognition is
only the particular case of such action between things and the
ideating mind), the nature of the one element is never trans-
ferred, identical and unchanged, to the other ; but that first
element is but as an occasion which causes the second to
realize one single definite state out of the many possible for
it — that state, namely, which according to the general laws of
the nature of that second element is the fitting response to
the kind and magnitude of stimulus which it has received.
Hence definite images in us, and produced by us, correspond to
the causes which act upon us ; and to the change of those
causes there corresponds a change of these inner states of ours.
But no single idea is a copy of the cause which produces it,
and even the connections which we think we cognise between
these still unknown elements are not primarily the very
relations that really obtain between the elements, but only the
form in which we apprehend them — and we do not regard
this state of things as human weakness, for it is of the very
nature of all cognition, which depends upon action and reaction
with its object. All creatures that are subject to these con-
ditions are subject also to this consequence ; they all see
things not as they are in themselves when nobody sees them,
but only as they appear when they are seen.
Though limited in this way to phaenomena, yet knowledge
TRUTH AND SCIENCE. 349
is not devoid of all connection with what really exists. For
we are not justified in complaining, as if it were so illusive
that a mere appearance only is shown to us, the nature
which appears (which is altogether unsusceptible of comparison
with the appearance and of which even the very existence is
uouhtful) lying wholly beyond our intellectual horizon. We
cannot regard our fundamental intuitions as merely human
modes of apprehension by which things which are in them-
selves of wholly different form are taken up, and under which
they appear to us alone, without admitting that (in order that
they may be able to be taken up by these forms) things must
have such a relation to them as any object must have to the
meshes of the net in which it is to be caught. Or to speak
plainly, every appearance presupposes as the necessary con-
dition of its appearing a real being in the inner relations of
which lie the grounds that determine the form of its appear-
ance. From the analysis of the forms of intuition under
which our perception immediately apprehends its objects, we
may easily attain the conviction that these forms do not, in
the shape in which they are familiar to us, admit of applica-
tion to things themselves ; but we shall always need to seek,
in the nature of things and in their true mutual connections,
the conditions which admit of our apprehending them under
those forms. Thus it may be doubtful whether space and
time do not exist as space and time solely in that ideating
activity which can grasp a manifold in one act of appre-
hension ; but we cannot doubt that, if this is so, that which
exists must itself be subject to an order neither spatial nor
temporal, which acting upon us is by us translated into the
form of spatial and temporal order. It is certain that the
sensation which any object or event causes in us is not exactly
like its cause ; but it is equally certain that we shall regard
two objects or events as exactly like, similar, or different, if
the impressions they make upon us are exactly alike, similar,
or different, and we shall estimate their degree of relation-
ship by the amount of difference between their impressions.
Thus we inevitably regard the apparent existence and event3
350
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER I.
which we perceive as being proportional throughout to real
existence and real events which, belonging to or occurring
between things themselves, by no means exclude concepts of
truth and order. The attempt to renounce this supposition
would produce not any increase of precision but fruitless and
self-contradictory agony of thought.
But if appearance indicates existence, it yet indicates only
formal relations of existence and their changes ; the nature of
the things which exist and act under these relations remains
inscrutable. And just because the nature of things remains
unknown, we are also unable to comprehend the occurrence of
action and reaction between them as a result of their nature ;
it is only appearance, which is the matter of experience,
that can lead us to divine this true action and reaction.
Thus philosophy takes the same course that we have already
seen taken by the natural sciences ; it begins with the
individual enigmatical and contradictory phsenomena which
experience offers, and guided by the general laws of thought
seeks to ascertain the form of real existence and occurrence
which, in order to explain wliat is strange and contradictory
in facts, must be supposed to underlie these as their efficient
cause. It must be admitted that some admirable results
may be attained by this Eealism, which contents itself with
tracing back actual facts of appearance to facts of existence
which must necessarily be assumed, even when its action
is wholly subject to this limitation ; not only may it
succeed in throwing light upon the efficient connections
in particular coherent groups of phsenomena, but a con-
sideration of the knowledge attained may also lead it to a
view of that which as true reality lies at the foundation of
the whole phaenomenal world. But even this final result will
retain the character of mere fact, and thus Realism will always
arouse the opposition of that idealistic bias of the human soul,
which recognises real existence not in facts which only are
because they are, or because they must be assumed in con-
sequence of the existence of something else, but only in such
a fact as certifies by the worth of the thought which it
TEUTH AND SCIENCE.
351
represents, its vocation, its right, and its capacity to appear as
the apex and crown of reality, as the final datum and the
highest constructive principle.
§ 8. Idealism opposes to the realistic acknowledgment of the
unknowable nature of things the bold assertion that Thought
and Existence are identical. In saying this, it does not
necessarily mean (what, however, it is occasionally audacious
enough to assert) that human cognition will some time succeed
in penetrating by thought the existence of all things, and
recreating it in idea ; for the narrow limits of our finite
nature which hinder this extension of real insight are but
too obvious. It means that for a cognition free from these
limitations things would no longer be insoluble realities, they
would no longer be as unapproachable and incomprehensible
for thought, as for instance light is for the ear or sound for
the eye ; rather thought would recognise them as realized
ideas, thus recognising itself in them. So this proposition,
understood as not properly an assertion concerning the relation
of knowledge to its object, but much rather as a conviction
concerning the nature of existence in itself, palpably gives to
the existence or nature of things a different meaning from that
given to it by common opinion. For a man of ordinary intel-
ligence thinks he immediately knows that matter or content
by which a thing as such or such is distinguished as difi^erent
from some second thing — knows it partly in the impression
upon the senses, and partly in ideas which are directly con-
nected with the impression and hold together its constituent
parts. And it seems to him all the more difficult to see how
it can happen that this content should have the power of
meeting him as something existing, independent, tangible, as a
Thing in short ; he who should discover the secret spring by
which the thinkable to t'l of existing objects is endowed with
the extension, body, resistance and elasticity of Thinghood,
would seem to unsophisticated thought to have found the real
and very nature of things, not that which distinguishes one
thing from another, but that in which they are all alike, the
essence of their existence, reality itself. Now can Idealism
352
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER L
-^
maintain that it can solve this problem ? Certainly not to
any greater extent than Eealism, in its own view, is capable
of; in what exactly consists the existence of things, what is
meant by their being connected with one another, finally
how it comes about that anything results from these. con-
nections— all this is as impenetrable to Idealism as to its
opponent. Perhaps — to admit the utmost that we may — it may
also succeed in proving that there exists — though it does not
know how — a connection in accordance with which if there
exist (in some incomprehensible way) a being of such and
such a description, there must in an equally incomprehensible
way exist such and such change and activity, and no other ; but
even if we admit this. Idealism would only have penetrated
the meaning and the intelligible connection of the individual
determinations which under the name of being we grasped
together into one whole : how this inner connection of
reality could le would still remain wholly uncoraprehended. —
Yet to do all this was just what was promised by the bold and
striking expression given to the proposition which made
being identical with thinking ; it led one to expect that just
that by which being as being seemed at first to be irrecon-
cilably differentiated from thinking or from being thought,
would finally be presented as a vanishing distinction, and that
this being would be altogether resolved into thoughts. And
now it seems that of the two ideas which we regard as
blending to produce existence, the ideas of the to rl and
of its existence. Idealism leaves that of existence just as
unexplained as it was before.
But just as no end was gained by the reference to being
in the proposition to which we have alluded, even so is it
beside the point to speak of thought as that with which it
should be identical ; as long, at least, as this name distinctly
signifies activity of the mental life as distinguished from other
activities. And yet this seems to be what is meant, for even
the Idealist does not allow that sensuous intuition and
perception can grasp the truth of things; he abandons both
these, and reserves to thought, as a special and higher activity,
r
TRUTH AND SCIENCE. 353
the privilege of searching out real existence, behind the illusions
with which sensuous intuition and perception surround us.
But his cvptctation rests upon a widespread error. Men are
universally much disposed to regard as a product of thought
anything for which language has furnished a name, although
what thought has contributed to the building up of the content
which it indicates may be very little, and sometimes nothing
whatever. As long as we are considering sensuous impressions,
we are indeed soon convinced that no skill of logical operations
can supply the place of sound or colour to him who is blind /
or deaf ; that thus for instance blue or sweet are not concepts
which we think, but impressions which we experience, and
their names merely linguistic signs which remind us of a
content for which all that thought does is, at the outside, to ^
indicate its dependent nature by the adjectival form which it
gives to it. But in the more general concepts which are
everywhere interwoven with our perceptions and give them
form and stability — in the ideas of Being, of Becoming, of
Action, and of every Connection which subsists between any
two things — we feel more assured of finding the genuine
•products of thought, and of thought alone. And yet the
meaning of being cannot by any interpretative activity of
thought be made intelligible to him wlio does not know
immediately what it means ; all that thought can do is by
proceeding analytically and removing all accessory ideas which
are not signified to teach us to distinguish that meaning of the
word which can only be grasped by immediate intuition. No
one will ever invent a definition of Becoming which does not
contain (under some other name) as its most essential con-
stituent the idea of passing from one to another, or of some-
thing happening ; thought can contribute to the building up
of this concept only by illustration of the two points between
which the nameable but unanalysable enigma of transition takes
place. And the concept of Action is equally incapable of being
approached by any logical operations. It is easy to fancy
that one has traced it back to the more abstract concept of
tliat which conditions — although here it would be questionable
VOL. n. z
354 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER L
whether the converse reduction might not be more correct;
but supposing we have done so much, can we then analyse
further in thought the real meaning of the idea of conditioning?
Apparently perhaps we may, but as a matter of fact we
certainly cannot ; for in the last resort all that thinking does
is to denote by this or that name the idea of a necessary
inner connection between different occurrences, which con-
nection it cannot by its own activity produce.
And here it will be objected that I lay useless stress upon
that which is self-evident ; since it is of course necessary for
thought, as the activity which connects and combines, to pre-
suppose as given from elsewhere the elements which are to
be connected and combined. My real object has only been
to make this conviction very vivid for a moment, and to
deduce the consequences which it involves. For with a little
attention one will soon be convinced that these elements,
which thought has thus to take up as coming from elsewhere,
comprise nothing less than the whole sum of that knowledge
of real existence and occurrence which was formerly ascribed
to thought as its own possession. Thought is everywhere
but a mediating activity moving hither and thither, bringing
into connection the original intuitions of external and internal
perception, which are predetermined by fundamental ideas and
laws the origin of which cannot be shown ; it develops special
and properly logical forms, peculiar to itself, only in the effort
to apply the idea of truth (which it finds in us) to the scattered
multiplicity of perceptions, and of the consequences developed
from them. Hence nothing seems less justifiable than the
assertion that this Thinking is identical with Being, and that
Being can be resolved into it without leaving any residuum ;
on the contrary, everywhere in the flux of thought there
remain quite insoluble those individual nuclei which represent
the several aspects of that important content which we
designate by the name of Being. It would be more simple
and more true to say that Being contemplates itself; we — since
we exist — feel, perceive, experience, or know well enough what
it is to exist ; we — since we act — know well enough what v;e
I
4l
TRUTH AND SCIENCE. 355
ean (altliougli it is unspeakable) when we talk not only of a
temporal succession of phsenomena, but also of the one beinfr
conditioned by the other. And in this sense all the world
has known from the beginning what is the import of Being or
Reality, for all the world has lived the meaning of these
words ; but if it has always been difficult or impossible to
express by determinations of thought that which men have so \
plainly experienced in their lives, philosophy has not succeeded /
in removing the need for such expression ; aU she has done has ' v
been to find names for that which men experience ; and since
it is in a world of names that she lives and moves and has
her being, she has sometimes had less vivid experience than
others of that which is the object of her efforts.
It will be demanded on the part of Idealism that, as far as
all such scruples are concerned, this question should at last
be allowed to rest ; it is admitted that we do not know how
things can be and act, but their nature is said to consist, not
in their reality, but in what they are and what they do. Now
is this content of things really more accessible to thought ?
Whatever else thought may be, it is an activity of tlie mind ;
or if not this, it is at any rate a changing succession of states
which mind experiences. Now, how can a succession of states {
copy and reproduce anything except states ? Can they '
represent the nature that experiences the states which are
reproduced ? They can only do this if we go still further in
our assumptions, and regard, not only what things are, but
what they experience, as their innermost nature, and as that real
existence which philosophy seeks. And thus, by a path the
several stages of which we must here refrain from describ-
ing. Idealism would reach the admission that in truth it
neither knows how things are nor what they are, but that it
does know what they signify, and that this, their real exist-
ence, is immediately cognisable. What everything is in itself,
what its nature is by which it exists and is capable of
making its efficiency felt and of being different from other
things, this may remain for ever inaccessible to thought.
But with regard to the forms of that to which they are
/
356 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER L
destined, the forms of their changes, development, activity,
and of their several contributions to the sum of reality —
in all these relations things are comprehensible to thought,
and are comparable among themselves; the essential sig-
nificance of each, as far as it consists in these, is in itself
susceptible of exhaustive expression in thought, whether or
not we men are capable of discovering the thought which does
express it. Thus Idealism, like Eealism, comes to acknowledge
that it is limited to a cognition of what happens in and
between things that remain unknown ; but it believes that in
knowing the import of what thus happens it possesses all
essential truth ; that it is only for the realization of this truth
that things exist.
Eeligious belief in understanding the world as a divine
creation has always cherished and expressed the same convic-
tion in another way. It denies just as vigorously as philoso-
phic Idealism that there is in things a nature (or any part of
their nature) which they have of themselves. All that they
are, they are by the will and intention of God ; the most
essential part of their nature consists in what God meant or
willed that they should be, in their significance in the unity
of the cosmic plan. Eeligious belief did not maintain that it
could penetrate the plan of this unity, but in its representa-
tion of God were contained, as it were, centres of light which
illuminated each other, and also cast enlightening rays upon
the created world. The strict order of its phaenomena was
regarded as in fitting correspondence with the immutability and
justice of the Creator, its beauty with the infinite fulness of
His blessed nature, the order of events in the moral world
with His holiness. To trace back all the particulars of reality
to these creative forces in God was neither attempted nor
regarded as possible ; it was sufficient to believe in their
truth on the wliole, unmoved by the apparent contradiction
of many perceptions, and, as regards particulars, to be ever
drawing afresh from a selection of favoured phaenomena the
living feeling of their universal and governing efficacy.
Philosophic Idealism tried to outbid this faith in two
«
TRUTH AKD SCIENCE. 357
Irections. It first took offence at the unconcerned way in
which religion spoke of a personal God, and regarded Him as
creuting things out of nothing, and then entering into a rela-
tion of reciprocal action with these realities that had been
manufactured out of nothing: the metaphysics of all these
processes needed to be found and explained. But none of the
attempts to find and explain them (which we shall have to
consider more particularly at a later stage) attained its end ;
since they were destitute of all ideas concerning the relation
of God to the world (ideas which religious belief had framed
anthropomorphically), they have left as their only result the
assertion (couched for the most part in artificially obscure
forms of expression) that there is a single supreme Idea that
penetrates all the phsenomena of reality and gives them form
and order; but they do not say how it does this. And just
because it was at most the meaning of the universe and not
the origin of its reality which was accessible to Idealism,
everything that might remind men of this problem seemed to
fall out of its consideration. God was no longer spoken of, for
this name signifies nothing without the predicates of real and
living power and efficiency ; it was only the Idea that could
be spoken of, the content of which was supposed, in some
incomprehensible way or other, to really constitute the nature
and significance of the world. But the idealists hoped to be
able to express the whole content of this Idea completely and
systematically in thought, and by this second performance to
far surpass religious belief, which only knew in a general way
that divine purpose which in particulars was inscrutable.
Even this promise could only be fulfilled by breaking off
from the nature of the thing that which remained incompre-
hensible to thought. For in fact the living forces which had
been beheld by faith in God showed themselves as inaccessible
to thought as the sensuous impressions which occur in per-
ception ; for them, too, we invent names ; and their content, too,
is known to us through living experience, and not through
thought. What is good and evil remains just as incapable of
being reached by mere thought as what is blue or sweet ; it
358
BOOK Vin. CHAPTER I.
is only when we have learnt by immediate feeling the pre-
sence of worth and of unworth in the world and the gravity
of the difference between them that our thought is able, from
the content thus experienced, to develop signs which subse-
quently enable us to bring any particular case under the one
or the other of those two universal intuitions. Can one find in
concepts the real living nerve of righteousness ? Much may
be said of compensations, of the correspondence between con-
ditions originated and endured, of the return of good and ill
to him who caused them ; but what movement of thought
explains the interest which we feel in these forms of occur-
rence when, and only when, they indicate what we call a retri-
bution ? Are love and hatred thinkable ? Can their nature
be exhausted in concepts ? In whatever combination of
duality to unity, or whatever division of that which might be
one, their significance may be found, the expression of that
combination or unity will never do anything but state an
enigma. For an enigma is the specification of signs which do
not of themselves set forth the whole living content to which
they relate, this having to be guessed because it is not plainly
contained in them. Now not only did philosophy hope that
it could reproduce in thought all the living content which
was possessed by faith in a personal God, but it imagined
that it was applying a process of ennobling clarification
to Him who is more than anything that can be called an
Idea, when from the dimness of that which is experienced by
the whole heart and the whole soul, it raised Him to the
dignity of a concept capable of being an object of pure
thought.
Both the natural and the moral world received this treat-
ment, which traced back the real content of all things and
events to what was formal in their mode of appearance, and
regarded the things and events themselves as merely destined
to realize these forms. The creatures of Nature existed merely
in order to take their place in a classification, and to provide
the logical degrees of universal, particular, and individual
with an abundance of phoenomena ; their living activities and
TRUTH AND SCIENCE. 359
reciprocal action took place in order to celebrate the mys-
teries of difference, of contradiction, of polar opposition, and
of unity ; the whole course of Nature was destined to represent
a rhythm, in the movements of which affirmation, negation,
and mutual limitation alternated with one another. Con-
sideration of the spiritual world sometimes in a kind of
realistic fit regarded thought and all spiritual life as merely
the highest form assumed by those unfathomable powers of'
affirmation and negation, opposition and its removal ; sometimes
in a more idealistic mood it regarded thought as the real
nature and goal of all things, and those forms of mere blind
being and occurrence as imperfect preludes. But it never
succeeded in establishing thought as what is most essential in
mind, and thinking about thought, the pure self-reflection of
logical activity, as what is highest in thought. The existence
and the worth of the moral world were indeed not forgotten ;
but even that which ought to he had to submit to this reduction
to form ; it seemed as though it only ought to he to the
extent to which it reproduced in the forms of its realization
those much-esteemed relations which were held to be the real
nature of being.
I break off in the midst of an enumeration of these errors.
This short sketch has been partial, leaving much unmentioned
which within the philosophic school itself is regarded as
weighty and important, and laying stress only upon what
could serve as an introduction to the end aimed at by our
present inquiry. Philosophy is not at present exclusively
ruled by the false Idealism with which we have just been
confronted, nor is it impossible to avoid the errors which
deform it ; but this is not the place for developing the convic-
tion which we wish to maintain. Here we can only give it
provisional expression, and affirm that the nature of things
does not consist in thoughts, and that thinking is not able to
grasp it ; yet perhaps the whole mind experiences in other
forms of its action and passion the essential meaning of all
being and action, thought subsequently serving it as an
instrument by which that which is thus experienced is
SCO
BOOK Vlir. CHAPTEK I.
brought into the connection which its nature requires, and is
experienced in more intensity in proportion as the mind is
master of this connection. The errors which stand opposed
to this view are very old. It was a long time before living
fancy recognised in thought the bridle which guides its course
steadily, surely, and truly ; perhaps it will be as long again
before men see that the bridle cannot originate the motion
which it should guide. The shadow of antiquity, its mischievous
over-estimation of reason, still lies upon us, and prevents our
seeing, either in the real or in the ideal, what it is that makes
.^ both something more than reason.
CHAPTEE IL
WOPtK AND HAPPINESS.
Pleasure and the Means to Pleasure — The PatriarcTiate — The Adventures of the
Heroes— The Liberal Culture of Antiquity — Slavery — The Growth and
Preponderance of the Industrial Classes — Economic Character of the
Present Time, and its Causes and Effects — The Modern Forms of Labour
and their Social Consecjutncee.
§ 1. IVTATUEE with its unchanging order, and Society
-^ ^ with the variability of its internal relations,
have from the beginning been spread out before men as
the great fields of all activity. It was need — partly the
urgent need of self-preservation, partly the more calm but
not less powerful need of mental satisfaction — which in the
one field as in the other gave birth to the first action along v
with the first reflection, and did not permit the deferring of y.
reaction until the completion of all science. Men were
obliged to begin to work upon things and to use or construct
the relations of human society, while their store of cognitions
was as yet incomplete ; but the tentative effort enriched ^
scientific knowledge by its results, and the increase of know-
ledge enlarged the sphere of men's powers and the spirit of )
enterprise. Thus science and life were developed in constant
action and reaction. It was only while thus occupied with
the whole wealth of experience, that knowledge developed by
degrees all the multiplicity of its modes of investigating,
analysing, and combining ; it was only through the wide
extension of its contact with the most varied kinds of objects
that it discovered its own instruments, and learned to com-
prehend its tasks (which were presented to it at first in
isolation) in that connection which as perfected science it
ultimately seeks to reflect in the form of a systematic com.- f
bination of all truth. However attractive the history of this
^
362 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER 11.
development may be, we must renounce any more detailed
consideration of it than has been given in the brief survey
which we have just concluded. Since the general purpose of
our reflections has regard to the totality of human de-
velopment, we have no further space for the representation
of the inner regularity and beauty with which the edifice of
science — a self-sufficing whole — grows up from its own
principles and becomes articulated ; our attention is due in
greater measure to the other division of this reciprocal action
between knowledge and life — that is, to the fertilizing stimulus
, which life itself, the customs of commerce, the spirit of social
) institutions, and the enjoyment of existence, receive from the
I gradual development of the world of thought.
Human life being dependent upon Nature for its
(jp continuance, men had first of all to attend to the business of
self-preservation by satisfying external needs, in order that
they might then be at liberty to devote themselves to their
real vocation in enjoyment of beauty, delight in holiness, and
practice of what is right. Now a consideration of the efforts
which have been directed to the production and perfecting,
the administration and diffusion of material goods might
easily allure us into a wide and brilliant region of scientific
development which touches life at innumerable points — might
allure us, that is, to the history of the Natural Sciences.
Yet we forbear a systematic exploration of this region. For
why attempt to repeat in a narrow and insufficient compass
what has already been given in detail in innumerable delinea-
tions ? The triumphs of human sagacity in the investigation
of the celestial regions and the remote parts of the earth, in
the explanation of the chemical transformations of bodies and
of the processes of life, in determining the conditions of action
of all forces, and analysing composite forces into their
elements — all these are in our times favourite subjects of
triumphant exposition and eager attention ; lauded in a
thousand ways, it is not they themselves but the blessing that
they have conferred on human life which stands in need of
mention. And in saying that this needs mention, I do not
\[
WORK AND HAPPINESS. 36^
mean that it would be worth while to repeat the enumeration
of those countless individual benefits, concerning which (after
the numerous accounts that have been given) we now know
to what principles of natural science and to what inventive
application of those principles they are due. Let us suppose
the place which I here leave vacant to be filled by one of those
easily obtainable descriptions which show us how the progress
of knowledge of Nature, lingering at first, has in modern times,
advancing with greatly accelerated speed, given new develop-
ments to life — how we have learnt to overcome innumerable
obstacles which Nature opposes to human activity — and how
increased insight into the connection between different effects
in Nature has put us in a position to produce with ease, from
despised material which in former times was thrown away as
refuse, instruments of enjoyment which in those times were
either not known, or could only be procured with difficulty
from some few sources which Nature voluntarily set at man's
disposal. Having supposed, then, that this picture of an
increasing dominion of Mind over Nature stands clearly before
our eyes, in what is it that the blessing of this dombaion
consists ? And in asking this question we refer not only to
the fact of dominion, but also to the advantage which increased
power over Nature affords for the attainment of that which is
the special destiny of man.
Unless I am mistaken, the answers to this question will
not be harmonious. In moments of deliberation, in which we
survey with a comprehensive glance th'ese achievements of
human intelligence, the undeniable advance which they show
may rejoice us with the feeling of satisfaction which naturally
springs from every increase in efficient strength. But if
looking at life as a whole we seek there the useful results of
this progress, it may seem doubtful whether this greater
dominion over Nature of which we boast, does not result for
us in a greater dependence upon that power over which we
are continually victorious. For every fresh commodity that
we produce immediately becomes a necessity, and entangles us
in new efforts — on the part of the community to produce and
36i
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER II.
y-
exhibit it, and on the part of the individual to obtain it.
Every new discovery of science that has splendidly abridged
laborious modes of attaining some definite end, has forthwith
exhibited as necessary a multitude of new ends which the
new resources tempted men to aim at. Hence though much
labour has certainly been materially simplified, as science
taught nieu better combinations of the means by which all
effects are produced, it is plain that, taking life altogether,
labour instead of becoming gradually less has become greater.
The old complaint that so large a part of men's time and
strength must be sacrificed to the mere maintenance and
securing of existence, is not allayed but sharpened ; ever more
and more room is taken up, in our short span of life, by the
preparations and equipment required for life itself ; the sunny
strip of leisure seems ever to grow narrower and further away
on our horizon — the leisure in which, in quiet communion
with self or cheerful intercourse with others, we hope to enjoy
the final net result of so much effort — a result worthy of our
human nature. Thus it seems as though the enlarged
possibility of satisfying a multitude of wants, taken in con-
junction with the amount of work necessary for the realization
of this possibility, did not make us happier on the whole than
men were in the times when those wants, the means of their
satisfaction and the labour required for this, were all alike
unknown.
But equally old with this complaint is the rejoinder that it
is erroneous to try and divide labour and enjoyment by a
sharp boundary line, as if they were as opposite as com-
modities and the prices which are paid for them ; not only
the possession of the enjoyment, but also the receptivity for
it, is given to leisure as the result of what has been experienced
and gone through in labour; labour is itself a source of
enjoyment, and not merely the road thereto. We do not
need to draw out in detail the universal truth of this remark ;
we have already had frequent occasion to consider how little
the spiritual content of life in an unlaborious state of Nature,
and the enjoyments of leisure in such a state can be compared
WORK AND HAPPINESS. • 365
to those with which culture rewards the exertions of a life's
hard work. The human soul is not like a plant which
requires only that the universal conditions of its existence
should be favourable in order to exhibit in succession the
several beauties of its cycle of development — bud, blossom,
and fruit ; it is only the ever-changing struggle for external
necessities that stimulates us to acquire knowledge, that
furnishes our leisure with subjects for reflection, and at the
same time deepens the value which we set upon those social
relations of which natural order lays the foundations — deepen-
ing it until it becomes that refined moral feeling which finds >
the most stirring interest of life and the most elevated enjoy- \
ment in the discussion of varied views of life, and in j
emerging victorious from its moral conflicts. We desire
f^ven for the individuals who are the inheritors of some long-
establislied civilisation, the education which only life can give; ik^
the traditional ideals of all that is good and beautiful, although
even in tradition itself they have long been bound up with
representations of those definite relations of life in which they
are to be realized, yet seem to stir the soul vaguely, hovering
before it formlessly and without being seriously apprehended,
until incessant contact with the hindrances of real life and
with the claims of others reveals the full significance of their
content — the content that is of the traditional ideals — and
makes the contemplation and realization of them a life-work
which is self-sufficing and self-rewarding. Without this
complication and intensifying of stimulations and hindrances
which culture brings with it, the isolated experiences and
activities of men would hardly have produced even an in-
definite sense of something really worthy. Thoroughgoing,
however, as the superiority of culture to a state of Nature is
in a general way, yet it is not equally indubitable that its
internal progress involves in itself a continuous heightening of
the enjoyments of life, and that there is not a point beyond which
the increase of labour of all kinds leads men in living and
in maintaining life to lose sight of the ends of life. At all
events, in all periods of many-sided civilisation there seems
iC
X
^'
J
366 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER IL
to remain a longing after the simpler conditions of past times —
a proof that it is not easy for men to bring the results of
their own progress into harmony with the wishes which they
call upon life to fulfil.
In the patriarchal state which the Old Testament writings
describe, there is presented to Christians, as it were a com-
pendium of simple and noble life, which, glorified by the
idealizing power of distance and of poetic representation, may
well seem to this retrospective longing to be an exemplar of life.
Certainly traditions of earlier civilisations and the possibility
of contact with the developed culture of neighbouring countries
was, even so early as this, at the foundation of that which
interests us in the patriarchal life ; this life being not so wholly
self-dependent as it seems in the Scriptural picture, where it
is presented in strong relief detached from its surroundings.
But external relations were still so slack that friendly
obscurity veiled the surrounding regions, and all the problems
and all the enjoyment of life remained concentrated within a
narrow circle that could be taken in at a glance. Men's
wants were provided for by a labour that was light, or in
which there was as yet little complication and little division
of employments — labour that consisted chiefly in the nn-
irksome tendance of living creatures ; if want occurred it was
regarded rather as the disfavour of Nature than as the result
of social evils. As the division of labour had not yet
taken place, life had not yet the aspect of an uncertain and
ingenious struggle for existence; careers were marked out
upon which each entered with a regularity as great as that
with which Nature develops corporeal life; the differences
of social consideration which inevitably appear at an early
stage were not yet combined with such intellectual and
philosophic differences as might make one man's interests
in life unintelligible for another; connected chiefly with
family relations, they were yet important enough to introduce
into life, instead of an enervating equality of claims, a variety
of reciprocal moral obligations which were profoundly felt.
There were united in the head of the tribe all those functions
WORK AND HAPPINESS. 367
of work and action which give worth to human life ; father i
and master, law-giver and judge, prince and priest, all in one, \\
he experienced in himself the full and undiminished enjoy- 'i
ment of that mental power which lifts man above all i
Nature, and set before his people this unity of life in visible
embodiment. If to all this we add that to the religious belief
of this time and of these tribes their connection with God
was an experience that was ever being renewed, we may well
admit that we find in the patriarchal period a concentration
and intensifying of consciousness and of life whicli prevented
the attention of individuals from passing over unobserved
any attainable happiness or any recognised duty.
Doubtless this form of life could not be maintained for
ever in its completeness ; the greater concentration of popula-
tion and the transition to stationary life developed new needs
and required new kinds of labour, which led to different
social arrangements ; also we would not conceal from ourselves
that in reality the spiritual content of the patriarchal life •\\
must have been poorer than it appears in the poetic represen- H
tation whicli emphasizes its bright parts and says nothing of ^
the duller intervals that come between. Certainly the moral
significance of all individual relations of life was sounded to
its depths and reflected upon with remarkable refinement of
feeling, but the relations themselves were too simple to produce
that complex and varied wealth of thought, in the possession
of which advanced civilisation always feels in the end that it is
superior to those simple states of society which in other
respects are envied. But the patriarchal form of life, the
self-centred completeness and isolation of the family and the
home which, being self-dependent to an extreme degree, pro-
vides for all its own necessary wants, and is able in its own
little circle to find a solution of all essential problems — this
form of life must always be regarded by us as the type to
which we must seek to revert, in opposition to that unattached
condition that in a more complicated state of society makes
the individual feel like a lost atom, tossed hither and thither
by the wholly incomprehensible forces of a great all-embracing
J
1
3G8 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER II.
external world. Let us now see whether increasing civilisa-
tion has brought with it the conditions of an inner enrichment
of this form of life or only causes of its disintegration.
8 2. To reap without having sown is naturally man's
original mode of existence. When the simplest appro-
priation of natural products no longer sufficed, the labour that
tends, transforms, and produces, with all the patience, self-
denial, and steadiness which it requires, long continued to be
held in contempt as compared with the destructive activity
which in the chase, in robbery, and in war took possession of
finished products capable of ministering to human enjoyment.
The period of Life according to Nature was succeeded by the
Heroic Age — an age in which men's mode of life was an
imitation of that of beasts of prey, from the weakness of
admiring which the human mind will never be wholly free.
For, indeed, the struggle in which one's own existence is
staked for speedy gain, and one's whole nature is roused to
all the activity of which it is capable, not only swells the con-
sciousness of the combatant with proud and passionate excite-
ment, but offers to imitative poesy much more picturesque and
intelligible images than the quiet industry which transforms
a peaceful society merely by conquering the inertia of intract-
able objects. The ambition of emulating the lion or the eagle
developed indeed all the natural beauty of the human race,
and all those traits of capricious magnanimity and uncertain
generosity which, combined with just as inexplicable fits of
savagery, makes the "king of beasts" such an attractive object of
contemplation to us ; but human capacities were not moulded
by this kind of life for their own special ^nd appropriate
work. At all times this mode of thought — this emulation of
the beasts — has been powerful enough ; in the most remote
antiquity it shows itself openly in robbery by land and sea ;
sword and lance were to the Greek Klephthen as plough, sickle,
and wine- press with which to sow and reap and press the wine
from the cluster; the Eomans, in their legends, claimed
robbers as their ancestors ; and to the Germanic nations it
Beenied unworthy to seek by labour for that which might be
L
WOEK AND HAPPINESS. 369
gained by the sword; the highway robber of the Middle »
Ages, and the runaway vassal, acted from the same feel-
ing. All of them were right in so far as this, that labour
is apt to enslave the mind when it requires exclusive
occupation with objects to the peculiarities of which the
labourer must accommodate himself, by narrowing his circle
of thought to but few trains of ideas; on the one hand it
destroys receptivity for the various enjoyments of life, and on
the other hand may paralyze the elasticity of his powers,
which are naturally inclined to exercise themselves upon
reality in various ways. But they forgot that, notwithstanding
all this, it is only labour which can develop a coherent human
character, and that the unrestrained exercise of strength
which they thought so splendid is only superior to the savage-
ness of wild beasts when it lays aside that character of
adventure which employs strength only for the sake of sub-
jective enjoyment, and takes on the character of protective
service, which applies the same powers for the defence of V
interests that are worthy in themselves, doing this under '
a sense of obligation.
The ends of human life, and the means of attaining them, j^
were thought over by the Greeks more eagerly than by other
nations. In the world of the Homeric poems there appears a
dark stratum of labouring bondmen as the foundation upon
which rests the serene and gracious happiness of the nobles ;
but either there is as yet too little difference of needs and of >
cultivation to embitter this contrast, or else tradition is so
obscure that it does not make plain to us the sharpness of the )
contrast. Of Labour, which had not yet split up into a
number of branches dependent upon one another, it was
therefore still easy to take a comprehensive view, and it was
regarded with honour, especially in as far as it stimulated the
early-dcA eloped artistic sense of the people, not supplying a -^
foreign d^!mand, but serving to satisfy the needs of a great and
self-sufficing domestic economy. When the brilliant develop-
ment of mental life in Greece began, these relations gradually
changed. In proportion as there was an increase in the
VOL. II. 2 A
370 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER IL
significance and excellence of the enjoyment which advancing
sulture promised to him who had time for it, men sought to
"4i shorten the labour necessary for supplying the needs of life ;
^ human life properly so called had its beginning in leisure, and
. to learn how to occupy and enjoy leisure in a way worthy of
humanity was the business of Greek education, which, in
: order to attain this end, not only did not shun the labour of
1 severe and long-continued discipline, but even undertook it
' with eagerness.
I will not here inquire whether the symmetrical develop-
ment and exercise of all the bodily and mental powers with
which Nature has endowed us — in other words, whether being
educated to the perfection of human kind — is in reality the
whole destiny of man. But it is certainly correct to hold that
the essential difference between the maxims of this antique
art of education and of that of modern days, consists in this,
that in the education of the ancients the cultivation and per-
fection of skill were esteemed more highly than the labour to
which the skill was applied, and the products of that labour,
w^ Every individual was to be formed into a perfect specimen of
( his race, the race itself having nothing to do but to exist and
^ rejoice in its capacities of enjoyment. Education fulfilled
its task in producing the attitude of perfect humanity —
that reposeful and plastic stamp of character which hence-
forward in all the occurrences of life with which it meets or
by which it allows itself to be reached, maintains an un-
changed mien, and employs its skill to raise itself to inde-
pendence of material things. To this many-sided and
self-contained development the spirit of modern education is
certainly less disposed ; it favours more than is right an exten-
sive acquaintance with facts as compared with general cognitive
ability, productive and monotonous labour as compared with
the free exercise of all man's powers, the narrowness of efforts
restricted to a definite occupation as compared with interest
in all human relations. Yet there is at the bottom of all
these errors one characteristic which is not to be despised —
the conviction that man's destiny is, not to present a perfect
^
i
I
WOEK AND HAPPINESS. 37l
embodiment of all the beauty of his kind, but to develop into
an unique individual — a development which cannot be attained
by aimless exercise, however splendid, of the capabilities
common to all, but only by devoting these in earnest labour
to the accomplishment of some individual life-work. Only in
such voluntary devotion of the powers bestowed by Nature
and developed by education, to the laborious pursuit of some
definite end can the individual win as his personal property
the endowments of the race, developing them, in a course of
evolution which extends through life, to an individuality in
virtue of which he becomes something more than a perfect
exemplification of a general concept.
We by no means lose sight of the fact that the active
political feeling and the love of art of the Greek nation and
its receptivity for science provided very worthy occupation for
leisure time, and that in the eager and steady pursuit of great
enterprises, or the constant but more calm interest taken in
public business, life found a sufficing content and vocation.
But the contempt which was felt for common, rough, hard
work, and the low estimation, extending even to artists, in
which all handicrafts were held, did not fail to exercise an
injurious influence. Much as men laboured, there was not
formed in any degree worth mentioning that_love of work
which is jealous of the honour of its handicraft, which is able
to find sufficient sources of mental satisfaction within the
narrow limits of a monotonous occupation, which delights in
colouring the whole of life with the ways of thought peculiar
to its calling, and loves to glorify its mental gain in song.
This was chiefly the reason why there was lacking in public
life that fidelity to duty and conscientiousness bordering on
rigidity, which is more surely produced by the steady exercise >. /
of a modest calling than by the pride of a culture which can
take any point of view, and has no moral obligation to take
one rather than another. Oiilj where morality requires
fidelity in small things can great things be secure. The new
culture estranged even family life from the beautiful and
simple patterns of the Homeric age. For the more exclusively
^kr
372 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER II.
that culture was directed to political interests and scientific
^ occupations, the further wer.j women from keeping up with
it and participating in it. The society of ancient^Greece was
exclusively masculine. It was only in assemblies of men that
there was the pulsation of that which we call ancient life ; the
women lived in domestic seclusion, relieved from burdensome
supervision in Sparta only, and even there they did not gain
much from that life of the time in which they were allowed
to share. The absence of community of labour entailed also
absence of the feeling of equal human rights ; and of the gain
which woman's mind can contribute to life, little accrued to
the Greeks. I do not mean that the natural good disposition
of the people did not afford room for the exercise of all the
love and tenderness of family feeling which we admire even
in the beasts; but still in common opinion the female sex
1 was regarded as the less perfect creation. Plastic art knew
how to honour its beauty, and poetry its charms ; but we need
only remember the evil sophisms by which, in the Eumenides,
jp' I -^schylus (by no means an isolated example) proves of how
^fy ) much less consequence the mother is than the father, in order
I to recognise the insulting contempt with which Greek civilisa-
tion on the whole looked down upon women. It has nowhere
produced a conception which in seriousness and human worth
^ is comparable to the noble ideal of the Eoman matron.
The worldly wisdom of the Indian gives to the man the
toil and the exciting enjoyment of combat and to the woman
hard and stupefying labour. The Greeks did not, indeed, make
such a division ; but not less superficially and mechanically
did they solve the problem of determining the relation
between labour and a liberal enjoyment of life, since they
* solved it by the institution of slavery, and this without
reference to any natural relation which (as, e.g., difference
of sex or of race) seems, to the untutored mind at least,
to furnish some justification of such an arrangement. When
Hector and Andromache with foreboding sadness lament the
misery of slavery which awaits the widow and orphan, not
only are we somewhat reconciled by the melancholy beauty
1
•
WORK AND HAPPINESS. 373
of tlie verse, but, moreover, in this heroic age such misery
appears as an event which naturally occurs in the order of life
and for which the as yet unfurnished social science of men iir —
knew no remedy. In the noontide of Greek civilisation,
a time of political insight and reflection upon the order
of society, we are revolted by the calm way in which even
the noblest minds regard slavery as being, as a matter of
course, a constituent part of their political structure. " When ^
the shuttles set to work of themselves," says Aristotle, " then I
we shall no longer need slaves." It is not the first clause of
this sentence (which has so often been regarded as an inspired
anticipation of future machine-labour) which seems to me
remarkable ; for Aristotle is here giving expression not to
any anticipation but to a recollection of the dsedalian works
of art which mythology had extolled. But what is remark-
able is how wider development (governed by the idea of the
advantage to be expected) seeks, under a condition of things
in which slavery exists, to realize the contradictory notion of
an instrument that acts intelligently and yet remains a mere
instrument. With much adornment of logical periphrasis it
veils but slightly the aristocratic egoism, which from the
self-regard of the favoured individual, from the requirements
of the refined and liberal culture of one man, infers the rf
servitude of others as a matter of course. The capabilities 1
of men are various ; Aristotle distinguishes kingly souls
which are capable of living nobly and worthily in their
own strength, from others which can neither set before them-
selves any intelligent aims in life, nor if they had such could
find the means of working them out. But the moral duty of v
careful teaching of the w^eak and compassionate love towards I
them is not assigned to the strong as a consequence of )
their superiority ; the title of " kingly souls " once bestowed
introduces unperceived into the discussion the claim of
sovereignty, and the weak become the chattels of the x
strong.
Such a foundation would be even worse than the reality.
Debt and capture in war were everywhere the most frequent
374
BOOK Vni. CHAPTEE II.
causes of slavery. In the first case, the harshness of the
victor may be understood as a result of the hatred which
survives the contest, this hatred at any rate being a passionate
emotion ; and in the second case, a series of deductions which
are not without some show of justice, easily leads to the
conclusion that the debtor who is unable to pay off his debt
should with his capacities of labour be made attachable.
Then in order to secure the use of these capacities his
freedom should be restricted, so that finally, in order that
they may be exchangeable for money, his person should be, not
indeed immediately vendible but liable to be bound to render
an equivalent in labour to any third person in return for the
payment by that person of the sum owed by him. In both
cases there is wanting the indispensable recognition that the
dignity of human personality does not allow either of such
a satisfaction of the victor's passion nor of such a mode
of carrying out legal claims; but the cold-bloodedness of
Aristotle's sophistical deduction is without even the feeble
excuse which may be made for these two historical causes
of slavery.
The harshness of theory was only partially mitigated in
practice. What was the sign by which those kingly souls
were distinguished from the souls that were born to serve ?
In the first place of course Hellenic pride regarded those who
were not Greeks as destined by Nature to slavery ; not be-
cause they were incapable of being civilised, for even the
barbarian slaves who had been purchased were educated in
order to make them more useful, but simply on account of
their descent. In the endless internal wars, however, inhabit-
ants of conquered towns were sold as slaves, Greek was
enslaved to Greek in spite of the condemnatory public opinion
of those not concerned in the traffic and of occasional laws
forbidding slavery or requiring that redemption should be
allowed. For the rest the condition of slaves was various
enough. Cruelty and delight in torture were not prominent
national faults of the ancient Greeks, but just as little were
they a tender-hearted race ; what was most important was
WORK AND HAPPINESS. 375
that their moral principles depended upon the existing con-
dition of their speculative convictions without any active and
immediate sense of duty. Athens treated her slaves mildly,
and it may be that their condition was happier than that of
the free proletariat of more modern times; Sparta had a
doctrinaire tendency to inhumanity due to her principles
of statecraft; the Lacedaemonian youths roaming steathily
through the forests and plains in order to slay secretly
the discontented helots, present in the midst of fair Greece a
dark picture which is genuinely Indian in character.
Upon this foundation of deep dark shadow there rested
the brilliant development of liberal culture which has made
Athens and some other of the Greek states an imperishable ex-
ample to posterity. The avrdpKeia, the self-sufficingness which
Greek philosophy so often extolled as the crown of human
perfection, was by no means to be found in this constitution
of society, for here the enjoyment of some depended on the
labour of others. Therefore, however great the mental develop-
ment might be which was so won (and it can hardly be
proved that it could have been won in no other way), yet in
the clear recognition by the common consciousness of the un-
suitableness of such a foundation for the highest human per-
fection there is certainly involved a great and perceptible
advance in human progress — an advance, however, that only
came slowly and that is not yet complete.
In the period succeeding that of which we have just
spoken, the Roman Empire only developed further the per-
nicious germs referred to. The Italian tribes being actively
disposed, and not much inclined to the cultivation of a
variety of industries, were all the more attached to the
unvarying pursuits of agriculture ; to this kind of labour even
the Eomans continued for a long time to recur with liking
and esteem. But the continuous wars in which the growing
state was involved prevented manufactures from flourishing,
and gradually led to a habit of taking possession of the
necessaries of life by force of arms instead of producing them j
and subsequently led the Eomans to treat the greatest part
376
BOOK VIIL CHAPTER II.
\
of tlie known world as though it had been a mere store-
house for themselves, thus dulling their own liking foi
labour. The way in which the Eoman donjinion spread, not
through plunderiug expeditions, but with regular admini-
stration and exaction, easily explains how the gains of con-
quest led to the disproportioned wealth of a few, whileJ
the majority became poor. The Eomans had to spend]
their own strength in the labours of unceasing military
service, and the home-returned veteran lamented that he
could no longer find a clod of earth on which to rest his
head, and that there was not even room for him to work for
wages, since all labour was in the hands of the multitude
of slaves taken in war. Society was shaken by repeated
attempts to regain the lost basis of economic equilibrium by
means of repartitions of land ; the state was forced to bestow
in benefactions of food and money the fatal gift of unmerited
alms (instead of wages gained by labour) upon a multitude
who soon ceased to demand anything but bread and thea-
trical representations. Public life certainly continued for a
long time to have, in the greatness of political activity, an
interesting and important content ; the strict family morality
of former times long continued to exercise its educative influ-
ences ; but rigid legality had in Eome's early days im-
posed even upon Eomans harsh restrictions of liberty and
bondage to creditors, and made the power of the father and
master unlimited, at least in theory. The same disposition,
not softened by any varied and humane culture of native
growth, and having once for all missed the true principles of
morality, led to the extreme of doctrinaire and systematically
regulated cruelty in the judicial and legal ordering of the
condition of slaves.
I 3. Antiquity did not succeed in dividing labour and
commodities so as to produce universal happiness, or even so
as to escape the reproach of avoidable injustice. But it
witnessed a many-sided mental development in which men
sought to find the aim of life and the way to enjoy life
worthily, and if minds had not derived much benefit from the
WOKK AND HAPPINESS. 377
educative effects of labour, yet on the other hand the developed
taste of the liberal ancient culture had a stimulative effect
upon labour by setting before it an abundance of interesting
tasks. We see this effect in a pervading artistic grace
and in the harmonious style of treatment to which it is
owing that even in our view the numerous small remains of
antique labour seem to represent a coherent wealth of ordered
beauty in the surroundings of life. "We see it also in the
splendid works in which the organizing activity of political
administration combined a multitude of subject powers. This
condition of things was changed by the storms of national
migration. The vague adventure-loving impulse of the heroic
age again obtained ascendency over significant mental culture ;
slavery as a legally existing institution did indeed gradually
disappear ; but the labouring section of mankind, as contrasted
with those who carry arms, sank into a state of dependence
which in many respects was hardly different from slavery.
Neither in detail, however, nor on the whole, did the newly
dominant element afford to labour the stimulus of interesting
tasks. For the requirements of private life were neither so
varied nor so refined as before ; the degeneration of political
life into a multitude of territories loosely federated, and con-
stantly at war with one another, prevented any of those great
enterprises which had been the pride of antiquity. Yet
ancient art and its productions lived on as well as they could ;
and these transmitted remains subsequently furnished an
animating stimulus to renewed advance ; but for a long time
nothing new arose, and no age is so poor in progressive
discoveries and inventions as the interval which divides the
downfall of the classical world from the renascence of the
sciences.
And it was just labour which by its peculiar development,
especially in the more northern countries of Europe, was to
change the whole aspect of life, and to give it a new and -^
permanent direction. When the storms which stirred the
nations had subsided, commerce which again began to traverse
the different countries awoke new wants by the commodities
^
L
378
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER 11.
(
CjIJ.
which it introduced, and new efforts to satisfy these wants at
the price of native productions. At the places where men
met to carry out these exchanges of commodities, settlements
were formed with which by degrees the native industries of
the surrounding country became permanently connected. Both
the absence of legal security in those times, and the imper-
fection and awkwardness of communication with distant
countries, necessitated close combination between related
industries, and at an equally early date made these combina-
tions inclined to exclude any workman who had not, by
undertaking the duties of the brotherhood, also acquired its
rights. These noteworthy historical circumstances caused a
man's chosen work to become a fixed calling, which determined
for each individual his rank in the society; for in fact his work
was to him no longer a mere quantum of labour which he had
to get through, and by which an equally definite quantity of
enjoyment was to be purchased, but by his having on his
part voluntarily taken up this work he had become instead ot
a mere specimen of the race an authorized constituent of
human society. The same articulation of society, which in
oriental caste had become as it were hardened into a natural
distinction, irremovable and extending from one generation
to another, was reproduced here, with the difference that it
was now an order in which the individual was entitled to
freely choose his own place ; just as much a matter of course
as that each naturally belonged to one family was it that he
should not only do work or carry on business as a member of the
society, but that he should also follow a definite calling, sharing
its duties, rights, customs, and enjoyments. Thus all labour
was systematized into guilds ; even beggars and vagabonds
were regarded as constituting a fellowship, having like the
others a right to exist, and having to establish this right by
the observance of certain customs. These combinations which
first arose from community of labour soon involved a com-
munity of all the interests of life ; at social entertainmenta,
and in the administration of civic business, men took part not
simply as men and as citizens, but they felt both that it was
WOEK AND HAPPINESS. 379
from the rank to which they belonged and from the guild
that their right arose to participation, and also that the same
source furnished them with the characteristic and expressive
forms of such participation.
Much in this constitution of society may now appear to us
as arbitrary restrictions ; but that which makes us feel it
restricted then existed either not at all or only in a very
slight degree ; and it is really doubtful whether our feelings m/^
in the matter are quite justified. That remembrance of
differences of rank should be dragged into free social inter-
course may easily seem to us preposterous ; but there was
then no general culture which could make the interchange of >^
opinion interesting, and no generally accepted code of morality |
capable of imposing fixed and beneficent forms of intercourse.
Still less active was the consciousness of a political order
representing social advantages of more than mere local interest ;
on the contrary, those town communities which had arisen
from definite departments of labour were the only living wholes
which being united by reciprocal needs pursued common ends.
Thus it was natural that political importance should accrue to
individual trades in the localities where they flourished — an
importance by no means correspondent to the nature of the
labour in which they were engaged, but quite appropriate to
a society of men bound together among themselves by similar
habits of life and reciprocal duties and rights.
The results of this relation were of advantage to labour
itself as well as to public life. Consolidation of a trade into
guilds, beside which others exist, roused natural emulation and
made men desire to be esteemed for the sake of that condition in
life which they had chosen. There was developed that sturdy
temper which makes men seek to maintain before all the
world the honour of their handicraft, and makes them give
themselves to their work with heart and soul, in order that
they may increase its excellence; slowly and with difficulty,
not as yet helped and supported by any science, artistic fancy
once more gained a footing upon this path of thoughtful
labour. Public life gained in prosperity and beauty by the
/
380
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER II.
humane institutions primarily founded by the brotherhoods
for the sake of their members and by the contributions
which they vied with each other in rendering for the
advancement of the common good ; national codes of morals'
having long ago fallen into disuse, family life, principally
under the influence of this industry, developed the new
growth of civic discipline, the strictness and steadiness of which
recall the golden age of Eoman honour; and yet being pervaded
on the one hand by Christian thought which tends to freedom,
and on the other hand by the spirit of active industry, it shows
in not a few points an undoubted advance of the human race.
For a long time this form of life, in which work and enjoy-
ment are blended as much as possible, was opposed to the
adventurous spirit of chivalry, which found that as society
became gradually consolidated, occasions of knightly deeds began
to fail, society having even to defend itself against the attacks
of the knightly order ; but the new view of life made its way
notwithstanding, and if political independence or a recognition
amounting to the same thing were not very rapidly reached,
yet this philosophy soon began to determine the general forms
of society. It is by it that the material wealth of modern
countries has been won ; from it proceeded at a later period
the revival of learning and art ; so to it was due nearly the
whole content of life ; and it was but natural that it should
also influence the external character of life, even to costume
and the tone of conversation. But it did not reach this
supremacy until influential circumstances of all kinds had
^ already begun to produce an essential alteration of its character.
§ 4. The great geographical discoveries with which the
Middle Ages closed, the rapid development of the physical
sciences which soon followed, the extraordinary effect which
the discovery of printing had in extending, accelerating, and
facilitating the communication of thought, and the similar
influence exercised by the development of navigation and
finally of steam power upon commerce — these things it is
that have chiefly given to modern life its distinctive character
as regards enjoyment, industry, and interchange of goods.
WORK AND HAPPINESS. 381
The outlines of land and water on the earth's surface have
now been ascertained with a completeness which causes us to
believe that we cannot look for any surprising discoveries in
the future, and for the first time the various races that dwell
upon the globe have come within sight of one another. The
interior of great continents and their resources still remain in
deep obscurity, and many nations are stiU seeking points of
departure from which they may proceed to the formation of
permanent social relations; but everywhere we find an in-
vestigating zeal which is no longer content to amuse the
imagination with a description of distant wonders, but desires /
to bring all these unknown and distant regions into useful j
connection with our own civilisation. The explanation which
science is now beginning to afford of the extensive connection
between natural effects all over the surface of the earth
already gives useful support to these attempts, hindering
some adventurous undertakings by showing their economic
uselessness, and encouraging others by pointing out their
probable good results. Commerce, in equilibrating supply . jJ^
and demand in the most distant regions, and being able to
effect desirable exchanges with increasing ease, is approaching
the solution of its problem, which is to unite all parts of the \
earth into a single economic whole, to supplement the niggard- [
liness of one climate by the fruitfulness of another, to guard '
against the dangerous fluctuations of society caused by famines
in ancient times and in the Middle Ages, and to make the
most inhospitable regions fit to be at least a temporary abode
of human beings wherever I^ature has not set limits to men's
further advance by refusing the gifts which are absolutely
indispensable to life. Political projects which have never »,
been altogether independent of economic considerations are M
now obliged to be made with a more careful calculation of the
much more complicated actions and reactions upon which the
power and welfare of states depends. Perhaps an accurate
judgment of what is here advantageous is in most respects
still in its infancy ; yet to some extent we clearly see the
restraining power which is exercised upon the warlike instincts . ' —
382
BOOK VIIL CHAPTER II.
of mankind by the consciousness of this connection of com-
plicated relations which men are bound to respect. Not
indeed unfailingly, nor in all respects advantageously, is this
influence exercised. For however desirable may be the
restraint of coarse and merely destructive forces, it is by no
means desirable that the whole of life should be fettered by
material possessions and by that love of peace which would
sometimes be willingly deaf to the call of honour from fear
that such possessions should be endangered.
The opening of the boundless realms of the new world has
in another respect had a favourable effect upon political life.
Many institutions and conditions which had been handed
down by long tradition, oppressed mankind as with the con-
sciousness of a tedious and hopeless malady, and now an
opportunity was afforded it of making vast new constructions ;
it could now learn by its own fresh experience what strength
and activity human life demands when men are forced to
return to the most primitive labour, what benefits (perhaps too
lightly esteemed) may be combined even with the evils of
ancient civilisation, and finally what new and more vigorous
institutions may be established when men are unhampered by
tradition and are free to be guided by existing circumstances.
It had hitherto been as impossible for history as it is for the
physician to make the valuable experiment of trying how an
existing condition, which has been treated in a definite way,
would develop if subjected to quite different treatment. One
of the most special advantages of modern times has been the
possession of this new world alongside of the old world, and
the being able without any sudden interruption of historical
development to realize the events and life-experiences passed
through by men in that great arena of aspiring powers.
To this extension of the scene of economic activity, with its
important results, the growth of physical science furnished the
means necessary for the complete conquest of the new territory.
Useful discoveries have been made in all ages, but there has
not existed in all ages that activity of imagination to which
any success attained immediately becomes a starting-point for
WORK AND HAPPINESS. 383
fresh undertakings ; in ancient times and in the Middle Ages,
the application of any newly discovered natural or artificial
power was usually restricted to the immediate sphere of work
which had given occasion for its discovery. It is different in
our time. By experiment and calculation the principles and
laws of action of forces have been arrived at in at least
some departments of Nature; nuhierous observations have
ascertained the various results produced by the action of these
forces under arbitrarily established or altered conditions of
their application ; now every newly discovered material and
every newly ascertained natural process is regarded from a
variety of general standpoints and compared with a variety of
recollections of what has been previously observed, and these
not merely arouse but often forthwith give an answer to the
question, What further advantage is to be gained by subject-
ing this new discovery to definite conditions or by combining
it with known forces ? Hence arise men's vigorous en-
deavours to follow out forthwith all^the possible aipplications
■ of a fresh discovery, and the frequent demand that definite
instruments of progress (which are needed and from which are
expected services which can be exactly specified) should be
provided by searching out new chemical combinations, or new
means for the composition of forces ; and hence finally a
knowledge of the hindrances which yet remain to be overcome ^
in the accomplishment of a mechanical task, and of the
direction which must be taken by any investigation which
aims at removing these. These advantages depend upon the
nature of our knowledge and the facility with which (thanks
to the easy communication of thought) co-operative labour can y^
be carried on ; and they have not only conferred upon us an
incomparably greater wealth of useful commodities than were
possessed by men in ancient times and in the Middle Ages,
but have also determined our mode of thought. Much which ^
formerly seemed to us impossible we now regard as a mere
matter of time ; the combined energy of men applies itself to
the most extensive undertakings with a calm prevision of
success. This energy seeks not merely to transform the
384 BOOK VIIL CHAPTER IL
inanimate world but also regards the animal kingdom as a
constituent part of a universe of usable commodities, modify-
ing the physical formation of animals by careful breeding for
arbitrarily chosen ends, and thus feeling ever more and more
supreme over Nature and ever more and more losing the
remains of that awe with which even as late as the Middle
Ages the mysterious characteristics of natural elements were
regarded ; men anticipating more results from the wondrous
developments of these (which they ventured only timidly to
initiate) than from their own well- calculated interference.
These considerations extend to the coherence of society
with reference both to its internal consistence and to its
connection with physical conditions. The abundant and
penetrating reflections of antiquity upon these questions
were destitute on the one hand of a basis of observation
wide as to both space and time, and on the other hand
of the possibility of easily communicating the results attained.
Statistical science with its characteristically developed methods
of comparison is now able to utilize the rich material which
the present owes to its greatly enlarged intellectual horizon,
and the existing multifarious means of communication make
its results the common property of much wider circles. Thus
among the most characteristic features of modern times may
be reckoned growing clearness and increasing extension
of reflection concerning the foundations of the economic
articulation of society, concerning the laws of exchange, and
the connection of all human activity. If it were ever possible
for the human mind to move on exclusively in a single direc-
tion, the injurious effects of the present preference for this
region of thought would be developed still more plainly than
they are. For taken alone it favours the disposition to regard
all that happens as a mere example of general laws. It has
a tendency to make man regard his own development,
which had before seemed at least partly to be the work of
his own free will, as the product of climate, of food, and of
natural endowment, and the changes of these that take place
according to natural law. In this connection of all things,
WOilK AND HAPPINESS. 385
mechanically so clear, it is difficult to hold fast the thought
of higher ideals, ideals which are entitled to require some-
thing other than that which the natural concatenation of
causes and effects can of itself produce. In fact the flood of
materialistic views with which we are inundated bears witness
to this increasing disposition to leave to man no other destiny [
than care for his physical nature, development of the capacities i\
of his kind, and the multiplication of those good things to the
enjoyment of which this part of his being leads him. Thought-
ful reflection also, which does not take such a narrow view, has
succumbed to the temptation to regard social changes which
seem to be forced on by natural conditions, as being justifiable
simply because they are explicable; and to look on at the
stream of circumstances with tacit acceptance of events that
are accomplished, or are in course of being accomplished,
approving every turn and eddy of that stream.
§ 5. The greatest part of the peculiar form assumed by the , Ia/vU^
relations of labour in our times is due to the development of '
machinery. The infinitely numerous possible functions of
the human hand in labour are found separated in machines,
each individual function being attached to a mechanism
which exists purposely for it, and each being on this account
endowed with greater strength, staying power, and exact-
ness. Antiquity possessed but few of these advantages ; it
had at best only tools, that is to say contrivances which do
indeed by their construction and manner of use afford to
human strength a more convenient hold of the objects upon
which men work, but yet find the spring of their movement
and action in the strength and skill of the human arm. It was
the utilization of steam which first substituted for them, and
hat with ever increasing generality, machines the disposable
brce of which is developed not indeed from nothing, and just
as little from a mere summation or transformation of human
activity, but from the efficiency of elemental forces, machines
erely providing for this efficiency the conditions of useful
action; and even this work is facilitated by the progress of
^technical art. As from the beginning the earlier and coarser
B VOL. II. 2 B
I
t;
I
386 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER H.
tool helped to make a more delicate one, so it is machines
themselves which make those parts of other machines that are
difficult of construction ; and it is machines themselves which,
in part at least, changing their action according to the chang-
ing requirements of the work, counterbalance the injurious
incidental effects which that action would otherwise entail.
The costliness of machinery and of keeping it going,
generally speaking makes its employment profitable only
in uninterrupted production on a large scale. As when the
radius of a circle is increased, successive equal additions to
its superficial extent are made with an ever decreasing pro-
portional addition to its circumference : so with the same
necessity in most kinds of labour, as the scale on which it is
undertaken is increased, the increase of useful production
exceeds in a growing ratio the increase of outlay ; when re-
duplications of similar functions are performed by one
instrument there is hardly needed an increase of the activity
which it would have to devote to a single performance of the
same function ; most productions gain in perfection when
their various separate parts are made by separate machinery
which is devoted exclusively to them ; and finally this
division of labour, advantageous in itself, is facilitated by the
unvarying exactitude of mechanical action, the uniformity of
its productions making possible their subsequent combination
into a whole.
The advantages hence arising for the products of labour
and for their distribution have been as often extolled as the
disadvantages connected with them have been lamented. It
is without doubt due to the use of machinery in manufactures
that there has been diffused among the people a great supply
of the means of comfort and wellbeing which either were quite
inaccessible to the civilisation of earlier times, or on account
of the difficulty of procuring them were attainable only by a
few. But this industry has already absorbed much which
used to belong to art, and though the artistic element may
not have been wholly banished from its uniform productions,
yet they are without the traces of that lively individual
i
WORK AND HAPPINESS. 387
imagination which is revealed in so many objects of ancient
or mediaeval workmanship — objects which one hand had with
loving interest framed in every stage, from the raw material
to the final form. It is now more difficult than it used to be
to provide dwellings with harmonious furniture ; it is the slight
interest which we can feel in furniture that has been pur-
chased and brought together from a variety of places, that
makes us disregard the lack of coherent mental character in
our customary surroundings. On the other hand, the cheap-
ness of manufactures produced by machinery, as compared
with those produced by that human skill which has now lost
its value, is not so great as to allow of unpropertied persons
participating with any degree of completeness in these new
comforts and conveniences of life. In perfectly simple states
of society, the various dispositions which even there have place
appear side by side as if they all had anr equal right to exist,
just as the different kinds of animals, for none of which is it
any reproof to be what it is ; it is to a high degree of refinement,
that there is first opposed as its antitype that coarseness which
while it knows all the newly discovered and newly developed
moral relations despises or misuses all of them. Just in the
same way poverty of external appearance is no reproach, is
often even picturesque, at a stage of civilisation in which men
have but few needs and satisfy these in the most primitive
and simple manner. On the other hand, this same poverty
assumes the peculiar character of squalor when it appears in
the midst of a society the life of which is based upon a very
complicated and intricately branching- system of satisfying
human wants. Poverty, taking isolated and disconnected frag-
ments from this system, becomes subject to wants which it has
no assured permanent and adequate means of satisfying ; and
substitutes for previous frugal needs and occasional inventive
sallies the awkward discomfort of surroundings which afford
adequate satisfaction of needs only by fits and starts, and of
an outward appearance of slovenliness. It is only in the south,
with its mild climate, that there still remains any charm about
the life of the majority ; the vast and needy masses of the
388 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER II.
civilised nations of the north pass their existence even now
in such dwellings and under such conditions as to clothing
and household furniture as must be hardly less repulsive than
the hovels in which thousands of years ago oppressed Asiatics
hid themselves away from their tyrants.
Still more unfavourable is the effect of the new forms of
labour upon mental development. What was so much feared
in ancient times, the narrowing of men's intellectual horizon
by unintellectual occupations, threatens the mass of the people
more and more as the division of labour goes on getting
greater. Even in the division of manual labour in past times,
many an employment constituted a fixed vocation which, if
the matter had been settled by regard for untrammelled human
development, must have been reckoned among the temporary
occupations of household labour. But independent handicrafts
generally embraced a plurality of cognate operations ; it was
possible for the labourer to accompany the various stages of
elaboration undergone by raw material before attaining its final
form, with continuous activity and a satisfactory sense of
the progress and results of the work. The tool habitually
used did indeed exercise an influence upon the bodily develop-
ment, the demeanour, the character, and the sphere of thought
of the workman ; but yet he was not its slave : in every outline
of the finished products he could, as it were, trace the strength
and delicacy of his own formative touch. On the other hand,
man's share in the work that is done by machinery is limited
to very uniform manual operations which do not directly
shape anything, but merely communicate to some mechanism
which is not understood an uncomprehended impulse to
some invisible operation. The completed product reaches the
hands of the individual worker in a condition of which he
did not witness the production, and passes out of his hands
again to undergo further transformations which are brought
about in a way equally obscure to him. Hence arises the
worst possible division of labour — the separation of the
sagacious invention and guidance which, with the increasing
complication of machinery, requires ever increasing circum-
WORK AND HAPPINESS. 389
Bpection, fiom the nnintelligent inanipulation which is able to
do without thought in proportion as all its difficulties are
solved by others. For the only perfection which it is possible
for such workers to develop — the formal one of exactitude
without consciousness of the ends to be attained — is the very
same virtue which is required from machinery itself. It is
only unusual talent that can succeed in raising itself, under
such unfavourable conditions and in entering the ranks of
invention ; for moderate capacities labour is no longer either \y
enjoyment or a means of culture. And this injurious result ' '
cannot be counterbalanced by the compensation which intelli-
gent benevolence seeks to provide for the labourer by giving y^
him a larger allowance of leisure and better means of occupy-
ing it. He may have access given him to means of scientific
culture, to instructive lectures, to refined pleasures — he may
even be enabled to enjoy temporarily a luxury, which certainly
may possibly be made accessible to him by a system ot
industry that depends upon enormous consumption ; but all
this does not alter the feeling which regards unintellectual ^
work as a mere means to enjoyment, and having no sympathy (
or devotion for the work itself merely seeks to get it over in
order to obtain its fruits. This lamentable division of life
into labour and leisure that are opposed to one another as day
and night, is at present undoubtedly progressing ; when we
boast, as one of the advantages of our own time, that all kinds
of labour are now respected, this often means nothing more
than that the attainment of means of enjoyment by any kind i 1
of effort is praised ; it is not labour but its product that is
sought ; men undertake to bear for a fixed term of years the
repulsive burden of this effort, which is destitute of mental ,
interest, in order that then the remainder of their life, sharply ,
marked off from this time of labour, may be spent in idle |
enjoyment.
The social relations, too, which depend on the division
of labour, develop new and gloomy aspects. As long as
production by hand-labour remains profitable, or in as far
as trade is concerned with simple products the indispensable-
390 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER XL
ness of which insures their sale, honest endeavour may
maintain a modest independence, without having any great
superabundance of intellect and capital. Wider knowledge of
the connection which there is between the needs of extensive
groups of countries, now makes it possible to anticipate
demand to a much greater extent than formerly, the multi-
plied means of communication allow those products which can
be cheaply supplied in large quantities to be easily got rid of,
and the greatness of the resources employed makes it easier
to weather the fluctuations of demand and exchange ; in
many cases the greater excellence and uniformity of things
produced by machinery contribute to drive out hand labour.
There are not a few handicrafts which from an independent
production of commodities have come down to the mere
finishing off and fitting together of manufactured goods ; others
no longer pursuing any trade of their own have to take a
subordinate place as mere appendages of great businesses.
The same conditions which in a general way make the com-
bination of several different operations in one business more
remunerative, have a specially powerful effect in concentrat-
ing mechanical industry in great manufactories, a system
which, by its combination of mind and money, prevents
mere faithful work from attaining independence. It is true
that within short periods the machine worker is more sure of
his wages ; but whilst independent handicrafts depend upon
the needs of a greater number of customers — a number which
in a small trade is seldom altered suddenly — the existence of
the machine worker depends partly upon the arbitrary choice
and the insight of one person or of a few, and partly upon
the fluctuations of universal demand and supply, which he
can neither survey nor control. This insecurity is by no
means counterbalanced by the sense that he participates in
a great whole, for he participates neither in the insight nor in
the gain, but almost exclusively in the dangers. Nor has he
more cheering prospects as regards a gradual improvement of
circumstances. His wages are mostly insufficient for the
attainment of ultimate independence; and a change of occupa-
WORK AND HAPPINESS. 391
tion is impracticable for him ; since, generally speaking, a maa
becomes thoroughly competent for any definite work only by
long habituation, which unfits him for any other. It therefore
seems to the machine-worker that the best condition of life
attainable for him is soon reached, and that striving after
something more serves only to lessen the enjoyment of the
present ; the impulse to frugality is extinguished, and early
marriages (contracted because there is no prospect of any
advantage being derived from delay, and because the
children's capacity of labour can soon be turned to account)
rapidly increase the number of industrial proletarians, all
doomed to the same prospectless and improvident life. The
humanity of the masters, which is often present and often
absent, cannot remove these evils without changing the
principle of division of labour ; even a patriarchial relation
between them and their subordinates would not produce a
complete solution of the problem, since this could only be
found in the re-establishment of an independence based upon
men's own activity.
In another direction labour has broken through earlier
restrictions, with much advantage and not without some dis-
advantage. Historical relations had made it necessary that
infant guilds in order to prosper should have strong internal
coherence and external inaccessibility. But altogether rash
was the view (which in course of time developed from these
beginnings) that all human labour falls into a limited number
of classes with a regularity like that of the animal or veget-
able kingdom, each of these classes having an exclusive right
to a definite circle of employments. The growing-up of new
kinds of work, which could not be fitted into this system, led
to the removal of such limitations, and this has certainly opened
a free field of labour to struggling powers which were before
confined ; but the benefits of this improvement are abridged
by the general condition of things. As there is scarcely any
business which may not possibly be carried on in manufac-
tories, the powers which have been thus set free may also
divide into the two classes of employers of labour and
802 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER II.
dependent labourers. The possibility of going from one
business to another may delay this result, but will also con-
tribute to make men forget still more the idea of a calling
and to dissolve the steadiness and security of ancient customs
depending upon it ; life will become a succession of discon-
nected attempts to fight one's way through somehow or other.
The present age has met these wants by a resource which
promises much though not everything, namely by voluntary
combinations for definite objects. As Assurance Companies
they distribute among a number the unavoidable damage
produced by natural causes, effecting this distribution as a
judicious economic measure ; as Joint-Stock Companies for
carrying out undertakings which are beyond the power ot
individuals, they alone, combining self-interest with the
common good, are able to succeed in works which can com-
pare with the colossal undertakings of antiquity ; they appear
in innumerable other forms in order to combine the separate
resources of individuals whose wants are similar by buying
the materials for work wholesale, saving the useless cost of
retailing, and affording to small capitals, by co-operation in
trade, the same rate of profit which large capitals can obtain.
Cheering experiences already testify to the value of the further
development which this principle is capable of. Needy work-
men combining their small savings into one capital stock, and
thus being able to enter upon undertakings for the common
benefit, have enlarged their modest associations into tlourish-
ing companies which afford to all participants the commercial
advantages of business on a large scale. The united com-
munity of workers takes the place of the one employer, and
the satisfaction of labour by wages regulated by the supply of
unemployed labourers is transformed into a participation of
the gain obtained by the industry of the society ' the
oppressive and demoralizing effects of the relations between
the sole lord and his " hands " give way to the animating and
moralizing power of the sympathy which the individuej
feels for the prosperity of the whole to which he belongs.
Without recourse being hud lo express prohibitions, vicea
WOEK AND HAPPINESS. 393
of excess, which are not congenial to the spirit of these
societies on the whole, seem to grow less of their own accord ;
they have manifested a vigorous impulse towards further
cultivation by establishing educational institutions and
seeking means of instruction ; without State support and
struggling against many obstacles, they have brought to their
members an amount of gain which secures and improves their
existence and their domestic life. It is hard to anticipate
experience and to determine what capacity of further develop-
ment these associations may have ; what they have hitherto
not afforded is the independence of individual callings, for all
they do for the individual is to guarantee him a competency.
The question is whether this ideal of family life, self-dependent,
economically self-supporting and constituting in itself a com-
plete sphere of activity, is capable of general attainment in
our time, or whether it must not be sacrificed to the changed
conditions of labour. It still exists on landed properties
v^here the owner is the cultivator ; but if the time of the
steam-plough should come and its superiority should make
necessary that cultivation on a large scale which alone is
suited to steam agriculture, then many fields will be thrown
into one, all the slight hollows will be filled up, all the slight
elevations will be levelled, and though individual rights of
property in the wide and fruitful plain thus created may con-
tinue, it will be handed over to the administration of select
committees, from whom after the harvesting the owners will
receive the produce or an account of it. The connection
between man on the one hand, and Nature and the labour
applied to natural objects on the other, will in this case as
in others become ever less perceptible ; the earth also will
then be regarded as merely gain-producing, and not as the
object of an industry that is carried on with self-sacrificing
attachment.
The ties of neighbourhood already combine the inhabitants
of a village or town to a community of interest in most of
the affairs of life ; and in the time when guilds flourished the
association between their members was even stronger, and
394
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER II.
extended to the whole of life and not merely to work alone ^
all modern associations have hitherto had the disadvantage
of being combinations for isolated objects, none of which
captivates and occupies the whole man. As the implement
which a man uses lays claim to him altogether as it were, but
machinery, on the contrary, works for him, so formerly a man's
calling encompassed him as it were on every side, '.vhile his
present relation to work is like that of machinery to it, no
devotion being required from him, but only the punctual
fulfilment of a small number of conditions. Formal virtues
are abundantly developed ; in the intercourse which is carried
on in trade, by postal communication, by rail, in money
exchanges, in credit, there is a stupendous reliance upon the
trustworthiness of machinery that is withdrawn from all
personal supervision and all individual influence, working for
men as it were in the dark. What in ancient and medieval
times required a multiplicity of personal efforts, of emotional
springs of action, of effectively calculated persuasion, of manifold
manipulation, is now (with the least possible expenditure of
excitement, with an economy that is sparing even of words)
entrusted wholly to that machinery of communication which
provides for all. But the more the real nature of business
is understood and developed in conformity with its concept,
the more are liking and personal devotion withdrawn from it.
It is true that a great part of the good results which in earlier
times resulted from this active participation is more advan-
tageously obtained by the mode of business administration
referred to; that by assurances, by a general system of
poor-relief, and by the stimulation of intelligent self-interest,
tasks which were formerly left to voluntary charity are to
some extent lessened and to some extent more certainly
iulfilled ; but after all these departments of human activity
have been made as far as possible mechanical, the question
becomes more and more prominent. Where, then, as a matter
of fact does life itself begin if all which formerly filled it up
is removed from the sphere of living interest and reckoned as
merely among the preparations for life and instruments of living?
WORK AND HAPPINESS. 395
Enjoyment of the leisure which remains after all necessary
labour has been accomplished is hardly on the whole
estimated very highly in our own age. It is an age which
is well acquainted with the bitterness of toil, but knows little
of joyous festivals. With the disappearance to so large an
extent of trade guilds and status, old manners and traditional
customs with all the complex formalities of public festivals and
entertainments and all significant ceremonies of social inter-
course have declined; and amid the general formlessness, men
are at a loss what to do with the leisure they have obtained
unless they either turn again to the labour which was to
have been got rid of, or seek that sensuous enjoyment which
is always to be had. Exhibitions are the only peculiarly
modern entertainments of a public kind, and public dinners
for political or other purposes are the means used to strengthen
enthusiasm. Neither Church nor State supplies the lack of
popular inventive power; the latter neither favours the
political activity natural to good fellowship, nor does it readily
allow the use of social solemnities in even such political action
as it approves ; and the Church by forbidding or disapproving
natural impulses, abandons the imagination of the people to
its own vacuity, without winning it to participation in the
forms of worship and the enjoyment of genuine artistic beauty,
by positive development of spiritual life.
Now if we take a comprehensive survey of these historical
transformations, human life seems to be turned more and
more into a struggle for existence ; the multiplication of small
wants, which is not accompanied by a proportionate increase
in the ease with which they are satisfied, consumes a large
share of the strength which might have been devoted to more
ultimate ends, while the kind of labour required does not
contain in itself its own reward or even a part of its reward.
The place of Work, which was once a self-animating exercise of
activity, is taken more and more by Business, that wonderful
creation of society, that with its complicated connections and
its natural laws which are independent of our will in a certain
sense leads a life of its own, and reduces individuals to the
396 BOOK VIII. CHAPTEIi II.
condition of its panting slaves. Great advances in insight,
in discoveries, in new social constructions of all kinds serve
on the one hand to give new strength to this monster, and on
the other hand to give some security, against the inexorable
course of its development, to that humanity which it has itself
created ; and we are accustomed to admire the one as well as
the other. We regard with amazement and not without
satisfaction the growth of those giant cities in which the
nature of business gradually concentrates the population, and
often forget under what joyless and revolting conditions of
existence a large part of humanity is thus placed ; we regard
it as an advance when the tender strength of children is
employed in useful labour, or there are opened to women
spheres of work which secure to the increasing numbers of
those who are unmarried the possibility of subsistence ; and
we do not enough consider that at the best these arrangements
are but forced and wholly unnatural attempts to counterbalance
serious evils which owe their existence to the progressive
development of all the relations of life.
That the sociological order when left to itself is necessarily
such we do not deny, and we think that those are in the right
who hold that it is unpractical sentimentality to wish for a
condition which cannot be brought back. But the remainder
of the truth must also be told, which is that this course of
things is not in itself a movement towards perfection. The
innumerable individual steps of progress in knowledge and
capability which have unquestionably been made as regards
this production and management of external goods, have as
yet by no means become combined so as to form a general
advance in the happiness of life. For the growth of this
happiness cannot be sought either in the mere multiplication
and improvement of productions, or in the increasing bustle
of industry, nor yet in the ingenuity that tries to maintain the
same tolerable equilibrium between labour and wages under
conditions that become ever more and more artificial and com-
plicated. For this maintenance is the utmost that is accom-
plished. Each step of progress with the increase of strength
I
WOKK AND HAPPINESS. 397
which it brings, brings also a corresponding increase of pres-
sure; the more varied the ways are in which the individual
elements that form the social system touch one another —
tlieir connections being now more tense than formerly — the
more do they both gain by the union of their forces, and suffer
from the disturbances of others and the inner repulsions of all.
Hence we find that never has there existed in such a striking
degree the inconsistency of holding that the whole life with
which men are anxiously occupied and which they eagerly
participate in, is not at bottom the true life, and of dreaming
that there is another and a fairer that might be lived and will
be lived as soon as the lower life gives us time, and opens a
way of entrance to it.
Let us see now whether in the midst of this noise of
external progress, this better life has been preserved, and
perchance by its own advance towards perfection provided a
compensation for the deficiencies which we have indicated.
CHAPTER III.
BEAUTY AND AET.
Art as an "Organism," and as the Expression of Human Feeling — ^Eastern
Vastness — Hebrew Sublimity — Greek Beauty — Roman Elegance and
Dignity — The Individuality and Fantasticalness of the Middle Ages —
Romance — Beauty, Art, and ^stheticism in Modern Life.
R 1. TT is no longer our custom to personify (as myth-
J- constructing imagination once did) the various forms
of mental activity which in the course of history have been
devoted to the same supreme aims, aided by ever new and
perhaps ever more perfect expedients. But after thinking
we had discovered in their historical changes an ordered and
constant progress, we found, in the name and the notion ot
spiritual organisms, a means of ascribing to them greatel
independence of existence and development than really belongs
to them. Philosophy and the history of philosophy have long
been spoken of as if they embraced not only the ever-recurring
efforts of human thought to grasp the truth which is always
equally valid, not only the series of philosophic views by
I which the human heart seeks to rise above the doubts and
' difficulties and distresses of life ; rather it seemed as though
in them truth itself experienced a development of its own
existence and content and validity, like the growth of a
/ plant which is indeed tended and cultivated by our care and
( attention, but yet unfolds beneath our touch according to its
own immutable law of development. Of the sphere of art, too,
we are now accustomed to speak as if it were a mysterious
region of enchantment, having indeed its place in our life, and
yet separated from life, accessible to few, working in the
service of eternal beauty according to laws and order of its
own, holding together its various productions in a complete
and isolated system, and governed, as to its history in time
31)8
BEAUTY AND AKT. 399
by an innate law of development. "We do not wholly dispute
the justice of such a conception, nor the good results which it
has had in deepening men's appreciation of all beauty; bnt the
few considerations which we are now about to offer are not
directed to this organism of art, for the development of which
according to its own laws the living passion of nations can serve
but as nutritive sap. On the contrary, our discussion is only
concerned with th^jvarying attempts of men to make clear to
themselves the mood which governed them, and the peculiar
feeling awakened in them by existing conditions, by impressing
the image of that beauty which had most taken hold of their
minds upon everything that they did and experienced, both
upon the character of everyday intercourse and upon works
which were intended to remain as lasting monuments. As far
as posterity is concerned, it is commonly the constructions
of art which afford the most evident testimony with regard to "-
this sesthetic life of the past ; to the men of any age the works
of art of that age are but one and that not always the most
expressive of its manifestations ; for their production and their
greatness depend upon the number of creative and constructive
minds, and these, in consequence of some dispensation which
is to us inscrutable, are not distributed equally to all ages.
But even such minds cannot collect scattered rays if these are
as yet non-existent ; and the appearance of such minds pre-
supposes that men in general are in tune for that aspect of (■
beauty to which they are called upon to give form and ('
expression. Therefore where great artists are wanting, and
consequently the dreamy mood of appreciativeness is not
suddenly awakened to a clear consciousness of the ideal, there
the slow working of this less creative impulse produces
festhetically expressive developments of life. ^
S 2. The most ancient nations of the East found beauty chiefly
in what was vast. They may also, it is true, have been not
without appreciation of tenderness and grace, an appreciation
of which we have no testimony owing to the destruction of
their literature ; but even Indian fancy, which exhibits this
feeling in a striking degree in such of its poetry as is still
■>
400 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER HI.
^ extant, has an even greater preference for what is vast anc
unmeasured. This ancient world was pervaded by reverence
for what is colossal ; tradition pointed to immeasurable dis-
tances of past time ; its constructions towered to the skies,
and extended over the surface of the earth, or penetrated sub-
terranean depths to an extent vastly beyond what might have
been expected from human powers, or what could be required for
human needs ; sculptured figures of more than life size, and in
large groups, looked down from their pedestals in mart and
, street upon busy commerce, which was struggling to assume
equally vast proportions ; civilised countries were populated
by enormous multitudes ; armies countless in number were at
the beck of conquerers, whose desires never stopped short of
universal monarchy ; rulers, exalted above the rest of the
world by mysterious magnificence, became intoxicated with a
' sense of their own divinity, and found nothing worthy of being
j entrusted with the records of their conquests except the hard
j and rocky tablets supplied by mountains that towered high
above the plains.
The impression of grandeur which the ruins of this bygone
world still make upon our mind, convinces us that its creations
were the result of genuinely aesthetic thought, which not only
covered its incapacity of estimating real beauty by an exaggera-
tion of external proportions, but undoubtedly found in mere
magnitude a one-sided but true expression of beauty. The
transitoriness of all that is human, and the swiftness with
which it passes out of sight, disappearing in the immeasurable
background of Nature, must have struck early civilisation more
sharply and hopelessly than it did a later age, which can look
back to a transmitted world of complex thought created by
human effort ; it seems as though men's minds had sought to
alleviit.e this secret dissatisfaction by the greater boldness
with which they carried all images and monuments of human
life to such a magnitude as to entirely remove them from any
measurement by the standards hitherto accepted in different
stages of civilisation. The colossal constructions of the
Egyptians seemed to force their way into the ranks of natural
BEAUTY AND ART. 401
objects of vast dimensions, as though they had been rivals of
equal birth. As year after year they looked down undisturbed i
upon the inundations of the Nile, and the moving billows of j
desert sand, they inspired the beholder with a sense of the j
unending durableness with which the human race fills the
ages ; religious worship — honouring the dead and ever mindful
of the possible return of their souls to earth with a far-sighted-
ness which was regardless of the flight of time, kept up this
feeling — a feeling aroused by contemplating the native works of
art, and by which these works of art had themselves been pro-
duced. If one element in all beauty is an immediate certainty ^
of the dominion of spiritual life over unconscious Nature, the
manifestation of that life being inevitably connected with un-
conscious natural instruments, those ancient nations have given
to this thought its simplest expression ; they have sought
above all things to represent the fact of the conquest of Nature w
by the living Mind ; and whilst they revelled in what was
vast, and yet by no means always in what was without beauty
of form, they made for themselves as it were space and breath-
ing room in which, relieved from the pressure which all finite
reality encounters, they might breathe freely with a sense of
their own imperishableness. How much they attained in
this way we know not ; for no tradition of their mental life
has come down to us. It is only the writers of the Old
Testament who tell us of the unbridled licence of the kingdoms
of Western Asia, in which the life of pleasure flowed in fierce ^
and mighty waves ; the monument of Sardanapalus, with its
inscription — Hat, drink, and love, for all else is but little
worth — seems to be the melancholy conclusion of this age,
which in its struggles towards what was great was able
indeed to assure itself of the strength and imperishableness of
the race, but had failed to find for the individual any eternal
content of life, and had, on the contrary, even minified that
content by comparison with the colossal magnitude of works
constructed by human hands.
It is only the Hebrew people who have left us speaking
monuments of their early mental life. They must have
"^VOL. II. '" 2 c
402 BOOK VIIL CHAPTER III.
possessed an abundant literature besides the writings which
are now collected in the Old Testament ; but judging by the
indications contained in these, those which are lost to us may
Lave been essentially similar to those which we still possess.
We know nothing about whether this nation had an inclina-
tion for scientific investigation ; their language is not formed
so as to subserve this end, nor is it fitted to be the instrument
of a many-sided intercourse which makes it possible to
occupy a variety of points of view. Not that there can be in
the original capacity of a language or in the principles of its
construction an insurmountable obstacle to the development of
any one side of mental life ; but the condition of a language
at any time shows the direction which that mental life has
hitherto not taken, and in which consequently it has neglected
to develop the means of communication. The Hebrew
language of the Old Testament, with its small number _pf
words for abstract ideas, and its great simplicity of construc-
tion, is favourable neither to scientific investigation nor to
intellectual conversation ; but it is in an equal degree more
fitted for the most faithful delineation of the ever-recurring
fundamental characteristics of human life, and for the majestic
expression of divine sublimity. A variety of points of view
which have been thought out and are well under command
generally diminish men's receptivity for both of these, or at
any rate their capacity for representing them ; with regard to
both the Hebrew histories and hymns are imperishable models.
The treasures of classic culture are open to but few, but from
that Eastern fountain countless multitudes of men have for
centuries gone on drawing ennobling consolation in misery,
judicious doctrines of practical wisdom, and warm enthusiasm
for all that is exalted, so that mankind has become accustomed
to see in the characters of those most ancient stories and their
destinies, embodied exemplars of human life and of the different
. characters which the variety of circumstances develops.
7^ Here popular imagination is no longer directed to what is
vast, but strains after a sublimity that stands in need neither
©f vastness nor of ornamentation. Thus the descriptive
n
.^
1
BEAUTY AND ART. 403
poetry of the Hebrews depicts characters and events with the
greatest simplicity of expression, without the least artificial
complication of motives, disclosing everywhere without
reserve those natural springs of action which as long as the
world lasts will be the real ultimate incentives of all that
men do, however ingenious may be the mask thrown over
their actions by the civilisation of auy age. These represen-
tations do not employ even the figurative expressions with
which Greek epic poetry incidentally adorns the objects of
which it treats, in order to adapt them to the generally
elevated tone of the description ; on the contrary, their
characters impress us with their sublimity by appearing
before us without any adornment, in transparent natural-
ness, as though there were nothing in the world which
could call in question man's right to be what he is, and
to know that he, as he is, is the ultimate object of terrestrial
creation. Their lyric poetry repeats the same sublimity, only
after another fashion ; that upon which this depended in their
historical writings appears here still more obviously. Here
the mind dwells upon its communion with God, and extols
with all the power of the most passionate expression, as proof
of divine omnipotence, every_ deeply-felt individual feature
o_f_cosmic beauty. For among the divine attributes it is
certainly omnipotence which above all is felt, and gives a (rvwvv^*'|>'«-^
colouring to aesthetic imagination ; we do indeed meet with
innumerable pictures of Nature which taken separately have
often that inimitable beauty and charm which civilisation,
entangled by a thousand unessential accessories of thought,
finds it so difficult to attain ; but these pictures are not
utilized for the development of a progressive course of
tiiought, but merely juxtaposed as though to magnify from
different but corresponding sides the omnipresent influence
of that divine activity which they depict.
The earnestness of this religious bias of mind towards sub-
limity did certainly pervade life, but could not endow it with ^ —
liarmonious and many-sided beauty. The thousand petty '
cares to which notwithstanding their unimportance cheerful
404 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER III.
attention must be vouchsafed were too far below the soarinr;
flight of this enthusiasm to be efficiently pervaded by it. The
regulation of life continued to be left not to unfettered
imagination but to instructive deductions from the great
principle of religious belief; they filled it not with beauty
but with ceremonies and deeds of the law which by connect-
ing the smallest things directly with the greatest enabled the
Hebrew people always to maintain, in their highest moods,
the loftiness of character distinctive of them, but secured no
uniform grace to existence as a whole, during the less exalted
moments of relaxed tension.
§ 3. To what admirable richness and flexibility the mental
life of the Greeks had developed at a very early period is
most impressively shown by their language. In saying this
I am referring neither to its wealth of grammatical forms, nor
to its euphoniousness ; both make a language interesting, but
do not show the greatness of those who use it. On the
contrary, as at the period of greatest strength in animals,
various parts of their bodies have been pushed out of place
or have coalesced or wasted away — the body, which does not
for a long while attain the fulness of living strength, having
at an earlier period possessed these parts clearly marked out
in significant symmetry and filled with vital activity — so in
order to obtain a perfectly flexible instrument of mental life,
the symmetrical body of language must have its bones to
some extent displaced and its joints somewhat stretched ;
and the influence of mental progress is shown in it chiefly
by phsenomena which concern the dissolution of its earlier
structure. How many moods and cases may have continued
in existence matters very little ; moods and cases cannot
suffice for the expression of all possible relations ; but to
increase them so as to cover most requirements is not in
itself a nobler principle for the construction of language
than the principle to which in the last resort recourse is
always had when there is increasing demand for delicacy of
expression — I refer to the independent indication of relations
\ by separate words. That in this respect the Greek language
BEAUTY AND AKT. 405
reached a high degree ^of perfection is a trite remark ; its
particles have always been admired. By their aid language
could reproduce not only the essential content of thought
but also the shades of the speaker's mood ; the sense
of artificiality which perhaps in the dawn of civilisation
accompanies every systematic recital and makes the more
ceremonious form of verse seem most natural was, by help
of these particles, replaced by a sense of easy communication ;
just as in the sculptures of the Parthenon perfected art
resolves the early stiffness of merely symbolic representa-
tion into the gracious ease of perfect beauty.
In all these respects the language of Homer holds a most
happy medium between primitive unpliableness and later artifi-
ciality. In its copiously used conjunctions and prepositions
we are made aware that the poet drew directly from a wealth
of those temporal and spatial intuitions whence all languages
derive their expressions for inner relations. Its structure
of sentences connects thoughts paratactically without the
hypotactic complications which later became customary, and
continued to be intelligible to the quick ear of the
classical nations without being in any striking degree a
type of lucid discourse. If in this respect the language of
Homer is language in its youth, yet its impression on the
whole is decisively that of a language in which it was no new
thing for human beings to be spoken of with human feeling.
It was only after having been used for a considerable time in
the intercourse of a people vividly awake to all the interests of
life, that it could have attained such a degree of freedom in
the expression of thought ; the metrical form itself must have
been preceded by abundant practice in similar composition
before its perfect harmony between the form of expression,
the train of ideas, and the rhythm could have been produced.
But disregarding this merely lingual aspect, Homeric dis-
course, considered simply as discourse, bears witness to the
early attainment of a high degree of human cultivation. The
Homeric heroes speak much and willingly, and know nothing
of the fierceness of dumb encounter with which barbaric
6^V_-
■406 BOOK VIIL CHAPl-ER IIL
energy does but hide its awkward incapacity of setting its
own thoughts in order, and its still greater clumsiness in
expressing and justifying them. We see everywhere that
liahit of understanding things which makes men seek for
reasons ; Homeric men had long ago learnt how to converse
with one another, and developed their natural reflections simply
and fluently, not always confining themselves to the matter
immediately in hand, but using comparisons and maxims which
one feels to have proverbial weight, referring to a common social
treasure of practical wisdom which had been for a considerable
time in their possession. In this respect the heroic poetry
of the Germans produces a different impression ; the spiritual
depth which we admire in it lacks facility of expression. The
undeveloped structure of sentences ; the meagre explanation of
feelings and resolves, to the mere statement of which the
discourse often confines itself ; the occasional obscurity of the
course of thought which yet seldom wanders from the immediate
subject of discussion — all these indicate a stage of civilisation
in which social intercourse is but little developed. This un
adorned conjunction of occurrences and actions between which
we may in imagination interpolate unspoken mental agitation,
is sometimes favourable to the loftiness of poetic representa-
tion ; but since life does not consist of a continuous chain of
adventures and great deeds, the cheerful interest shown by
Greek writers in all intermediate circumstances testifies to
greater progress in general tolerant regard for and treatment
of the small and apparently insignificant elements of life.
And the Greeks knew what a treasure they had in their
language. When their poets glance at the history of human
development, they do not onjit to extol the endowment of
speech as a great gift of the gods ; to be able to express him-
self is the distinctive characteristic of man ; to understand
things by their causes, and to guide men's souls by eloquence,
is a fundamental thought of their later development. Homer
can say nothing more bitter of the rude Cyclops than that
they neither held markets nor had courts of justice, and that
mo man troubled himself about his fellows. For the Greek
BEAUTY AND AET. 407
all the real beauty of life arose from the most intense
reciprocal action of mental powers in society ; unburdened by
transmitted science, and troubling themselves little about the
knowledge of foreign nations, this dialectic people could
attribute an importance to skill in the art of speaking which
no later and dissimilar periods could honestly do, although
even here unintelligent imitation has not been wanting.
The effect of this mental disposition, which so early turned
to the observation and cultivation of human powers, expecting
everything from their development, was shown even in the
attitude of the Greek mind towards Nature. The penetrating
glance of the Greeks could not^ fail to perceive either the
beauty of their country or the significant characteristics of
physical Nature, which in mysterious symbolism reflect spiritual
life and its vicissitudes ; even their mythology makes natural
pbaenomena the background and source of religious thought in
the broadest and fullest way ; their poetry, by its wealth of
clearly drawn comparisons, convinces us of the impression
which the peculiarities of natural scenery made upon them,
in an incidental sort of way ; the very situation of their cities
and places of assembly, theatres, and circuses, show how they
felt the value of fine and beautiful natural surroundings, and
wide prospects. But Nature affected them chiefly as the setting
of their own lives, and they sought its beauty in the enjoyment
of the mood which it produces in us, and regarded its produc-
tions as means of our refreshment and amusement rather than
sought to live in sympathy with the mysterious life of Nature
itself. It seemed to them, when all was said, that flowers had
greater value as a wreath around some man's head than on
the stalk where they bloom in solitude ; and the saying that
Plato puts into the mouth of Socrates — that men taught him,
but that trees taught him not — certainly expresses the
universal Greek feeling that the value of human society is far
above any absorption in the beauty of Nature. Neither
painting nor poetry showed much favour to the beauty of
landscape ; where the delineation of natural scenery can throw
light upon men's feelings, we see all the poets, from Homer
403
BOOK Vin. CHAPTER III.
downwards, able to delineate it in a masterly way with a few
impressive touches ; but it would have been nothing to them
unless the enjoyment of some beholder had supplied the final
life-giving condition. The words with which Homer con-
cludes his description of a starry night in his wonderfully
beautiful and striking way — And from his heart the shepherd
doth rejoice — give the unchanging keynote of the Greek
temper, which not only regarded all the glory of the heavens
as merely revolving round the stationary earth, but also held
that all the good things of earth were destined only for the
adornment of human existence.
But all the more perfectly on this account did the Greeks
make a real home of the earth, which was to them merely the
stage on which was played the drama of human life. In this
they were favoured by the situation of their country. If they
had been buried in a primeval forest, without ever being able
to take a comprehensive view of the situations of adjacent
places, their sagacity would have developed in other directions ;
it is probable that if they had never been able to take wide
and comprehensive views in the visible world, they would
never have been able to do so in the world of thought. But
where, on the contrary, a bright, clear atmosphere reveals
immeasurable distances, where the eye reaches from coast to
coast, where the view from a mountain-top embraces seas and
the straits (flowing between promontories) which unite them,
and numerous human settlements along the shores — there alone
does it seem as though the light of heaven really fulfilled its
end, illuminating all parts of the world with the lucidity
which can result only from showing the connection existing
between tliem. A susceptible race of men could not dwell
from their youth up amid such a breadth and wealth of bright
and varied scenes without having the sense of spatial order
sharpened, and with it the feeling for clearness and intelligi-
bility of all kinds. Even in the Homeric songs we are
surprised by the precision of geographic knowledge as long as
the scene of the story is laid in regions which at that time
we know to have been within the reach of navi-iation. There is
BEAUTY AND ART. 409
hardly a town which is not brought before us as a familiar
locality by some permanent characteristic of its situation — it is
on the sea, or in a valley watered by some river, or on a rocky
promontory ; the routes of travellers are described with a
distinctness which teaches us that even then commerce had
established permanent paths, and that the sea-roads were
familiarly known. The world which presented itself to the
Greeks was different from the inland forest-covered regions
known to our forefathers ; the Ehine and the Danube flow
through the world of the Nibelungenlied like two isolated
threads of silver, in the neighbourhood of which there is
light ; but if any warlike expedition takes the heroes of the
song to a distance from these, indistinctness of geographical
knowledge closes like trackless night around them.
And finally, the Greeks were, from an intellectual point of
view, in full possession of this country with the physical
features of which they were so well acquainted. With every
locality that was marked out in any way, tradition had con-
nected stories of the gods and heroes, and had made them
sacred ; and to these their stirring historical life soon joined
the remembrance of great deeds performed by mortals. Thus
they were one with their country, and found satisfaction in
the soil itself; what lay beyond the limits of their native
land did indeed rouse a spirit of acquisitive enterprise, but
did not disturb their aesthetic imagination ; the abode of the
gods was still within their reach upon Olympus, which was
not beyond the boundary of their horizon, and at the extreme
limit of which lay the entrance to the nether world ; all
beyond might continue a chaos, peopled with fabulous beings
by which their native country was surrounded as by an
ornamental framework without order or significance. The
Hebrews were the only other nation that attained to anything
like a similar conception; the smallness of their country, the
never-forgotten connection of their tribes, the oneness of their
sacred traditions, shed upon Palestine too, that charm of an
historic light in which numerous coexistent points stand out
in the distinctness of their reciprocal relations.
Vs
416 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER III.
A great part of the charm exercised upon us by pictures of
ancieut life depends upon the favour of Nature, which still
endows the southern countries of our continent with a
joyousness of life to which the north can never attain. In
their mild climate, which did not require that man should be
shut off from Nature, the Greeks who, to begin with, were a
finely-made race, learnt to regard nobility of form, dignity of
carriage, and grace of movement as among the good things of
life and the ends of education, in addition to that bodily
strength and vigour the cultivation of which is common to
all early civilisations. It is superfluous to praise what is
admirable in all this, and useless to investigate how far the
reality corresponded to the pictures drawn by partial fancy
when it peoples every rood of Greek soil with living forms of
statuesque beauty. The native poets with their love of satire
have taken care to leave behind them testimonies of the
frequent occurrence of ugliness and awkwardness. But
these do not alter our general impression ; the Greeks present
to all succeeding ages exemplars of humau beauty; and
probably as long as the world lasts the Spartans at Thermo-
pylae, the Athenians at Marathon and Sal amis, the death of
Socrates, and the kingly figure of Alexander the Great will
continue to be celebrated as classic examples of self-sacrifice, of
heroic courage, and of the spirit of enterprise. Not that other
times have not produced numerous examples of similar deeds
performed to some extent from nobler motives ; but nowhere,
except in Greek life, has the intrinsic worth of the action
been so perfectly manifested with a simple beauty which does
not need that imagination should separate from it any perverse
strangeness of exterior circumstance before enjoying the essence.
Such an artistic form had already been given to life when
art, reaching the period of its greatest perfection almost
simultaneously with the fulness of political maturity, gathered
up as it were this living beauty, and reflected it back again
upon life. My intention is not to sketch here, even in out-
line, its magnificent development ; it is sufficie::it to indicate
what art was in relation to life.
I
II
BEAUTY AND ART. 411
Among the greatest and most attractive characteristics of
the Greek mind was that mobility of fancy which can become
absorbed in the intrinsic worth of any phsenomenon, and
which, while it did not bring with it any permanent bias of
disposition, could sympathize with and accommodate itself to
the changing nature of objects and of events. Yet this
characteristic has a limit — not only that limit which is in
itself a glory, the indefinable but perfectly distinct character
which marks out the most varied productions of Greek art
as having a common national stamp — but also another and
different limit, which it would be idle to blame and perverse
to imitate. That is, it was not really the intrinsic worth of
things which the Greeks sought ; everything was of value to
them only in as far as it could be made instrumental to human
development. Everything which could be utilized to produce
a perfectly harmonious constitution of man's whole mental
and physical nature, everything which could be permanently
expressed in this constitution, or could through it receive some
fresh manifestation, aroused their artistic imitative sympathy ;
they were much less inclined to that which in its over-
powering profundity and incalculableness left no alternative
but contemplative subjection and submission.
"We do not know their music, a fortunate circumstance
which has left room for modern times to become great in this
one art at least ; but according to all that their authors have
said on the subject, it was measure and harmony that they
principally esteemed in music ; they considered that those
were the elements which one might expect to exercise a
useful influence upon the temperament, disposition, and whole
conscious life of man, the improved mental condition thus
induced expressing itself in gesture, carriage, and action.
Hence nothing was more natural than the close connection of
ancient music with dancing ; the graceful and objectless move-
ment of the limbs in the dance was the simplest and most
sensuous expression and proof of the fact that the beauty felt
in musical sound was not overpowering to human nature, but
tliat on the contrary man could appropriate music as having
412 BOOK VIII. CHAPTEK III.
special affinity with his own nature, and could reproduce it W
the help of bodily organs. With regard to the development
of any melody, this capacity does not count for much ; the
connection between successive phrases in a really beautiful
musical composition carries us away from the well-known and
familiar forms of our own existence into the wide ocean of a
universal life in which all individual forms are dissolved ;
isolated turns and phrases may indeed charm by reminding
is that even this beauty of sound is not wholly incapable of
being reflected in human life ; but taking it as a whole, we
find that we have no choice but to give ourselves up to it
with unreserved self-surrender ; the agitation which it arouses
may pass off in tears, but the content of this agitation cannot
be presented in tangible form. Either this open sea of
universality to which music leads us was avoided by the
Greeks, or the error of venturing upon it was disapproved of
by their aesthetes. The extremely meagre thoughts concern-
ing music which are expressed with singular unanimity by
their philosophers make it seem improbable that any striking
degree of beauty had been developed in the actual practice of
the art; on the contrary, the fashion in which (in the same
matter-of-fact way in which one would draw up a catalogue
of the most familiar objects) they set down definite mental
conditions as effects which might always be expected to be
produced by definite styles of melody, or hoped by State
regulation of the kind of music to be cultivated, to establish a
disposition favourable to the existing constitution — all this
indicates that poverty of artistic content which commonly
tries to make up for its deficiencies by doctrinaire over-estima-
tion, analysis, and interpretation of that which has been
attained.
Little has remained to us of all the wealth of song which
Greece possessed. We have express testimony of that which
we might have guessed — namely that among the ancient
Greeks, as among all other nations, mothers sang lullabies to
their little ones, and sailors lightened their toilsome rowing,
and shepherd and peasant shortened the lingering hours with
J6EAUTY AND AKT. 413
song ; but this popular poesy has not been transmitted to us.
The kind of Greek song which we know and which is framed
according to the rules of art, presents two peculiar features.
One is a predilection for the picturesque presentation of
events which are set before us like a succession of living
pictures, not with epic detail but effectively condensed ; not so
much related as brought into sudden relief by masterly
delineation of the main outlines ; not presented with the
measured symmetry of epic verse, but seeking appropriate
living expression in passionate rhythm. The inclination to
make fable prominent may have a deeply-rooted cause in the
fact that all human thought and action and life and suffering
seemed incapable of being a worthy subject of poetry unless
it had types and likenesses in the Olympian world and in
mythology from which poetic imagery was ordinarily bor-
rowed; on the other hand, it was no doubt a liking for
plastic sensible phaenomena which led Greek fancy not to
linger in immediate contemplation of the content of feeling,
but to illustrate it indirectly by looking at living examples.
The other characteristic is the habit of storing up the outcome
of poetic excitement in some general proposition or some
proverb of practical wisdom — and thus in this way, too, taking
refuge from the agitation of emotion in the definiteness and
calm of a general conviction. It is difficult to estimate
impartially this gnomic element, which in Pindar and in the
choruses of the tragic poets continually alternates with graphic
historic pictures. There is no doubt deep meaning in the
trite expressions and commonplaces with which in practice
we often try to brace ourselves in joy and sorrow ; they could
not have become commonplaces if they did not include
something which, rightly understood, would suffice to com-
pletely calm our agitation. Now if the poet insensibly guides
us in such a way that, as through a rift in a cloud, the content
(still existent) of reflection which has thus grown into habit,
suddenly appears to us in all its original heartfelt meaning, he
will produce the finest possible effect by words and thoughts
V'hich in their insignificance seem to the uninitiated to be the
414 BOOK VIIL CHAPTER IH.
most commonplace on earth. We not unfrequently meet this
lofty and earnest beauty in the songs of Pindar and the tragic
poets ; but sometimes only its external form is present, and
poesy hovers about the line beyond which what is really prose
becomes almost exalted into poetry by the solemnity with
which it gives itself out as such. Greek lyric poetry moving
thus between the two poles of gorgeous historic painting and
impressive admonition, does not exhibit much of the true
spirit of song. In the numerous remains of this lyric
poetry which we possess, we hear many a tone sweet or
beautiful or passionate or intense, but that which is expressed
in them is the mere human beauty of man's nature. All the
charm and tenderness and graceful dignity exhibited by
favourable specimens of the race — especially in as far as all
this finds sensuous expression in gesture and demeanour — ■
exercised a strong influence upon the Greek mind, and was
apprehended and imitated by their artistic imagination. But
this imagination does not reveal to us the unfathomable depths
of the individual soul, and the incalculable fashion in which
it apprehends the world.
To illustrate some universal truth of practical experience
by reference to great examples was the task undertaken by
the Greek drama also, and beside this task the full delineation
of human character and of the special justice which brings to
each his own peculiar and appropriate doom falls noticeably
into the background. As mythology had once for all set out
the meaning of the heroic characters in the large firm out-
lines which the nature of the case demanded, the drama, with-
out any great liking for mythology, borrowed from it, in order
to elaborate into characteristic individual forms these general
sketches of human dispositions and destinies. This can
hardly be denied unless we apply different standards to old
and to new ; trying in the first case with microscopic acuteness
of vision to jprove by instances the beauty of works of art, and
reserving for modern art an inexorable appeal to the immediate
impression produced, which alone is competent to decide how
far the beauty that has been proved to exist is aesthetically
II
II
BEAUTY AND ART. 415
effective. As regards the influence of art upon life, which ia
what we are here considering, this peculiarity of the Greek
drama was an advantage. The subtle psychological analysis
and delineation which in the masterpieces of modern dramatic
art seeks to dive into the innermost recesses of the human
heart, can never hope to be universally understood, nor even
to meet, in narrower circles, with uniform and harmonious
comprehension; but antiquity, ignoring those inexhaustible
depths and taking characters that all could understand,
depicted the destinies of mankind with broad firm , strokes
wliich found appreciative comprehension in the living sym-
pathy of the people. And it did this all the more because
both subject and mode of treatment were determined by
ancient custom ; the poet was not at liberty either to find his
heroes in any obscure corner of the world, or to make any
strangeness of his own humour the keynote of his representa-
tion. The fact that the persons of tragedy M'ere always taken
from the circle of native heroes ; the repetition of the same
story by various authors ; the maintenance of the national
philosophic views which yet allowed the special qualities of
individual poets to make themselves felt — all this had a
steady educative influence upon the people, and led it by a
definite series of aesthetic presentations, without confusing
multiplicity, to a capacity of judgment which has never since
been so widely diffused as it was then at Athens.
Among the arts that deal with form, painting seems to
have had least influence upon the national life, great as may
have been the height of artistic development to which it had
attained ; of infinitely more importance was the constant
sight of the noble and ideal forms which Greek sculpture,
with a masterly perfection which has never since been
reached, set before the eyes of the people. Having developed
to this degree, the art of sculpture busied itself about the
most insignificant as well as the most important tasks. To
us, who admire the isolated remains, the thought expressed
by many an ancient work of art seems to be too slight in
comparison with the labour expended in presenting it in
415 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER IIL
sculpture; but such works were tlien intended to serve
as fitting adornments of edifices the most insignificant
details of which were pervaded by a coherent idea of har-
monious beauty of form, and within the walls of which there
' paced figures whose costume, ornaments, and gesture seemed
like the living embodiment of the same idea. And from
what was finest and most beautiful in this world of art the
people were not excluded ; traditional custom turned the
attention of creative art to the temples, the places of
public congregation ; for the private dwellings of citizens
more modest adornment was thought sufficient. In those
places which the nation regarded as sacred, in those festivals
/ in the arrangement of which no other nation has come up
/ to the Greeks, life was more thoroughly pervaded by all the
^ splendour of art than it has been in any other age ; the
statues of the gods seemed to live among their worshippers ;
music and dance appeared to be the natural expression of
the mood aroused by the words of the sacred songs, and in
looking on at theatrical representations the excitement of
feeling passed into a more calm contemplation of human
destinies, a mental condition permanently raised above the
commonplaces of daily life. And the Greeks thus lived
I and moved, and as it were had their being in beauty, without
j that deification of art which is so common in our time ; \
they did indeed deify beauty, but not the human activity
by which it was produced. They did not even possess any
word by which art might be essentially distinguished from
any handicraft skill; so self-evident did it seem to them
that every free-born soul is capable of appreciating beauty,
and needs for producing beauty no more mysterious endow-
ment than that which in every kind of occupation distinguishes
productive from receptive talent.
§ 4. When the languages of the Greeks and Eomans,
respectively, are compared, that of the latter seems the less
flexible. If the Greek language forms its words in such a
way that each may be connected without break with those
that precede and follow, Latin seems to be animated by an
BEAUTY AND ART. - 417
almost directly contrary endeavour. The vowel endings are
less numerous, the frequent inflexional terminations in t, m,
and nt necessitate slower enunciation owing to their inca-
pacity of blending with most words that begin with mutes,
and give the impression of a sort of individual reserve with
which each word excludes its neighbour in self-contained
isolation. And the vowel changes have a more impressive
effect, since the phonic system of the Eomans contains a
smaller number of differences and these more sharply con-
trasted, and there are lacking many intermediate sounds
which give gradations of light and shade to Greek speech.
The Eomans gave up the article ; each word appears as a solid
and independent whole without this prop ; the conjugations
have fewer forms, and the declensions are only apparently
fuller because of their having retained the ablative. Tor as
compared with the Greek determination by prepositions, which
the Eomans neither used so much nor possessed in such
abundance, the ablative hardly does more than indicate the
existence of some relation, leaving it to the hearer to guess,
within wide limits, the more definite nature of that relation.
The language is still poorer in those particles so frequently
used in Greek to indicate the subtle contrasts, connections,
limitations, and links between the different ideas of the
speaker, the expression of which contributes little towards
the communication of matter of fact, but helps greatly to
make clear the mood and the subjective view of the com-
municator. Hence, as compared with the soft drapery of
Greek speech which revealed the most trifling modifications of
thought, the Latin language has a sterner aspect ; it groups
together more simply and concisely the items of fact, ex-
pecting the hearer to add that which is unexpressed. And
yet this mode of speech is not less expressive and impressive,
producing its effect by the position of the words, the peculiar
construction of sentences, and even by the omission of ex-
pressions which might have been expected. The gestures
which in other cases are an accompaniment of speech, and
can make clear the meaning of the most imperfect language,
VOL. IL 2d
418 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER III.
are here contained, in a certain fashion, in the very structure
of the sentences ; these characteristic forms of construction
supplement the meagre melody of speech as with a clear
harmonious accompaniment, and produce the impression
of that stern pomp and suppressed passion, which in the
Latin language always invite the reader to declaim, and give
the hearer the idea of a life full of power, and using its
splendid resources with calm mastery.
It is customary to estimate at a low value the artistic
endowment of the Eomans as compared with that of the
Greeks. Without disputing this judgment, which is well
founded, we must yet attribute to that which they accom-
plished (in harmony with the genius of their language) in
this department also, an historical significance which, though
different in kind from that which appertains to the art of
the Greek nation, is hardly less important. The Greeks
made up in clearness of perception and in constructive power
what their imagination perhaps lacked in warmth and in-
tensity of feeling. As no living expression, no hidden
excellence of proportion in the human form, and no beauty
of attitude in the living subject was neglected by the sculptor's
art among the Greeks, so their poetry with lucid freshness
reflected all the habits of mental life, as well as external
occurrences. It could enter into any circumstances with a
flexible sympathy which enabled it to represent how these
circumstances would affect the generality of men ; it repro-
duced with the characteristic colouring every feeling of pain
or happiness commonly resulting from the experiences of
life in the human mind ; it never lost itself amid those
obscure movements of distinctively individual emotion, which
as they are to one mind inevitable are to another unintelli
gible ; it is nowhere disturbed by an intense longing to reach
beyond life as it is, to a higher peace — to a sacred joy in
life and an unforced equanimity in the contemplation of it,
The mind of the Eomans seems to have been differently
constituted. More phlegmatic, and with less airiness of
imagination, they could less easily be satisfied by the many-
I
I
BEAUTY AND ART. 419
hued brightness of life, behind which their religious belief
discerned a network of obscure connections between things —
enigmatical relations which were the more oppressive to
human life since no glory of redeeming beauty was shed
upon them (as it was in the case of the Greeks) by a circle of
divinities who were to them as living realities, and from
whose human-like customs these connections of things might
become intelligible. Also in social intercourse the Eomans
exhibited a greater sense of their own individual personality
and of the mysteriousness of alien personality ; the Greeks
felt themselves and regarded each other far more as mere
specimens of their kind, whose ambition might intelligibly be
directed to superior excellence in performances which might
be severally compared, but not to the attainment of some-
thing unique in the individual. Thus there arose among the
Eomans that reflective turn which obtained for their poetry,
in the judgment of modern nations, a preference over the
colder and more objective repose of Greek poetry which it
did not quite deserve. For the greater warmth of their
reflective and contemplative imagination lacked that power of
artistic construction of which it required a specially large
measure. Now if to a soul that is passionately stirred it is
as unsatisfying to take things simply as they are, as it is
impossible to fashiqn the restless content of the mind to the
calm beauty of a nature not its own, there remains no alterna-
tive but voluntary renunciation — such as seeks to secure
to the soul that stands opposed to things a dignified com-
posure and an unchanging demeanour, by warding off all
disturbances from without and all outbreaks from within
that might interfere with the braced and steady calm of
manly firmness. This path of self-suppression was taken
by the Eomans, and it led them to the development of a style
of aesthetic representation which has permanent historic
value.
Unceremonious communication is not generally carefully
precise in expression ; the order in which we give utterance
to our thoughts concerning the connection of things is not
420 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER III.
always in correspondence with those thoughts themselves,
for sudden stirrings of emotion hurry on our words in advance
of the natural development of the subject, or force them back
to a point which they ought to have passed. Greek speech
abounds in such incoherences and looseness, of which the
syntactic justification is often as difficult as the psychological
justification is easy, and which in facile superabundance and
in alternate sudden breaks and awkward additions reproduce
the natural and often charming irregularity of living speech.
The Latin style of expression is constructed with much
more conscious design, and even where it imitates Greek
models it does not simply follow the course of thought, but
(aiming at orderliness and a completeness which gives due
prominence to each essential relation, and omits what is
I unessential) compresses the really important content in fixed
and regular structural forms. Every other and perhaps every
^ /, higher aesthetic superiority may belong to the Greek style,
U^ but the Eoman style aims much more than it at an ideal
• y*^ of Correctness, It is pervaded by the sense of an intrinsic
'^ order in all things which may be made the subject of
communication ; without entering into the variety of their
nature with pliant imitative fancy, it seems under an obliga-
tion to observe with regard to them general forms of order,
which guarantee to their content, as it were, distant respect
without slavish submission, and at the same time secure this
respect from being violated by subjective caprice.
In the practice of art among the Eomans, this characteristic
is repeated under a variety of aspects. They copied all tho
artistic forms of the Greeks, and always, even when they
^^ /I borrowed matter as well as form, the copy in their hands
became something quite different from the exemplar. Even
in the older imitations of Greek plays, of which there still
remain fragments, the sternness of the ancient Eoman
character gives to the style a striking stamp of strength and
J trustworthiness; as advancing civilisation permitted greater
refinement of form. Elegance appeared as the distinguishing
characteristic of Eoman art. The idea and name of elegance
3
(jX
BEAUTY AND ART. 421
occur here for the first time, and later culture has learnt
afresh to value the quality by contemplating the specimens of
Eoman elegance which remain to us. There is no doubt that
the Greeks possessed a gift of greater artistic value in their
capacity of becoming absorbed in the full beauty of things ]
without the intervention of reflection, and of reproducing that 1
beauty with all the naturalness suggestive of having lived and )
moved in it ; but in art, as in life, the higher does not so
include the lower as to hinder the lower from developing to
characteristic and irreplaceable worth if its evolution is
allowed to proceed undisturbed. As the sharp-angled forms ^
of crystals when compared with the unanalysable grace of i
flowers still retain their own inalienable charm, so the \
elegance of the Eomans holds its own beside the beauty ot
the Greeks ; and taking our civilisation as a whole, the former \
could not without loss be replaced by the latter.
The great master of elegance, Horace, has shown by precept |j. ^fc*'^
and example what it is. When he requires the poet to say
what is ordinary after an unordinary fashion, what he asks for
is neither an idle play of enigmatical designations nor useless
pomp of words, but a kind of justice towards things with
regard to which we are in the habit of being unjust. The
dust under our feet arouses neither our attention nor our
admiration ; yet the microscope finds in it crystalline and ' ^
vegetable matters, the characteristic forms of which would
captivate us if the confused intermixture in which it all appears
to our eyes did not prevent our perceiving and distinguishing.
In the same way the world and life are full of events, the
frequent occurrence of which has diminished their value in
our estimation, or to the characteristic significance of which
we can only give an indifferent, distant, sidelong glance,
because of the eagerness with which — and rightly — we press
forward towards goals of more importance. It would only be
a fresh injustice to bring forward and distinguish with special
preference these things which have hitherto been unjustly
neglected ; what is just is, not to pass them over with the \
trite and well-worn phrases of everyday usage, but as we observe \
422
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER III.
A
i>>
X^
A^y them and then pass on, to suggest the forgotten value which
they conceal by some uncommon turn of expression prompted
by happy insight. The appertaining of vi^hat is small and
insicmificant and confused to the same world that holds what
is grand and beautiful and distinct, is brought into notice by
the careful aad concise style to which we have referred,
without offending against truth by artificial enhancing of
insignificant values. This is what Horace calls the un-
ordinary expression of what is ordinary, and with this
artistic intention which aims at elegance, the means which he
uses are connected. So his poetic art — like that of others —
employs imagery not merely to give a twofold expression to
the same content, and also not merely — by help of the
palpable plainness of some simile — to give clearness to a
thought that is difficult to set forth; finally, it does not
merely reckon upon the probability that feelings which such
a simile may excite (and which attach themselves spontaneously
to it) may apply also to the object concerning which it is used,
without any express incentive — an incentive which, in fact, it
would not be possible for the poetiy to convey in express terms:
on the contrary, by exhibiting the one event that it wishes to
emphasize by means of other and similar events, it abolishes the
isolation of the one, and shows it forth as entitled to constitute
part of a world in which the most essential features of its
character occur and are of value, in other places and under
other circumstances, forming part of the general plan of the
whole. Eoman fancy uses such similes with great precision ;
by the perfect finish of its brief figurative expressions, a feeling
of certainty and assurance is awakened, and this feeling
is strengthened by the very strangeness of the con-
struction which often essays to combine ideas from other
than the ordinary standpoint. For the success of these
essays convinces us of the steady coherence between the
parts of the thinkable world ; since this, being considered in a
variety of aspects, yet always appears as a self-contained
whole. The same end is served by many analogous means —
the sparing use of ornamental predicates, the due proportion
BEAUTY AND ART. 423
in tlieir distribution, and in the general grouping of ideas
between which a musical or artistic play of connections and
contrasts is plainly aimed at ; and lastly, the predilection for
working out a thought to that statuesque simplicity in which -\ '
— all that is unnecessary having been got rid of, and all that is |
necessary having been brought into the sharpest relief — the
thought is presented to us as the classical expression for all
time, both of the nature of the object of thought and of the
right way of regarding it.
Plenty of empty brilliancy of form has no doubt resulted
from the following of these rules by poorly endowed poets ;
but this form of procedure furnishes a favourable testimony
to the vitality and character of the people ; it reveals even in
the productions of depraved ages and unruly spirits the back-
ground of a grand discipline of thought which could never be
wholly broken. And in other respects also Roman elegance ^-^xi "^
is not to be despised in comparison with Greek beauty.
Certainly its chief endeavour is to elevate and give weight to /^
what is in itself small and slight and insignificant, in order to
give to our temper and our philosophic views such equable- ,
ness of tone as characterizes a good picture, and it is true that
with this aim it minifies what is great ; in place of the over- i
powering tones of living passion, it generally substitutes the
colder reflection in which contemplative thought considers the
gain and loss of a struggle which has already come to a
conclusion. But when such procedure cannot attain the
highest poetry, it may yet give an air of grandeur to the
prose of life. Society, as well as intercourse with Nature,
produces innumerable situations from which all really striking
beauty has wholly disappeared; means to an end which are
in themselves indifferent, and the attention which they require
place keenly felt obstacles in the way of mental activity ; a
world of worthless externalities bars the way to that for
which our soul longs. Where any occurrence of domestic or
public life may be transfigured, either by its own content or
by immediate connection with a world of aesthetic or religious
thought, the Greeks have not failed to consecrate it thus in
424 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER IIL
a striking manner; but to give interest and an air of
stateliness to that prose of life which obstinately refuses to
be transformed into anything but prose, and to do this by the
mere mode of treatment adopted, was a task the merit of
accomplishing which belonged to the Eomans. Their mode of
thought, which in art created the special notion of elegance,
introduced into life a not less special dignity in the formal
treatment of all kinds of subjects. With the declining
vitality of the nation, reverence for the sacredness of legal
institutions (once the fairest flower of Eoman thought) became
weakened, and only ceremonial and the external regulation of
splendid ostentation continued to receive further develop-
ment ; and these themselves were elements which, after the
fall of the empire, helped (amid the chaos which characterized
the beginning of a new order of international life) to pre-
serve the thought that everything has some particular mode
which, and which only, is right for it. From this legacy left
by the Eomans the men of succeeding centuries derived a
large part of that which gave beauty to their life ; and that
portion of this legacy of which we are the historic heirs, stUl
works more powerfully within us than the artistically more
,, important heritage that we have received from the Greeks,
1^ which affects us by rousing us to conscious imitation.
Numerous forms of expression which have been transplanted
into modern languages, the character of our public solemnities
and the difficulty on all such occasions (and for inscriptions
on monuments, records of solemn ceremonies, or brief and
pregnant sayings) of replacing the statuesque style of
Eoman speech and custom by substitutes of home growth —
all this still bears witness to the lasting influence of Eoman
civilisation — an influence from which, even now, we have
\ scarcely begun to try and emancipate ourselves, and for the
j advantages of which we do not as yet know any adequate
substitute.
§ 5. Between the fall of the ancient world and our own
times, the temper, morality, and aesthetic feelings of mankind
have experienced many changes, which must be passed ovel
BEAUTY AND ART. 425
in silence by our brief survey, which is concerned only with
the lasting results of these developments. There were set
before imagination increasingly difficult tasks, which roused it
to passionate agitation; but there was an absence of those
favouring conditions which in the age of classic antiquity
made it possible to impress upon life a stamp of harmonious /j/'
beauty.
To the ancients the starting-point and goal of all human en-
deavours were, as a whole, plain. Nature lay before them as the
only reality ; in unceasing creation, which is its very essence,
and without pursuing ends situated beyond the sphere of its
phsenomena, it brought forth even the human race, as the
fairest among its perishable blossoms ; that man should live in
harmony with Nature was the common conclusion at which
the ancients, setting out from the most various premises,
had arrived. Excellence of national disposition and the
intellectual candour of an active spirit of investigation pre-
vented this adherence to Nature from being carried out by
obedience to every rude and blind impulse, and every noble
and attractive quality of the race was cherished as a distinc-
tive endowment by which Nature prescribed to man a path
which leads beyond the limits of the animal world ; to the
fair ideal of humanity thus formed, a rich and harmonious
development of characteristic morality and custom was insured
by an almost undisturbed national evolution. But no recog-
nised aims lay beyond ; the course of events might pursue the
same round for ever and ever ; Nature might go on to eternity
producing fresh relays of short-lived mortals, each generation
of whom, after having exhausted the good things which its
organization enabled it to develop and to enjoy, would be
reabsorbed into the same universal Nature. Now doubtless
there will always be a secret contradiction between this
sacrifice of self to Nature and its transitoriness, and a civilisa-
tion which, the more noble the aims which it recognises,
only presupposes the more an eternal preservation of all that
is good ; the impetus of eager and exuberant activity easily
carries men past unsolved problems which press upon those
426
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER III.
.,v
U
who have leisure. So that antiquity did not in theory ovei
come the discrepancy in its philosophic view, but neither did
it allow this discrepancy to influence its temper. It neither
sought nor found that higher world, into the eternity of which
the transitoriness of this debouches; yet it did not, like
oriental pantheism, take pleasure in extolling the frailty of the
individual. A happy talent for making the most of mundane
existence, and pleasure in the increasing success of efforts in
that direction, helped to compensate for the great deprivation
of not recognising any significance beyond that of a mere
passing natural occurrence in even the very highest of its
works, that is, in the cultured development of human life.
As long as the creative activity of antiquity traversed an
ascending path, and as art and political life were fruitful in
the production of new forms expressive of the ideal of the age,
while historical circumstances were favourable to attempts at
their realization, so long the still impetuous general movement
of civilisation carried men safely over the weak place in their
philosophy, and the fits of doubt and despair which appeared
in isolated minds and at isolated moments, had little influence
upon the general temper. In course of time such favouring
conditions failed, and antiquity, having exhausted its creative
strength, developed uncertain, dissatisfied, contradictory tempers
which attacked the hitherto received philosophy on all sides.
Another foundation had from the beginning been given
by Christianity to the new civilisation which was to grow up
upon the ruins of that which was passing away. Christianity
had demolished the calm self-sufficingness of the secular
world ; the life of humanity which to the ancients seemed like
a never-ending uniform stream, was by it compressed into
a course of stern dramatic development between the two events
of the Creation and the Last Judgment, and (as compared
with the Kingdom of Heaven) depressed to a mere brief stage
of transition ; that to which man was destined no longer
appeared as the goal at which our being naturally aims, but
was regarded as attainable only by conflict with innate im-
pulses, of which the noblest seemed to be hardly more than
BEAUTY AND ART. 427
splendid vices ; great Nature herself was no longer considered
as the sole cause of things or the mighty Mother of all, but
merely as an instrument in the hand of Providence ; and
even to this vocation she was thought to have been untrue —
the intrusion of sin had distorted her features, and there was
in her a mingling of memories of what was divine with inex-
plicable self-will and the seductive charm of evil powers.
These richly coloured pictures of a vast cosmic history
entered perhaps more generally and deeply into the imagi-
nation of the people of the Middle Ages than the spiritual
content of Christianity did into their heart ; and they did not
have merely the same effect as other similar oriental pictures
which afford us glimpses of the beginning and end of the
world hovering in mythic obscurity at inconceivable distances
of time. In times of historic light — times of which the detailed
outlines were recognisable — there had happened the greatest
marvel in the providential guidance of the world ; bringing with
it into its own dazzling reality, all connected circumstances
whether past or future, making them look as if they had
either just happened or were just about to happen. Men
did not see symbols, with regard to which they were uncertain
as to how much was figurative and how much real and serious,
but they actually stood in the current of universal history and
felt themselves carried forward by it.
Thus, whilst antiquity only cared to see with the eye of
intuition what things were, and whither their development
was tending, the imagination of the new age developed a
taste for subtle inquiry ; it distinguished everywhere between
what things appear and what they signify or what they are
a means to ; life was to be ordered after a pattern, the sole
content of which had first to be discovered by intei-preting an
ideal that soared high above all reality ; but resigned obedience
to the ordering of this life had at the same time to struggle
with the discouragement constantly arising from a conscious-
ness of the merely conditional value and temporariness of all
earthly existence ; finally, this diflBcult task had fallen to the
lot of nations which were not supported by any heritage of
428 BOOK VIII. CHAPTEK III.
long-accustomed civilisation. Christianity did not imme
ately supply this want ; it had indeed ennobled from within r-
the developed forms of ancient life as long as these lasted ;
but systematizing ideas capable of furnishing a foundation for
new constructions, could not be easily obtained from its
simple ideal content. Perhaps it is rather the case that all
the characteristic contrasts of the Middle Ages were held
together by the fact, that the vigour with which they
grasped a high ideal lacked all thoroughly developed insight
into the articulation of the instruments necessary to prepare
a place for it in the world of reality. With the aim of
antiquity — to develop what Nature prescribes — was given
also the way by which that aim might be reached ; but
the new ideal of sanctification towards the attainment of
which all Nature affords no aid, left the question. What shall
we do to be saved ? without any such definite answer.
Proximate ends, the earthly vocation of men, admitted of
various interpretations ; salvation might be sought in various
ways. Yet neither in penitential aversion from all the
interests of earthly life nor in the excitement of knightly
combat was full satisfaction found ; both these modes of
life were at the best conflicts with threatening evils ; but
they were not productive of any material gain which
could be cherished and guarded; just as little was labou
capable of setting all longing at rest ; occupied by the
pressing needs of life which were regarded as being necessary
only on account of earthly imperfection, labour for a long
while felt a sense of its own meanness and could not
regard itself as direct service in the work of sanctification.
Thus human life attained to no clear views concerning its
earthly tasks ; it was the reconstruction of society which
gradually, at first, toned down the excitement of the prejudice,
which made men think that they must do once for all in
this life work which had an inalienable place in the universal
order ; instead of feeling themselves called upon to be con-
scious participants in the construction of the great universal
fabric, men learnt afresh the lesson of valuing every unim-
BEAUTY AXD ART. 429
portant situation resulting from human intercourse as afford-
ing scope for the exercise of moral strength, and learnt not
to seek in life anything more lofty than it is capable of
affording.
Thus there had not been developed a generally received
type of human culture ; but every rank and condition had its
own code of morals, and sought in the exact observance of
transmitted ordinances an historical justification of its mode
of life, in place of that ideal justification which it lacked.
There was never a greater multiplicity of forms and observ-
ances than in the intercourse of the society built up out of
all these multifarious distinct elements ; but this very state of
things corresponded to the theoretic philosophy developed by
the Middle Ages in contrast with antiquity. The eye of
antiquity was captivated by that which is general and
homogeneous in human life and in Nature, and which is
ever recurring in inexhaustible variety of manifestation ; it
made no great effort to comprehend the world as a whole.
It was not possible for Christian imagination to have so
much sympathy with this generality ; what it regarded as
the really efficient agency in the world was not that nature
of things which works homogeneously in a variety of subjects,
but that divine Providence which has a special purpose with
regard to every individual, and assigns to each his share
in the building up of the whole. Minds were very earnestly
directed to this unity of the world, which consisted in the
congruence in one plan of innumerable individuals ; specu-
lative philosophy as well as practical life neglected the
region intervening between the Whole and the Individual —
those generalities of homogeneous activities and simple laws
by means of which alone the materials of any edifice can be
combined into one whole. The knowledge handed down by
tradition having become meagre, the educational curriculum
of the Middle Ages sought to compress encyclopsedically the
sum of all that was knowable into one great whole, in which
the sciences were arranged in an order that corresponded to
the place which the subject of each seemed to occupy in the
(
430 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER III.
divine plan of the universe. What was accomplished was
far from being equal to what was designed ; but even the
external forced and far - fetched concatenation which was
brought about shows how vivid was the belief that all
things are closely connected parts of a divine cosmic order
— the unsubstantial truths of mathematics as well as human
history and the rich variety of Nature in products and
events. In this cosmic construction, which was regarded
not as the simultaneous production of a manifold from a
homogeneous cause but as the combination into one whole
of the most heterogeneous members, a social system com-
prising many varying codes and callings naturally found a
place.
This mode of thought which regarded nothing as self-
contained, but considered everything as either significant of
or connected with something else, could not favour impulses
to aesthetic construction. An exaggerated leaning towards
symbolism caused a disproportionate value to be set upon the
significance of phsenomena, and weakened men's susceptibility
to beauty of form, which depends more upon general laws of
the reciprocal relation of several elements than upon the
intellectual significance of the whole which these constitute.
Delight in the splendid profuseness of life itself was foreign
to this philosophic view, and would have remained foreign to
the age also but that it is not possible for any philosophic
view, however deeply rooted, to wholly alter the unvarying
natural tendencies of the human race. So that the men of
/ the Middle Ages, notwithstanding the oppressive solemnity of
their idea of cosmic connection, had also a liking for fun and
enjoyment; and notwithstanding their mania for symbolic
distortion, took pleasure in self-sufficing beauty of form. But
even in the imitative arts they did not attain to any origi-
, nality in the reproduction of beauty ; for a long time sculpture
and painting were mere vehicles for the expression of actual
thoughts, feelings, or situations — aiming at first at mere con-
ventional indication of their meaning, but afterwards at
natural and powerful expression. At last art bethought
BEAUTY AND ART. 431
itself that its productions ought not to be of merely commer-
cial value, but should be developed to creations having a full,
beautiful, and characteristic reality of their own. In architec- ,
ture alone — the activity of which does not, to so great an
extent, presuppose unfettered and original skill — it was possible
for works of great and special merit to be produced by imita-
tion of existing models, and a sense of the complex beauty of
proportion (a beauty susceptible of realization) both in the
whole of an architectural production and in its details. Such
works sometimes combine into clearly expressed unity a
multitude of members differing from one another ; and some-
times by adopting a principle of construction which seems
rather suited to a picture or a landscape than to architecture,
they recall that characteristic manifoldness of human life
which it is difficult to take in at a glance. Poetry, as an art (c<^"^
of words, needed for its full evolution a considerable develop-
ment of language, and this during a large portion of the
Middle Ages was lacking ; for not only were the languages of
some of the nations slow in becoming fixed, Latin remaining
for a long time the instrument of communication among the
learned, but the undeveloped state of society had still more
influence in hindering the advance of language as the instru-
ment of social intercourse. There lacked that cultured
language which thinks and poetizes for us, and the thorough
development of which, up to a certain point, is undoubtedly
a necessary condition of complete perfection in poetic form.
Profound feelings did unquestionably find powerful expression
in national songs ; but even narrations which conformed to
the rules of poetic art did not succeed in giving a perfect
representation of the rich poetic content of ancient legends ; \\/
form remained inferior to content.
And this was the general fate of the age. It lived a life
full of poetic impulses from the strength of which it suffered ;
but it was only in the mind of posterity that there was
developed a comprehensive consciousness of what that age
might have been to itself, if it had not been hindered by
so many obstacles from recognising and realizing its ideal.
432 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER III.
As life began to take in a high degree an intelligible form,
imagination, which always seeks to find its way by a short cut
from the pursuit of common aims to the secret of the Eternal,
turned back with a feeling of preference to the picture
presented by the Middle Ages — or rather to the ideal antitype
of this which it had constructed for itself. For indeed as a
matter of historical fact this romantic temper in looking back
could nowhere find such an age as that which it thus pre-
ferred ; the actual Middle Ages were richer in good and in ill
than the dreamy temper of romance, which everywhere sought
the infinite in the finite, and turned away from intelligible
ends — richer in real interests, the obstinate individuality of
which was not wholly exhausted in symbolism ; and like-
wise richer in natural barbarism and eccentric cruelty
— that are the heritage of primitive savagery (which it
took Christianity a long time to tame thoroughly) and
of those fanatical wanderings to which a misunderstanding
of great ideals commonly leads. But stiU this age has
left to us a very important legacy, namely that dissatisfac-
tion with what is merely phsenomenal and that longing for
the infinite which give the keynote to the sesthetic temper
of modern times and to its poetry ; although the age itself,
mistaking the noblest sources of its life, not unfrequently
imagines that it may become greater by imitating other ideals
than by developing its own.
j § 6. If we glance at the monuments of Eomanesque and
! Gothic architecture, at the flourishing condition of painting in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, at the progressive develop-
ment of music and the treasures of poesy which the Eomance
and Germanic nations of Europe, vying with one another,
successively produced in rich abundance, we are convinced
that the human race was not lacking either in susceptibility
/ to beauty or in power of artistic construction at the period of
^ transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era. A
decision concerning the comparative greatness of these two
endowments at this period and in antiquity finds equal
hindrances in the difficulty of the subject itself and in the
i
BEAUTY AND ART. 433
many prejudices that have been produced both naturally
and artificially ; there will be more unanimity in the com-
plaint that the echo which even the best of the more modern
art found in real life appears to have been incomparably less
than in antiquity, and even where considerable to have been
of a less satisfying kind. For the Greeks at any rate appre-
ciation and enjoyment of beauty were a substantial part of
life ; and though no doubt the culture which makes men
capable of both was unequally distributed among them, yet
the less intelligent were surrounded, as by the atmosphere
which they breathed, by a kind of artistic rhythm which
had impressed its stamp even upon the customs of ordinary
life. The gulf which separated the life of more modern
nations from their art, ^vas wider ; men became accustomed
to contemplate an ideal kingdom, far removed from living
reality — a region which it was both possible and delightful
to look up to, yet the contemplation of which could not be
regarded as part of the proper business of life, but rather as
a relaxation from it. It seemed to them that among the
innumerable wonders which the universe contains, and in
which men (incapable of examining more than a part of the
whole) take a spontaneous interest, art is one — that it grows
and blooms like an exotic plant, the marvellous productive
impulses of which, deviating from all indigenous models, from
time to time captivate and interest the fancy.
We here find art not as yet detached from aU connection
with religious, public, and social life, though the nature of the
reciprocal contact shows its superficiality. In antiquity,
religious worship was the living act of the national mind, to a
great extent supplying poetry with its raison d'Stre, its content,
and its form ; what art furnishes to us is formal powers (which
it attributes to its own nature) that may be used to embellish
religious worship ; even now, in moments of peril which
rouse passionate feeling, it may rise to adequate expression of
the national consciousness ; but in times of rest it finds no
fixed popular ideal of morality and life from which to borrow
the form and content of its productions, and there is put at
VOL II. 2 E
434 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER IIL
the service of its formal means of expression only one-sided
party tendencies, or petty private interests, or capricious indi-
vidual views of life ; it does not penetrate social life in such
a way as to become as it were its very rhythm, but among
the many dishes which society serves up to help while away
the time, art also brings its contribution, which makes a
change and is an assistance. It would be a misapprehension j
■ of these remarks to take them for a denial of the real worth'
/ of modern art or of the powerful effects which it produces j
even under such unfavourable circumstances ; but we think it
desirable to bring these circumstances into prominence. It
would, however, be just as great a misapprehension to take,
what we have said as applicable only to the dull multitude
/ which has always been without appreciation of beauty;
in order to understand all the barbarism of our attitude
/ towards art, we must call to mind arrangements which, by
I their commonness, have already wholly ceased to affect us
j^ -^{'^' unpleasantly. We crowd pictures together, one above
another, in galleries, so that the impressions received from
them are mutually destructive ; the resolution to erect any
great architectural work is followed regularly and as a matter
of course by a discussion as to the style to be adopted, that
point being regarded as an open question ; at concerts, whichi
are given in places and at hours the choice of which is deter-
mined by causes known only to the person who provides
them, the hearer's soul is canied compendiously through a|
whole series of masterpieces ; occasionally some quiet valleyy
invaded by a troop of singers, without knowing why, suddenly^
hears chanted by a hundred voices the praises of its modest
violets which bloomed so long unseen:; the theatres are
opened almost nightly, and it would be hard to say whethei
the sentiments or the taste of the spectators are most culti-
vated by their rich variety of material and style ; fortunately^
there is a less frequent recurrence of the pleasures of the!
Carnival, which is as incoherent in itself as it is devoid of
any living connection with life, and which has long age
forgotten what originally gave rise to it. All these exhibit
BEAUTY AND ART. 435
tions of varied beauty and artistic skill take place for their |/
owu sake, and do not mark any important epochs of human ^
life ; they connect the enjoyment of art with fixed times, in
the same way as, at any rate, Protestant worship does divine
service ; as in the one case the world is left to itself for six
days, but on the seventh men " go to church," so in the other j^
case the prose of life is sharply marked off from moments of
poetic exaltation.
Of all this we can alter nothing. The modern spirit, i
which analyses and investigates critically, has begun in all
departments of life to seek for rational foundations ; with
conscious calculation it aims at constructing society according
to principles which do not leave to the once characteristically
various multiplicity of social conditions either a raison d'itre
or any significant task to accomplish ; the very course of
events, by inevitably procuring recognition of the human
rights of every kind of labour and of every labourer, has con-
tributed to the levelling of society, even to uniformity of
costume, and has fixed a moderate temper as giving the tone
to social intercourse — a temper which has to be on its guard
against the intrusion of elements of intense dulness, and
which will scarcely allow that the external forms of life
should be informed with beauty. The tendency of the general
instinct seems rather to be towards entirely purging social
intercourse from all poetic elements, which would appear as mere
fantastic inequalities in its measured sobriety, and to reserve
all excitement and enthusiasm for the retirement and solitude
of the private life of individuals. Here the best part of our
mental development is accustomed to take refuge more now
than formerly, fearing all publicity as almost a profanation. -^
I have already remarked that this characteristic of our time
does not in itself make it impossible for art to exercise great
influence upon men's minds, nor for its productions to have a
high degree of perfection; yet in both these respects the
characteristic referred to is not without effect. The less the )
thought and style of art are the direct expression of popular >
philosophy, and the more its works seem to be the arbitrary
>
436 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER III.
constructions of an imagination that is merely making un-
restrained trials of its strength, the more easily does art evoke
critical estimation of the merit of its representation, instead of
sympathy with its content. There has been plenty of criti-
cism in all ages ; and on the other hand I do not maintain
that single-minded devotion to and enthusiasm for beauty are
things unknown in our day, but a careful comparison ofj
the productions of art (the business of which is to embody j
beauty) is more frequently met with ; the peculiar pleasure of]
connoisseurship, the satisfaction arising from intelligent know-|
ledge of the instruments and tricks of art, their histories
development and their application in particular cases, and
half critical, half literary interest in the procedure of creative
/ imagination — all this lessens our susceptibility to the imme-
diate impression which it is yet the sole final aim of sucl
^ imagination to produce. As the collector shuts up in port-
folios the works of art which he has brought together, contenfel
to possess them and to know what aesthetic impressions they]
are capable of producing, if ever the hour of unrestrainec
enjoyment should come, so all of us are in a general wayj
■^- satisfied to possess an intelligent consciousness of the latent]
power which beauty has to stir our souls ; sestheticism con-
gratulates itself on increasing sympathy, in proportion as the]
living emotion produced in the soul by the objects which it
judges becomes rarer.
Art itself has also suffered from the causes which have pro^
duced these conditions. Mankind have not, indeed, wantec
for great geniuses since (from the end of the Middle Ages
onwards) the increasing enlightenment and many-sidedness of
social culture have afforded opportunities of evolution to such]
minds. With the exception of sculpture and epic poetry]
(essential conditions for the prosperous growth of which were
lacking), there is no art which has not in this period reachec
the highest point of development. A long series of the most
illustrious names, versatile minds equal to the greatest of
antiquity, adorn the annals of Italian art ; more solitarj
indeed, but in the same degree more great, is the lofty genius
I
BEAUTY AND ART. 437
of Shakespeare, whom Northern Europe can boast. Yet there
is a frequent complaint that the productions of these powerful
minds, together with those of the illustrious men of later
times, are (notwithstanding their greatness) lacking in that
classic perfection of form which has made antiquity the one
epoch that can be regarded as affording models to the art of
succeeding times. I hold that neither this praise of the
ancients nor this blame of the moderns is just, if taken in the
careless generality with which both are commonly expressed.
The ancients seldom failed from individual caprice; their
world of artistic thought and their favourite methods of
treatment grew so directly from their popular philosophy, and
were so generally established by tradition and constant
practice, that even the less highly endowed minds attained to
the harmonious use of artistic forms as easily as in our time
they do to irreproachable social behaviour ; and this very
harmony of treatment occurring in an immense number of
works of art causes us to regard as among the essentially
necessary conditions of beauty, much which even in the
antique works themselves is mere conventional manner.
Modern art lacks the advantage above referred to. It grew
out of passionate needs of the soul, the satisfaction of which
men had to search for since they did not find it ready to their
hand, either in science as it then existed, or in social
intercourse, which was in a state of disruption, or in the
political constitution of public life. Modern art therefore had
not the simple task of giving an artistic reproduction of beauty
of which it had had living experience, but it had the double
task of finding first an ideal which should satisfy its longings,
and then the forms in which to embody this ideal. The
revival of antique art could only partially further these ends;
much could be learnt from its forms, but as far as its content
was concerned, this did not come up to the demands made by
the spirit of the later age. When for some time men's
dominant endeavour was to reanimate literature, art, and
politics with the spirit of antiquity, what took place was not
an historically necessary development, but a conscious move-
\y^
438 BOOK vm. chapter hi.
menfc, which, choosing freely among various directions that
stood open as possible paths of further development, selected
a particular one in preference to the rest. The want of a
generally accepted ideal, and the necessity which there is that
every age, every nation, and every individual genius should
fix once for all its own highest aims and its own forms of
expression, introduced into modern art its varied and rapid
alternations of style, and gave to its works as compared with
those of antiquity a predominant stamp of intellectual wealth.
Tor we may very well describe by this phrase the impression
which we receive when imagination, instead of being borne
along by the general current of the age, and reflecting without
effort some representation of the universe which has become a
kind of second nature, undertakes independent investigation
and analysis, in order to arrive at some interpretation of
reality, of which reality itself cannot refuse to recognise the
truth, Incontestably this free action of imagination is oftener
exposed to aesthetic failure than imaginative activity which
works in subordination to a fixed ideal ; modern art was not
satisfied by representations of universal, typical, generic beauty,
but became absorbed in profound depths of human existence
which had been previously untouched, and sought to investigate
the mighty coherence of the universe with many a passionate
question concerning its significance — thus it was in danger,
on the one hand, of arriving at fanciful conclusions, not
recognised by reality as justifiable, and, on the other hand, of
neglecting formal beauty of representation on account of the
predominance of reflective activity. In many works of wit
and sarcasm and insolent caricature, capricious fancy has no
doubt overstepped the limits of beauty; but, on the other
hand, if poetry attempts to portray the secret development of
human character, if painting is only satisfied when it can
succeed in presenting a reflection of the story of such
development compressed into the action of a moment, if
music, stripping off from our feelings all remembrance of their
earthly occasions, so enlarges and exalts them that their
movement becomes the interaction (not describable in words
I
I
BEAUTY AND ART. 439
of those univer-al forms of the connection of elements upon
which all the joy and all the pain of reality depends — -if all
this is so, and if we take as our model abstractions derived
from a far simpler age, it is easy to disapprove a large part of
the wealth of modern art, but difficult to be impartially just
to the lofty beauty which has assumed new and unique forms
under these more complex manifestations ; finally, it is in any
case impossible to give up what we now possess, and to
return to that greater simplicity which can no longer satisfy
our hearts.
In spite of its slight connection with the higher aims of
art, modern life is not wanting in a special aesthetic element,
that has, in course of time, made itself felt in many and
various ways. The modern spirit of criticism and of self-
conscious reflection first showed itself in Italy ; the cultiva-
tion of knowledge of aU kinds and formal excellence in
all the dexterities and refinements of style, both in language
and in the intercourse of life, were the ends at which it aimed,
and which in many brilliant instances it attained ; the large
and significant views which constructive art inherited from
the Middle Ages, views by which it held fast and which it
was able to embody with a technical perfection which made
rapid progress, afforded a wholesome counterpoise to the
unrestrainedness of this subjective spirit. Political disasters
interrupted the progress of this development, and Italy
abdicated to France that living dominion over the rising
modern world which it had for a time possessed unquestioned.
In France the gradually perfected centralization of govern-
mental power had caused the formation of a coherent and
exclusive society of aristocrats, who, being compelled to keep
comparative peace among themselves, and being furnished
with abundant means, but destitute of any great aims in life,
were forced to employ their intellectual strength upon
problems of social intercourse. The condition of the people,
which furnished the necessary basis of such a society, was
miserable to a degree ; indeed, the epoch taken as a whole
was by no means a Golden Age, that men need wish back
440
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER III.
i
again ; but it was undoubtedly this isolated concentration of
action and reaction between the most favoured constituents of
a great State, which first gave to the spirit of modern times a
characteristic sesthetic expression.
It was language which above all experienced the influence
of these favourable conditions. It was developed as it had
been in Greece, by means of living conversation, though not as
there in the publicity of a great political life. Such con-
versation dealt with all imaginable subjects of reflection from
all possible points of view ; and being thus compelled both to
use brief and clear expression, and to clothe opinion in an
agreeable dress, the French style became formed into the most
perfect prose that up to that time the human mind had
succeeded in constructing. There is but little of the aroma
of poetry about it, as might be expected in the instrument of
expression used and formed by a society not accustomed to
manifest its deepest emotions ; but it has the well-defined, lucid,
orderly movement and the conscious respect for generally
recognised conventional rules which were likewise necessary
in such a society ; it does not show the interesting but
awkward originality with which, in the prose of the ancients,
we often see the thought that is to be communicated unfold
from its germ, and as it were seek its fitting form, but as
becomes the heir of an old and reflective civilisation it
skilfully lays hold of the most diverse among familiar points
of view, and accomplishes its object by means of abstractions
and modes of combination applicable to them all ; in these
respects it corresponds to the character of the modern spirit,
the strength of which consists not in flights of artistic
enthusiasm in which it rushes upon its objects, attracting
attention and betraying its own inward excitement, but
in the unobtrusive business-like way in which it gets rid
of difficulties, being conscious of knowing ways of solving
them which are of general application. It is not surprising
that through this spirit of clearness and precision the French
language obtained dominion all over the world — a prerogative
which it has only gradually lost. In Germany the rise of a
BEAUTY AND ART. 441
Iiio-her kind of art to which the genius of the French language
was not adapted, caused its supremacy to be set aside, but a
substitute for its prose has hardly yet been found in that
country. The living unity of society was lacking there ; the
too great predominance of learned culture thence arising, and
the inherited error of not only learning from antiquity, but
also of imitating it, caused German prose to be for a long
time awkward and confused, and the language itself and its
resources to be more unfamiliar to the people than in other
countries. For let the Germans not deceive themselves —
though the whole nation can read and write, he is a happy
man who need not hear the reading nor see the writing ; the
gulf that still exists between the perfection of the language in
the masterpieces of German poetry and the style of ordinary
life is wide indeed. It wall only be gradually filled up as the
education of the circles which do not go to antiquity for
guidance increases to such an extent that they can give to
the modern modes of expression which they use for modern
views and interests the established character and fixed form
which it is quite in vain to expect from ancient models.
The peculiar character of the time found more whimsical
but not less animated expression in the much abused Eococo
style which became dominant in the ceremonies of social
intercourse in costume, buildings, furniture, and even in
the laying out of gardens and of pleasure-grounds. It is easy
for us, guided by the teachings of historic periods which were
more favoured in an artistic point of view, to reproach this
style, because, being destitute of feeling for the characteristic
truth of things, it distorted the real nature of everything
without exception that it attempted to beautify, and with
odd caprice imposed arbitrary forms and laws upon every
department of life into which it intruded ; yet it cannot be
said that this caprice was incoherent and inconsequent.
Certainly it had no other principle than that of the sovereign
and unrestrained will with which the subjective mind moulds
all given material into a creation that is according to its own
fancy ; but it did not merely apply this principle with rare
f
442 BOOK Vm. CHAPTER IIL
consistency to things, but with stern discipline brought even
human life under self-imposed laws of etiquette. Certainly
the forms which it forced upon all objects and all relations
cannot be understood by reference to any artistically justifiable
principle of form ; but the very end aimed at was to be
invariably graceful even amid all the complete arbitrariness
of this procedure, and where there is a cessation of all rule
dependent upon the nature of the thing, to find by the power
of the mind itself a definite law of the production of pleasure.
It would be mere scholastic pedantry to deny that in many
cases this was accomplished ; not only do we trace with
pleasure in countless individual utensils, buildings, and
fashions of the time the bright and graceful flight of
this arbitrary fancy, but among all the styles which have ever
pervaded life in all directions this as a whole seems to be
quite the most in harmony with natural receptivity. Who
would not admit that Classic and Gothic art unfold a
refined and lofty beauty that is more to be reverenced than
this ? But at the same time we may admit that they are
alien to us, and that especially every renewal of the antique
in our life looks like a learned pretension to the possession
of superior understanding, whilst in defiance of all aesthetic
systems, we always sympathize with the Eococo style.
But this too has passed away ; and the aesthetic elements
which life in the present day still retains appear much
more insignificant. We often hear quoted the saying that
architecture is frozen music : hence I have some hope of
gaining a modicum of undying fame by taking a step further
and calling mathematics desiccated music. For what element
of music does mathematics lack except the living sound ? All
its other elements and resources are common to it and to
music, or, more correctly speaking, music borrows them all
from mathematics. Now it seems to me that what haa
remained to us as the good genius of our age, is just a mathe-
matical element of exactness, neatness, concise clearness and
simplicity, supple versatility and pruning away of all super-
fluities. As compared with the roundabout procedure and
1
BEAUTY AXD AET. 443
awkwardness of innumerable regulations of earlier times, what
a preference do we now see for that elegance which charac-
terises the most concise solutions of difficulties ! What
brief and severe simplicity do we see in the structure of
machines ! what vast effects produced by the ingenious
combination of simple means !
Undoubtedly there is beauty even in this, and we may
rejoice heartily in that genius of modern times, which no
longer wearing antique draperies, or dreaming through life
with flowing hair, goes with shorn locks and close-fitting
garments ; and we may hope that it will raise from this small
germ a mighty tree filling life with fresh beauty.
CHAPTEK IV.
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE.
Comparison of Eastern with Western Life and Thought — Nature and Social
Life as Sources of Religious Ideas — Preponderance of the Cosmological
Element in Heathendom, and of the Moral Element in Judaism and
Christianity — Christianity and the Church — Returning Preponderance of
Cosmology in the New Philosophical Dogmatism — Life and the Church.
§ 1. rp^HE East has been the birthplace of all those
T
religions which have had a decisive influence on
the destinies of mankind. And not only has it (as the father-
land of all nations historically important) forestalled future
ages by giving birth to the germs of all religion — religion being
one of the things earliest developed by the human race — but
also even in later times the religious life of the West is
distinguished from that of the East by a permanent difference
of disposition and of the course of development. In the latter
the imagination of men became early susceptible to the
numerous analogies by which visible reality points to some-
thing beyond itself, and drew in grand outlines pictures of
a supersensuous world, which contained the beginning and
the end, the completion and the explanation of the world we
know. And the manifold content of this faith was no mere
impotent dream of enthusiastic moments; the thought of it
pervaded the insignificant customs of everyday life, the rules
of commerce, and the ordinances of morality ; the obligatory
commands, which seemed to flow from it, received unquestion-
ing obedience, whether they demanded the long self-denial
of a life of penance, or some one supreme sacrifice ; even
general social and political arrangements were (without
separating between divine and human law) governed by anj
ever-present thought of the great universe, of which all'
earthly things make but a dependent part. This broad and
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 445
widely-comprehensive view remained in many respects peculiar
to the East, and still has an imposing effect upon us, but the
blood of the Western nations cannot endure for a continuance
that repose of cosmic contemplation in which this view
causes men to become absorbed.
The more exclusively imagination aims at combining the
manifold of reality into a whole in the unity of one plan, the
more is every particular arranged and fixed in its own proper
place, and cared for and subordinated within the clearly-
marked outlines of this whole — supposing, of course, that the
attempt at unification appears successful. We are stimulated
to advance by the unknown reaches of the path that lies
before us ; to have an early view of all attainable goals only
makes men wish to continue undisturbed in the position in
which they happen to be, and beyond the horizon of which
there lies nothing essentially new. To such an early survey
and to such quiescence did the nations of the East attain ; the
universe as a whole seemed to lie finished and complete before
them ; it had been such from eternity, and the future could
add nothing to it. Many things in it seemed uncertain, but
nothing really was so ; there was no such thing as a merely
probable development of cosmic history capable of being
determined by some exercise of human freedom ; there was
no field for the exercise of inventive activity which might
enrich life by new productions, or accomplish by purposive
struggles anything more than that which, being preordained,
would come to pass without human effort ; according to the
immutable ordering of the whole, man can choose nothing
except what he cannot avoid, namely to live that part of the
life of the universe which falls to his share, and to suffer and
rejoice therewith. It is true that even within these limits
human nature (which is never wholly brought into subjection
to its own philosophic views) finds room for untamed passions ;
but the only goals which these can have are visions of pride
and sensual delights — visions which fall to pieces when the
passions that gave rise to them are burnt out, and which do
not affect the old order of things, which goes on unchanging
446
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER IV.
and undeveloping. Therefore, however agitated the course of
oriental life may be in detail, looked at as a whole all its
activities appear to be enclosed by a broad framework of
resigned quietism.
The West developed a contrary bias, and this the more
vigorously in proportion as it freed itself the more thoroughly
from oriental traditions. Its imagination was never directed
so eagerly to a comprehensive view of the world as a whole,
but all the more eagerly to those universal laws upon which
the reality and movement of the world itself in every particular
depends. The oriental representation of the complete and
finished condition of the world and of the circle of its phseno-
mena exhibited a universe that had been perfected once for
all, which no one could add to or take away from ; but to gain
a knowledge of these universal laws the world had to be
regarded as something imperfect, to the perfecting of which it
was possible to contribute ; for these laws taught men to
comprehend not only the condition of what actually existed,
but also the possibility of much that as yet did not actually
exist ; and opened to the mind that was struggling onwards a
prospect of reconstructing — for its own ends and by the help
of these laws — both external Nature within narrow limits and
human life within much wider limits. For such a mind
there was possible a history in which human action should
determine the as yet formless future to new and hitherto
indefinite developments of reality.
It is said of philosophy that if the cup is merely tasted it
leads man away from God, but that if it is deeply drained
it brings him back again. Perhaps this saying is equally
applicable to the whole mode of thought which in occidental
civilisation gave rise to its characteristic restlessness — to that
spirit of progress which must be for ever bringing change into
every department of life, and to the investigating and analysing
spirit of philosophy itself. For certainly that which first
makes a distinct impression upon the mind is the alienation
from God and from what is divine to which on the whole the
course of this period of civilisation has unremittingly tended.
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 447
In as far as imagination influences life^ the horizon of human
imagination has undergone progressive contraction in pro-
portion as there has been an ever-progressive increase of clear-
ness in the diminishing field of vision to which it restricted
itself. With growing knowledge of natural products, and
increased skill in making use of them, men's insight into the
connection between them and the supersensuous world has not
become clearer, but attention has been weaned from dwelling
upon the connection as one of the problems which have to be
considered ; and life and morality have become more and more
separated from the content of religious belief, regarded as the
source of obligation, and have become more and more estab-
lished upon secular principles of their own. Esthetic sensibility,
averse to ideals of vast and eternal significance, has turned
from what was great and exalted to what was elegant and
correct and to the activity of intellectual resource exhibited
in it. Art is hardly able to cope even with what is merely
historically great, but in genre-painting it gives characteristic
reproductions of fragments of life. In science, dependence on
experience has taken the place of speculation, and elements
and general laws of action have supplanted the predetermin-
ing oneness of creative and formative Ideas as means of
explanation. In a similar way in the department of practice
individual rights are being brought into ever greater promi-
nence as compared with the duties demanded by consideration
for the whole ; and finally, we see that increasingly general
acceptance is accorded to the principle of letting every
individual power act unhindered, and of expecting the most
satisfactory condition of human affairs from the equilibrium
which the various forces will reach of their own accord
through the reciprocal action of all.
All these features cause Western civilisation as compared
witih Eastern to have the aspect of a whoUy profane or secular
life which does indeed willingly submit to the general condi-
tions and laws which govern the course of things, and skil-
fully contrives that these forces should work for it ; but is little
conscious of any necessary connection between its thought and
448 BOOK vni. chapter iv.
action as a whole and a supersensuous world, and is of opinion
that it only needs, and need only regard, as much of what is
divine as may be expressed in the form of general laws for the
regulation of moral conduct. Undoubtedly the entrance of
Christianity into the Western world was like a mighty inflow-
ing wave which interrupted this ebb, but it has not prevented
it from resuming its course. Dogma and worship are equally
poverty-stricken, and efforts which aim at their rehabilitation
have to encounter increasing aversion ; religiousness dis-
appears from morality even while morality ir.creases in
humanity and refinement ; not only does the articulation of
secular society avoid all ecclesiastical control, but even the
coherence of church communities becomes loosened by the
growing demands for independence made by individual
opinion. Are these conditions signs of a general retrogression
of humanity, or do they conceal an advance which appears to
us to be primarily occupied in breaking up the old forms of
religious life, but which does not leave us without hope that
in the future those old forms will be replaced by new ones ?
§ 2. Nature is commonly our earliest guide to religious
contemplation. Observation of Nature leads in various ways
to attempts to supplement the perceptible content of reality
by continuations which are visible only to the eye of faith.
Imagination looks to the past, seeking in histories of the
origin of the world an explanation of the wonders of the
existing universe — wonders which could not, it seems, have
owed their birth to such an order of Nature as now obtains —
and it looks also to the future, seeking to find some con-
tinuation of Nature into which the swift-flowing stream of
earthly life may empty itself and find continued existence;
the two lines of fancy are connected together by a more or
less comprehensive knowledge of reality so as to constitute a
whole of greater or less completeness. If no other interest
than the merely theoretic one of explanation were involved
in this cosmological construction, it would attract no greater
sympathy and attention than the geological opinions of the
Neptunists and the Vulcanists, or than the equally divergent
1
I
THE RELIGIOUS LIFK 449
conjectures which imperfect astronomical science once put
forth concerning the structure of the starry heavens. But
in those cosmological views there is always contained some
expression of men's conclusions concerning the worth of the
world, and the amount of satisfaction which the order of
Nature affords or refuses to the irrepressible needs of the
human soul ; and with the pictures which are drawn of the
powers which create, preserve, and guide the universe there
is always connected a more or less developed view of the
position which man occupies with regard to them, or the
attitude which in action he should hold towards them. It is
only for these reasons that we can with any justice seek the
germs of religion in such complementing of natural phsenomena
and such combinations and explanations of them ; we can
attribute all the significance implied in the name Cosmology, to
those systems only in which that is made the standard of
worth and the point of departure which in existing theories
has but a secret influence — I mean a conscious recognition
of the unconditioned validity and truth of Morality and
Holiness as compared with all that is, or seems to be, matter
of fact.
Now if the whole of Nature lay before us we should see its
manifoldness combined in a unity which — being the perfect
reflection of what ought to be — would teach us what the
significance of Nature itself is, what our place in it is, and
what the aims of our existence are. But such insight as this
is reserved for the end of time. To every natian that has
entered on the path of civilisation. Nature has displayed but
a small section of its whole content ; different in different
zones and climates and unintelligible in its connection without
the enlightenment to be supplied by investigations which
have not yet been carried out ; unfit to form the basis of a
comprehensive view of the world, because the condition of
that which has been observed seems to leave diverse modes
of completion equally admissible. Imagination always finds
in the course of Nature traces of harmonious and beneficent
wisdom; besides these it always finds also traces of discord,
VOL. II. 2 F
450 BOOK VIIL CHAPTER lY.
harshness, and cruelty; it finds much which leads it to
believe in a righteous Providence and much of which the
Nature is such that this belief can only be held in defiance
of it. Different nations have become absorbed in the con-
fusing complication of these facts — men with different degrees
of mental activity, with different temperaments, and under
the influence of very divergent modes of life; and according
to the measure of their endowments in these respects they
have attained to philosophic views of greater or less fulness
and lucidity. But even the greatest fulness, \vith the keen
eye for Nature which belongs to developed cosmologic insight
(such as characterize the mythologies of the classic nations),
can scarcely be regarded as having ever been a blessing in
themselves. To the distant observer the richly coloured and
realistic circumstantiality of those mythologies appears as an
enviable filling of man's whole life with thoughts which
unceasingly connect all its trivialities with the grandeur of
the supersensuous world, and it exalts, in our view, the
festhetic importance of those nations with whom it is found ;
but these nations themselves were hardly ever led by the
natural-philosophic element of their religion to any useful
progress in life and humanity, but often enough to great
errors and to a useless squandering of human powers.
Observation of Nature easily leads to a conviction that
there is some supersensuous power which rules events, but
no observation of Nature teaches moral truths. It can
teach that the destruction of every individual may have its 1
significance in the plan of the whole ; that from every life that
is trampled out another life may spring ; that all the powers
of Nature in an unceasing cycle may combine in the continual
production, destruction, and. reproduction of phsenomena in
never-failing regularity; but with all this it leaves wholly
undecided whether indulgence towards others and sacrifice
of oneself, or conversely trampling upon others and asserting
oneself, is that to which we are morally called ; as a conscious
prolongation of the course that Nature unconsciously takes,
the one mode of action has as good a claim to consideration
THE EELIGIOUS LIFE, 451
as the other. That which is, does not enlighten us concerning
that which we ought to do, unless we know beforehand what
meaning we ought to attach to that which is. But how this
ambiguous world of phsenomena is to be taken and understood
by men, whether the way in which it is interpreted and used
will be a blessing or a curse, is determined by the mind
which man brings to it — by the degree of civilisation which
the moral influences of society have enabled him to attain,
and upon the development of which Nature herself (not as
instructress but as the sum of conditions promotive or
obstructive) undoubtedly has an important effect.
If social conditions have provided but meagrely for the
cultivation of the moral consciousness, men must be destitute
of standpoints and conditions necessary for taking a coherent
and comprehensive view of Nature and of the order of events
— a view in which there is room for the accommodation of
individual contradictions. And being thus destitute they
must lack also that wholesome ballast which is capable of
preserving imagination from yielding unresistingly to the
impressions produced by individual striking phsenomena. In
such a case the unstable mind is driven by the incalculable
influence of fortuitous combinations of ideas, first of all to
this or that interpretation of phaenomena, and then to such or
such maxims of conduct — perhaps to maxims of foolish soft-
heartedness or perhaps to others of barbarous cruelty. And
this danger is a permanent one ; it reappears under some
fresh form at every stage of civilisation. It is a danger that
threatens even when a vigorous and developed intelligence
that has long been in possession of many-sided experience and
of various standpoints from which to estimate things, can no
longer be imposed upon and led into narrow-minded mistakes
by isolated phsenomena, being able to rise above many indivi-
dual contradictions to a consciousness of the all-pervading and
eternal harmony of the universal order. For even supposing
that it does thus rise, yet a just perception of facts does not
of necessity involve a just estimation of their worth. On
the contrary, the higher our trains of thought soar in their
452 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER IV.
progress to ever wider generalizations, the more unstable does
their equilibrium become ; it needs but a slight alteration of
mood and at once our mobile imagination beholds the same
facts in a light which altogether transforms them, without
their having themselves undergone any change. When this
happens, nothing but a thorough and established moralization
of life can furnish a counterpoise of sufficient weight to with-
stand the effect on conduct of the wild theories into which
speculation is only too easily drawn, in its attempts to take a
comprehensive view of the universe. And finally, even when
reverence for the content of moral Ideas, undisturbed by any
doubt, rules the general mind and is the point from which by
common consent all attempts set out which aim at following
by faith the course of the world into regions which no
experience can reach : even in these times of religious culture
in the strict sense, the old danger will always lurk in men's
preference for a cosmological construction of philosophy.
With the voice of conscience and with that which we venerate
as revelation, we build up but very tottering bridges, which
are none the more secure because we use them with pre-
sumptuous confidence as a means of obtaining untrustworthy
glimpses of the construction and articulation of the universe
as a whole. Still more untrustworthy will be the conclusions
as to practical life which men deduce from cosmologic philo-
sophy, as though it afforded a representation of reality which
might be relied on. The aim of such an application of these
conclusions would be to deduce from a supramundane meta-
physic of the universe holier precepts and aims for human
guidance ; while perhaps on their account silence would be
imposed upon the simple absolute commands of conscience
which have no pretensions to universal knowledge.
If therefore the name of religion is to be exclusively
reserved for that form of spiritual activity which regards a
recognition of the divine order of the world and the subordina-
tion of our life to it, as conditions of salvation (and it is in
this sense that religion is commonly opposed to unbelieving
mcrality), we should be expressing but a part of the truth in
fl
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 453
lauding the improvement of the human race as attributable to
the influence of religion ; we should have equally to admit
that the progress of humanity due to the action and reaction
of society and to the development proper to secular life, on
the one hand has supplied religious belief with new questions
and subjects of consideration, and on the other hand by its
quiet, obstinate, and ever present resistance has blunted the
edge of those injurious extravagances into which the world-
interpreting, world - creating flights of devoutly inspired
speculation were apt to run.
§ 3. By what thread of connected tradition or by what
recognisable law of progressive development those successive
forms of religion may have been determined which have
gradually arisen among the civilised nations of our hemi-
sphere, are matters which I leave undecided, considering that
they cannot be exhaustively discussed in this place. And
even the hasty survey which I propose taking for the confirma-
tion of the foregoing remarks, must be curtailed.
Where social life is very little developed and reflection
lacks the breadth of view which can be given to it only
by a stirring life and constant intercourse between one's
own thoughts and those of others, the foreshadowings
of a supersensuous world which may be called into exist-
ence by even the most everyday occurrences, remain
chaotic and incoherent. Fetich-worship, with very natural
confusion, while it reverences the mysterious power resid-
ing in every object which happens to strike the senses,
neither identifies this power with that in which it inheres
nor clearly distinguishes it therefrom. It is not this lack of
conceptual clearness which causes Tetichism to take such a
low place among the different forms of religion, but the
absolute indefiniteness of its ideas concerning the nature of
the supersensuous power which it venerates. It regarda
this as nothing but a certain degree of mysterious in-
determinate capacity, not any fixed kind of volition or
activity, susceptible of specification. Such power is to be
found in every object, but any one object may possess it
454 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER IV.
iu a higher degree than any other ; for men to try, by prayer
and sacrifice, to make it favourable to them is but a trans-
ference of natural human action in reference to human wills ;
in the nature of the incalculable demon itself there is no
iu.telligible ground for even this most simple worship. The
'same poverty of thought makes it difficult to estimate the'
gain to life of presentiments of immortality. The idea of
the absolute annihilation of anything which has once been
observed in the vigorous exercise of perceptible activity is
as incomprehensible to undeveloped thought as the idea of|
anything's arising from absolute nothingness ; belief in the
continuance of the soul after death is more natural and more
ancient than the belief in its annihilation, which is among
the earliest mental products of a somewhat advanced civilisa-
tion. But the poor philosophy of the early stage is equally
unable to assign a content to the continued existence in which
it believes and to its notion of a supersensuous power in
things ; where future existence is not conceived of as a copy
of earthly life, the soul is supposed to join the ranks of the
obscure powers of Nature ; it continues to exist as a ghost,
that is, with the general attributes of the spiritual life of man,]
but without humanly intelligible ends. Such unsatisfying]
ideas neither can become sources of moral convictions nor do;
they readily admit of being connected with such convictions ;l
but the ideas themselves would have taken a very different]
turn if a greater degree of moral cultivation had led men tol
seek beneath the siirface of phenomena something other than]
vague forms of life and powers different from our own.i
"What is taught by fear and sympathy can at any rate, asj
contrasted with such a faith, be developed to practical preceptiij
and the rudiments of worship ; but what such precepts and]
such rudiments shall be is decided by the purely accidental
course of unbridled imagination and the bias of temperament;]
tliey are apt to run into superstitions deformed by witlesSl
sorceries and bloody abominations of sacrifices to the dead.
One of the errors that seem to us most strange is theil
J
piiying of divine honours to animals, and yet there is antj
THE EELIGIOUS LIFE.
455
intelligible cause for it in dawning religious feeling. Social
intercourse teaches men to know one another in a wholly-
secular aspect ; they find each other busied with small and
changing and contradictory interests which are perfectly
intelligible and have nothing of the obscure grandeur which
imagination admires in those natural forces which work
unconsciously. When man has once begun to contrast him-
self and his fellows and all his human interests with the world
and that strange power residing in it which constitute the
first object of his confused reverence, he can find nothing in
which this power appears more expressively than in the
activity of the animal kingdom, which in all its manifesta-
tions impresses us the more on account of its voicelessness
and our inability to understand the extraordinary instincts
which it displays. It is true that without some flights of
imagination this contemplation cannot give any definite content
to our notion of the supersensuous, but at any rate it views
this under the exalted notion of a spirit-life that broods over
strange ends, unintelligible to us. We can see that while
men lived a life in which attention had not as yet been
attracted from physical existence by a multiplicity of
peculiarly human interests, such considerations might easily
give rise to the idea of transmigration of souls, an idea which
afforded an abundant field for the exercise of ingenious com-
parison and constructive imagination. There is no doubt that
at one time men's minds were seriously possessed by this idea,
and that in consequence a vast amount of human activity and
attention were squandered on wholly unmeaning and fictitious
objects. The belief was not refuted by science, but died out
from its own lack of interest, as there grew up around it a
civilisation which has its centre of attraction in the worth of
social and moral relations. At present we hardly think of
animals except as objects of domestic economy, or of natural
history, or as ornaments in a landscape ; that they have a
multiform mental life allied to our own, is a proposition
which we sometimes timidly advance as a probable conjecture.
And just as indifierently do we turn away from all the un-
456
BOOK VIIL CHAPTER IV.
remembered past which preceded our earthly existence ; as to
what lies beyond this we refuse material analogies in as far as
our abiding need for some sensuous representation of the
supersensuous will permit.
In every case in which fully developed civilisations have
culminated in comprehensive religious systems, in Egypt, in
India and in Western Asia, investigation takes us back to the
grand all-encompassing phsenomena of the heavens as the
point of departure from which religious ideas have set out.
Far removed beyond the reach of earthly contact, the heavenly
bodies for that reason stirred imaginative forebodings with their
far-away brilliancy, but they attracted attention still more by
the regularity of their movements ; the reverence paid to them
applied not only to their gladdening light, but it was also the
first homage that was offered to the notion of truth, and law,
and order, as the genuine content of the supersensuous. But
this germ which promised so much, seems to have come to
nothing as far as the development of religion was concerned.
Egypt owed to it noteworthy beginnings of astronomic
science, and an attempt to construct cosmic order by con-
necting it systematically with natural forces that were per-
sonified as divine beings. From the cultivation of this
wisdom (on which the ingenuity of the priesthood was
exercised) no gain accrued to life — nothing but the burden of
a ceremonial worship, which at best could only serve to keep
up a general feeling that it was being offered to super-
sensuous beings, but the symbolic significance of which was
unknown to the people. On the other hand, the wonderful
phsenomena of the Nile valley, connected as they seemed with
the course of the heavenly bodies, must have directed general
attention to the regular activity of the natural forces which
in steady rotation alternately call forth and destroy life. The
contrast between generative and destructive power not only
aroused mystic speculative reflection, but was also the subject
of popular mythology and of many solemn rites. Still the whole
sphere of religious thought does not seem to have been
dominated by it to such an extent as in Babylonia, where
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. '457
imagination was carried away by similar incentives to the most
extravagant worship of the universal generative power of
Nature. In Egypt alongside these cosmological myths, and
connected with them in a way that to us appears merely ex-
ternal, there was developed a religious view of human life.
This view was characterized by a conviction of the immor-
tality of the personal soul ; combined with the idea of a
judgment which should summon the spirits of the good to
a life of blessedness, and condemn the wicked to infernal
punishments and the purifying penance of passing through
earthly life again under the forms of men or beasts, this
system of doctrine most happily succeeded in keeping itself from
being overgrown by the speculations of natural philosophy, and
brought together those elements of moral conviction which
the full and various life of the oldest civilised nation had
developed.
This was a comparatively healthy realism, which, though it
attached human existence to an all-embracing cosmic order,
left the determination of the ends of human life to the
development of life itself, and not to cosmological speculation.
The excess of such speculation in India led, on the other hand,
to an idealism which, while it took away all meaning from the
world, took away also all meaning from human life. Here
imagination turned from the primitive worship of the heavenly
bodies, not to bring into prominence their order and regularity,
but to lay one-sided stress upon their changeableness and
transitoriness, and emphasized with fatal ingenuity the
necessity of one eternal primal being, which we should
conceive of wrongly if we imagined it to have any definite
content, and most wrongly if we imagined such content to
be continuous eternal rest, Indian speculation found it as
difficult as later philosophy has done to get back from this
indefinite being to the world of reality. It avoided those
mythical genealogies of divine beings which in other cases
fix the successive steps of the creation of the world,
while at the same time the failure to explain how and
by whom this progression was accomplished is hidden
458
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER IV.
Ly the imagery. Thus it came to pass that our want of
insight into the cause of the origin of the world was taken
to indicate an origin which had no cause ; the primal being,
misunderstanding its own yearnings, is represented by this line
of speculation as developing into a world which is illusive,
and which only seems real to its own individual members.
An appearance which arises without cause, and which appears
in orderly fashion to its own constituent parts, is but another
name for a reality which is as yet unexplained; hence this
mode of representation is metaphysically inadequate. On
the other hand, it contains a decided expression of opinion as
to the worth of the world ; the world is a mere appearance,
not because it is not real, but because it is not what ought to
be. As regards that which ought not to be, man's only duty
is the effort to remove it ; in the universal nothingness of the
world, the condemnation of which is unceasingly expressed by
the primal being itself in the constant destruction of all
created things, human life has no worth and no special ends ;
salvation lies only in turning away from it, in withdrawing
oneself from the influence of that world of appearances, which
is what it ought not to be, by annihilating all passion, and
finally all ideas and all thought, and returning to the painless
condition of the unconscious primal being. This despair of
life is not to be regarded as resulting from speculative
error in interpreting the universe ; it must have proceeded
from psychological causes, from the general tone of mood and
feeling which we can no longer analyse, for it pervaded all
Indian thought and even practical life with a power which
belongs to no doctrine that is not in harmony with the
popular mind. Even Buddhism, after it had sought to free
men's minds from the fetters of Brahmanism, of ceremonial
service, of distinctions of caste, of the horrors of transmi-
gration of souls which threatened ever renewed tortures of
existence, ended with the same thought and aimed only at
facilitating the return to nothingness. The power which
this belief exercised over men's souls is shown by that
inclination for an ascetic life which inspired such countless]
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 459
numbers with an enthusiasm for penance and unheard-of
self-torture. The great mental endowments of the people
were expended uselessly under the guidance of such views.
The development of knowledge was insignificant ; notwith-
standing great refinement of feeling, morality did not recognise
the unconditional sacredness of goodness ; strictly speaking, it
knew nothing of sin, but only of ill, which is the cause of
mental disquiet; hence all virtue consisted in cultivating
skilfulness in escaping from this ill. Finally, in course of
time, like all other similar extravagances which, becoming
unable to maintain their original elevation, produce some
mechanism of custom as a residuum of enthusiasm, Brah-
manism and Buddhism (and the latter in the end to a greater
extent than the former) became secularized into the utter
aimlessness of monastic life and cerem.onial pomp.
Thanks to a more robust mental constitution, the cognate
Iranian races obtained better fruits from the germs of religion
which were common to them and to the Indians. Zoroaster's
teaching added a dark shadow to the light which men
worshipped; here, the delusion by which the primal being
was supposed to have been confused, and misled to create the
world, was replaced by the darkness of an evil principle
which limits, but only apparently, the just and true develop-
ment of the good principle of light; at the end of that
conflict between the two which fills the world, the evil will
succumb to the kingdom of light, and then nothing will be
except what ought to be. In this conflict man has to take
part. The natural symbolism, which in all times has made
Light the image of the Good, and Darkness the symbol of
Evil, allowed of this hurtful, equivocal, ill-favoured, natural
phsenomenon being assigned to the realm of Ahriman, and
(while the final victory of Ormuzd in the future was
held to be certain) also allowed a multitude of practical
precepts, which prescribed intelligible ends of daily action
and reasonable moral obligations, to be connected with the
Clear dualism of principles which was adopted. But neither
did this form of religion escape the fate of having its great
460
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER IV.
thoughts buried under a superfluity of external forms by the
ceremonial pedantry of a growing priesthood.
S 4. We encounter other phaenomeua on European soil
The Greeks as well as the nations above refeiTed to felt some-
thing divine in natural phsenomena before they recognised it
in the law of conscience. But their thoughts were absorbed
neither in the abyss of universal being in which all form dis-
appears, nor in considering the intelligible secrets which each
particular in its own place was called upon to indicate ; what
they took hold of and clung to was the beauty of the whole
and of each of its parts ; the more their civilisation advanced,
the more did that didactic part of the content of their myths,
which at one time was common to them and the Eastern races
with which they were allied, fall into the background beside
the characteristic beauty with which they endowed their
divinities and the world they inhabited. Calm, steady
development, the domination of motley multiplicity by the
unity of one ever-repeated rhythm and all the fair proportion,
clearness, and purity which the world of the senses presents
to us — these are not in themselves moral concepts, but they
are modes in which things exist and comport themselves, which
we strive first to realize in ourselves as conditions or resulta
of morality and afterwards to find again in the external
world. Hence favourable natural surroundings from which
such impressions may be obtained, may contribute their part
to the taming of wild impulses and to mildness and beauty ot
disposition, but the larger share is undoubtedly contributed by
a successful development of moral life in society ; it is this
which first gives susceptibility to and interest in the beauty
of the external world. And this it was which early with-
drew the attention of the Greeks from the significance of their
deities in Nature, a subject the consideration of which has
always proved unfruitful as regards religious development;
their imagination substituted for the vanishing mysteries of
this secret meaning the obvious and expressive beauty of ideal
forms, the characteristic variety of which reflected the
infinitely higher secret of the manifolduess of mental life.
I
I
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. °46l
This representation of the world of gods (which was not accom-
plished without frequent misuse of poetic imagination) in
making them human made them at the same time moral.
As often as the popular conscience recognised the beauty and
urgency of some new moral obligation or some new ethical
Idea, men tried on the one hand (from the natural desire to
Tinderstand that which is greatest in the world as being also
the most perfect) to assure to the divine world the possession
of tliis beauty as a side of its wealth that had hitherto
remained unknown, and on the other hand they tried to raise
recognised duty above the fluctuations of individual judgment
and of variable moods by deducing it from the will of the
gods. Thus the Greeks improved their faith by the results of
living culture ; their most profound poets struggled to infuse
into the transmitted content of this faith their consciousness
of sacred truths and precepts, thereby deepening that content.
And it was just on this account that at last the feeling
became overpowering that the original basis which men
sought thus to ennoble was inadequate ; they found that all
which gives worth to human life may indeed be externally
connected with the names of the mythic gods, but has not any
essential dependence upon them. Then there came into
honour the simple name of God or of the Divine, used to
indicate the true source of what is worthy, to which source
the living longing of the nobler minds turned back in anxious
search.
It was the religion of individuals and not of the people
that came to this conclusion ; the popular religion which at
last fell wholly into ruins, never attained the coherent unity
of the religious systems of the East. Mythology arose neither
from a single impulse, nor from impulses that worked on
uninterruptedly. Notions that had diverged somewhat even
in the Asiatic home where they had their birth, had become
still more different in the European settlements in which the
various tribes lived on for a long time in isolation from one
another ; migration and intercourse with other peoples had
introduced foreign ideas concerning God ; local circumstances
462
BOOK VIIL CHAPTER 17.
had reduced many an image of some divinity which had
formerly been the same for all, to various different embodi-
ments; and jfinally, all such notions had early fallen into the
transforming hands of poetry. All this collection of cha-
racteristic ideal figures, consisting of symbolic personages from
ancient national legends and from the poetry of untrammelled
imagination, had grown to such vast dimensions that perfect
agreement about them had become unthinkable, and dogmatic
instruction as the foundation of a settled confession of faith
impossible. The world of the gods in its boundlessness stood
over against consciousness as physical Nature had stood over
against it from the beginning ; the latter, too, is not known in
all its parts by any man, but its main outlines are known to
all ; each has a limited region within which he lives, and the
peculiar worth of which he understands from actual experi-
ence. So in the wide world of mythological divinities each
had a special circle of tribal gods ; and to honour these with
traditional forms of worship was enjoined by the state, the
family, or some ancient religious guild, on all who wished to
be reckoned as belonging to it. But there was no church to
guard pure doctrine or to see that it was followed, no estab-
lished priesthood with any power over consciences. The
priest was the expert who knew the secrets of the particular
sanctuary in which he served and lent his aid as mediator to
the pious worshipper who came with offerings. Wherever
there was any censorship of religious opinions, it was exer-
cised by the political community ; the national worship of the
gods, upon which, as upon a primitive sacred treaty, the
welfare of the state was supposed to rest, was defended by the
state itself, on the one hand against the intrusion of immoral
foreign worship, and on the other hand against the disin-
tegrating enlightenment of home-born philosophy.
Before the moral deepening of the idea of divinity had
made it possible for men to pay unceasing reverence to this
idea by their mode of life, prayers and sacrifice and songs of
praise continued here, as in all cases, to be the only expres-
sions of gratitude, of spontaneous admiration, and of awful
THE RELIGIOUS LIFK
463
fear called forth by the gods, whom men regarded as bene-
ficent, or exaltedly beautiful, or finally as threatening powers
of Nature. A mixture of these feelings was the frame of
mind which the Greek conscience continued to require as
piety towards the gods. It is a long step from this frame
of mind to the definite actions by which it manifests
itself in men's lives. The will of the gods men did not
know ; to reverence it while yet unknown, and also to regard
the scattered revelations in which it now and then made itself
known ; not to be in any way haughty or presumptuous, but
to maintain a moderate frame of mind, being conscious that
the guidance of all things is in higher and mysterious hands
— such was the sole further development that the Greek con-
science was able to give to this evae^eia. Mythology could
not teach any more pregnant connection between human life
and divine decrees ; it had too entirely lost all remembrance of
the comprehensive world-history with which human history
had been interwoven by oriental imagination ; for it every-
thing was but a radiant present, the echoes of whose past
lived only in a few obscure legends, and which saw before it
no unfathomable future, nothing but its own steady uniform
continuance. Under however glorified an aspect men might
regard the gods, they yet never regarded them as the creators
of the world ; they continued to look upon them as con-
ditioned beings, the fortunate firstlings of a hidden creative
power; as ideal men and powerful helpers of their weaker
brethren in difficulties which yet even for themselves were
still difficulties. And for this very reason the moral deficien-
cies which were blots in their representations of their gods,
when the natural symbolism of the early legends had been
transformed into histories of personal beings, did not disturb
the sincerity of their reverence to the extent which might
otherwise have been expected. These pictures of the gods
lived in men's consciousness as expressive and characteristic
representations of natures, some of which were noble and some
ignoble, but all having the freshness and reality of life about
them ; and the gods themselves were regarded as superhuman
464 BOOK vni. chapter iv.
combatants who had been our forerunners in the battle of
life, forerunners for whom men felt the same kind of
devoted and confident attachment that soldiers do for their
leader.
In the external forms of worship the Greek mind preferred
the solemn beauty of mystic elevation, and avoided, except in
a few points, the sensuous enthusiastic passion of the worship
of God as practised by the Asiatics. Many of the customs
handed down from antiquity had become unintelligible
to the people. Although every divinity might be called
upon in any locality, yet the more solemn worship of each
was connected with special places where help had been
vouchsafed to men on particularly memorable occasions, the
recollection of which was intended to be preserved by
significant ceremonies, yet which notwithstanding did not
escape oblivion. Thus sacred ceremonies remained attached
to particular places of worship, as being of traditional
obligation ; almost like the peculiar feudal obligations which
vassals of the Middle Ages owed to their feudal lords ever
after the occurrence of some forgotten adventure. Yet the
Greeks were impelled to maintain conscientiously the integrity
of these ceremonies by that piety with which they believed
that they ought in all cases to honour the uncomprehended
will of the gods.
And uncomprehended as to its final secrets did this will
ever remain to the Greeks. There is a mild, pleasing, unaffected
naturalness in their religious views ; they do not, however,
set up a kingdom of heaven in opposition to the world, but
exhibit the beauty of a moderate, serene, peaceful enjoyment
of life springing from a judicious and intelligent appropria-
tion and improvement of earthly conditions, in contrast to
the splendour of oriental despotism and unmeaning luxury.
It was only this which Solon set before Croesus when he
declared the peaceful life of Tellos, or the happy end of
Kleobis and Biton cut off in their youth by a blessed death,
to be preferable to the renowned good fortune of the
Lydian king. There is no reference in his words to a happi-
THE RELIGIOUS LIFK 465
ness which is not of this world, or to a peace of conscience
which can outweigh external misfortune. Solon urgently
admonishes the king to think of the end, not as though he
were then to be judged according to the worth or worthless-
ness of his life, but because no man is truly happy who is
not happy to the end. According to Greek ideas, a disaster
quite late in life mars all a man's previous happiness, just as
in art the beauty of a whole work is spoiled by failure in the
smallest detail. These remarkable people even tried to
make the end ^— which they regarded as the final end —
artistically satisfactory ; any connection of the whole life with
a future beyond it was never a dominant thought with them.
It may be that in the religious mysteries of the Greeks there
were handed down some ancient Eastern teachings as to
immortality, and certainly cultivated Greeks were not un-
acquainted with the idea of a continued existence, such as
lightens the hard life of so many rude tribes. But if this
belief had had any deep-reaching influence, we should know
of it, without any special proof, through the immediate
impression produced by Greek national life as a whole. This
impression, however, testifies decidedly to complete satisfaction
with the present world. The wide gulf between the Greek
view of life and that of Christianity cannot be filled up by
bringing together isolated expressions of which we can never
be sure whether they gave voice to a fixed and hearty belief
or whether they were mere poetic images without serious
meaning, which served the aesthetically cultured people who
used them as mere ornamentations of life.
§ 5. The noblest representatives of Greek speculation had
learnt to know God as the first and unmoved mover of all
things, as the operative essence of the Ideas of the True, the
Beautiful, and the Good ; but to the Hellenic mind (of which
the one-sided reverence for knowledge was kept up by its
consciousness of scientific achievements, and to which sin was
only intelligible as error) the Supreme Good was without any
content of its own, and melted away again into Beauty and
Truth. However great the interest with which we may
VOL. n. 2 G
466
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER IV.
continue to regard this final religious outcome of the classical
world, which is great regarded as the fruit of human investi-
gation, yet it is but as a modest rivulet compared to that
rushing river of consciousness of God which, from a long
previous period, had swept through the life of the Hebrew
people and overflowed in their sacred poetry with a power
compared to the assured reality of which the highest flights
of Greek enthusiasm seem but as mere problematic conjecture.
Learned investigation may discover traces of foreign influ-
ence in individual features of legend and custom, and in the
artistic and ceremonial development of Hebrew worship, but
the essence of their religious philosophy was wholly withdrawn
by the Israelites from the influence of heathen culture, with
some aspects of which they were in long-continued contact.
Those principles of natural philosophy which smothered the
religions of the East with their rank and injurious growth are
almost entirely absent from the religion of the Hebrews ; here
the motive-power of development is to be found in ethical
Ideas, which, though not indeed alien to the life of other
nations, were not the source from which their religious notions
were derived. With what ingenuity must the Egyptians have
determined the succession of the cosmic powers to which the
order of the universe is due — if, that is, we can trust the
equal ingenuity of their interpreters. But for religious life it
haa all about as much worth as the infinitely more trustworthy]
teachings of modern geology concerning the stratification of]
the earth's crust. The Mosaic history of the creation (tO;
which only a strange misunderstanding can seek to attribute]
natural-historical significance) is distinguished by its contempt
for such cosmological speculation. It does not make any one
phsenomenon a basis for the development of any other; with
the greatest uniformity it repeats in the case of every creature i
that God made it, and in describing the series of creative acts]
it hardly thinks enough even about observing an order
corresponding to the interdependence existing between!
different parts of the material world. It was sufficient thatj
God made everything, and that everything as He made it was
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 467
good; sufficient that man was regarded as the crown of this
creation, and the creation itself as the garden in which he
was destined to live after the likeness of God. Nor was any
higher place assigned to Nature later ; as regarded the one
living God, natural phsenomena had no meaning but as signs
of His goodness, His almighty power, or His wrath, and as
such, poetry depicted them in the most striking colours ; but
except in hasty sketches, imagination never busied itself in
attempts to see God's being symbolized in the order of Nature,
as though such a manifestation were necessary to Him, or
could suffice Him. But this God who had no serious ends in
Nature itself, but used it as the scenery of a magnificent
drama, had special designs for the human race; while the
cosmographic horizon of the Hebrews was narrowed to almost
idyllic dimensions, and all interest in Nature as a whole was
relinquished with indifference, the promised land was raised
to the sacredness of a special sphere of divine influence, and
became the stage on which a course of action and reaction
between God and man was played out.
Attention being turned away from the structure of Nature
itself, the danger was avoided which had misled those religions
that had a cosmological foundation — the danger, that is, of
regarding first natural ill and then moral evil as necessary
constituents of the cosmic order, and as metaphysical conse-
quences of the Divine Nature. According to the Hebrew
faith God was wholly good, and neither in Him nor in the
creation as it came from His hand was there any seed of ill ;
it was human freedom which, perfectly unfettered and uncon-
strained by any metaphysical fatality, brought sin into the
world, and, as its punishment, death and the ills of life.
This kingdom of evil which had now arisen was not some-
thing which must be necessarily thought as a part of the
world ; it was something which need not have been and
which ought not to have been ; the command to be holy as
God is holy applied to man, and applied to him as one which
it was possible to fulfil in the fear of God and of His law.
The doubts to which the human mind must always be led by
468
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER IV.
the consideration of these most important matters, were not
theoretically solved by the Hebrew faith ; but their suppres-
sion gave to life for the first time a thoroughly religious
foundation. Moral obligations, conscience of which is every-
where developed by social action and reaction, appear here
consolidated into a Will of God, which has to be fulfilled and
glorified, not only by the individual in inward disposition and
outward works, but also by the whole nation in a theocrati-
cally regulated life of the community ; the national history is
the account of a continuous intercourse with the God of
righteousness, who has attached promises of favour to the sancti-
fication of His will, and who punishes obduracy towards it.
Neither did the external destiny of the nation bring the
fulfilment of what had been promised, nor did the people find
in conscience the evidence of its own uprightness ; the end of
the struggle carried on in the attempt at self-justification
towards God lay yet in the future, and was anticipated as the
temporal glory of the whole race, which, with somewhat
obscure hopes as to the eternal significance of the individual
soul, felt itself called to constitute a kingdom of God upon
earth. Christianity regarded itself as the realization of the
predictions which seemed to point to this, but it was not!
recognised as such by the Jews ; in the view of Christianity
all which men had hoped with regard to the Messiah was ;
found realised in deepened significance in the person of Christ!
— the crowning prophecy of a final revelation, the high;
priest's office as mediator by means of sacrifice (sacrifice and]
mediator being one), and the sovereign power of Him who is]
to be King over the Church in aU ages.
§ 6. If we separate for a moment that which the doctrine]
of the Christian Church does not allow to be separated, namely]
that which is revealed through Christ from faith in thdj
historical fact of His revelation, we shall see that the former!
contains exclusively religious truth conveyed in a form of
expression which is also exclusively religious. The order of j
visible Nature is not a subject of its interpretation and]
explanation ; pervaded as a whole and in all its details by the]
I
THE EELIGIOUS LIFE- 469
foreseeing and preserving will of God, it does indeed in its
totality form the background of our life, and to it the mind
may appeal when seeking some witness to the truth of its
belief; but to know its construction and its articulation does
not belong to the one thing needful. In the ordinances
of the Law even Judaism had given to natural reality a
significance not its own ; although it insisted on holiness of
mind, it still saw in the performance of actions a service
which was in itself of some significance, and without the
doing of which the world would lack that which human
action was intended to contribute to it. From this sometimes
outspoken and sometimes hesitating reverence for works
Christianity turned away, caring exclusively for man's
spiritual temper and the sanctification of this ; what is
primarily to be aimed at is not any particular state of
things, nor even any particular state of mankind, reveal-
ing the kingdom of God in external ordinances by the
harmony between men in different orders of society — but
it is the new birth and the transformation of the individual
human being, whose immortal spirit is to become the temple
of God. It was only the chosen people as a theocratically
regulated whole which Judaism had regarded as worthy to be
such a temple. Hence Christianity developed directly social
theories as little as it did cosmological wisdom ; but in the
new inner life that it demanded and made possible was the
essential germ from which might be developed not indeed
knowledge, but the renovation of man's nature, not a definite
form of social relations, but a capacity of using and modifying
any existing state of things in the right way.
If the thought of the merely conditioned worth of all
earthly life lay at the foundation of this peculiarity of the
Christian revelation, whilst the earlier religions of the East
regarded this life not as a preparation and a school, but as
occupying the place of real existence in the plan of the
world, it might have been expected that at any rate the
connection of earthly reality with the secret of the divinely
ordered universe, of that which is with that which ought to
470
BOOK VIIL CHAPTER IV,
be, would be all the more clearly developed by Christianity.
This expectation would be deceived supposing its object to be
an enlightening knowledge of the construction of the super-
sensuous world ; but, as the history of centuries shows, com-
pletely fulfilled if it ask nothing more than certainty as regards
the blessed significance of the connection which that world
(whatever its definite form may be) has both in itself and with
earthly life. Eevelation speaks of a Personal Spirit who ia
Almighty Love, but it is not absorbed in answering those
questions concerning the metaphysical form of His existence
which human knowledge raises in order that it may under-
stand this after its own fashion ; it describes that aspect of
God which He shows to men, but it merely indicates without
attempting to analyse that glory which only the angels in
heaven see. It regards the world as the creation of this God,
but with regard to its beginning and its end, it makes
no essential addition to the knowledge possessed by the
ancient faith ; it is pervaded by belief in the immortality of
the individual spirit, but intrusive questions concerning the
nature of future existence it declines to answer; there is
much to be told which we cannot bear yet. For just in
proportion as this future existence is more certain, the less
necessary is it to try and mature beforehand upon earth the
fruits of the higher knowledge which it will afford us, and the
more exclusively necessary is it to prepare ourselves for this
great future. Thus it may appear as though revelation really
revealed but very little, and in truth in a doctrinal point of]
view it is neither extensive nor circumstantial ; it does not]
enrich science by an abundance of individual truths, but
establishes a new life upon a foundation of truth, which is
not considered to be possessed if it is merely known, but only]
when it pervades the whole man as the prevailing tone and]
temper of his life.
To characterize this essential germ of Christianity more]
in detail than we have attempted to do in our short survey of I
the course of history, is not our present business, but we may]
recall some aspects of its relation to other philosophic views.
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 47 1
Human nature is so similar everywhere, that wherever there
is a sufficient amount of the social intercourse necessary
to develop its capacities, the moral convictions that are
evolved are similar in all essential points. But at the same
time, the faculty of drawing from our own premises all the
conclusions which they involve, and the effort to attain com-
plete harmony of character, are so deficient in us, and (being
the result of growing reflection) appear so late, that nearly
everywhere in human civilisation, that has grown up spon-
taneously as national culture in practical life, we find between
coexistent moral principles obstinate discrepancies, to which
men are blinded by habit. Therefore, on the one hand, it
may easily seem as though Christianity had brought no other
moral ideals into the world than those which mankind had
already discovered for themselves ; but, on the other hand, it
will be found that its efficacy was not expended in introducing
coherence and completeness into the contradictory convictions
of heathen ethics.
The ground of all moral obligation is understood differently
by it and by the heathen world, which in its rough beginnings
was led to moral habits, partly by natural good dispositions,
and partly by experience of their usefulness ; and when it had
reached a higher stage of civilisation felt bound by the
obligation of moral commands for their own sake, just as
unconditionally as it found itself subjected unconditionally to
natural laws. For Christianity the command to do God's
will was not merely a comprehensive expression for the
content of all individual moral ideals, but it also supplied at
the same time a reason which justified, or at any rate
explained, their binding power. The ordinary opinion of
more or less scientific reflection is that there is here a
retrogression as compared with the philosophic view of
heathendom, to which the Beautiful and the Good seemed to
be obligatory, in virtue of its own power and dignity and not
as a law, even though it might be a law laid down by the
Supreme Will, The faithful Christian will judge differently.
He will admit that he learns the interpretation of the divine
472
BOOK Vni. CHAPTER IV.
will only from the deliverances of conscience, and will sliun
the frightful consequences which have always arisen from the
admission of any other source of enlightenment ; he m]l not
conceal from himself that his conviction lays upon thought
new difficulties which are hard to overcome ; but yet he will
maintain that through it alone is he able to understand the
phsenomenon of conscience. For it will seem to him simply
incomprehensible that through some original and primary
necessity there should be laws which have binding power over
our actions but yet serve no purpose — serve no purpose
because their whole business is to insist upon their own
fulfilment and realization, the fulfilment when it has come
about being the end of the matter, as though it were some
new fact, without any good having been produced that did
not previously exist. The Christian seeks to escape this
labour in the service of impersonal laws, this mere bringing
about of facts ; it is only in the pleasure which God has in
what he has done, that he finds that ultimate good for the
sake of which all moral action has worth in his eyes. If love
is the great commandment, then that that great command-
ment must be carried out for love's sake is a necessary
corollary; neither the realization of any Idea for its own
sake, merely in order that it, devoid of sensibility as it is,
should be put into act, nor the residence of all excellences
within ourselves, the egoistic glorification of self, but
only love to the living God, only the longing to be approved
not by our own hearts but by Him — this, and this only, is
the basis of Christian morality, and science will never find
one that is plainer, nor life one that is surer.
There is a close connection between this foundation and
the fact that with the Christian precepts promises are always
conjoined ; this, too, is a rock of offence for that quixotism of
pure reason which regards its efforts as almost disgraced if;
the kingdom of heaven and eternal blessedness are offered as
their reward. It would be wicked to deny that the human
heart is capable of the greatest self-sacrifice, even without
admitting to itself that it cherishes a hope of such reward;
L
THE EELIGIOUS LIFE. 473
for we have no right to doubt the instances which we find in
history and in life, or to attribute motives by which these
instances would be made more intelligible to us. But while
we recognise the merit of that virtue which, in sincere
devotion to the moral ideal, prefers destruction to defilement,
we regard as incomplete any philosophy which holds that
good may vanish out of the universe unrequited, and which
lets the joyousness of action be damped by this conviction
which can never be in itself a motive to action. Yet indeed
it is not merely in order that the universe should be in itself
harmonious and perfect that Christianity connects blessedness
with moral fidelity as its result ; it does undoubtedly also hold
forth the crown of life which it promises as the motive which
is to confirm and uphold that fidelity even unto death. Cau
we then contest with those who denounce all Eudsemonism
the right to apply this name of reproach to Christian doctrine
also, and to prefer to it as more exalted their own teaching
which commands virtue and self-sacrifice without any reward ?
This latter requirement may indeed seem more exalted ; but
from the sublime there is but a step not only to the ridiculous
but also to the inane and the preposterous. And this pedantry
of reason runs the risk of taking not indeed the first but the
second of those steps, if it is really in earnest. For without
a supreme good to which the lesser good would be sacrificed,
and as mere continuous labour for the establishment of a
definite external condition of things, or of some definite
condition of the inner man, in what would our moral struggles
differ from any blind activity of natural forces, except in the
accompanying but inexplicable feeling that one ought to do
something which, when it is done, is of no use to any one ?
But in fact this step is not taken by that quixotic virtue to
which we have referred ; it is conscious that at bottom it, too,
aspires after a Supreme Good — namely. Self-esteem ; and it
would certainly give up all moral effort if it were not
rewarded by this result. Perhaps it would even be much less
inclined than the more open Eudaemonism of Christianity to
labour in the service of moral commands if obedience to them
474
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER IV.
did not enable it to reach by the shortest road, and with the
greatest possible directness, that which it regards as the
Supreme Good. The distinction, then, is between the proud
inflexible Euda3monism of self-esteem, which is self-sufficing,
and the Eudsemonism of humility, which is not self-sufficing,
and seeks its Highest Good in standing well not with self but
with God, and in being beloved by Him. The sacrifices
which Christianity imposes on men in order to the attainment
of salvation are not less than those required from them by
the more self-sufficing doctrine ; but while the latter sets out
with efforts to reach that which is sublime, and finds little
opportunity of returning thence to what is meek and lowly,
the former begins with what is joyous and attractive, and yet
mighty enough to produce also what is most sublime. And that
this way alone is the true one is an opinion confirmed by a con-
sideration even of those aesthetic ideas upon which our moral
judgment is only too dependent. Such a consideration would
show us how hollow is all sublimity that aims only at being
sublime, and how imperfectly it is conceived when, being
carried beyond its necessary relation to an Absolute Good to
the power of which it testifies, it is set up as independent.
Christianity does not see this good in the mere existence of a
world of being and action, regulated according to moral Ideas,]
but only in the blessedness produced by the enjoyment of j
this world; and the gospel is glad tidings just because it
carries out to this its final logical result the abolition of all]
reverence for mere blind factual existence, and reveals the]
hidden priceless jewel of salvation as the final secret for the
sake of which all the vast expenditure of creation and human
life has been made. It never aimed at being sublime or]
magnificent; and yet because it is "glad tidings" it is also]
sublime and grand.
By Judaism too and by all heathen religions, the moral]
commands which life has taught have been interpreted as the]
requirements of God or of the gods, and they have pro-
mised happiness as the result of fulfilling these commands.j
But the gods of heathendom were too much occupied witl
THE RELIGIOrS LIFE. 475
Kature ; their care for the spiritual world and for mankind
seemed to disappear beside the splendour of their manifesta-
tions in Nature, for the significance of which, alien as it
was from human life, they demanded reverence ; in this world
which had no special definite aim, man must strive to win,
by careful piety towards the easily offended unknown powers,
mere toleration for mere transitory happiness. By the Jews
too God was regarded as the Almighty whose acts, whatever
they might be, were always righteous, because they were not
measured by any higher standard of right ; by this Almighty
Being blessings were promised as a reward for the submission
of mortals, which He eagerly desired although they were as
nothing before Him. Not only did Christianity bring into
prominence the spiritual world as the only true world and
that in which God specially works, but moreover man is no
longer as nothing before Him. It is true that the hope of
attaining happiness in his own strength is taken from him ;
but as a child of God even the meanest knows himself to be
an object of unceasing care to the Almighty, to whom the
manifestation of the glory of external Nature is now regarded
as being but a secondary consideration. Traces of all this
are visible throughout history. Men had heretofore felt them-
selves to be individuals of a species, members of the nation
to which they belonged, and they had sought in the external
order of political society to realize those higher goods of life
which the individual could share in only as the joint pro-
duction of the race. Christianity gave to this characteristic
on the one hand cosmopolitan breadth, and on the other hand
individual depth. All distinctions of earthly rank and calling
disappeared as unimportant in the sight of the one God ; the
immediate relation to God, which is possible for every faith-
ful soul, gave to each individual a worth of which he could
not be deprived, a worth that did not arise primarily from
his position in human society, and that was the work not of
Nature but of himself. Each man was to his fellow now no
longer a mere specimen of the race, whose whole nature was
transparent and familiar, but in each individual there was
476
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER IV.
something hidden and sacred that forbade intrusion. It is
of course the fact that under favourable social conditions men
had always developed varieties of disposition and indeed
wholly distinct types of character ; it was Christianity that
first supplied a deeper reason than this for demanding respect
for the individual by rousing a sensitive regard for personal
honour, through the ascription of eternal significance to the
eoul of the individual man,
§ 7. The full joyous assurance of the truth of these
doctrines, the subjection in lowly humility of all one's own
strength to the grace of God, the consciousness not only of ,
that imperfection which has a meaning in the cosmic order j
but also of the sinfulness which always is but never ought to ■
be, the confession of the inadequacy of all one's own deserts,
and the hope of redemption from all evil through the love
of God which no one can deserve but every one can win —
all this is characteristic of a temper of mind which has been
regarded by many in all times as that which entitles men to
call themselves by the name of Christ. The Christian Church
has judged otherwise. It has attached the right to this name
to a faith which believes not only in Christian doctrine but
also in the whole historical account of how this came to be
revealed to the world. The Church holds that Christian
doctrine alone does not contain the seed of a redemption
which through faith can take root and spring up afresh in
every soul in every age ; on the contrary, it holds that once
and by one act, which belongs not to earthly but to divine
history, the work of redemption was accomplished ; and thati
its benefits are to be obtained, not indeed without the living!
appropriation of the doctrine, yet also not by this aloneJ
but only by this in conjunction with faith in Christ as the]
mediator of future generations. The moral doctrines of Chris-
tianity have encountered no other hostility than that which!
wickedness and folly have always opposed to all religion, and|
the best civilisation of the modern world is built upon these
doctrines, whether consciously or unconsciously or against itii|
will. But, on the other hand, the demand that the strength-^
THE KELIGIOUS LIFE. 477
ening and blessing which they give should be earned by faith
in the Bible history, has met with a growing opposition
which has called down upon the present age the reproach
of increasing irreligiousness.
The most essential point, the recognition of providential
foresight as an historical fact, is regarded by this civilisation
not with aversion but rather as answering a secret need.
Only one-sided habituation to observation of Nature could
prefer the thought of a cosmic order established once for all,
and according to the unchanging conditions of which nothing
is possible except a brief and continually repeated cycle of
phaenomena, to the idea of a cosmic history, at the different
stages of which God does not work uniformly but is con-
stantly adding to the world in genuine action, something new,
something which was not there before. A simple natural
religious temper will be inclined to conceal from itself the
difficulties which this idea of a history of the world involves,
or to hope for a subsequent solution of them. If it is once
admitted that in the changing destinies of mankind there is
a temporal succession of things which cannot be regarded as
the mere repetition of previous cycles, it is hardly likely that
serious opposition will be offered to the demand that the
relation of God to the world should be conceived as one
which changes as history goes on — that men should believe
God to be nearer to the world at some periods of history
than at others, and His influence to have been imparted in a
manner wholly unique in some periods of which the temporal
limits are clearly defined. But readiness to admit this much
is not held to be enough; and when orthodoxy demands
either the acceptance of the whole content of the Biblical
history, or the recognition of those doctrines which the
dogmatic theology of the Church has connected with them, a
I difference begins which it is impossible to adjust.
The sacred writings will always captivate men's minds by
their majesty of content and their grand beauty of expression,
the simplicity of which is more effective than any conscious
art. But that which primarily hinders us from taking them
478
BOOK Vm. CHAPTEK IV.
quite literally is not the incredibility of that which they
report, but the figurative form of their teaching which must
be interpreted in order to be understood. And then (since
we were bound to the Scriptures only by our reverence for
the doctrine which they teach), in the second place, doubts
arise concerning the history of those wonderful events the
credibility of which cannot be the same to us as it was to the
age from which we have received the account of them. It
was natural that that age should demand to see the presence
of God confirmed by signs and wonders which yet could not
have as much significance for them as they would for us.
For the thought of an order in Nature connecting natural
phsenomena according to universal laws, was alien to antiquity,
which regarded every force that works in Nature as being
directly guided by the end at which it aims, and as having
the power to realize that end. Hence miracles did not lie as
contradictions outside the order of Nature, but were actually
the natural exercise of a superior power, which, under
unwonted conditions of time and space, made its appearance
within the sphere where lesser powers were used to work.
In this sense the order of Nature was not independent even
as regarded the heathen gods ; each petty deity could violate
that order; even men had at their command enchantments
by which they could alter its course ; and for this very
reason miracles could not be received in those times as con-
vincing proofs of the presence and working of the supreme
and the one true God. It is only to the modern conception
of Nature that a miracle could seem really miraculous, for
this conception recognises no impulse of which the result does .
not follow necessarily and according to general laws, from a:
pre-existing collocation of conditions. At the same time,'
those who hold this view of Nature are in a position to admit
the general possibility of miracles in as far as the idea!
corresponds to a mental need, although they may lack faith
to believe in them as recorded in Scripture. For to them too
the whole course of Nature becomes intelligible only by
supposing the continual concourse of God, who alone mediates!
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 479
the action and reaction going on between different parts of
the world. It is only as long as this concourse takes place
in similar ways that it (being then a constant condition in
the course of events) does not appear as a condition of change ;
and as long as this is so the course of Nature seems to be a
self-contained whole, that does not need, nor experience, nor
admit, interference from without. But any view which
admits a divine life that is not fixed in rigid immutability,
will also be able to understand the eternal divine concourse
as a variable quantity, the transforming influence of which
becomes prominent at particular times, showing that the
course of Nature is not independent. And this being the
case, the completely conditioning causes of miracles will be
found in God and Nature together, and in that eternal action
and reaction between them, which is not without governing
rules, although perhaps it is not simply ordered according to
general laws ; it is this idea only, and not the idea of com-
plete fortuitousness and arbitrariness, which the mind frames
of a miracle when it would see in it an object of reverence.
But the recognition of this general thought does not suffice to
lead Natural Science to a recognition of the reality of miracles
in the form in which religion generally demands it. So
immeasurably preponderant is the weight of all experience in
favour of a steady development of all natural occurrences,
each step preparing the way for that which succeeds it, that
even this general admission prepares the mind to believe only
in a noiseless, ceaseless working of God in Nature, not in
sudden interruptions of the established order by occasional
interferences of divine power. Such a belief could only arise
if the ideal significance of miracles in the system of the
universe were sufficiently clear and important to cause us to
regard them as a turning-point in history, for which the
efficient forces of the universe had always been preparing
uuperceived.
And the wonderful events which glorify the life of Christ
in the sacred writings would certainly in themselves give rise
to this thought if their physical reality were not made dubious
480
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER IV.
to US partly by the change in men's conception of Nature
which has Dccurred since Christ's time, and partly by the way
in which we take the spiritual meaning which the record of
these events is intended to convey. While the earth was
regarded as a flat disk, and the visible heaven above it as the
abode of God, it was possible for the ascension into heaven to
appear to men's minds as a real return of the Divine to God ;
but since astronomy has taught us that the earth is a sphere
surrounded by immeasurable realms of homogeneous space, we
fail to see what intelligible goal the upward ascent of Christ;
could have. In an age that could hardly distinguish between
the sensuous and the supersensuous, men might regard the
bodily resurrection of the Saviour with reverence as a
guarantee of their own immortality ; but to us this reanimation
of the body is not an object of hope ; if it were really to
happen, it would only secure to us the continuance of this
life during the existence of the body which it animates ; what
would really give us comfort would be some proof of a con-
tinued life of the spirit after its return to that invisible world
by which the visible world which we inhabit is mysteriously
surrounded. Eationalism in interpreting these circumstances,
which are described to us as external facts, as visions of those j
who describe them, has overlooked the point which can herei
give more worth to visions than to actual external factsJ
Rationalism supposed that out of mere psychological trains of]
ideas, there arose in excited minds fancies due to memory andj
subjective conditions, which had nothing objective corre-1
spending to them ; the very thing that it had to take accounlTi
of was this spiritual world which though unseen is every-j
where, and in which that which has no actual corporeal]
existence is present and none the less real. Between thiaj
world and the world of sense, actions and reactions might!
take place which are foreign to the ordinary course of Nature ;1
and from these, which are true, real, living impressions upon]
the soul of something divine and actually present, those
visions might arise, being apparitions not of the non-existentj
but of something really existent, and (as the direct inward
Il#
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 481
action of the deity) not mediated by help of the course of
physical Nature, which has no independent worth, or by dis-
turbances of that course which are incomprehensible to us.
The significance of the resurrection lies not in this, that
the soul of the risen person now as heretofore inhabits a
body which is visible to the eyes of men, but in this, that
without any such mediation, his real living presence, and not
the mere remembrance of him, takes hold of men's souls, and
appears to them in a form which has greater strength and
efficacy of influence than the restoratioa of the actual bodily
presence would have.
But to the religious frame of mind from which such
attempts at explanation arise, the prosecution of them to any
great length is naturally repugnant ; it seems impious to
make that the subject of theorizing ingenuity which, when
received uncritically, never fails to produce a deep impression,
but which critical analysis can never bring to certainty in
detail. Such awe is not aroused by the dogmas in which in
the course of history the content of Christian faith has come
to be expressed. The human mind will continually be forced
to renew its attempts to grasp and retain in scientific form
the truth which it has believingly appropriated, in order that
it may maintain this truth against unbelieving civilisation, and
that it may satisfy its own cravings after unity and clearness
of philosophic view ; we see this work of human speculation
in Dogmatic Theology, which is respectable on account of the
earnestness of its efforts and the connection it establishes
between all earthly life on the one hand, and the kingdom of
heaven and the divine order of the universe on the other.
Yet this dogmatic theology, as being the antiquated ecclesi-
astical philosophy, is subject to criticism, as is also every fresh
attempt at a philosophical explanation of the universe. The
content of this dogmatic system has become alienated from
modern civilisation (which, owing to its great advances in
secular matters, has grown careless of religious interests), and
is frequently regarded by it as a fabric built up out of
traditions, having no root in reality and no significance for
VOL. II. 2 H
482 BOOK vin. chapter iv.
human life ; a less hostile consideration of the matter would
speedily show that, on the contrary, dogmatic theology is
concerned with but few merely subtle inquiries ; it deals
principally with serious and weighty questions, which our
civilisation may indeed seem to get rid of, but to which we
are led back by every searching reflection on the destiny of
man and his relation to God. But with equal plainness we
may say that dogmatic theology has neither succeeded in
giving, nor indeed attempted to give, to these questions any
answer which cognition can accept as satisfactory ; it formu-
lates in its tenets the burning and inextinguishable interest
which we take in these great problems, and expresses without
satisfying our craving for enlightenment.
It would be a misinterpretation of this avowal of dissatis-
faction to consider that its cause is to be found in the demand
for an explanation of the possibility and process of realization
of something which in itself surpasses the powers of human
reason to elucidate, and to require in place of this pre-
sumptuous demand the faith which is lacking ; for faith
where it exists does not find that its own content can be
embraced by dogma. Faith does not require explanations,
impossible to be given, of how things come about, but it
must require the clearest determination of what it is which
dogmatism presents as the fixed and central truths towards
which the vague yearnings of faith itself gravitate. And this
is just what is not given ; that of which, as the right and
true, we are fully conscious in the dim impulse of faith,
almost always receives from dogmatism a mere figurative
expression, which, instead of immediately determining what
we believe, itself requires a fresh exercise of interpretation,
the admissible limits of which, again, can only be fixed by
that same dim impulse. When Christian theology calls
Christ the Son of God, it gives expression no doubt to the
most distinctive article of its belief ; but it does this in a
figure the exact signification of which it can by no means
precisely determine ; what that phrase expresses and is meant
to express is clearer to the believing soul without than with
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 483
the dogmatic determinations which have been attached to it,
for the figure taken simply merely indicates the intimate
nature of that relation between God and Christ which is
clear to feeling ; it contains no explanation as to the mode of
that relation, all adequate knowledge of which is impossible
for us. Direct religious feeling meets the Church's teaching
concerning the redeeming power of Christ's mediatorial death
with ready faith, but this faith is not rewarded by any increase
of knowledge. For that idea of a sacrifice to which dim
emotion first betakes itself, no other idea is substituted which
makes the redeeming power more comprehensible without at
the same time diminishing the value of the mediatorial death.
We all feel that evil has taken hold of us, and that sin, like
some inheritance inexplicably entailed, runs through the whole
race ; but the thoughts which arise from this consciousness,
and have not been worked out to any clear conclusion,
cannot be led to such a conclusion by way of dogmatism ;
ideas which go so far astray as belief in the complete
soUdarity of mankind, and in the actual inheritance by
the whole race (as by legal representatives) of the sin of
our first ancestor, cannot by reason of their own obscurity
afford any illumination to our minds ; they merely give an
incisive statement of the problem at which we unsuccessfully
labour.
Besides those harmonious and early-developed teachings
which the Church adopted as part of its confession of faith,
men's speculative impulse has driven them to make innu-
merable attempts to find an explanation of the world which
should be in agreement with Christian doctrine, but the greater
■■divergence of these explanations from accepted teaching has
prevented their being similarly accepted. The Protestant
■ theology of our own time is more active in this direction than
it has been for a long period previously, believing on the one
hand that it possesses in the results of modern philosophy
new and previously unknown levers of religious truth, and on
^the other hand being animated by a courage of conviction for
Khe a<jsurance of which I do not know the grounds. The self-
L
484
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER IV.
imposed limitation which led philosophy at the end of the
last century to give up all claim to a knowledge of the super-
sensuous, caused the prominence of a rationalistic system of
ethics which, since it lacked any views concerning the place of
the moral world in the plan of the whole, came at last to be
without any religious colouring whatever. But our highest
wisdom cannot consist in following general rules of duty
without caring in the least what benefit may or may not
ultimately result from their fulfilment ; we need to be con-
vinced of some intelligible cosmic connection in which we can
trace the destiny of human life and the eternal significance of
all moral effort. The suppression of this impulse to a cosmo-
logical development of philosophic views has by a natural
process of reaction been followed by its reappearance in a
prominent form, and it has now, as it seems to me, far
exceeded the limits within which it could hope for success
and for salutary influence on Christian life.
For not only do we doubt whether the methods of modem
philosophy can make possible that which has always hitherto
been impossible, but we also lament that dogmatic investiga-
tions seldom make a conscientious use of even the modest
results which this philosophy has perhaps obtained. Christi-
anity does not furnish any immediate revelation concerning
the structure of the world ; the essence of its ethical teaching
and scriptural sayings which only incidentally involve cosmo-
logical notions, are the sole materials which Christians can
use for making a construction of the universe. But from
moral Ideas the most careful investigation can never develop
anything more than the universal conditions to which the
cosmic construction must conform in order to avoid coming
into collision with the Supreme Principle of Good ; and only
a very undisciplined fancy will imagine that it can learn
from this source those definite concrete forms of the cosmic
order by which the conditions indicated are satisfied ; we
cannot even use these Ideas to carry on the world of experi-
ence, which lies before us, beyond what is actually given, or
to find with any certainty that contmuation and comple
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 485
tion of it which is hidden from our observation. Therefore
such attempts run great risk of ceasing to ask what must be,
or even what may be, and of asking instead what it is that
would be most delightful supposing that it were the actual
condition of things ; and this matter is decided by the pre-
judices of individual character, which are insusceptible of
discipline. Yet the inclination which we here blame is sup-
ported by a philosophy which expressly regards the meaning
of things, their Ideas, as being (and that without any limita-
tion) their active essence ; and which, in seeking out and
determining these Ideas, requires no strict and formal proof,
but regards poetic justice in the coherent development of
thought as a sufficient warranty of truth. This being the
case, the dogmatic investigation of our own time has, with
great expenditure of philosophic profundity, and with little
method and much self-satisfaction, plunged into inquiries
which the modern spirit of general culture refuses to enter
upon at all, not only from a consciousness of its probable ill-
success, but also from fear lest, by presumptuously insisting
upon trying to know all things, it should intrude upon those
divine secrets which it respects. And the divergent results
of these attempts do not promise unanimity of knowledge on
questions concerning which believing minds have been always
at one ; they only give to modern dogmatic theology as a
whole a character of anarchy tempered by sterility.
For no gain accrues to life from all these attempts either to
set forth in detail by uncertain interpretation of uncertain texts
the whole story of Creation — and that after a fashion which is
mm in conflict with the results of scientific investigation of Nature
— or to make out what will be the end of the world and the
exact nature of man's future life, without taking into con-
sideration our progressive knowledge of the physical world,
|iB|which (though it can indeed never solve such problems) may
furnish our thoughts concerning them with a background
that sets limits to too great extravagances. And finally, we
blame, as being both unfruitful and little in conformity with
the spirit of Christianity, a predilection for speculations
48 S BOOK VIII. CHAPTER IV.
concerning the divine Trinity in Unity, in which many
declare, to the profound astonishment of their hearers, that
they have found the key to all knowledge, sacred and pro-
fane— though they have not hitherto done anything to make
men hope for the fulfilment of their promises. In the living
Christ, faithful souls beheld, not indeed God, for Christ Him-
self said. The Father is greater than I, but the Son of God
who is one with God in a way that we do not understand,
and who came into the world, not because His coming had
from the beginning been the necessary consequence of some
natural law of cosmic order, but because the love of God,
which is greater than all the mechanism of necessary develop-
ment, though it need not have sent Him, yet did send Him
to the world. To this dualism of the Divine Personality
faith might also add, as an object of veneration, that Holy
Ghost, the Comforter, whom Christ promised to send ; but
neither had this Spirit appeared in the course of history in
personal form, nor was there any need to understand it as
other than some divine activity. Dogmatic theology, with
but a weak foundation in passages of Holy Scripture which
indicate the dawn of speculation in Christian thought, has
endeavoured to develop from such material a Metaphysics of
the divine nature which the further it advances gets further
away from that to which simple faith would cling as the
blessing of Christianity.
And yet it is a natural need which leads men to make
these attempts. It seemed that the divine revelation was not
estimated at its full value if it were regarded as an historically
incalculable addition to an intrinsically independent cosmic
order (the content of the revelation being indeed at first taken
hold of by men's minds for its own worth, without any inquiry
as to the process by which this content was made known) — ■
it seemed as though this revelation must be inwoven both
in the past and in the future with the whole economy of the
universe, so that there might be nothing in that economy
which was (as to either the nature or reality of its existence)
independent of the revelation. Thus it was that the image
THE EELIGIOUS LIFE. 487
of the historical Christ f;;rew into the thought of a power that
worked in God before the world began ; the same purpose of
the love of God which was made manifest in the historical
act of redemption, came to be regarded as having been from
the beginning that regulative will through which things are
what they are. Now this spiritual need of finding unity in
the nature and acts of God could be satisfied by the belief
that that which moved God to redeem the world should be
conceived as a thought which had been from everlasting, and
had not been called into existence by any temporal occasion ;
it was not necessary that the unity thus reached should be
endangered by the impracticable demand to make two persons
into one ; still less was there in the content of faith itself
any cogent reason for a similar personification of the Holy
Ghost. On the other hand, as we shall see later, the secular
speculations of philosophy lead to a trinity in the beginnings,
of the cosmos — that is, to laws according to which things are,
to powers hy which they are, and to ends for the sake of
which they are what they are. The recognition of this
trinity is no triumph of philosophy, for it is in reality a
confession of human incapacity to identify as one in cognition
that which according to the demand of cognition itself must
necessarily be one ; and for the rest, however those three may
be conceived, they can never be anything other than forms
of divine activity which are incapable of being derived one
from another. This trinity — a fateful gift — has been offered
by philosophy to theology, and has been accepted, although
its several members correspond neither with the historical
Christ and the promised Holy Ghost, nor with the three
persons of the divine Trinity in Unity as confessed by the
Church. Now it may be that theology in the narrowest
sense — the dogmatic determination of our notions concerning
^Bthe nature of God — cannot be made complete without refer-
ence to that philosophic trinity of essentially different prin-
ciples ; but all the assistance that philosophy can give will
never apply to more than the first article of our confession of
faith ; Chiistology gains nothing by it in a scientific point
488 BOOK vin. chapter iv.
of view, and loses as regards its significance for living faith.
For what faithful souls cling to is the living Christ, the
complete personality of the Saviour, not taken figuratively
or in any symbolic sense ; if this personality is interpreted as
some necessary phase of the Divine Nature, as some secondary
potentiality of the concept of Divinity, as an antithesis
within the Deity, as a world-creating X0709, our faith is only
disturbed. For we do not see why we should separate from
God energies which we are accustomed to regard as among
His attributes, and we cannot discover that any metaphysical
glory of Christ as a superlatively supernatural God of Nature,
is greater than the moral majesty of the Eedeemer. It seems
to us that such speculations transfer us from the place in
which Christianity has set us, from faith in the sole and
final reality of what is good and holy, back to the old heathen
cosmology which regarded God as manifesting Himself, not in
unfathomable deeds of love, but in those emanations of His
being which take place according to natural laws. It seem»
to us so ; for we do not in the least wish to conceal from our-
selves, nor to withhold here our acknowledgment, that the
attempts which have been made in this direction have been
determined by the need which men feel of making the
world and all things in it subordinate to the ethical plan
of salvation; neither the Christian temper in which these
attempts have been undertaken nor the earnestness with
which they have been carried out seem to us to admit of
doubt; all we affirm is that the impression produced on many
minds by the results at which they have arrived is the very
opposite of that at which they aim. But we pass over with
silent contempt those essays which simply trifle with the
notion of trinity in unity, after the fashion of that numerical
mysticism indulged in by the Pythagoreans ; and which almost
seem as though they set great value on the Trinity merely
because of its involving the number three. It would be just
as reasonable to include in our confession of faith veneration
of the prime numbers, or of square roots.
§ 8. We have said that these speculations were for the
1
I
THE RELIGIOUS LIFI!. 489
most part unfruitful ; that we are able to confine ourselves to
this reproach is due to the opposition which secular civilisa-
tion has for so long offered to the power of the Church.
The vagaries of millenarian dreamers have now come to an
end ; if they were still in fashion, other and more important
consequences would be entailed by the rococo of belief in a
devil and other similar doctrines to which the dogmatic
renascence of our time is inclined to return ; the Humanism
which has had a salutary and pervading influence on theology
as science has revived, and a sense of practical justice received
increased development, will, we hope, in the future prevent
speculative errors from being carried out in practice. But this
greater security of personal faith is connected with increasing
insecurity of the ecclesiastical edifice, the pulling down or
re-establishing of which is at present a subject of dispute.
The fact that their gods were chiefly important because of
their significance in Nature, prevented the heathen world
from regarding the whole life of man as a continual service of
worship towards the divine splendour of these deities ; the
plurality of divinities, to particular individuals among whom
particular tribes attached themselves, made difiicult the
combination of all mankind or even of one nation in that
close communion which unites the members of a community
drawn together by common spiritual interests ; where, in
consequence of the greater unity of mythological teaching,
this hindrance did not exist, still religious communion did
not exist independently beside political communion, but
men's confession of faith was itself national ; nothing
was required beyond civic virtue and ceremonial acts,
and the national religion had no power to bring individuals
into communion as the subjects of a higher and spiritual
kingdom ; in India, where more than in any other part of the
heathen world, religious feeling had entered most deeply into
aU mental needs and distresses, the despair of life at which
men arrived was no bond of any community of life. The
Church is an institution peculiar to Christianity. Disregarding
distinctions of nationality, sex, rank, and education, it aims
■ Church
IT'
490 BOOK Vm. CHAPTER IV.
at uniting all mankind in a service towards God which
consists in the subjection of one's whole life to Him.
The Church began as a free community, without any other
bond of union than love and a common faith ; like every
growing society, it developed forms of administration and of
internal intercourse that were binding on its members, but it
did not claim any authority over the rest of mankind,
although even then it felt itself raised above all temporal
combinations of men by the consciousness of being a union
entered into for purposes of eternal import. When the
Eoman persecution of Christianity had given place to recogni*
tion, there grew up in the Church the consciousness of being
au institution to the ordinances of which secular national
life was bound to conform, and departure from which waf» no
longer regarded as a step which men might take of their
own free choice but as an act of desertion to be judicially
punished. With a still bolder flight it finally rose from
the position of an earthly institution to the importance of
a cosmic power which not only has given to it on earth
all supremacy over the consciences of men, over the autho-
rity of magistrates, and over the lands of the heathen, but
which is able also, through those means of grace which it
alone administers and distributes, to reach beyond this life,
and not only teaches men how to find or avoid the paths to
salvation and to damnation, but actually opens or shuts the
entrance to these. Thus the Church became the grandest and
most noteworthy constituent of that great department of
cosmic order which the human mind has added to the existing
order of physical Nature. Even the constitution of States
depends upon objects of the physical world, upon the land
and its boundaries, the produce of the soil and men's right to
it, and the distribution of the wealth which is produced, and
nowhere do its pretensions to power extend beyond the earth
itself ; the Church alone binds the spirits of men and fills the
whole of life with a pervading consciousness of its connection
with the other world. Hence it is easy to comprehend the
admiration which the dazzling impression produced by this
is Jl
THE EELIGIOUS LIFE.
491
mighty phcenomenon ever calls forth afresh in receptive
minds, and the longing which men feel to be received into
the steady shelter of its mighty order, and thus escape the
fragmentariness of a life which pursues its ends with vacillat-
ing purpose.
But the more completely the plan of any organization
corresponds to an ideal, the more injurious is the effect
which this organization has if it is forced upon any life as a
form that must be complied with, when that life is not
adapted to realize it voluntarily. The most fatal error of
human efforts consists in prematurely attempting to realize
ectyjpes of perfection in cases where what ought to be con-
sidered is the organization of means for approaching in practice
as near to perfection as circumstances will allow. Such an
error was involved in the constitution of the Church ; it
sought to reach in this life a condition which is only possible
in another life, and suppressed the free activity of powers
which cannot reach this goal here below though they may
prepare the way for it. It believed that it possessed complete
truth, and endeavoured to hinder any search for truth; and
believing itself to be in enjoyment of this possession, it under-
took cares which belong only to providence itself ; it interfered,
commanding and forbidding, with the general secular concerns
of mankind and the consciences of individuals, as though it
had been the immediate plenipotentiary of God and the
guardian of those laws according to which eternal wisdom
chose to regulate mundane affairs ; it assumed a right of
punishing and persecuting all who resisted any part of the
extensive ramifications of its doctrine and its regulations, and
all this universal dominion which it arrogated in the name of
the Holy Ghost, it could only carry on by means of human
personages whose incurable frailties were in innumerable
particulars in contradiction with the sacredness of their ofl&ce.
It is the spirit of orientalism which culminates in this
colossal attempt not only to teach but also to found and
establish a cosmic order, and to assign to human life, with
all its multifarious interests, a place in that order. But
492 BOOK VTIL CHAPTER IV.
as it was the West and not tlie East which reached this
highest summit of religious cosmology, so from the time when
it was attained all the powers of Western civilisation have
been actively engaged in an unceasing struggle against this
vision of an earthly anticipation of divine order, which at a
distance promises happiness but disappoints those who have
drawn near.
The Protestant mode of thought has given up the cosmical
significance of the Church ; according to it, the visible Church
at least is once again regarded as a mundane institution of
which the business is to minister to the religious life of man.
But this being so, the course of events has brought the
Church into a connection with the State which abounds in
anomalies that are difficult to remove, and that have caused
her members to withdraw their sympathy from her in increas-
ing measure. The Eoman Catholic Church, having one
supreme head, an established doctrine, and extremely homo-
geneous forms of worship, is spread abroad among the nations,
and may be regarded by those who belong to it as a great
objective and independent organization. If Protestant Chris-
tianity had been able to maintain a similar unity of doctrine,
of worship, and of Church government, the various national
Churches into which it has split up would be less prejudicial
to the vigour of religious feeling ; they would appear as the
locally diverse secular organizations which guard sanctities
that are everywhere equally hallowed. And in fact this is
the part which the secular power professes to assume in
religious matters ; but the unity to which we have referred
never existed in any completeness. Hence although the times
will not return in which governments could forbid their
subjects to make profession of any religion or to change their
religion, yet there is still much room in the interpretation of
the established faith for the exercise of political power, and of
the favour capriciously shown to divergent points of view
between which Protestant freedom permits a choice. The
absence of uniform doctrine ; men's feeling that its place and
name are taken by the subjective convictions of individual ji
THE EELIGIOUS LIFE. 493
ecclesiastics ; a perception that the character of these convic-
tions changes considerably within brief periods; the not always
just yet still not always unjust suspicion that these changes
are to some extent influenced by the pressure of political
motives — all these circumstances cause the Church to be
regarded as a political institution, the pressure of which
arouses aversion, because it intrudes into a region in which
obedience to it ought not to come into conflict with men's
spiritual convictions.
We cannot prophesy what the future will be, we can only
prepare for it. It is not to be hoped nor is it to be wished
that the Protestant freedom of religious conviction and investi-
gation should be suppressed or voluntarily surrendered ; it is
to be hoped and wished that dogmatic theology, becoming less
confident in its assurance of knowledge, should diminish the
number of arbitrary interpretations of things which do not
admit of interpretation ; and should by greater unanimity in
matters that are essential, and by abandoning useless disputes,
strengthen in the members of its communion a sense of trust
in Christian faith ; it is to be hoped and wished that thought-
ful sensitiveness of conscience in treating all the concerns of
life (that most wholesome fruit which living Christianity has
produced in many souls) should be recognised as greater than
the temper of mind which, turning away from all that is best
and fairest in modern secular civilisation, affects matters that
are inscrutable and useless, and archaisms which offend taste
without strengthening faith ; finally, it is to be hoped and
wished that a greater share in the management of Church
matters should be given to the laity, and that thus they should
regain that interest in these matters which they have lost
tlirough being so much excluded from them. But though it
is certain that among the things most to be desired in the
future we must reckon the continued existence of the Church
as an objective reality in which the religious life of the
individual issues, finding therein both a guarantee that its
efforts are well directed, and spiritual comfort and edification ;
3"et still if those changes which we have indicated as desirable
494
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER 17.
are not carried out, we sliould hold that the renewed attempt
to maintain the external integrity of the Church, while it
lacked the internal conditions of truth, would be less salutary
than its ruin — a ruin which our opponents point out to us as
an inevitable consequence of the Protestant principle. It is
certain that the time immediately succeeding such a catas-
trophe would be neither desirable nor agreeable ; but we may
confidently hope that not only would living religion grow when
relieved from conflict with unsuitable external ordinances, but
that also the ineradicable need which men feel of not standing
alone in religion and of having their faith recognised, would
lead to the voluntary establishment of great ecclesiastical
communities that would be free from impracticable claims to
authority over men not belonging to theuu
CHAPTEE V.
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY.
The Family, and Tribal States — The Kingdoms of tlie East — Paternal Despotism
— The Political Constructions of the Greeks — Civic Life and Law in Rome
— Political Life and Society in the Middle Ages — The Autonomy of Society
— National and Historical Law — Practicable and Impracticable Postulates •.
Duty of Society as regards its Members ; State and Society ; Constitutional
Government ; Socialism ; luternatioual Relations.
I. rilHE Family, as being most directly founded upon
-L natural relations, has always been regarded as the
indispensable basis of Society, and often as tlie root from
which this has grown ; and its constitution has always furnished
the model to be imitated by all social order. Unless ennobled
by the civilising influences of a life rich in manifold interests,
natural family relations in themselves and exclusive regard
for them, have not produced either " tlie white flower of a
[blameless life," or social arrangements conducive to progress,
or just towards the just claims of individual human beings.
And this is not surprising ; for Nature does indeed lead us to
form connections which, understood in a right sense and used
in a right spirit, afford abundant occasion for the development
of moral beauty, but we cannot have the right understanding
or the right spirit except as the result of many-sided reflec-
tion to which we are forced by the multiplicity of the tasks
and conflicts of life.
The world, with all those complicated relations of existence
produced by the historical course of human civilisation, is now
spread before us as an immeasurable field in which there lie
concealed a thousand sources of happiness and of evil ; to go
Wk out together into this dim distance (into which our anticipa-
tory dreams haye long ago ventured) purposing to share each
other's joy and sorrow, and with the hope that agreement in
estimating that which the future may bring will strengthen
11
49S
496 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER V.
mutual fidelity — such a resolution (when such it is that leads
to the establishment of family relationships) does undoubtedly
ennoble the natural impulse from which it springs. On
the other hand, the poorer life is, and the more monotonous
men's anticipation of the future, the less worthy will family
happiness be, and the less removed from that which Nature
affords even to the beasts ; and the more plainly will there
appear those immoral results, of which (in barbarous minds)
natural relations are actually the occasion. For the superiority
of the man's strength over the woman's need of help, and of
the fully developed vigour of adults over the tenderness of
childhood, are indications of Nature which have been always
understood and followed by the barbarous men of uncivilised
times. And the less the security of life and the activity of
trade, the more does the woman, who is dependent and obliged
to seek the protection of the man, have to do for the support
of the family, and so there arises polygamy, not as the result
of a direct indication of Nature, but as a proximate con-
sequence of natural relations ; and polygamy entails a general
degradation of women, degrees of importance among the wives
of one man, and differences in the hereditary rights which
descend to their children. The relation between parents and
children is in the same way deformed by this incapacity of
ennobling natural bonds. That profound secret of cosmic
order by which each generation of men springs from that
which preceded it, and by which parents are endowed with
the wonderful power of bringing into the world immortal
souls like themselves, appears to the untutored mind to be
nothing but a most commonplace example of causation, and it
seems to it that all the power which a maker has over the
work of his own hands belongs as a matter of course to parents
— or rather to the father, since maternal rights were very
early ignored. This paternal power had as regarded the child
a right of life and death just as unconditional as is the right
of a possessor to dispose of his lifeless chattels ; it knew no
distinction between immature youth and the dawning of
manly independence ; it was without respect for the ripening
I
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 497
individuality of human souls, and made no attempt to renew
the bonds of relationship in a spiritual sense, by learning to
enter into fresh views of life, but was ever harking back upon
one past fact — the fact of physical generation. This paternal
power was the direct result of straining to the utmost limit
those natural relations upon which the family is founded ; we
trace it clearly in the beginnings of every civilisation, and see
that it disappears from practice in proportion as the growing
complexity of human relations leads to a more refined estima-
tion of the rights of individual men.
Even apart from such crude misinterpretations family life
does not teach social morality. Special and unique relations
bind the members of a family together by feelings which do
not flow from general duties of men towards their fellows ;
these feelings do indeed incidentally enrich life with a
passionate intensity of affection, which is no doubt an
element of the best human happiness, but so far from
illuminating men's consciousness of general moral duties, they
only obscure it. Through forgiving lenity and precautionary
discipline they hinder justice ; in the education of children
they often abridge freedom which should be permitted, and
permit them much to which they have no claim ; even where
their demands and permissions agree with the general com-
mands of morality, there is in the mixture of piety and love
which prompts them a combination alien to the obligatory
i power of moral laws. For what we do from piety, that is from
a devout, feeling, which is not clearly conscious of the grounds
and limits of reciprocal duties, seems to us (being indeed, as
it is, only the result of our temper of mind) as the mere
efflux of our own devout individual character; and even
where all vanity of self-exaltation is absent, it appears to be
something which is by no means necessarily present in the
I ■ world, and in fact would not be so if it were not for our
good disposition ; we by no means think of it as something
I which others have a right to receive from us, which right
would be eternally valid even though no one should regard
it. Every one acknowledges the advantage of this founda-
VOL. II. 2 I
498 BOOK VIIL CHAPTER V.
tion of piety in the domestic life of families, but public
morality is not based upon it. A man only comprehends
what he owes to his fellows when he comes into contact
with those who are nothing to him ; it is only when all
the claims to consideration, friendship, love, and reverence
founded upon those special natural conditions have fallen
awaj', that general duties and their necessary general motives
become clear. Hence as long as the social conditions of a
growing nation are regulated after the pattern of family
relations, we do indeed find many beautiful and poetic traits
of character, but scarcely any advance towards justice — rather,
on the contrary, many traces of its opposite. For instance,
it is quite common to find in early civilisation, even among
people of otherwise mUd temperament, extreme harshness in
the punishment of crime ; without weighing the degrees of
heinousness in different offences, and still more without taking
into consideration those extenuating circumstances which
lessen guilt in particular cases, the piety of national morality,
when once wounded, proceeds with indiscriminating piti-
lessness. This is quite natural to a temper which ia
accustomed to be guided in its demands not by recognised
rights of others, but only by its own general feeling, and
which therefore when it is offended is conscious of nothing
but the offence to itself, and in unconditionally repulsing the
insult is not moderated by any consideration of different
circumstances.
When a numerous people arises from the multiplication
of families, the feeling of being bound together by ties of
kindred disappears, and is replaced by the feeling of a com-
munity founded on similarity of language, custom, and
thought. The more self - centred and exclusive any such
people, starting from a basis of very special conditions, can
make its life, the further will its condition be from cor-
responding to the ideal of human society. To aesthetic
feeling it may seem that in comparison with the vacillating
half-heartedness so abundantly produced by every complex
civilisation, that unwavering stability of national character is
POLinCAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 499
mucli to be preferred which is easily and homogeneously
developed in all individuals when the whole circumstances of
their life are fixed and never subjected to doubt; but this
advantage is not in itself to be reckoned higher than the
beauty which belongs to some species of animals, and like-
wise always reappears under certain conditions. There is
in it no germ of progress ; its morality, which has only grown
up through custom, has not the flexibility which can only be
given by general principles ; it presses upon individuals with
the force of rigid prejudice, and condemns all those indi-
vidual impulses running counter to the narrow-mindedness of
tradition, which now and then arise from the inextinguishable
diversities of human nature. Hence all such thoroughly
national civilisations of past times are characterized by un-
intelligent intolerance, and this only disappears when, having
been forced into contact with the morality of other nations,
men's illusion as to the universal validity of their own
maxims is destroyed, and they are constrained to learn in
their most comprehensive form those universal moral obliga-
tions without the recognition of which no human society can
subsist.
It was by nomad tribes, whose unity depends predomi-
nantly upon the remembrance of their past history, that
the bond of consanguinity was held in highest esteem ; and
in the early ages it often happened that when they changed
their nomad habits for a stationary life, this fact had a great
influence upon the political arrangements which sprang from
their connection with the soil which was to be henceforth
■khe permanent object of their activity. The different tribes
distributed conquered and unowned land among fathers of
families and heads of houses, and sought by many ingenuities
of legislation to make this distribution permanent; in so
doing they gave to the constitution of the State a distinct
genealogical stamp, assimilating it even in reference to its
physical basis to the internal order of a family sprung from
ne ancestor. When they made such attempts they had little
nowledge of the real tasks of life, and did not foresee that
500
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER V.
the new connections with territorial possessions, into which
they were entering, were at variance with the sentiments and
plans by which they were still swayed. While the Hebrews
were yet wandering shepherds, they regarded the preservation
of their race as the most sacred duty, and believed that their
God had promised to them, the chosen people, the multiplica-
tion of their seed as His primary blessing. In fact, if the
historic life of wandering tribes were not carried on in the
ever - renewed traditions of never - failing generations, such
tribes would leave behind no signs of their existence and
activity, for they produce nothing that is physically durable ;
they would vanish from the earth and from reality altogether,
leaving no trace behind, and would be as though they had
never been. The Greeks as well as the Hebrews were not
without a longing to live for ever in their descendants ; but
history did not afford them any such uninterrupted retrospec-
tive view of their ancestors. And yet when the Dorians
founded the kingdom of Sparta, they seemed just as eagerly
anxious to establish by artificial regulation of property an
Immutable complement of families of equal fortune, by which
the Spartan nation should be represented through infinite
future ages. Both the Greek and the Semitic races sought
to strengthen their national fabric by hindering free self-
determination in various ways, and to secure the continued
existence of every family even by the help of legal fictions ;
and thus both greatly retarded their own social development,
and their political constructions were eventually swept away
by the natural current of events. For stationary life brings
men into such manifold contact with the nature of things,
and awakens in them such strong ideas of the rights which
accrue to them from the activity which they expend upon
objects, that any family morality which does not recognise
the independence founded upon such personal rights is sure
to be at last broken through ; and Nature itself forbids that
the number of families should always continue the same ;
some families multiplying greatly while others become extinct,
laws which aim at the maintenance of family interests are
I
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 501
likely to promote the advent of intolerable extremes of wealth
and poverty.
A strong feeling of unity animated the tribes whose mem-
bers were bound together by ties of blood ; this feeling ceased
to be possible when need and the spirit of adventure had
caused nations to attack one another, and through the sub-
jection of many by one, had formed communities which indeed
hardly deserve to be called communities, and stiU less states,
but were simply kingdoms. For it was only the authority of
government and not a desire on the part of individuals for
such association that held together these political conglomerates
which were produced in greatest number, though not exclu-
sively, by the East. That a victorious tribe should regard
the vanquished as destitute of rights and should arbitrarily
dispose of their lives, is a thing that the general characteristics
of human nature make easily intelligible ; and from a con-
sideration of actual circumstances and of the better aspects of
that nature, we can also understand how it was that what
befell the conquered was not unmitigated slavery, but that
the details of their life were left to be determined by their
own codes of morality, absolute submission being required in
only a few particulars. But that within the dominant tribe
there could be developed the authority of one individual ruler
is a fact which can be explained only by the co-operation of
many conditions. In time of peace patriarchal authority
light be established in a tribe, and the leader of successful
expeditions might win ardent attachment ; the exaltation of
jihe authority thus obtained to sovereign majesty seems to be
lade permanently possible only by the transition to stationary
ife, and to be facilitated by the subjection of alien communi-
'ties. For however slight political insight may be in other
respects, the claim of sovereignty over wide territories, the
inhabitants of which differ in their mode of life, must teach
that some system of order and administration is necessary ;
care for the general security recommends that in the govern-
ment of conquered races there should be no divided mind ;
and finally, the greater complexity of conditions makes it
502 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER V.
possible for the ruler to withdraw from daily intercourse into
exalted unapproachableness. This last circumstance seems
always to have been serviceable to oriental governments in
establishing and exalting men's reverence for their rulers, and
impressing upon the minds both of the dominant race and also
(and with less difficulty) of the conquered that this sovereignty
of one over all was an irrevocable decree of Nature. Obedi-
ence of the multitude towards a power to which it feels
bound by ties neither of morality nor of affection, and which
at the same time would be incapable of opposing any adequate
physical resistance to the united will of all its individual
subjects, rests chiefly upon the uncertainty which each indivi-
dual feels as to the sentiments and interests of the rest.
There have been but few governments which could have
outlasted the moment (if it had ever come) of a general
revelation of the secrets of all hearts ; men would have seen
how little the law corresponded with the real will of all ; and
with such a discovery there would have been a general revolt
of will against it. But such knowledge of a possibly existent
unanimity could only be in very simple conditions of society,
where the circumstances of all are thoroughly homogeneous,
or where there are great facilities for the exchange of thought,
and a highly developed public opinion. Yet in comparatively
recent times the leaders of nomad nations have been able to
put the world in dread, thanks to the enthusiastic and un-
conditional obedience of their followers ; the will of the
leaders being nothing more than the concentrated and unified
expression of desires which they both found pre-existing and
also helped to intensify in their uncivilised and hardy tribes ;
but nations at this stage of civilisation universally reject
despotism in times of peace. Where such unanimity has
become a thing of the past, and community of public opinion |
has not yet arisen, the ambition of rulers derives its strength
from the paralysing uncertainty of each man concerning the
views of others. For submission to an express law addressed
to all, must ever promise most security to him who does not
know (because they do not manifest themselves) those counter-
I
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 503
forces in the society vvhicli are able and willing to offer
resistance — who can never know what interests beyond his
own intellectual horizon may alter the sentiments of men
whom otherwise he would naturally conclude to be like-
minded with himself — and who finally, if he knew all this,
would still not be able to call into combined action at the
right moment those forces which he knows to exist. In this
lies the great superiority which any established order, what-
ever it may be, generally has over all attempts at innovation
— the certain evil, to which men have learnt to accommodate
themselves, is preferred to the uncertain, of which they
cannot see all the bearings.
The sentiments cherished towards Asiatic despots by their
subjects could hardly have been other than these. They
were reinforced only by the strength of habit, which confirmed
patience in the one case and confidence in the other, causing
him who was ruled to regard being ruled as a fate which
could not be even thought away, and him who ruled to
consider that he had a natural right to rule. The material
with which this framework of society was filled in, differed
according to the temperament of nations and of their gover-
nors. In the East the giddy height to which the position of
ruler had been raised brought to powerful minds little more
than dreams of universal sovereignty which did not lead to
the purposive accomplishment of any social organization, but
yet, with unconscious historic efficacy, enlarged the intellectual
horizon of the nations and the bonds between them, and
aroused in men a general idea of vast and comprehensive
order. And since these dreams could only be carried out by
means of the strength of subjects, the resources of subjects
had to be spared, and protected by a regular administration ;
such administration could be carried out in detail only by
the conquered nations themselves, since they alone were
acquainted with their own circumstances, and for this reason
despots left national institutions uninterfered with for the
most part, only reserving to themselves the power of disposing
absolutely of the resources produced by means of these.
504 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER V.
Hence the fall of kingdoms and the transference of dominion
to other tribes altered bat little the general features of
society ; it was only organized within limited circles, not
being to any extent systematized as a whole.
The ancient political communities of China and of the
American Indians deserve the name of states much more
than these Asiatic kingdoms ; in them, in place of empty
arbitrariness, we find the thought of an ordered administration
of human affairs which the ruler is empowered to carry out.3
Asiatic despotism left the life of the people to its own luck ;
it ruled indeed, but did not govern ; but China, Mexico, and
Peru lacked neither an administration regulated in detail, nor
generally received laws and traditions which sought to bring
the tenor of individual life into harmony with the well-
being of the whole ; the rights and duties of subjects and
morality and education were determined with provident
wisdom and sometimes with much refinement of feeling, and
connected with rules founded at the same time upon natural
equity and judicious policy. Peru especially had in many
respects realized the Platonic ideal of a state, though pre-
senting that interesting superabundance of characteristic
practical arrangements which always distinguishes social
institutions that have resulted from actual circumstances as
compared with logical deductions from general principles.
Yet none of these states were promotive of progress for long
China has retained its isolation up to the present time, Mexico
was on the verge of dissolution when destruction fell upon it
from without ; Peru, notwithstanding the devotion of its people
to their native government, could not long withstand the pres-
sure of the Europeans. For all these states were founded, not
upon any basis of justice, but on well-meaning administration
and consecrated tradition. They had laws, and these were not
merely arbitrary ordinances; but a sense of equity, attainment of
definite ends, and traditional usage, were the sole grounds
from which they proceeded, for they were based on no recog-
nition of universal principles of right. They had an ideal
of social life, which they regarded as the concern of the state.
r
i
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 505
and souglit to realize by complex organization and strict
centralization ; but for them society did not rest on individual
personal rights, which always demand recognition even where
their exercise has to be renounced for the sake of the general
welfare ; they rather set their political ideal before them-
selves as an immutable goal, and deduced from it all individual
rights and the comparative cogency of every claim. Hence
when there came a dissolution of this form of political con-
stitution, in which (as is commonly said of organisms) the
whole was actually prior to the parts, the parts had no vital
strength of their own, which could enable them to attempt
new political constructions. Any structure that arises from
the inherent powers of its constituent parts is, by the ever-
active reciprocity of these, renewed under some fresh form,
whenever the old form disappears ; that more organic con-
struction of society, in which every detail has reference to the
one informing Idea of the whole, may have a more imposing
appearance as long as it lasts, but if its integrity is once
broken up, it falls into a condition of corruption incapable of
producing fresh life. The European nations, who had a strong
consciousness of personal rights, due partly to their own
■ natural character, and partly to Eoman influence, have been
^able to escape without political dissolution from conditions of
[great social confusion; for the Peruvian, the possibility of
i social life depended upon the existence of his Incas, and upon
the continuance of a thousand historically transmitted institu-
tions ; accustomed to a definite form of the wliole, he knew
nothing of that power of the universal which makes the
• formation of new wholes always possible. Under the dominion
of their well-meaning princes, who were prudent in policy and
not unskilled in economics, these Indians may have felt very
much happier than they would probably have been under the
dominion of the philosophic expert whom Plato would have
called to the throne ; but their edifice of protective despotism,
when called upon to resist unforeseen disturbances, did not
stand the test.
LS 2. A settlement had been formed on the banks of the
506 BOOK Vin. CHAPTER V.
Eurotas by a warlike nomad tribe called Dorians. It was
natural that this community of foreigners, surrounded on all
sides by enemies, should retain those habits of constant readi-
ness for combat, strict fidelity to one another, and stern
discipline, which the obligation of self-preservation had taught
to them during their wanderings, and which besides were
ancient habits of their race. Hence is explicable a great part
of the political constitution of Sparta — both of what it com-
manded and of what it forbade ; it established as the permanent
order of the commonwealth institutions which had been
adapted to the temporary needs of the infant state, and the
position in which it at first found itsel£
In modern times the State is not expected to teach society
what are the important aims of life, and to make regulations
by which individuals may be guided to the attainment of such
ends ; it is sufficient and seems most desirable that public
institutions should do no more than protect all free and lawful
personal activity, affording merely the possibility of general
human culture, which every individual may use in the
particular way that suits his own talents. By the Greek
mind generally, the unceasing discipline and guidance of
individual life was regarded as both the right and the duty of
the state ; it was carried out in Sparta in such a way that all
individual powers were forced to exhaust themselves in the
work of keeping up the whole, efforts for private ends being
neither justified nor encouraged. What was demanded was
not the blind obedience of slaves but the conscious self-
devotion of citizens to the common weal, the laws and
traditions of which were impressed upon all by a careful
course of education ; but the individual had no freedom either
with reference to this genius of the state, or even in other
respects ; every exercise of human powers which was left to
unfettered self-determination was held to threaten the security
of the whole. There was no choice of callings, the possible
differences of which all disappeared before the one task which
the state set itself, that of ensuring constant readiness fo:
war; the behaviour of individuals, family relations, and
i
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 607
addition to these the social enjoyments of life, were even in
unimportant details subjected to state regulation.
Yet it would be an entire mistake to suppose that on this
account Spartan life was destitute of all the mental wealth and
all the happiness which can rejoice the human soul. That stern
discipline itself produced so many and such admirable virtues of
manliness, constancy, moderation, discretion, and fidelity, that
the very consciousness of this strong and splendid develop-
ment was in itself a source of exalted pleasure, as it became
for contemporaries and posterity an object of genuine admira-
tion. Yet a question arises as to the independent and
intrinsically worthy good, which this state (since it took away
from individuals the liberty of choosing their aim in life) seemed
the more bound to set before all as that which every one
should strive after. For all those virtues whicli we have
enumerated are yet but formal excellences, preparatory dis-
cipline of efficient powers, which strain towards some ideal
in the service of which they may receive the consecration of
humanity ; they do not in themselves set man much higher
than many favoured races of animals which walk the earth in
native beauty and with all the grace of consummate strength.
The Spartan state lacked the content of mental life to which
we refer. It was not animated by any unbounded impulse
towards the enlargement of knowledge; on the contrary, it
regarded such impulse with suspicion; for the innumerable
small interests with which cultivated minds often amuse
and occupy themselves, generally winning by the way some
fragment of eternal good fraught with delight, the Dorian
mind felt no sympathy or indulgence — felt nothing but the
contemptuous superiority of which a hardy nature is conscious
towards those which are more finely organized ; it even seemed
as though the moral perfections which it inculcated were
required less as a result of devotion to that which was in
itself fair and noble than as formal conditions the fulfilment
— ^ of which were a guarantee to gods and men of the safety of
H the commonwealth ; at any rate Sparta seemed to regard
B intellectual and artistic culture with suspicion, and to refuse
L
503
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER V.
tliem room for further development as soon as tlie stage was
reached which from this point of view was desirable.
This strange round of political life — of universality that
tolerates no divergencies, of a whole the parts of which have
no task but to constitute that whole — is very clearly ex-
pressed by Plato when in describing that ideal State of his
which reminds one of the Dorian reality, he makes the candid
remark, " We are concerned here not with any wellbeing of
the parts, but with securing to the whole, to the State as such,
the greatest possible power of self-preservation," Both
Sparta and Plato leave us asking the question, " What good is
it for any such State to exist in the world at all, and what
interest can one take in a machine which expends all its
strength in self-conservation and turns out no useful product ? "
We owe it to history that we need not leave the tirst
question so entirely without an answer as the second. We
can easily conceive that a tribe of Indians might have a Spartan
form of government, many of the Spartan institutions, and
much of the Spartan virtue, and yet that with all this if it
lived surrounded by allied tribes, it might not far surpass the
average civilisation of the race. But the Spartans were
Greeks and lived in Greece. Their constitution did not
favour mental progress, but the more it came into contact
with the advanced development of the rest of Greece, the less
did it suppress in its own subjects the natural capacities of
the Hellenic race. The necessity of combating harmful ex-
cesses of opposed political tendencies had caused the nation
to have an inspiring remembrance of great deeds in the
accomplishment of which all had taken part, to have its
pride in the national formal virtues confirmed, and its
intellectual horizon enlarged by acquaintance with that civili-
sation against the political consequences of which it fought.
Continuous peace or permanent isolation would have under-
mined the political life of Sparta by increasing unintellectuality
and a growing consciousness of its aimlessness; but the
external relations we have referred to — the necessity ofj
undertaking the role of political opposition — provided it foi
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 609
some time with a vocation for the accomplishment of which
subjection to its stern discipline might with some reason be
required and was willingly rendered. Gradually the causes of
which we have spoken had a disintegrating effect, at first
slowly and afterwards more rapidly ; the irrepressible desires
of human nature were roused by an acquaintance, which crept
in and grew, with luxury which the old constitution had
taught men to lack with dignity, but had not taught them to
enjoy with dignity.
In the parts inhabited by tribes of Ionic tongue, the com-
mon evils of unequal distribution of goods, and misuse of
inherited authority, were the primary cause of attempts at
innovation which, however, did not stop short at the attain-
ment of their proximate ends. The mobile nature of these
more social people whom trade and industry had early made
familiar with various civilisations, impelled them generally to
wish to take a personal part in the administration and guid-
ance of public affairs. The nature of the country seemed to
harmonize with this inclination ; it favoured the independent
development of small communities, the mental powers of
which, exercised in constant and concentrated action and
reaction, connected with a circumscribed district the remem-
brance of many famous deeds in which the community as a
whole had participated ; their native city, adorned with
monuments of artistic labour, appeared to all as the visible
embodiment of mental wealth, to preserve, protect, and increase
which was a debt of honour transmitted from generation to
generation. They consciously held fast to this principle of
political development; they required that the state should
embrace a territory large enough to render it independent of
foreign supplies as far as essential necessaries were concerned,
but small enough to allow of the personal intercourse of all
the citizens. An enlargement of the state which while all
the population enjoyed equal rights would have withdrawn the
conduct of affairs from the general view and handed it over
to a government which could not be inspected, they would
have regarded as the beginning of a suppression of freedom.
510
BOOK Vm. CHAPTER V.
For them the co-operation of more extensive powers could only
be attained by means of confederations which, however, often
sacrificed the freedom of the less powerful allies to the interest
of the principal one.
The smallness of the stage upon which the actions and
reactions of these exceedingly active societies were carried on,
accelerated their maturity and decay. The participation of
the people in the course of public affairs is free from danger
only at times when political development is just beginning,
or when it is fully accomplished ; in the first case when
established national custom is still an effective check upon
individual caprice, and at the same time the political course
of all is guided into predetermined paths by simple and
unvarying tasks ; in the second case when long experience
(producing respect for necessary restrictions of which men
have at last become conscious) prevents even those who
disapprove from inconsiderate interference with the course of
events. In the first period men will submit without envy to
the guidance and authority of a few; in the second it will
seem to them necessary that the State as a living historical
whole in which past and future as well as present genera-
tions have a part, should in some form or other be contrasted
with Society, with the aggregate of living men, as an
organism which does not altogether coincide with that
aggregate. Athens lived over the first period ; it was not
destined to reach the second ; the complete removal of all
popular restraints led to a political dissolution, and any
reconstruction from the ruins was hindered by the inroads of
mijifortune from without. We find that even in time of
calamity Athens produced some splendid examples of self-
sacrifice and enthusiasm, but these — alternating as they do
with instances of fatal rashness — seem but as an echo from
better times that have passed away ; certainly a large number
of the most gifted minds appeared in this age of decay, but
all withdrew their interest from the present, and looked back
with longing eyes to the superior simplicity of the past;
unbridled freedom had brought no advance, but it was only
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY, 511
gradually that it could destroy all the good that had been
developed in that highly endowed people, by wise legislation,
the rule of gifted tyrants, and the thoughtful enthusiasm of a
less self-seeking generation.
By this double example of developments in opposite
directions, the merits and errors of which it exhibits with
inspiring and warning effect to later times, Greece became
a decisive turning-point for the political development of
the West. To it belongs the glory of having led the
human mind from stupid acquiescence in traditional order to
conscious participation in the good and ill of a common-
wealth ; of having transformed the child of a tribe into the
member of a nation, and the mere subject of a ruler into the
citizen of a state. That which gave stability and order to
other nations was not without influence among the Greeks
also ; they, like others, had begun with obedience towards
historical tradition, but at a later stage they held fast (not
with the blindness of mere habit, but with conscious piety) all
that changed circumstances made it possible for them to
retain; they, too, knew well what a magic bond of union
between the members of a family or of a race is the retro-
spective contemplation of a long line of forefathers ; but long-
continued participation in one common weal was regarded by
them as a more powerful bond than the natural tie of race or
blood ; and when they contrasted their much-divided nation
under the common name of Hellenes with the world of
Barbarians, they felt themselves connected not as descendants
of any one ancestor, but as being the only branch of mankind
capable of true political life ; finally, they were very ready to
trace back their constitutions to the authority of lawgivers
and political founders, and to consecrate them by the idea of
divine co-operation ; they did not, however, receive the
ordinances which they ascribed to this source as alien statutes,
but recognised in them (as though they had been the
expression of a covenant between gods and men) that which
had caused their recognition and adoption in the first place.
Thus the State seemed to them neither an ordinance of
512 BOOK VIII. CHAPTEK V.
Nature, nor of directly divine institution, but a construction
of human reason, which, with conscious reflection upon
existing circumstances, endeavours to order things according
to that which is good in the eyes of both gods and men — the
national conscience affording the revelation of this good.
To return once more to a consideration of the splendid
results of these new political views would be superfluous;
scarcely less obvious than those results is the danger which
they involve, and involved in an extreme degree when for the
first time in history it was attempted to establish political r
life on its own principles, detached from theocratic grounds ♦
and from the constraining influence of instinctive obedience
towards traditional authority. Whether what is just exists by
Nature or depends upon human institution was a disputed
point much handled by Greek sophists. With this question .
were connected the inferences that if right exists of itself, it is '.f
binding upon all, but that if it is the product of human i
institution, it is not binding for any power which is able to
break it. The question when put in the form above given
did not admit of any plain and simple answer. Eternal Ideas,
valid in themselves, might or might not determine those
simplest principles of sentiment and action which must bt'
exemplified in individual actions, in a world of objects that is
conditioned by circumstances ; but as regarded the obligation of]
these moral Ideas in as far as the Greek national conscience j
was acquainted with them, no doubt was felt, or at least no^
doubt but such as was raised by the most idle sophistry — i
scholastic not practical doubt. The dispute as to what is just]
related to those definite rights and duties, laws and institutions]
of social life, which were based upon existing circumstances
But with regard to these, Dialectic, in its attempts to prove!
their bindingness by showing that they proceed directly from
the majesty of the supreme ethical Ideas, always fell short.]
Speaking generally, there are several arrangements byJ
which these Ideas may be introduced into life with almost]
equal perfection ; whatever such arrangements there were oi
are, have always resulted from human institution, for m thiflj
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 513
dispute concerning what is just, gradual growth from the
unconscious action and reaction of felt needs is included
under the notion of a condition of things produced by the
free action of human wills. But this origin of justice in the
concrete seemed to diminish its binding force, and the more
the Greeks felt that they were in advance of other nations,
because of their social order being established on maxims the
worth of which they consciously recognised, the greater was
their danger of falling into the error of regarding that which
they thus recognised as resulting from their own will and
^choice and always revocable, and themselves as not bound by
\L This error, which henceforward has never disappeared
from the history of political life, confounds the departments
)f science and practice. Truths can never be decreed ; they
'can only have their validity recognised; and their validity, as
regards reality, is always complete and full, never partial and
merely approximate. But on the other hand that which
ought to be is determined only by universal Ideas which, as
Ideas, form no part of the real world, and always have to
wait until human wills give them some special definite form
under which they become part of the world of reality. In
this sense all justice is the work of men, and can only exist
as such, and undoubtedly the sacredness which belongs to the
supreme Ideas themselves does not befit it; it has a claim
to respect only in as far as it reflects them ; but it does not
lose its binding force and become of no account merely
3cause it is mediated by human action by which alone
jality can be given to it. He who reverences only the
iupreme Ideas and despises all positive law and justice
Bcause of its human ingredient, entirely mistakes the work
and destiny of man in history. Our institutions do not exist
in order to arouse the admiration of the angels in heaven by
their ideal perfection ; but their business is, while partaking
of that mundane defectiveness which attaches to all human
existence, society, and history, to serve as testimonies and
results of human reason, which, working by the best light
lat science and conscience give, tries to make the ideal (as
VOL. IL 2 K
614 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER V.
far as understood) the rule of its action within the sphere of
(existing circumstances. For this work it is entitled to
demand respect, for its worth is not reduced to nullity
l)ecause it is not the highest conceivable. The attempt to
give greater stability to human institutions by tracing them
directly to divine revelation, or regarding them as the
mysterious consequences of some metaphysical cosmic order,
shows imperfection or retrogression of political development ;
it is an attempt to perpetuate that which, when all is said, is
but the work of human creatures; here again what is
demanded of men is to be faithful in that which is least, and
to feel bound by the relative validity of that for which
absolute validity is impossible — bound, that is, as far as is
required by the destiny to which they are called — that of
going through a course of rational development with the
steady continuity of historical progression.
This true political instinct was by no means lacking in the
fair infancy of Greek state-construction ; in fact, there was a
period in which the people regarded with religious awe and
scrupulousness the laws which they had imposed upon them-
selves. It was the sophistry of a corrupt time which first
raised the question that we have been considering. But yet
before this time there existed motives for raising it. As long
as the traditions of unchanging custom were powerful enough,
reverence for law was upheld by habit ; and to this reverence
there was not opposed in men's minds any strong conscious-
ness of having themselves created law. According to the
legend, special personal obligations of the people to their law-
givers, ensured to the first great legislations of Lycurgus and
Solon a continuance sufficiently long to reproduce the same
habit of respect ; when subsequently social evils and ever-
recurring passions had repeatedly changed the aspect of
public order, great statesmen did indeed insist more emphati-
cally than ever upon the sacredness of law — they insisted upon
this notwithstanding (rather indeed because of) the fact that
they based law upon the free and unanimous consent of the
community, but they no longer succeeded in convincing the
Ji
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 615
popular mind. As in every period which has experienced
the misfortune of numerous constitutional changes, so in the
later ages of Greek power, political life seemed to be a mere
stage upon which arbitrary ordinances and experimente,
unsupported by any authoritative force, might clash and
struggle.
With regard to the actual order which they established,
the views of the Greeks were different from our own. Among
the civilised nations of modern times many circumstances
(among which the influence of Christianity is most prominent)
have contributed to develop a sensitive consciousness of the
significance of human personality. Not only does the nobler
spirit find true life in those relations to the supersensuous
world which are the result of its own mental labour, and
ward off from this inner sanctuary all intrusive curiosity
or inspection ; a similar sense of individual personality has
become natural even to simpler minds, which without
being conscious of the foundation of their claim, feel that
there is something in them which no power in the world
is entitled to pry into ; every one requires that at least in
his family life, his work, his favourite tastes and hobbies
he should be left unmolested, and the restrictions for the
general good which interfere with him within this sphere
he feels to be restrictions indeed. Hence we regard the
State as the sum total of ordinances and institutions
necessary for securing permanently the free development
of individuality, having due regard to the needs of human
life and the means which material Nature presents for their
»atisfaction ; and we all along make the tacit assumption
hat this security must be effected with no more constraint
ban is involved in limiting the freedom of each individual
member of the society so far as to secure the equal freedom
of all. The Greeks did not share this high estimation (whicli
is in some respects an over-estimation) of human personality.
They regarded men chiefly as products of Nature, and character
as dependent upon degrees of intelligence ; it was not in their
616 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER V.
good and in evil can fight against insight or natural inclina-
tion ; as in thought they were little addicted to pondering the
problem of Free Will (to which our time loves to refer the
very inner sanctuary of personality), so in life they were not
averse to being regarded as homogeneous examples of the
Imman race. Absorption in work, in the supersensuous
world of belief, and in the heterogeneous circles of
thought familiar to those who laboriously investigate the
extant fragments of past civilisations, contributes to favour
capricious peculiarity of personal development among us.
These sources of interest did not count for much among
the Greeks, and so there was but little which they could
have felt impelled to withdraw from the observation of
public life as a sacred private interest. They did not there-
fore oppose to political order that sensitive consciousness of
the respect due to every man's individuality, wliich demands
that each several person should be judged by an unique
standard ; the State appeared to them as a system of social
ordinances by which alone man is originally raised above ^
mere animal existence, is made acquainted with the work of
his life, is educated to fitness for this work, and has deter-
mined for him the aggregate of his rights and duties towards
other men. Not that Greek consciousness lacked either
universal moral Ideas or notions of equity and justice in
matters of private right ; both of these were inevitably evolved
by life itself ; but neither reached a development correspond-
ing to the perfection of political theory, and neither was
independent of this. The Greeks always held fast to the
distinction between Greeks and barbarians, bond and free,
strangers and guests, friends whom one should benefit and
enemies whom one should hate ; and this shows that they
did not look for justice (the specially moral perfection
among the four which they extolled) in the general disposition
of man towards man, but in the performance of the mutual
obligations imposed by social position. But State regulations
interfered in such a way with private right as to diminish
many natural privileges, and elevate many others into dutiei
1
F
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 617
Beeming in all cases to be rather the source whence rights
proceeded, than to find its business in the recognition of those
which already existed. Even when the actual condition of
things no longer allowed the rein of law to be so tightly
drawn, we still see a disposition even in the most en-
lightened minds to make the disposal of property, the
choice of a calling, marriage and the production and educa-
tion of children the object of State regulation — both these
and a multitude of other matters, all of which modern
feeling would not even permit to be brought under public
consideration. Variety of mental development was not
hindered everywhere as it was in Sparta ; but even in Athens
it was not unfettered until the time of political retrogression ;
at an earlier period this development itself was in harmony
with public opinion ; when it was not so, it was, like
many religious opinions, suppressed — not as being a sin
against a Divine Spirit, but as being an offence against one
of the securities for political order ; and as a last resource
the individual whose existence, even without his own fault
seemed to threaten this order, might be removed by
banishment.
This complete subjection of individual life to a general rule
is not peculiar to antiquity. It lives again not only in
(religious societies and orders, in which it has its special and
jfeasily recognisable motives in feelings of contrition ; even
[Where ordinary political society cannot content itself with
pemedying evil in detail, but thinks that its whole order must
be reconstructed, we see both in the carrying out of this pur-
pose (which is rare) and in the plans for doing so (which are
frequent) an inclination towards this excessive regulation of
life by law. In this case the source of the impulse is not so
obvious. Man jealously guards his personal independence in
most respects, and yet there is in his mind some mysteiious
attraction towards renouncing it again, and trying to live as u
mere exemplar of his species; the constant exertion of strength
which is necessary in order to carry on his individual plan of
life is relaxed, and is exchanged for refreshing ease, when he
•
\K.
618 BOOK Vni. CHAPTER V.
swims with the stream which flows in an accustomed channel.
The want of courage which lurks in this impulse is veiled by
the aesthetically elevating impression made by the thought of
a strict universal order in human affairs ; and that which was
partly customary submission, partly exhaustion, takes on the
more pleasing aspect of self-sacrifice. If even the more
favoured are dragged down by these two motives to the liking
for an uniform mechanism of life, the oppressed find in it
their only hope of relief; it will at least let them have some
weight as individuals in the crowd, as examples of their kind,
and assure to them a position in life which they could not
have won by their own strength. All these impulses were
influential in Greece ; there was powerful pressure from below
caused by envious desire for equality ; it was met from above
by a self-sacrificing appreciation of the value of law and
order on the part of the more noble spirits ; thus it happened
that freedom came to the people as a whole only in the form
of autonomy, that is, the power to make their own laws ; the
only freedom left for individuals consisted in the conscious- j
ness that all which they did and all which they left undone
was determined by rational ordinances of the commonwealth.
Thus Society and the State were almost wholly coincident,
and both suffered from the admixture. If there had been
realized in society any permanent order, always corresponding
to social needs, or if it had been possible to enlighten it to
such a degree that it would have made every necessary
transition in the quickest and most direct way, then the State
would have been of but little importance compared to it.
But when the development of society proceeds naturally, it is
a struggle of selfish interests, which in seeking their own
satisfaction violate the rights of others, and thereby disturb
the conditions of general prosperity, and finally damage their
own welfare. To society in this stage, the State is as it were
a conscience. As the guardian of universal justice which is
superior to all individual interests, it protects the existing
condition of things from all encroachments which would over-
turn and disregard it as being of no account, at the same time
I
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 519
allowing any new development to set it aside in a lawful
way; being keeper of the maxims by which the common-
wealth is guided in its external behaviour, it is deaf to those
promptings of eccentric fancy which would impose upon the
nation tasks that are unsuitable and do not historically
devolve upon it. Now it is difficult for this conscience to
become articulate and to give judgment if it really resides
only in the various individual consciences of conflicting
parties, and is not opposed to them as a third and higher
power, having a definite embodiment. The present age
enjoys a superabundance of this privilege ; antiquity had not
enough of it. Not only do monarchies embody the impartial
justice of the State in the one person of the ruler, to whom
the base envy of private interests is unknown, not only do
those officers whose connected activity constitutes the govern-
ment oppose to individual wills a plain systematization of the
general will, but also very frequently the authority of the
State encounters the mobility of society with superfluous and
vexatious constraint, in the form of an excessive number of
subordinate officials ; finally the large size of states, the
enormous extent and complication of State business, and the
great development of the science of jurisprudence are all
conditions which make it necessary to suppose that the
assumption of governmental office should be preceded by
special technical preparation by which government as an
embodiment of the State is marked off from the rest of
society.
Whatever disadvantages this sharp limitation may have,
the Greek states which were without it suffered from the
deficiency. A small group of reverend officials consisting of
men of whom some belonged to the natural aristocracy of age,
some to the still more respected aristocracy of noble birth, and
some again to that of the rich landed proprietors, were
originally contrasted with the nation as its guides and rulers,
representing the ancient traditions of justice and civilisation.
The progress of democratic sentiment and the increasing power
of uncertain riches deprived them of all these advantages.
620 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER V.
Want of respect for work as work prevented the formation of
any regular circle of occupations which would have divided
society into ranks and classes, and have made men desire that
the various great interests of human life should be represented ;
lience it came to pass more and more that every individual
felt himself a Citizen of the State pure and simple, and that
the National Assembly felt itself identical with the State ;
growing envy and the struggle of all for equal rights caused
an increase in the number of governmental officers, and these
degenerated into mere business managers in a society the de-
cisions of which were guided by no respect for any developed
system of universal law, but merely by traditions of the past
in as far as temporary interests allowed them to prevail, and
which was turned to good or ill by the eloquence of individual
leaders. The battles which society under the supervision of
the State had to fight out, were thus transferred to the domain
of politics, and since each party tried to get possession of the
helm of State, these battles continually endangered the stability
both of the constitution and of those individual rights which
were too dependent upon it. Indeed the strife of parties
assumed a more monotonous aspect than might have been
expected after so much splendour of mental development ; it
became at last nothing but a struggle between poverty and
wealth, and ended in Sparta in an intolerable ascendency of
some few rich families, in whose hands was accumulated the
possession of all the land, and in Athens in the supremacy of
the unpropertied majority, who thrust upon the diminishing
class of the well-to-do all those State burdens which resulted
chiefly from their own measures, and were intended to satisfy
their greed and their political vanity.
§ 3. Between Greece and the present there lies Eorae ; and
to it cultivated minds have often looked, hoping to be taught
and elevated ; it is with Kome only that the political develop-
ment of the modern world stands in real causal connection,
partly by means of many special historical bonds, which there
is no need to mention in this place, and partly by a great
intellectual heritage which has been transmitted by her to U8«
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 521
The development of Law, of Jurisprudence, and of a general
sense of Eight has given to modern society a foundation by
which, even in its aberrations, it is essentially distinguished
from the states of the early ages of antiquity; and this
foundation is a legacy from Eome.
The Greeks had been animated by a strong impulse to
sociality, and an inclination to devote themselves to specula-
tive knowledge. The first led them to seek above all in both
theory and practice a perfect plan of social order which
should secure the most complete and permanent satisfaction
possible of the need they felt for communication, for human
intercourse, for consideration among their equals; the other
characteristic led them to recognise and disentangle moral and
aesthetic Ideas which as supreme exemplars determined the
content of a beautiful and worthy life, which they regarded
as the goal of human development. Neither of these two
[spheres of thought favoured the development of a strong
r'sense of right.
Special emotions accompany the approving or disap-
proving verdict of conscience, being different for different
classes of the objects which we judge of, and similar for
[individuals of the same class. Our approval of what is
-beautiful is not merely an affirmative judgment that differs
Ifrom a judgment expressing approval of what is good only in
ijbhis, that it concerns a different object ; on the contrary, in
both cases there is an affection of the whole mind differing
'.in kind in each case ; and in the same way there is a differ-
[.ence between the recognition of what is just, and of what is
ijbenevolent and kind. This subjective impression which the
thing judged of — or if we look at it objectively, the nature and
degree of that worth which we ascribe to it — makes upon us,
is expressed by the general names of good, beautiful, or just,
rbut these names contain no answer to the question. What
must anything be in itself in order to produce this impression,
and hence to merit this ascription of value ? Hence from
:the Idea of the Beautiful, no theory of aesthetics can show
KWjhat kind of individual thing it is that beauty appertains to ;
622 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER V.
and yet it is only individual things that are beautiful, and
not the general concept of Beauty. The Idea of Justice does
not lead us to know the kind of action that corresponds to it,
any more than the concept of Usefulness (to which in a
logical point of view it is wholly similar) enlightens us as to
what things are useful, and for what. Hence a predilection
for these universal concepts which are without content, and
for systematic deduction from them, leads men on the one
hand (in order that they may have something to deduce from)
to put into them some content more or less suitable, and
supplied perhaps by cultivated taste, perhaps by a happy
inspiration, but not warranted as certain and exhaustive by
any full and careful preliminary investigation of particulars.
On the other hand, it forces men to take those individual cases
in which unsophisticated feeling must recognise the validity
of the determinations of value referred to, and with logical art
to fit them into a previously constructed scheme. Both these
procedures are likely to interfere with the just estimation of
particulars, in which alone, all the while, the universal can be
realized.
The Eomans were protected from this danger by their lack
of speculative impulse. They were just as firmly persuaded
as the Greeks that there is one single eternal universal Cause
which, directly or indirectly, makes everything right that is
right ; but it did not occur to them to take this Cause and
under the form of an Idea of Eight to make it in itself the
objective source from which the particulars of what is just
and right are to be derived ; it was known to them only as
the agreement of the Practical Eeason with itself, this reason
never being able to express its whole thought fully at once,
but giving, when consulted on special cases, approving or
disapproving judgments, aU of which are consistent with one
another. They made use of this organon for the discovery of
right, and thus, by the same path by which hitherto every
science has collected its material, attained possession of a
multitude of truths relating to right conduct, which referred
primarily to very special circumstances, but were in this
1
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 523
isolation much more evident to men's natural sense of right
•without any mediation, than they could have been as known
mediately by deduction from an universal. When the
accumulation of the material thus obtained began to make
it worth while, and when changed habits of life seemed to
require it, there was developed great ingenuity in the discovery
of the next higher general principles which lay at the founda-
tion of individual groups of maxims — of analogies by which
fresh objects of ethical consideration might be brought under
the rules of cases already treated — and finally, in the adjust-
ment of the reciprocal limitations required in cases where
different principles came into conflict But when — stirred
partly by the systematizing spirit of Greek philosophy — they
finally attempted to express those ultimate principles upon
which the abundant store of their ethical wealth rested, they
succeeded as little as all later philosophy has done, in finding
anything that was at the same time fruitful and conclusive.
This inductive temper which, if need be, can content itself
with secure possession of the particular if it cannot find the
universal for which it seeks, but cares nothing for any
universal from which the particular cannot be obtained,
confirmed the peculiarity which marked the political bent of
the Eomans. Intercourse with one's fellow-men was not a
prime necessity of life to the Eomans as it was to the Greeks,
who could not conceive of human life except in society ; least
of all did the Eomans look to society to bestow or to estab-
lish personal rights. A lively consciousness of these — of all
to which the individual man lays claim as naturally coming
under his power, both as regards the family of which he is
the head and the goods which belong to him — vi^as before all
other considerations with them; in their view these rights
could be bestowed by none, but must be recognised by all.
Now life taught the impossibility of carrying out these claims
without any modifications, and obliged men to form social
ties ; but social order did not bestow rights on subjects
previously destitute of them, but resulted from the renuncia-
tion by individuals of a part of the rights which they already
524 BOOK Vlll. CHAPTER V.
possessed. Hence it depended on practical limitation of rights
recognised in theory, and not upon the establishment of fresh
rights. I need only note briefly that these remarks are not
intended to describe the actual origin of the Eoman state, in
which (as in all great historic events) many causes co-operated ;
they merely serve to indicate a predominant sentiment, by
which, as we think, the Eoman world was animated ; it is the
sentiment which led them to a splendid development of the
Law of Private Eight, and to a development of Public Law
that was by no means narrow and merely national.
The changing relations to one another into which the
course of life brings individual persons, form the most natural
school for the development of a sense of right. The claims
of different men daily come into conflict, whether as regards
the use of material objects, or with regard to those return
services and compensations which the actions of some impose
upon others. The frequent occurrence of cases that are
similar, though seldom exactly alike, does of itself to some
extent secure just judgment; the speedily-felt ill effect of a
false judgment helps to bring about its correction ; any selfish
inclination which a man may feel to maintain such a deci-
sion for his own advantage will be in every case sup-
pressed by the apprehension that he may be the next person j
to sufier from it ; from the great multitude of particulars men^
naturally arrive at general points of view, analogies drawn
from which may serve for their guidance in fresh cases ; and
at the same time the frequent recurrence of individual cases
makes clear the errors that may have been committed in
incorrectly setting down as similar that which is dissimilar,
thus sharpening the distinction between things that are only
superficially the same. And further, the course of life brings
into circumstances that are the same, or at any rate similar,
the most different classes of people — some bound together by
strict ties of love and reverence, others unconnected even byj
the merest acquaintanceship, and having no cause to reckon
upon any definite reciprocity either of benevolence or of ill-
will. Thus it becomes so much the easier to separate from ;
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 525
all considerations of sentiment the regulation of any special
relation, and the just determination of that which, under the
circumstances, is due on both sides ; and to look at the matter
with reference to that which the nature of the relation itself
(in as far as it actually occurs among men) imposes upon
those between whom it obtains, whatever other ties may
connect them together. Thus custom and right become
gradually disjoined, and by degrees it grows clearer how much
of that which custom enjoins is required by the essential
nature of the case, and what modifications of these require-
ments are a spontaneous contribution of personal feeling. And
not only is the multiplicity of persons important, between
whom there may arise relations involving private rights,
but also the infinite variety of objects with which they may
])e connected, is of consequence. Superstition may easily
attach to particular objects and arrangements in Nature
which are permanent, or grand in their way, a mystic signifi-
cance, which interferes with a just practical treatment of
them ; but the vast multitude of things which, in the highest
degree various, prosaic, and in themselves unimportant, may
yet at any moment become the objects of conflicting claims,
do not admit of this false illumination ; in dealing with
them, men become accustomed to regard things as what they
are, not as symbols of something else, and look to find the
right treatment of them in such a procedure as their nature
requires, in order that they may satisfy as completely and
permanently as possible all existing claims.
Now the organization of political society, which is to accom-
plish such a limitation of the rights of individuals as will
make them con)patible with one another, and is to afford
them efficient external protection, is (if we look at its nature)
the furthest goal to which our search after right can approxi-
mate, and at the same time (if we look at the need of it) one
of the first which our search is bound to attain. The diffi-
culties which oppose its establishment are quite different from
[those which are met with in the establishment of the indi-
[yidual relations which belong to the sphere of Private Eight
526 BOOK vm. chapter v.
Men cannot, as in the latter case, learn from observation of
innumerable examples ; the injurious effects of any estab-
lished error only become apparent after a long time, and
cannot be easily traced to their source ; the organization has
to deal with permanent differences of status by taking
account of permanent relations, and hence finds it difficult to
avoid laying down fixed rules that favour permanent but
unjust interests of individual classes of society ; it finds it
very difficult to escape the influence of those general preju-
dices with regard to men's different positions in life and
reciprocal obligations, which have been produced by custom
as time went on ; finally, it has to guarantee not only all
private rights, but also the welfare of the whole, both of
which partly depend upon external circumstances, and also to
afford by its institutions, positive satisfaction to the desire for
reputation and the impulses to action which stir individual men.
These tasks have to be accomplished under conditions which
are continually, though slowly, changing ; just judgment
concerning them is being continually disturbed by party
interests, which are not (as is the case in questions between
man and man) held back from persistence in injustice by the
fear that they themselves may be the next to suffer the evil
consequences of an unjust decision. Hence it early came
to seem as though Private Right were a kind of immutable
justice, founded in the very nature of things and of relations,
and inherent in them ; and just as naturally Public Law
seemed to be the result of human convention and incapable of
being made definitive. Indeed the former was not established in
Eome by governmental action, but discovered by the sagacity
of experts, as instruments of the natural sense of right,
whilst many of the ordinances of Public Law have the
character of a treaty between conflicting parties, the content
of which is binding not in Nature but through the combined
wills of contracting parties, until they agree to revoke the
treaty.
Notwithstanding this difference of origin, devotion to the
commonwealth was not less in Eome than in Greece. When
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 627
social order had once been constructed by the submission of
all to limitation of their rights, the individual did not cling
to it merely because it represented his interests among others ;
a sense of the grandeur and power which could only be
attained by the community as a whole, pride in the great
deeds achieved, and a consciousness of the manly virtues
which through that order had become elements of everyday
life — these won for the State the self-sacrificing attachment
of the citizens, and that habit of uncompromising obedience,
which caused them to put up with many governmental defi-
ciencies, and more than once to drop complaints about pressing
grievances without having obtained the redress they demanded,
when government used legal forms as an instrument against
them, calling upon them for services the rendering of which
prevented their following up their grievances. In later times
political storms did indeed by violent and illegal measures
disregard all law, yet still even the Empire was far from being
a return to Asiatic despotism. In truth the fact is that from
this time forward the life of man was based upon a conscious-
ness of inalienable rights which might indeed in many indi-
vidual cases be disregarded by the temporary representatives
of political power, but the theoretical validity of which was
■ no longer a matter of dispute.
We have supposed that personal rights should be recog-
nised and limited by society, but are not bestowed by it. In
itself this view of the origin of personal rights is by no means
absolutely just ; it is with capacities only that Nature endows
us ; a man's right is something which he first feels as a duty
towards others, and hence regards as being also a duty owed
by others to himself. This second aspect of the case leads
more easily than the first to the conception of right as some-
thing universal in which all mankind have part. We
only agree to a limitation of original rights with regard to
those who profess a willingness to make similar renunciations,
that is with regard to members of the same political com-
munity ; and then an outsider is admitted to participation in
political rights only by being received into the community,
528 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER V.
and to procure or to permit this reception is left to the dis
cretion of custom and prejudice. The political development
of Eome was in harmony with all this without being altogether
determined by it. Its original town-community was indeed
obliged, by the course of events, to construct legal forms for
the regulation of intercourse with those who were not citizens,
in addition to the native law according to which they them-
selves lived ; but for a long time this original community con-
tinued sole sovereign over the growing multitudes of conquered
subjects, in as far as Public Law was concerned, and it was
but slowly that the rights of Eoman citizenship spread
to the provinces. Previously these had been simply rifled
for the benefit of the metropolis, and given over as a prey to
the covetousness and tyranny of her officials ; and even when
the imperial government abolished this metropolitan privilege,
it still did not loose the bonds of slavery in which a great part
of the population languished.
After slow historic changes, Eoman Law at a later period
again began to restrict the national legal customs of more
modem nations. Not only did it at the time encounter
suspicious aversion, but even at the present day it is re-
proached with having caused the loss of much legal insight
which was of the very essence of the national spirit of
different peoples. It does not lie within the scope of our
brief survey to determine, in reference to this reproach, the
limits of its validity ; we are more concerned to remember the
beneficial effects which resulted not so much from the intro-
duction of Eoman Law, as from the way in which all relations of
life became pervaded by the spirit of Eoman Jurisprudence. It
is owing to it that there have disappeared the poetic, significant,
and spirit-stirring forms of legal administration and carrying
out of sentences, but also simultaneously with them the bar-
barous justice that was exercised with so much fantastic
pageantry ; to its cool clear logic it is due that completed
actions, incipient attempts, remote intentions, and obvious or
merely supposed inclinations, not yet put into act, came to be
no longer indiscriminately regarded as deserving of one and the
1
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 529
same sentence ; that different offences were no longer visited
with the same frightful and unvarying measure of punishment,
which customary morality (in such cases always too severe) or
examples of Biblical history seemed — to an offended sense of
justice not much used to draw distinctions — to demand.
§ 4. All through the storms which disturbed the beginning
of the Middle Ages, the thought of the solidarity of mankind
had been kept alive only in the Church ; and it had regard
rather to the heavenly goal which men had in common than
to any ordered action and reaction on earth. Afterwards the
Empire sought, but with very imperfect success, to bind together
at least civilised Christendom in political union ; any con-
sciousness on the part of society of being an universal human
community had been lost amid the multitudinous fragments
of nations which struggled on with difficulty, in conflict with
one another, and without being able to take any comprehen-
sive view of their mutual relations ; there were indeed families
and tribes, corporations and communities, nationalities and
kingdoms, but no political construction deserving of the name
of a State. This kind of dispersed and fragmentary social life,
notwithstanding that it produced here and there some splendid
fruit, was not favourable to the growth of civilisation ; society
was first delivered from it by the growing absolutism of
kingly power, which (at first with the help of the towns)
broke the independence of the feudal lords, just as these had
Iready destroyed the freedom of the common people. Where
this subjugation of the vassals took place after a long struggle
and over a wide domain, the prince might not unjustly
identify himself with the State, for he in his own person
Ifcrepresented the political unity of the whole. And tliis not
merely formally, in as far as his sole will was supreme ; in
addition to this, a considerable part of the intellectual store
I Byhich was common to all, and by which the national con-
I fcciousness was nourished, was to be traced to him ; wars,
although carried on without reference to the real needs of
i the whole and merely for the sake of dynastic interests,
I Ket accustomed nations to internal solidarity, and to that
I ■ VOL n. ' 2 L
»
530 BOOK VIIL CHAPTER V.
Jealous national hatred without which no young state becomes
great ; and many undertakin;^s in art and science, althougli
due to a liking for useless ostentation and other misguided
impulses, yet furthered civilisation by the abundant means
that were placed at their disposal.
The condition of society certainly changed according to the
disposition and insight of the rulers, but this Absolutism was
very far from being a return to oriental Despotism ; and how-
ever strange the forms which sovereign power took here and
there, the idea which both rulers and subjects had of it was
founded upon entirely different principles. The sovereign was
neither the possessor of the whole country nor the sole source
of all private rights, which if due to such a source are not
rights but only favours bestowed ; and powerful and fierce as
were some of the attacks made upon these rights, they were
either regarded as violent and illegal measures, or were based
upon previously established ordinances, and though the content
of these might be arbitrary, yet the reference to them showed
that it was not a retrospective and baseless decision, given
after the fact, and applying only to the individual case, that ■
was taken as the rule of procedure, but a general precept
affecting the future. But not only did the power of rulers
find a limit in this recognition of general rights which it
could not evade, but also their claims to majesty could not
quite do without some substratum of respect for the people
over which they were supreme. It was not merely distinction
of descent which ennobled the kingly office — or perhaps tliis
very distinction itself consisted in the transmitted heritage of
kingly rule, the worth and dignity of which depended on the
worth of the people ruled. Hence it happened that though
the resources of a people might not be always used for their
own best advantage, they were not employed exclusively for f
the personal benefit of the ruler ; it was felt necessary to
glorify the name of the country from which a prince took his
title ; under this name was veiled the thought of the State,
which now again began to come into prominence; in all
external relations the prince felt himself to be the repro^
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. ';531
sentative of tlie State, but in relation to his subjects he was
more apt to lose this consciousness. Hence we find that this
absolutism has a paternal character, and there are very
numerous examples of princes who sought to employ the
whole strength of their people for objects in which they
thought they discerned, not their own personal advantage,
but the good of the whole ; and we can easily understand the
subsequent transition to a much-governing bureaucracy, the
activity of which was not particularly useful to the welfare
either of the prince or of the people, but seemed to be advan-
tageous to the orderly maintenance of the State, the notion ol
which had not yet found its right place with regard either to
the notion of Society or to that of Government.
Eespect for the kingly power in the minds of subjects was
only to a very small extent based upon general convictions
respecting the necessary order of human affairs, and not
exclusively upon that personal feeling which results from
long-continued intercourse. Like almost all the institutions
of the Middle Ages, this sovereign power was based upon
historical tradition, and its justification, limitation, and exten-
sion upon treaties and concessions, which, though they may
have been brought about by force, became in their turn a
source of law, and grew to be consecrated by prescription.
In this way conflicting legal rights of individuals had long
been maintained; when finally the power which became
supreme was victorious, it — in as far as it was victorious —
became another case of acquired right, which now had a place
in history, and continued to influence its course. Even the
, Church, when it alternately confirmed and attacked secular
|lB|k>wer, did not act in the name of universal principles of
right, but proceeded upon isolated historic facts of confirmation
and remission. This general bias of the time towards derivin!»
the binding force of an existing condition not from one general
source of all law, but from its establishment upon the factual
validity of earlier conditions, favoured the development of the
_ -notion of legitimacy, that is, of a kind of legality that rests
I pot upon natural universal right, but upon the historic
532
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER V.
accumulation of acquired rights. Hence, in point of fact, the
beginning of all legitimacy is illegitimate, although it need
not be at the same time illegal ; even where the rise of any
power is due to moral impulses of personal feeling or common
consent, the character of legitimacy properly belongs to it
only at a later stage of its existence.
In proportion as absolutism consolidated the connection
between different parts of the State and removed the restric-
tions which hindered their reciprocal action, it taught society
to feel itself a community, and roused it to further efforts
which became dangerous to the stability of absolutism itself.
This supreme power did not fully accomplish its natural task ;
although exerting every effort to make all the forces of the
nation directly serviceable to the State, and on this account
hostile to all subordinate legal power which in any degree with-j
drew power from itself, it yet did not succeed in breaking:
down all those barriers to its own authority which were at the
same time hindrances to the free movement of society, and;
which, like it, were based upon traditional custom, but wei
not, like it, capable of justifying their existence by rendering
great services to general progress. When the struggle
between these powers began, men became more conscious
than ever before of the contrast between absolute natural
right and historic and legitimate right, as a ground of dispute ;
even in our own day attachment to the one or the other
distinguishes men's convictions as regards the political consti-
tution of the State, as regards international relations, and
finally as regards the educative, controlling, and punitive power
over its members which society ascribes to itself. "We will
now for a brief space devote our attention to these still influ-
ential questions, leaving undiscussed the immense abundance
of various social and political constructions which have filled up
the period intervening between antiquity and the present time.
§ 5. When the Roman looked beyond the boundaries of his
own kingdom and noted the similarity of capacities with
which Nature has endowed all nations, and seemingly pre-
destined them to unity, he recognised that all men belong
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 533"
to one Human Eace. For Christian thought the place
of this notion was taken by that of Humanity, men
being regarded not specially as called by likeness of
natural gifts to likeness of joy and sorrow, but by likeness
of supernatural appointment to help make up the composite
whole of a complex system of life. Finally, in the present
day the expression Society of Human Beings is preferred, and
it indicates a new change in the way in which the matter is
regarded. In the notion of the Human Eace, the prominent
thought was that of an Universal, existing in Nature, and
exemplified in every individual ; in the notion of Humanity,
the prominent thought was the idea of a Whole, that makes
the Individual the means of its realization ; in the notion of
Society, the Individual plainly stands out as both goal and
point of departure. Society does not exist for its own sake,
and its ordinances are not ends in themselves ; society is
formed and its internal relations developed, partly in order to
compensate the needs and deficiencies of individuals, partly in
order to make use of the capacities of different individuals for
the mutual benefit of all ; but the general order which results
from this systematization is only valued in proportion as it
produces some good result which, coming back to the indi-
vidual, is consciously enjoyed by him.
In the unconcealed expression of this conviction even well-
meaning persons often see a tacit threat of opposition to
nearly all the forms under which human life has always
hitherto gone on, and still continues to go on — to the institu-
tions of morality which, in family relations and social inter-
llfcsourse, restrain the caprice of self-will; to traditional respect
for the rights of property, and at the same time to everything
that hinders the free exercise of this right ; to the grouping
and dividing of nations by political boundaries which have
arisen without reference to social needs ; to that self-sacrificing
obedience which the State imposes as an inherited obligation
upon its citizens, generation after generation ; to the general
duty of respecting obligations of historic growth which happen
I HO conflict with temporary needs ; finally, to all that could call
L
534
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER V.
in question the sovereign power of society to rearrange its
construction at any moment. It is believed that if this
mode of thought were practically accepted, it could only
become the source of an instability and lack of rule which
would cause the speedy disappearance of all the most
treasured possessions of humanity, and that there ought to be
upheld in opposition to it, the absolute authority of those
intrinsically binding rules of life to which all human striving
after happiness has to submit as to a divine order.
And certainly all that we have here referred to is called in
question by this mode of thought ; but not in order to be
denied — on the contrary, in order that it may be reaffirmed,
and for better reasons than before. The modern idea of
Society and its imprescriptible right of autonomous legislation
is not new in itself — it is new only as the final and con-
sciously formulated expression of a presupposition wliich has
at all periods of history driven men to attack existing rela-
tions, and which too is almost inevitably supreme for some
time in the life of the individual. For all of us are earlier
conscious of the restraints which the condition of society
imposes on our activity in many directions, than we are of
the grounds of their justification, and of those return services
for our benefit which that society renders and which are as
omnipresent, and hence as unnoticed, as the atmosphere, the
pressure of which holds our bodies together ; with that well-
known inclination to neglect all middle terms which cha-
racterizes Idealism of all kinds, youth is accustomed to demand
empty space in which to exercise the free wings of its soul.
It learns by degrees to understand the value of resistance and
friction, and then recognises in the restraints of human
relations the unavoidable modification which every ideal
must put up with when it is realized in a community of
finite beings. The same revolt against the existing order,
which is to some extent a reasonable result of unjustifiable
evils, and is to some extent carried beyond its due limits
by the confusion due to passion, has repeatedly in
iOPurse of history shaken the whole fabric of society ; but hoj
i
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 635
ever often this storm of revolt may have threatened to destroy
all those established forms of human relation which we regard
as sacred, and may for a brief period have actually destroyed
them, the waves have always at last sunk down again leaving
these same forms, as a plain indication that it is only the
misunderstanding of passion which fails to recognise them as
what they are — that is, as parts of an organization which
society itself (just in order to partake of the good which
it seeks) would have to assume consciously, if it had not done
so unconsciously, from some obscure impulse, far back in the
course of history. Now what distinguishes our own time
from earlier times is chiefly the extraordinary facilitation
which has taken place in the exchange of opinions, views, and
experiences, and the proportionally high degree of clearness
with which we are able to survey, in long periods of past
time, like movements of human society with their motives,
their degree of justice, their mistakes, and their issues.
Therefore if the present age again takes up the supposition
that society ought to be self-ruling, it will not want for
warnings against errors which experience has long since shown
the destructiveness of ; if it is able to develop the principle
in peace and without being roused to passionate convulsions,
we may hope that the new interpretation which it will give
of the foundation of human duties will not endanger the
continuance of any of those forms of order upon which, from
the beginning of time, the value of life has depended.
But in fact it is not the mere actual continuance of these
oral forms that will content the opposers of the modern
view ; they ask to be given another reason for respecting
these forms. It is demanded that the validity of great social
institutions should be based not upon proof of their usefulness
Bor even of their indispensableness for the preservation of
society, but on some inherent and absolute right in them to
fashion human existence, however much its needs may change
with changing time ; it is required that they should not have
tierely the significance of axiomata media of order proved by
Hth
536 ■ BOOK VIIL CHAPTER V.
whole, but that by their own intrinsic majesty they should he
ideals which men are bound to accept, and to follow which
gives worth to life. Those who hold these views meanwhile
impute to the effort of society to develop itself, a one-sided
desire for material welfare as its source. It is certainly true
that the majority of mankind are always inclined to this, and
certainly particular periods, tlie industry of which has to make
up for the deficiencies caused by previous ignorance or idle-
ness, are especially exposed to this danger. But neither does
the general principle of social self-development in itself
exclude the satisfaction of the noblest mental needs from the
list of our aims, nor have they been always excluded by
practical efforts in this direction. Men have taken upon
themselves many sacrifices in the name of freedom, and ou
the other hand many and great mental advantages have been
sacrificed for the sake of rules of human life supposed to be
of absolute validity. Whatever errors may be committed in
practice by ill-regulated passions, the theory of the autonomy
of society is free from the reproach of base egoism ; it
can reckon the unconditionally binding dictate of conscience,
as readily as it can any existing natural need, among the
actual conditions which must be considered in any attempts
of society to determine what its order ought to be. This
theory, too, has at heart not merely material prosperity, and
the unconstrainedness of individual wills ; it too, since it
wishes to satisfy at once all moral aesthetic and sensuous
needs, seeks the kingdom of heaven here upon earth, or at
least such an approximation to it as is possible upon earth ;
but it does indeed seek all this in a way different from that
which is sometimes assigned to it.
We here again renew the old war which we have so often
waged against the worship of empty forms. It is lamentable
when Science degrades the rich warmth of reality to mere
representations, wholly devoid of interest, of reciprocal action
between Unity and Plurality, Finity and Infinity, Centre and
Periphery ; it is still more deplorable when Art and Eeligion,
instead of gathering enthusiasm from that which warms all
.
I
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 537
hearts, seeks what, is highest in dogmas and symbols, the
signification of which, if it is ever grasped, can produce nothing
but empty astonishment ; but it is wholly unbearable when
social and political life are attempted to be forced into forms
which signify something or other, but help men not at all.
And yet how much has been required of us in this way by
the profundity of our own time ; how often has the attempt
been made to deduce from comparisons analogies and symbols,
of which we can understand neither the justification nor the
evidential force, that which can only be derived from practical
needs which are actually felt ! Following the comparison
which had already proved a failure in the hands of Plato, the
different ranks of human society have been obliged to submit
to be regarded as an imitation of bodily functions ; at times
when astronomy has impressed men's minds, the different
gradations of relationship between the central body of a
system and its planet and between the planet and its satellite,
and the complicated regularity of their orbits, have seemed to
exhibit a mysterious type of political order ; less arbitrary is
the procedure of those who seek the exemplar according to
which the articulation of the social and political organism is
to be carried out, not in any one isolated case in Nature to
which another and contradictory case may always be opposed,
but in the very ground and base of all things, in the nature
of God, in the Trinity in Unity, in the reciprocal action of
the divine attributes. All these attempts forget that what is
right for one thing is by no means also appropriate for another
thing, which is really dissimilar, or which perhaps does not even
appear similar; what is just in these comparisons is not valid
for us in virtue of the analogy — ^but it is because that which
is just is quite independently and originally valid for the
relations with which we are concerned, that the analogy may
be conveniently used as an ornament of our discourse upon such
subjects, without however having any further evidential force.
More deceptive than these arbitrary fancies and equally base-
less are views which would regulate human relations according
to notions which have a wider application, which through
538
BOOK VIIL CHAPTER V.
their own power constitute themselves supreme principles,
and the expression of which in phaenomena would seem to
be the necessary business of all reality. As logically the
particular is subordinated to the universal; as rest is phy-
sically the result of equilibrium, and movement the result of
the reciprocal action of unequal forces ; as we derive aesthetic
satisfaction only from a plurality which may be apprehendec
as a clearly discerned unity : so also, it is imagined, is societ)
bound — in the separation and subordination of classes, in the
division of labour and distribution of rights, and in the con«|
nection of the whole under the unity of government — tc
exhibit those fundamental ideas of reality in actual life,
say to exhibit — for certainly what these views regard as oi
primary importance is not that such social arrangements!
should be useful or necessary or unavoidable ; they ai
required, not to meet a want, but to exist in order that thosejj
formal notions of order should be reflected in them. But the
end of human society is not to act proverbs or to present
tableaux vivants, the symbolic meaning of wliieh may delight
spectators dwelling in other planets ; human Ufe, with the
infinity of struggles, passions, pains, and cares which it include
is far too earnest to be used for such a purpose. The onlj
order that can be obligatory for us is that which in some
actual and legitimate causal connection is indispensable oi
helpful for the accomplishment of our human destiny. I d(
not mean by this that the organization of society should be
limited to some slight and rough systematization corresponding
to the most pressing needs, and should despise every arrange-
ment the ideal significance of which might adorn life ; in
far as this significance is vividly felt it is rather itself to bel
reckoned among the conditions which effectively promote ourj
improvement; but it must be felt in order to be justitied.|
Every form of which the symbolic or speculative meaning ia
plain only to the erudite or in isolated moments of reflection,!
without rousing or restraining any activity in real life, is ai
artificial thing that has no binding force.
A general over-estimation of human affairs, of which oi
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY, 539
philosophy is not. altogether innocent, produces or favours
these errors. For a long time historical existence was regarded
as a confused stream in contrast to the immutable order of
Nature ; subsequently reflection, finding in it no less than in
Nature, traces of intelligible development and system, grew
accustomed to regard the forms in which this intelligibility
was expressed as being ends in themselves, in much the same
way as those which are pointed out by concepts of kind in
Nature. As Nature brings forth animals and plants, in order
that there may be animals and plants, and not for any other
reason, so the political construction of the State came to be
looked upon as the evolutional end predetermined and pre-
figured by its eternal Idea. The State itself, it was thought,
should exist for its own sake alone — to produce a State
in order that there should be a State being part of the busi-
ness of mankind, who are called upon to realize this among
other forms of their organization — the concepts of such
forms (as ends in themselves and eternal) being regarded
as the goal of human development. This view naturally
has a dangerous bias towards doctrinaire deduction of political
principles ; it believes that there is an eternal Idea of the
State not only in the sense of a permanent task which it has
to accomplish, but also in the sense of a type which in all the
detail of its permanently binding systematization is a form
that ought to be realized for its own sake, independent of any
other purpose. We cannot agree with this view either in
regard to the State or in regard to all the other forms of human
life which with the State have been concatenated into a series
of stages in the development of the World-soul — stages which
that soul (in the part of its path in which it wears human
form) has to go through, in order that in each successive stage
H it may realize its own being with increased perfection. All these
developments seem to us to be not individual phases and
I forms of heavenly light, whose outline and configuration are
actually filled by the Supreme Good, but forms of human effort in
which men struggle to reach that Good. There is no real subject,
no substance, no place in which anything worthy or sacred can
540
BOOK VIII. CHAPTEU V.
be realized except the individual Ego, the personal soul ;
beyond the inner life of the subjective spirit with its con-
sciousness of Ideas, its enthusiasm for them, its efforts to
realize them, there is no superior region of a so-called objective
spirit the forms and articulation of which are in their mere
existence more worthy than the subjective souL It ia
imagined that the objective spirit reveals itself in the mere
forms of social life — but all relations between individuals are
of worth only in as far as they are, and because they are, not
only between those individuals but also in them, being felt and
enjoyed in living souls according to their worth. There is
nothing gained in the existence of family relations, if by family
we understand merely the formal connection between parents
and children ; in this sense animals and many of the plants
in a garden are parents and brothers and sisters, but it is
nothing to them ; that which ought to be realized is the sum
of the feelings which such formal relations produce in the
minds of those who belong to one family, their minds beingi
like foci in which alone the rays that elsewhere are without]
meaning concentre to form a bright and living picture
And of just as little consequence is it that Political Society or I
State or Church should simply exist, or be developed In this
way or that ; if all these have necessary forms which men arei
bound to keep to, the binding force of such forms always
depends upon the degree in which they correspond to per-
manent or temporary human needs, and are capable of beiugl
brought nearer to perfection both in themselves and in those]
external states in which they can be realized.
§ 6. Radicalism is accustomed in atomistic fashion to]
oppose the individual to society, and absolute and inalienable
personal rights to social privileges and restrictions. But it]
does not succeed in showing how an isolated human being!
can be a subject of rights. Against the powers of Nature, thel
ravages of disease, the fierceness of wild beasts, we can establish]
no right to the security of our existence ; we feel that what
Nature has endowed us with is only more or less extended!
capacities and the wish to exercise them ; but our natural!
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 541
claims only become rights when there is some one else who
can recognise them. It is certainly true that they then
become rights not merely to the extent to which recognition
is actually accorded to them, for the recognition may fail
where it ought to be forthcoming ; but it is equally true that
this recognition, when it is accorded, does not consist in a
bare perception of rights attaching in finished completeness to
individuals as such without any reference to reciprocal inter-
course. Not only to fear the claims of others as a power that
may possibly be turned against ourselves, but also to respect
them as rights, is a thing to which we can be compelled by
nothing but the feeling that we are morally bound to help
forward the accomplishment of the task to which mankind
are destined (and which society alone makes possible) by
renouncing absolute freedom of arbitrary individual will.
Our right is something which another feels to be obligatory,
expecting in return that we shall be similarly bound towards
him. Therefore if we speak of the original rights of human
persons, we here regard each man^not as a solitary individual,
but think of him, under the concept of a person, as one who
is in intercourse with others, as member of a society of which
all the constituents are not indeed always acting and reacting
upon one another, but still only have rights, as regards one
another, in as far and for as long as this reciprocal action
goes on.
It may here be regarded as sufficient (though the thought
is not in such a case apprehended in quite the same way) to
admit that the opportunity of making rights effective first
occurs in society, but that their actual content remains fixed,
as a series of requirements to the fulfilment of which man's
destiny carries him, in anticipation of all special relations.
When the transition is made from theory to practice, it is soon
seen that these anticipatory demands consist only in extremely
general claims ; and that when we come to the question of how
a number of men are to live together in the same world, how
they are to make a common use of their resources, and how
to manage their sources of enjoyment, these claims need much
542
BOOK VIII. CHA.PTER V.
more dose and definite limitation before they can be carried
into efl'ect. Here we may make a distinction between two
things that can never be separated in reality. When a number
of men live together in one community, there daily arise a
multitude of ever-recurring similar cases of collision between
conflicting claims ; and hence to make any kind of rational
existence possible, it becomes necessary to force individual
wills to give up their freedom in some definite degree. The
rules of such renunciation (concerning chiefly relations dealt
with by the Law of Private Right) are thought to have
binding force because they are, in general at least, the dictates
of an ever-present reason, founded in the nature of men and
the nature of things, and hence receive fresh confirmation at
every moment. The case is supposed to be quite different as
regards those legal determinations which have grown up as
time went on, and which, embracing and enclosing the whole
life of man, set to his arbitrary will bounds for which no
justification can be found either in the notion of human destiny
or in the nature of things. _ It is thought that to allow these
customary arrangements to continue in force is to resist that
eternal law of reason which requires that all human affairs
should be continually guided directly by its own immutable
laws.
It is a matter of course that among the conditions, which
are only historically explicable, there are primarily reckoned;
political relations and the division of society into different:
ranks, but the line of demarcation has not always been steadily!
fixed ; communism shows that even essential parts of the Law
of Private Kight may be reckoned among those laws and legal .
institutions which seem to drag on their existence like a sloW|
disease. This very fact shows the untenableness of the whole
distinction. If man could live his destined life in solitude,;
and if he entered only incidentally into social relations, then
indeed no form of society which had grown up historically I
would be binding on him without his individual consent.
But man has no power over the place and time of his birth,
both of which involve his life from the first in a network of
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 543
conditions tliat have grown up historically ; he does not rise
to the independence of which his nature allows without the
assistance of others, who in this very work are protected only
by an historically established reign of law in his society ; his
mental development would be a nullity if the same condition
of society did not bring to him in countless ways the material
of mental growth, and aid him in making use of it. Thus
then before he becomes a. person having rights concerning
which he can dispute, he is profoundly indebted to the institu-
tions of society for the very development of his personality.
And the same thing holds of society as a whole. If a number
of beings endowed with mind, without ancestors or previous
history, were suddenly to arise in space, having similar natures
and being at a similar stage of development, they would be
at liberty to reconstruct their social order at any moment
by arbitrary convention. But any human society embraces
countless gradations of age, with just as numerous gradations
of rights and obligations, of rational insight, and of helpless
nonage ; hence it can never, as a whole, constitute one subject,
able in real truth to exhibit and realize a homogeneous general
will ; it must always regard the resolutions which it takes as
binding even upon those of its members who were incapable
of taking part in them, who will therefore on the other hand be
I unable to refuse to recognise, as having a right to exist, those
transmitted conditions which it had no hand in establishing.
We find nowhere realized the assumption of Radicalism, that
in the construction of human society an altogether new
departure might be taken, or the past be treated as of no
account.
This, however, is in fact only one aspect of the matter.
History continues its course, and the conditions by which
one age seeks to order human life can neither furnish irre-
■ vocable rules for the future, nor have, as means for the
B attainment of human ends, the unconditioned majesty of the
moral commands themselves. Only it would be an error,
destructive of the security of human existence, to treat obso-
644 BOOK VIIL CHAPTER V.
are growing unfair as becoming naturally extinct, and inno-
vations of which the intrinsic justice is indubitable as though
they were legally established claims. It is just the historical
connection of all things which makes that which is growing
old remain a power still to be recognised and to be got rid of
in a legal manner ; and new impulses to development cannot
grow up unrestrained as in empty space, but must come to
terms with that which already exists. Not even a condition
that owed its origin wholly to unlawful force can, when it
lias subsisted for some time, be summarily set aside as invalid
with all its consequences ; the life of society could not pause
from the time of its establishment, nor hold back from all
connection with it — engagements laudable in themselves will
have been entered into, legal agreements of unquestionable
validity concluded, and the prosperity of society advanced, all
in formal recognition or acceptance of the illegal condition ;
and if this unjust foundation were done away, it would be
impossible to give up along with it the covenants and gains
in negotiating which men had had to make use of it. Still
less can that which was once law disappear of itself simply
because the spirit of the time has changed ; the consequences
of such law will have pervaded society in all directions with
personal rights and duties which can only be sacrificed to the
new condition that it is desired to establish, by means of
compensation and voluntary renunciation on the part of those
concerned. To accept this view is the moral duty of all
parties; the generation that is going out cannot bind all
future ages by its own conceptions of life, and that which is
growing up cannot lay exclusive claim to all the world, seeing
that it has been brought into possession of it by those who
went before.
§ 7. We see that men of the present day led by such
convictions are in a variety of ways occupied in seeking for
legal forms which may admit of the necessary progress being
made without breach of legal continuity. These efforts can
only be successful in particular directions ; the historical
work of humanity cannot once for all be brought up to a
i
L
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 545
point from which onwards all further development may pro-
ceed without struggle as naturally resulting from the final
adjustment of the social mechanism. It must suffice if men
will accept the guidance of general principles which are
favourable to this view; difficulties there will always be,
either old or new, which at the moment when they are most
strongly felt can be obviated only by temporary expedients,
and not fundamentally solved for all future time.
The individual will submits more easily to any limitation,
if this appears to be in fact an unavoidable prerequisite of
social life ; but it is irritated and offended if the same demand
is enforced upon it as an original right of society, without
regard to this practical signification. As a matter of fact,
society will always exercise an educating, guiding, and pro-
tecting power over its individual members ; but among the
first of those general principles referred to above must be
reckoned the maxim that society should not formally use
this influence as a right belonging to it, nor (as is always
very likely to happen) systematize this in permanent in-
stitutions to a much greater extent than the nature of the
matter requires. Of all that is demanded by moral custom
and the spirit of the age, by habit and fashion, no more should
be made law than is indispensably necessary in order to pre-
serve social life from the encroachments of rude and arbitrary
caprice; and these laws will have to take the form of
prohibitions, not of commands. Without doubt also it is
the interest of society that the culture of its members should
reach a certain stage, and should take some definite direction
in preference to others ; and we do not in the least oppose those
who look upon guardianship of this interest as an exalted part of
the historical work of society ; but desirable as it is that this
conviction should be powerful in the minds of all individuals,
and should strengthen their readiness to acquire such a degree
of culture, yet it should by no means be regarded as the
"source of an authority entitling society to claim obedience for
any educational system which it may see fit to prescribe.
The moral spirit which should animate humanity will every
VOL. II. 2 M
546 BOOK VIII. CHAPTEE V.
where be more perfect in proportion as it is more immediately
guided by the loftiest views ; but the mechanism of social
arrangements has to be based upon proximate and unques-
tionable grounds. The historical work of any age and the
proximate goal of its culture is not written visibly in the
heavens, that all who run may read, but is inteipreted by
individuals according to their intelligence ; if the uncertain
content of this interpretation is made a legal basis of social
institutions the result is apt to be a guardianship of the many
by the few which, though acquiesced in quite contentedly in
as far as it grows up spontaneously, always offends when it
appears as legal ordinance. Hence society has not only to
refrain from fixing its requirements in too great detail, but
even that which it demands it must (in as far as it demands
it) regard as being the condition of a return service which it
is itself able to offer. Upon this sober ground of reciprocal
and general interest, public institutions wiU rest more securely
than upon pretensions to insight into the eternal cosmic order,
of which no one has been appointed the exclusive interpreter.
And these return services of society consist far more in
the natural reactions of the interests which it embraces, and
which it has to make men respect, than in advantages afforded
by it expressly and of set purpose. For society does not
establish and confer individual rights, but recognises them
and guarantees the possibility of their exercise, on condition
that individuals in some respects renounce their unrestricted
use. It only confers privileges which arise from its own
constitution — governmental posts which cannot naturally
belong to any individual, because they are themselves a
result of the voluntary renunciation of other men ; for the
rest its power is limitative, and its activity (in as far as
legally determined) is exercised chiefly in affording security
and protection.
The amount of limitation which it can impose upon |
individual wills must itself be but limited. No system of
human regulations can claim authority to dispose irrevocably
of a man's whole life ; every one must be allowed liberty to^ ,
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 547
leave the State to which he belongs, his social rank and
calling, and his Church, and to break national ties ; every one
must be free to throw off those conditions of dependence into
which he has been born — not indeed unconditionally, and not
without having paid the obligations which he owed, yet still
as a right and not a favour it is due to him, being a free
person, that he should at his own choice give or withhold at
least a supplementary agreement to a condition of things
into which he came at first without any agreement on his
part. And indeed freedom cannot always be restricted to this
possibility of separation when existing relations are felt to be
irksome ; nor can society everywhere require that if any man
disapprove the laws that rale in a given region, he should
quit that region ; but while entitled to treat in this fashion
the wilfulness and insubordination of individuals, it cannot
take such an attitude towards any wider current of change in
the general mind. It is not the duty of society to accom-
modate itself unresistingly to new claims ; but where it loses
its own unity and is divided on essential points, a con-
servative minority cannot permanently exclude a dissenting
majority from participation in the benefits of social order to
which it has a multitude of traditional claims — claims that
cannot be extinguished by its divergence from rules which
are not immutable. It is easy to scoff, and to say that in
this way the majority of votes (so often irrational) would
iecide human destiny ; and to demand that votes should be
^weighed and not merely counted; those who make such a
lemand do not perceive the tremendous assumption involved
taking for granted that there anywhere exists an infallible
jrgan able to weigh votes in the manner required. Even to
jount the majority of votes is hard enough ; and we must
[jontent ourselves for the most part with this imperfect
means of decision ; taking care, however — with due recogni-
tion of its imperfection — that it should, whenever possible,
supply its own corrective. And practically this can only
be done through the delays which the existing laws and
constitution oppose to the realization of the new claims.
Ik_
548 BOOK VIII. CHAPTEE V.
We cau only hope from the influence of time that (as a
result of that free exchange of opinions which must be
allowed and fostered) beliefs may be amended, rash haste
moderated, misunderstandings cleared up, vague dreams
developed to practicable projects, and the abiding heart
and seed of fluctuating efforts held fast and cherished —
the greater weight of just opinion being thus in truth
assured of victory over the mere majority of votes. It is
indeed not impossible, and to some it may seem very pro-
bable, that notwithstanding everything, mankind will still
go on permanently wandering in error ; but this would be
an evil fate that could not be remedied by any legal
measures. It is not to be expected that every one should
patiently acquiesce in this ill fate ; we can praise the heroes
of history who in doing battle against it either conquered or
were destroyed — though in delivering this judgment we
altogether transgress the boundaries of the consideration
with which we are here occupied. For historical develop-
ment, which remains ever superior to our poor political
and social art, will not in the future any more than in
the past proceed without much disturbance from breaches
of law, coups d'6tat, and violent subversions of existing rela-
tions. Such historical events, which simply show that the
guidance of affairs has temporarily escaped from governmental
control, may be regarded as blessings or curses according to
their results ; but as loujg as it still remains a question
whether human reason can guide the course of history,
they can never be taken into account beforehand as admis-
sible factors in its development. All coherent interest in
the public affairs of mankind is injured at the root as soon
as notions which are opposed to law are regarded as entitled
to the practical guidance of these affairs ; to build hopes upon
arbitrary caprice which puts itself in the place of Providence,
is like expecting the cure of some bodily ailment from the
doubtful issue of a frightful disease artificially induced. Let
us appropriate the golden saying of Kant — If Law ceases,
worth of human life on earth ceases too.
I
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 549
I 8. We have spoken of human society as existent and as
being actually occupied in giving itself the organization cor-
responding to its destiny and its needs. But when the
notion of Society first arose, men had lived for thousands of
years divided into various states, between which there had
constantly been hostile contact ; and for a long time before,
each of these states had by an organization of its corporate
life proceeding from quite other causes, anticipated the work
which social theories are supposed to begin. Hence it may
seem useless to distinguish the notion of Society from
that of the State — the State being the only form in which
hitherto communities embracing all the interests of human
life have been able to subsist. Yet it is not quite useless
to consider which of the two notions presupposes the
other — whether the State is to be regarded as the basis
of all possibility of human solidarity and the source of all
rights and duties ; or whether the destiny of Society should
be considered as the goal for the attainment of which Society
itself requires state - organization as a necessary condition.
In the latter case Society may be entirely hidden beneath
the State, as the root which is the source of growth and
nourishment below the spreading ramage of the developed
tree ; but amid all the storms that might hurt the latter,
hope and help would be derivable only from a knowledge of
the vital impulse that flows forth from the former. The
foregoing remarks will have made it plain in what way we
ourselves should answer this question ; but the characteristic
development of modern times gives it another more practical
signification. It makes it seem at least possible to hopeful
minds that the numerous states which still divide the world
may finally be replaced by one Universal Society, which just
on account of its universality would no longer have altogether
the form of those states the work of which it would under-
\ take — or that at any rate, without the demolition of existing
! political structures. Society may be called to exercise over
them a power which hitherto it has only possessed by their
means.
550 BOOK Vm. CHAPTER V.
The increasing relations between the dififerent divisions
of mankind have indeed in a great measure changed the signi-
fication of political boundaries, and have given new stimulus
to the thought of cosmopolitanism. Similar forms of social
intercourse and way of life, and like notions of honour, duty, and
good manners, are diffused over countries and among the various
ranks of their populations in proportion as the intercourse
between these becomes general ; not only are arts and sciences
to a very large extent cultivated in similar ways, but their most
splendid productions are being more and more brought into
connection, so as to form one store of universal literature acces-
sible to all ; the Church, not indeed embracing all the interests
of life but cherishing those which are noblest and highest, has
for ages spread its arms abroad, regardless of the boundaries
of states, and distinguished chiefly by a complex organization,
bound neither to territories nor to nationalities ; innumerable
associations for the pursuit of economic ends have long
reckoned among their members men belonging to different
states, such associations being made possible by respect for
commercial obligations, kept up by mutual interest; thus,
over a great part of the earth the individual finds himself
supported and restrained by a spirit of social order which is
not directly due to any political connection between those
whom it affects. It will be objected that in the fortunate
case of voluntary performance on both sides of what is
equitable, this international intercourse could only dis-
pense with state -help in the same way as under similar
conditions it could be dispensed with in the intercourse
between individuals within a country ; while its general possi-
bility depends upon the further possibility of calling upon the
governments of distant countries to aid, in virtue of treaties,
in compelling the rendering of reciprocal services which have
been refused. And this is certainly the case at present ; but
the cosmopolitan theory will reply that it is so only because
hitherto individual states which have grown up historically
have regarded themselves as constituting divisions within
society ; and because, each recognising as binding on itse
li
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 551
its own special legal customs (likewise of historical growth),
none has been ready and willing to undertake all the obliga-
tions of such international intercourse, each requiring special
treaties as a basis of its procedure. An Universal Society
would also not be able to dispense with administrative, legis-
lative, judicial, and executive organs ; but it would establish
organs that would not have their action interfered with by the
intricacy and diffuseness which the present plurality of states
causes.
We will not discuss such projects in detail ; to sketch out
plans for the organization of a community is always hazardous.
To deduce from the notion of a State its necessary functions,
and to set up a special organ for each of these, and definite
rules for the co-operation of these organs, is all quite worth-
less if it cannot be shown that men will give themselves up
to carrying out and enduring whatever this logically developed
organization of life may require of them. And it is a fact
that careful consideration of men's nature and habits, such as
can only result from many-sided knowledge of life and history,
furnishes no ideal pictures of assured practicability; for how-
ever well -authorized and however respectable may be men's
efforts to attain some yet unenjoyed good, their being so is
never any guarantee that the use made of it when attained
will be either respectable or admissible. The general con-
science of mankind may slowly grow in insight into our
duties and destiny ; but the successive generations of living
men who are to fulfil this destiny grow up each afresh
with all the imperfections and faults of the breed ; and it is
seldom that those who come into power show themselves
capable of establishing that better condition for which, when
in opposition, they fought with good right against existing
defects. Hence detailed plans for the future organization of
(Society seem to us worthless, but very important the general
thoughts and sentiments which are expressed in them ; for
these will be capable of giving a definite character to our
treatment of actual historic conditions, even when the attain-
ment of those general ideals has to be given up. From the
552 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER V.
remotest times struggles between different states have filled
the world with their noise, and the general temper of the
present age — intent upon the development of all mental
powers and material prosperity — very naturally doubts the
authority of political constructions, which on the one hand
claim that their organization shall embrace the whole of
human life, and on the other hand are continually exposing
the treasures which men have won to the most destructive
shocks. And hence it is worth our while to ask, what the
State is and must remain for Modern Society, and in what
sense that form of it which has grown up historically can be
transformed so as to harmonize better with the growing need
which men feel for freedom of development.
Similarity of language is an indispensable condition of the
civilisation of even the smallest communities ; for without
direct mutual understanding, extending even to the small
things of daily life and equally possible for every member,
we cannot conceive a society of which the members have all
the interests of life in common. But within such a small
circle the requirements of civilisation do not find full satisfac-
tion ; even for the supply of material resources foreign inter-
course is necessary ; and not less is there an effort of mind
supplement the one-sided stimuli received in daily intercourse
by manifold contact with foreign but intelligible spheres of
life. Hence where geographical conditions do not hinder, it
is communities whose languages are similar that first dra^
near to each other ; and the higher the development attained'
by art and science the more closely are such communities
united in reciprocal sympathy and praiseworthy emulation, not
only by similarity in their views of right and in institutions pro-
motive of mutual intercourse, but also by the consciousness of
common intellectual possessions. But as the individual does
not know until he is in a foreign land all the worth of home,
so also national culture and the feeling of kinship between
those who belong to the same country only receive the finish-
ing touch from contrast with that which is extra-native.
Tliis takes place in a less degree as long as foreign surround-
I
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 553
ings oppose to native culture nothing but barbarism, and in a
greater degree when amid general civilisation the contrast is no
longer between humanity and brutishness, but between the
most refined and subtle peculiarities of national character and
custom. Hence in the modern world the wide diffusion of
many similar elements of culture has not caused the disap-
pearance of contrasts between different nations, but has pro-
duced generally and in an intensified form those struggles
towards unity which aim at combining as intimately as
possible all the material and mental forces of races having one
language — the object of such combination being partly that
the intensified action and reaction thence resulting may ensure
to the nation an honourable share in the human work of
civilisation, partly in order to protect it from the arrogance
which disposes every developed nationality to be oppressive
towards others.
But mere community of origin, language, and custom does
not suffice to build up the form of a State ; it is not nomadic
but only stationary peoples that have been able to develop
their national life in this form. And, indeed, the territory
inhabited by any people is not the mere locality in which the
nation dwells and may be found, as plants and animals in
their habitats and haunts — it has much rather to be con-
sidered as a permanent object of joint labour which first
weaves into a strong and lasting fabric those elements, akin in
language and origin, which before had had as it were a merely
parallel existence. For the division of this labour causes the
separation from one another of various branches of employ-
ment, and the indispensable action and reaction between these
makes men feel the necessity of a fixed, comprehensive and
complex administration ; the transmission of the same work
from generation to generation makes the history of the nation,
and gives it the consciousness of an historical task, in the
accomplishment of which are done the most splendid of those
deeds which give exalted worth to human life ; even those
delicate shades of national thought and temper which consti-
tute the spiritual possession of a people are more or less
5 0-4 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER V.
connected with its modes of labour. A territory large enough
to provide within its own limits a great variety of occupations,
and rich enough to be able to do without foreign help except
for adornments of existence which are not indispensable —
belonging as an inherited possession to a people speaking one
language, and bound to its native land by a wealth of historical
associations, and exerting all its economic and mental forces
under a strong and united government in order to fill its own
particular place in the movement of civilisation — such a
territory presents a complete picture of Human Society, and it
can neither become enormously enlarged without losing its
distinctive character, nor very much contracted without losing
its importance.
In as far as the historical condition of things provides the
material for such social constructions, and the possibility of intro-
ducing them without breach of law, attempts to realize them
are justified ; and it is neither to be expected nor to be wished
that in the future these many-coloured contrasts should dis-
appear. It is not to be wished; for even the desire that
moral commands should rule all mankind with equal power,
if it give rise to a demand for the extirpation of that variety,
only betrays afresh the oft combated prejudice which would
make reality a mere example of those universal laws, in
obedience to which, alone, it is able to develop its living
content. The whole of morality for the individual does not
consist in this — that each has simply in a general way to
fulfil the moral commands, and therefore each to be just the
same as others ; but within the limits of this obedience to the
universal, it is the duty of each to develop his own individuality,
and, by the good which he and none other can thus accomplish,
help to exhibit and to realize the glorious results which the
moral Ideas are capable of producing. The task of the nations
is no other. They too are not meant to be mere general
colourless examples of human communities which might,
without sufiering loss, melt into the uniformity of an Universal
Society, but each has its own special forms of life to develop,
without prejudice to the general validity of the moral prin-
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 655
ciples by which all its reciprocal relations must be regulated.
Such a blending, however, is as little to be expected as it is
to be wished. All the facilitations of intercourse to which we
may yet look forward may suffice to compensate economic
deficiencies, and to cause a salutary enlargement of the intel-
lectual horizon of the nations beyond the narrowness of native
prejudice ; but they will never bring the great masses of
mankind into such thoroughgoing contact with one another,
that a growing consciousness of the duties of cosmopolitan
intercourse will abolish all national peculiarities of character.
As far as the last result has actually taken place — as, for
instance, in the disappearance of many national characteristics
of manners, costume, and speech — we must regard it as being
for the most part pure loss, and only to a small extent as a
sacrifice indispensable for the attainment of the advantages
referred to. Hence we hope that through an ever-deepening
conviction of the moral and economic unity of mankind, the
progress of civilisation will thus more and more realize an Uni-
versal Society in such a way that its existence and the stability
of its organization may be beneficially felt by every one who
seeks after them ; but on the other hand, we do not doubt
that this great universal whole will always seem so vast and
so impossible to take in at one view that each individual
will still find indispensable for the feeling, thought, and
action which fill his life, the narrower home which he can
find nowhere but among his own people, in his own father-
land, under his own government.
Only a nation to which there have been left or given in
the course of history those favourable conditions of existence
which we have hitherto presupposed, can have at the same time
means for the complete development of a State, and a natural
impulse to such development. Wrecks of nations speaking
different languages, which by the course of events have
become attached to territories, the unfavourable position of
_ which prevents their making up for the smallness of the
■ population, may be constrained by strong economic interests
556 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER V.
a widely extended community of administration and of
organization for defence, lias rather the character of a Federa-
tion than of a State. The individual members are lacking in
independence, and the whole in a permanent and natural
unity ; for even the economic conditions of countries vary in
course of time, and parts which at one time seemed to belong
to each other may at a later period show a tendency to dis-
integration. Eegard to advantages which international inter-
course, properly arranged, would of itself bring, has here become
the determining cause for the construction of a political unity,
all the essential conditions of which are not given ; and the
lack of these cannot be altogether supplied by the unifying
force of a long history common to all.
The State is developed from Society by the recognition of
an historical obligation on successive generations to maintain
and increase a store common to all of material and mental
wealth, which each living generation of men has to regard as
a trust from past ages, and for the use and development of
which it is answerable to posterity. Every association freely
formed is entitled to complete liberty in the choice of its
ends and means, and in every temporary alteration of both ;
the only thing it is bound to do is to make allowance for the
minority who will not follow the new path ; and as no one
can have an indissoluble right to participation in an arbitrarily
formed combination, the minority will have to content itself
with such allowance. Life as a whole is no matter of free
contract, but individuals are born into it; society at any|
moment is not entitled to ignore the legal constructions ol
past times or to fetter all future ages by its decisions ; it hi
neither the right nor the power to make allowance for those
who will not follow its changes of opinion. Prosperoua]
human life is only possible when society endeavours to pro-
tect itself against itself, and secures all the essential founda-
tions of its existence — not only the general principles of right!
accepted by the national conscience, but also those maxims of life]
and administration which its position makes necessary — against]
the influence of its own changeable moods, by the formation of j
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 557
a strong and stable government tliat keeps watcli over all the
traditions of justice. The four elements which go to form the
State are (1) a people speaking one language and having a
natural interest in its own unity ; (2) an inherited territory-
furnishing it with means for the maintenance of its independ-
ence ; (3) a government which represents the historical con-
tinuity of the national mind ; and finally (4) the general
conviction that all freedom of individual development, all its
struggle and its progress, must result from the possibility of
legal harmony between the people and the government.
This too is an ideal the realization of which may be sought
in various forms of the relationship between the people and.
the government. Certainly every constitution which is inten-
tionally adapted to certain circumstances is, under such circum-
stances, to be preferred to any other which is not adapted
to them ; but in saying this we do not mean to deny generally
that different forms of political constitution have different
degrees of value. We are far from wishing to show from any
doctrinaire grounds, which have no significance in practical
life, that Hereditary Monarchy is a necessary institution ; but
we agree with the modern view that practically in it alone
has been found the form of government which in itself and
under present conditions offers the greatest security for steady
development. "We cannot hope by any possible discovery to
hinder all disease and all evil and all unhappiness ; there is
no social institution which can prevent the possibility of its
own abuse or imperfection in its accomplishment ; and finally,
there is no constitution which can secure full satisfaction to
the restless and envious desires of folly — a satisfaction to
which those who cherish such desires can have no claim
whatever except as simply being members of the society.
With regard to every form of government, it is necessary that
no more should be demanded from it than is possible ; but
hereditary monarchy seems to afford more possibilities than
other forms.
What is necessary above all is that the natural struggle
between different classes of society, of which each pursues its
L
558
BOOK Vin. CHAPTER V.
special iuterests as far as possible, should not become a
struggle for political power ; and tbis one condition it is that
prevents Eepublican Constitutions from being salutary except
under certain conditions. "Where in a small state, the
peculiarity of its soil and position or special historical
circumstances seem to point out that all the members should
have a similar occupation and similar sources of gain, this
homogeneity of interests may allow a great number of indi-
viduals to take part in their representation. There have been
agricultural republics, pastoral republics, commercial republics ;
but none of them have cultivated all branches of human civilisa-
tion until, having become rich, they have produced an aristo-
cracy which left to the majority no political influence worth
mentioning. The assumption of a republican form of govern-
ment by a larger society with a multiplicity of occupations
working into one another wiU alv/ays be detrimental to the
many-sidedness of civilised existence ; and wealth, being in the
ascendant, and restrained by no counterbalancing power or
individual currents of life which influence the whole, will
make use of political institutions in a one-sided way for private
advantage, or by stirring up opposition expose them to con-
tinual unsteadiness. It is fair that the different classes of
society with their wishes and demands should be heard and
considered by government, but it is not desirable that they
themselves should constitute government. In every form of con-
stitution in which either the supreme head or the governing
body is elected, whether for life or for a fixed period, the
jealousy of the different ranks and callings and beliefs have
an undue influence, disturbing to the steady continuity of
national development ; it is essential that the highest power
in the State should be raised above all competition, that the
governing will should belong to no class of society ; that it
should not be forced to seek maintenance and gain and all
that adorns life by the one-sided pursuit of any particular
interest; but that rather the exceptional position which it
enjoys should afford to it from the beginning all the goo
things of life, and leave no other goal for its ambition but thi
I
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 659
glory of employing its power conscientiously for the preserva-
tion and increase of that which has been entrusted to it.
That society consists, as some say, of concentric or, as others
say, of intersecting circles, or that it rises, pyramid-like, from
a broad foundation, and that all these constructions require
some indivisible central or terminal point — all this is indeed
no argument for hereditary monarchy, which is neither a
geometrical object nor a matter in which we are concerned to
produce a picturesque effect. It seems to us to be of more
consequence that a nation desires to see itself, its interests
and its genius, embodied in some Eepresentative Person ; for
this embodiment is in fact of psychological efficacy, because
it is not mere abstract symbolism, but establishes a relation
between persons, capable of pervading even the minutiae of
life with its influence — with living feelings of fidelity, reverence,
admiration, and love on the one side, of justice, benevolence,
and favour on the other. But this embodiment of the State
is not necessarily presented in the unity of one supreme head ;
it may also be imagined to exist in an aristocracy, a patrician
order of leading families ; and so great is the natural inclina-
tion of the multitude to let itself be led, that if its interests
and feelings are but considered to some extent, it will rever-
ence even in this plurality of persons the embodied
representation of the whole. But generally speaking a
favoured class is more narrow in its prejudices (which are
nourished by continual echoes from within), more arrogant in
temper and more harsh in its conclusions than an individual
whose position, raised above all comparison with others, needs
no defence against the intrusion of claims similar to his own.
"We should sooner expect forbearance and the removal of
unfair pressure of laws and conditions from an individual
monarch than from aristocratic and democratic majorities,
to whom on the one hand the greatest harshness of doctrinaire
consistency and on the other hand cruel passion are made
easy by division of responsibility and the impersonality of
their resolves. But what history warns us above all things
not to do is, by dividing monarchical power among a plurality
560 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER V.
of individuals, to make that power an object of competition,
each striving to get undivided possession of it by splitting
up the nation into parties and unjustly favouring the moie
powerful interests.
The primitive leadership of tribal princes sprang from a
tfense of these reasons, but later developed monarchy did not ;
they, however, are the motives which permanently keep up in
nations a readiness to regard the guidance of public affairs as
attaching of private right, as a heritable possession, to the
family to which in the course of history royalty has come to
belong. The more definitely this ground of legitimacy has
been recognised, the more necessary has it seemed to the
nation to oppose to the possible abuse of this power represen-
tatives of popular rights ; and thus there has been founded
Constitutional Monarchy — the favourite political product of
the last century.
§ 9. It would be interesting to know beforehand what
later times will think of the Constitutionalism of the present
day. They will certainly be wrong if they wish to give up
its fundamental thought, which is that there should be an
ever-renewed understanding between the living men of any
generation and the government — which, to whomever entrusted,
represents the historical Idea of the whole as opposed to the
changing interests of the hour. They will perhaps have more
reason if they doubt whether the system of constitutional
forms which at present prevail are, taken as a whole, the
happiest possible arrangement considering the circumstances
of the time ; and they will certainly be right if they hold
that this system is not an ideal in the sense in which it
has been lauded by well-meaning doctrinaires, as though it
were the product of perfect political insight. The extremely
unjust oppression of the third estate, which being over-
loaded with burdens was not able to command any regular
representation of its interests, had aroused at the time
of the Eevolution passionate hatred towards all legal, I
political, and social distinctions ; the not less oppressive |!
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 561
and corporations opposed to the free movement of labour
caused even the more peaceably disposed of the reforming
party to prefer the complete abolition of these institutions
to the transformation which they so urgently required. Thus
there arose the notion of a CUizen of the State — a strange
theoretic invention, superfluous if merely intended to in-
dicate those who without being under some other guardian-
ship are directly subject to laws the same for all and
directly bound by general obligations — but very dangerous if
intended also to indicate that these legally equal constituents
are also equal in political importance. I am indeed in complete
disagreement with the prevailing opinions of the time, in that
I regard this low estimation of the corporate element as our
most essential fault. Of course we do not want to go back
to corporations for the subsistence of which we can find no
even plausible reason, in order to accumulate privileges for
which there is still less any conceivable rightful claim ;
but on the one hand a living bond between those who
are really connected would maintain the discipline which we
so greatly need, but which yet we cannot enforce by means
of general laws ; on the other hand such combinations —
representing partly the most important callings (agricul-
ture, manufactures, commerce, art and science), partly the
special local interests of different districts — would form the
true unities, the representatives of which, by equilibration
of the interests of each, would cover the wants of the
whole.
I will not weary my readers by attempting to set forth the
rank and number of these unities, but will merely remark
that they cannot be of equal importance either among them-
selves or for every state ; a more detailed determination of
their co-operation is the business not of Formal but of Material
Politics. Here, too, again, I am in conflict with modes of
thought which are received with favour at the present day.
As corresponding to the notion of Citizen of a State, these lay
\ stress also upon the notion of the State itself in such a way
as to imply that instead of political forms being developed by
VOL. IL 2 »
L
562
BOOK VIII. CHAPTER V.
nations to further the ends of their existence, we should rather
regard the State as a rigid framework to which all national
life must accommodate itself. It is certainly true that ovdug
to the homogeneity of the needs of all human societies, the
formal outlines of different constitutions are to a great extent
analogous ; and on the other hand, it is equally certain that
some conclusions are valid only within the limits of the
individual state from the representatives of which they pro-
ceed, and are commonly caused only by such circumstances as
exist in these cases. But though it may hence be true that
in particular instances this deification of the notion of the
State may not have an injurious effect, yet it gives a false
colouring to our endeavours ; it gives rise to a superfluous
abundance of doctrinaire wisdom, which seeks to centralize
and establish as political functions much which should be
alterable with altering conditions of time and place ; while
conversely it is disposed to approve and enact only temporarily
measures which belong to the irrevocable necessities of
national life. We owe the unification of Germany to t\u
military resources created by political powers ; but that
readiness of self-sacrifice which secured its success resultec
from love for the German fatherland, and not from enthusiasi
for " The State " — the most various examples of whicl
general notion Europe offers for our choice. In fact the
more we regard this abstraction as the highest source of oui
rights and the recipient of our services, the more doubtfi
becomes the ground of our obligation to render these services
to this one state and to shun as treason the lending of our|
support to foreign states. Other nations are not influencec
by such ideas. When a supreme moment comes we hearj
England expects every man to do his duty — or France demanc
it — or Holy Bussia calls her children, and the Starry Bannei
summons its follov;ers ; it is only the strong hand to whicl
our external affairs are entrusted that can raise aloft the
national flag as a rallying point for our internal life too, anc
this national flag it is that we shall follow ; the mere general
State flag, without colour or device, which is waved bi
J
I
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 563
theorists and party leaders, is hardly likely to attract an
enthusiastic following. What we lament is not that great
branches of commerce should be brought under public adminis-
tration ; for the needs of the nation itself may justify this
measure ; but we think that much danger will be incurred if
the nation choose to regard its whole life as being held in fee
of the self-created state, and to look upon the existence which
is common to all, as a legal relation — hence seeking, with
logical consistency, to replace the government, which is always
an essentially political activity, by mere state-administration.
These are but theories. If I could specify measures that
would enable them to be easily put in practice, I should
believe that I had solved one of the great problems which
exercise statesmen. Only this is clear — that existing institu-
tions can never be adapted to the accomplishment of our
wishes. To ensure to the votes of experts on every question
that weight which is their due, by means of a representation
based upon incorporations of the different classes, would no
doubt be regarded as a punishable attack upon the rights
enjoyed by the citizens of the State — rights which men have
become accustomed to think can only be exercised by means
of popular representation. And yet a simple calculation
teaches us that though any mechanism of direct or indirect
election by the body of the people may indeed afford to the
individual the small formal satisfaction of having taken part
■ in it, yet the further result slips out of his hands altogether
— and it is party leaders and their supporters who take all
decisive resolutions, without reference to the wishes and
expectations of the individual elector. It is also clear that
the proceedings of great assemblies are, at any rate, no longer
the only possible form of such reciprocal action between the
factors concerned as we should wish to see substituted for the
present condition of things. On this point, indeed, we are
i i not altogether without experience ; and I suppose I shall not
meet with overwhelming opposition if I say that it would be
worth while to offer a prize for an answer to the question
whether it is not possible to obtain the real advantages of
564 BOOK VIII. CHAPTER V.
constitutional government without the form of popular pailia
mentary representation ?
And from another quarter the existing order is pressed
upon by Socialism ; and Socialism, too, demands that the life
of the community shall be established upon quite new founda-
tions. But it has not yet been able to show that the intro-
duction of the new order could be accomplished without the
pressure which now falls upon one part of the people being
transferred in all its burdensomeness to another ; and just as
little has it been able to show that the desired institutions
have so much adaptation to practical life as would justify the
attempt to establish them. The theory of the abstract State
equally fails to supply a remedy ; a system of privileges and
obligations may be developed from it, but not any information
as to the means of using the one and fulfilling the other,
Here, if anywhere, do we need a pliant and active imagine
tion that will be guided by circumstances and not by immu
able principles ; it is such alone that wiU not only be able
meet the ills which Nature sends, but also and above all to
fulfil the task of alleviating the misery that springs just from
the existing organization of social relations. No machine has
yet been discovered which will work without any friction what-
ever, and Mechanics aims at no such impossible achievement
but it has means of diminishing the friction which does arise,"
or of rendering it innocuous. "We would sooner look for the
spring of such serviceable action, as well as for the capacity
of counteracting immediate evils by known and attainable
means, in corporate bodies, than in those unorganized assem-
blies where, for the most part, all that takes place is, struggles
between some few wide and well-known party questions which
leave difficulties of detail undecided.
§ 10. A great part of political evils is due to the inter
national relations of states, and to the complete absence of
developed and recognised system of International Law. The
permanence and obligation of treaties ; the rightness or wrong-
ness of intervention in foreign affairs ; the difficulties cause
in the case of hereditary dynasties by the political union
M
I
POLITICAL LIFE, AND SOCIETY. 565
separation of foreign or allied peoples — these have always
been and still are points which are usually decided in indi-
vidual cases upon grounds of interest, well or ill understood,
and with reference to which fixed rules of justice have
scarcely yet begun to be formed, far less have obtained general
recognition.
To regard as irrevocable every treaty which has once been
agreed to by two contracting parties would involve the
assumption that these were possessed of superhuman wisdom ;
for only such could foresee that circumstances would never
arise to make them change their mind, or to make the carry-
ing out of the treaty senseless, or to make it turn out excess-
ively injurious to the one side. Treaties between nations and
their governments must be not more but less irreversible than
these ; since it is impossible that the will of one generation
should bind irrevocably the generation which succeeds it.
Not because centuries ago some old treaty established the
eternal union of two countries, ought that union still to be
held indissoluble ; but only because the present mind of
living men declares in favour of the agreement, and freely
consents to it If this free consent is wanting, all force of any
treaty is wanting too, and the only obligation remaining is that
of carefully discharging the legal claims, based upon its previous
validity, which have grown up in course of time. It must
be required that nations should respect a public treaty during
the time that it is received as valid ; treaties that have not
been made public, inevitably succumb to the logic of facts ;
and when at last they are broken, no one can complain — since
in fact they were concluded without due authorization.
The moral duty of trying to settle any strife of wills is
limited in private life by the respect due to the personal
independence of others; this respect preventing the inter-
ference of a third as long as the strife does not imperil his
own interests. But no one denies to his opponent a right to
\ accept the active partisanship of a third person, or to this
! third person a right to make the quarrel his own ; it is only
the privilege of coming between the combatants as arbiter.
5G6
BOOK VIII. CHAPTEK V.
and of not taking either side, that will be unwillingly
acknowledged by him who is favoured and always decisively
disowned by the other party. The attitude of nations
towards combats between nations is just the same. They
have never complained of injustice when the number of their
declared foes has been increased by alliances ; they have
never doubted that others had a right to become their open
enemies ; but the notion of intervention, which involves the
assumption of arbitrative power over their internal affairs on
the part of some foreign nation, has always provoked irrita-
tion and revolt. Nevertheless it is just this doctine of the
right of arbitration that the science of modern politics delights
to develop. As individual vengeance has been replaced by
the public administration of justice in societies, so it is
desired that at least in the circle of European nations bloody
outbreaks of self-defence on the part of individual nations
should be averted or suppressed by the verdict of the whole
body, which now (in consequence of the intimate connectioi
between the nations) sees its common interests threatened byl
every struggle. At present there is nothing wanting to this
theory, excellent in itself, except the conditions necessaryj
in order to make it practicable, and uprightness of intentioi
in its advocates. The national Areopagus, the incorruptible
integrity of which this scheme of international arbitratioi
presupposes, does not exist; and it is hardly likely that iH
ever will exist except in the shape of a few great powers^
which will adjust the claims of the less powerful in accord-
ance with their own special interests. But even if in practice
the egoism of these motives could be paralysed by a genera
representation of states in the arbitrative congresses, the
analogy between this jurisdiction and that which an individual
state exercises over its subjects would still be incomplete ii
many essential points. There would be lacking, for instance
(1) the possibility of making the matters in dispute perfectly
clear to a court of foreign delegates, who (being influenced bj
different national feelings and different historical memories)
would be neither able nor willing to appreciate the value anc
POLITICAL LIFE. AND SOCIETY.
667
urgency of the claims and counter-claims that would be made;
(2) the established rule of universally valid International Law,
in place of which an untenable regard to passing expediency
would be substituted by a narrow diplomacy, having regar:l
only to the immediate future ; (3) the absence of any personal
interest on the part of the judges in the matter in dispute (an
absence which could not be compensated for by mutual
jealousy, which instead of making people anxious to decide,
generally makes them only anxious to delay) ; and finally
(4) the possibility of carrying out with certainty, against the
resistance of the non-contents, any sentence that might be
pronounced. Not one of the great international problems
which have, so far, been taken up by European Congresses,
has received a satisfactory solution ; not one of the political
constructions which they have brought into existence has
showed that it is endowed with a capacity of permanent
vitality; not one of those which they have suppressed has
been so broken as to be prevented from subsequently disturb-
ing the general tranquillity with ever-recurring convulsions.
No one can say what the course of history would have been
if such or such conditions had been different ; yet one of the
follies of our time consists in this, that so often in historical
discussions (which can regard only the actual, and not any
merely possible, course of events) we allow ourselves to con-
sider some brief series of good results (which is all that has so
far come under our observation) as a justification of preceding
perversities — not thinking that the very morrow may bring
tardy retribution. And just because we do not know the future,
it must be the business of politics, under all circumstances,
to respect the Eight so long as it is in any way cognisable ; but
where human wisdom is no longer btble to recognise it with
certainty, it is perhaps best to defend at all hazards that
which one honestly believes to be right, and to commit the
result to Providence ; better than to act Providence oneself,
and1)y maintaining a hollow truce to increase for society in
future times, difl&culties of which it will make quite enough
for itself without any such addition.
BOOK IX.
THE UNITY OF THINGS.
669
CHAPTER I.
OF THE BEIXG OF THINGS.
Introduction — Three Elemental Forms of Knowledge and the Problem of their
Connection — The Being of Things a State of Relatedness — Comparability
of the Natures of Things — Necessity of the Substantial Connection of Finite
Multiplicity in the Unity of the Infinite — Summary.
^ 1. J I IHEEE are certain problems concerning our origin
-JL and destiny — questions as to the significance of
the world which surrounds us and our own position in it ; as
to the ends which are set before us in the great whole of
cosmic order and the good things that await us in the future
' — which men have reflected upon in all ages, sometimes with
passionate zeal that hopes to find at last a solution which yet
has never hitherto been found, sometimes with the moderation
of conscious weakness which, giving up all hope of complete
fiuccess, contents itself with credible opinions concerning what
seems so far beyond us. We behold the results of this intel-
lectual effort in the cosmic theories of religions, in philosophic
speculations, in the widespread inspirations which animate
art in different ages, in the convictions which have impressed
. their character on many forms of national life and morality —
■and all this lies before us in its many-hued attractiveness as
the most worthy of all objects of consideration in which we
can become absorbed. But it is hardly possible for any such
attentive consideration to attain results different from those
which have been afforded by our hasty survey ; men have
never succeeded in forgetting the old doubts, except during
brief and historically favoured periods, animated by some
freshly roused enthusiastic practical activity, or some hopeful
inspiration of new ideas that seemed full of promise ; but this
temporary lulling of doubt has never been transformed to a
172
BOOK IX. CHAPTER I.
permanent solution at any time, either by the spirit of the
age or by the discoveries of individuals.
And do we yet, notwithstanding all this, desire once more
to attempt the impossible ? Do we desire, in this concluding
Book, to try and lay the foundations of a true philosophy which
shall for ever dispel the doubts of preceding centuries ?
It would indeed seem so in a certain sense — yet what we
desire is not quite this, and we shall not be justly open to the
reproach of outrageous boastfulness even if most of the
expectations which we have unintentionally aroused should
meet with .disappointment. For the reader himself is an
accomplice in our attempts ; as long as the world lasts, the
human mind will go on wearying itself out in labouring at
this impossible task, and perhaps in doing so find greater
enjoyment than in the initiation and prosecution of labours
which experience has taught us are capable of completion and
lead to indubitable results. And how could the leisure of life
be worthily filled up if there were permanently excluded from
the occupations of men all reflection which, sometimes more and
sometimes less near and perhaps never reaching its goal, yet
in unceasing movement, circles about those problems ? We are
with respect to them much more helpless still, when at isolated
moments, stirred and shocked by the events of life, we are
forced to think of them, but with thoughts that are hasty,
unsteady, and fragmentary. I make no higher claim for the
remainder of my book than this (which it will perchance
justify) — that it may present to the reader the coherent
results of long reflection which have grown dear to me, with
the candour that every one ought to use in communicating his
best thoughts in any earnest converse, so that moments of
leisure may be exalted to moments of mental concentration
the effects of which will not pass away. This living personal
relation to the mind of the reader, if I should succeed in
establishing it, would be worth more to me than the happi-
ness of seeing a place in the development of philosophy
accorded to the philosophic view of which I am now about
to summarize the outlines. For nowadays all of us certainly
OF THE BEING OF THINGS. 573
doubt to some extent the convincingness of a faith, accepted
not so long ago, according to which the very essence of cosmic
history was to be found in the progress of philosophy, and in
every change of speculative systems the dawn of a new phase
in the life of the Unconditioned Cause of the universe. And
even if we had no reason for such doubt, the consideration
whether any philosophic theory which one had to propound
fitted into the rhythm of an evolutional history already begun
— whether it were not late or premature, or altogether out of
course and to be banished from the regular succession of
systems — these and all other similar questions of etiquette
would seem to me unimportant in comparison of the serious
doubt whether that which I wished to communicate would be
capable of comforting or relieving or refreshing any oppressed
soul, by clearing up some obscurity, by solving some doubt, or
by revealing some fresh point of view. Not in playing at
development, but in such services from one living man to
another, is to be found the worth even of those speculations
which are concerned about the highest truths.
No other and no higher has been the aim of all the pre-
ceding portion of this work ; and the sympathy with which it
has been received encourages me to press on to the conclusion.
My aim would indeed remain unattained if I did not try to
weave together the loose threads which I have spun, in a
jflB pattern that presents the results which, as it seems to me, may
be reached in estimating the subjects of which I have treated.
I feel the need of such a synoptical conclusion all the more
because I have not felt that I was entitled in the foregoing
portion of my work to make explicit use of a philosophic
view from which its parts taken separately might seem to be
logically developed. I held that it would be more fit, and
thought, moreover, that I should best earn the reader's thanks
(supposing I could earn them at all) if I entered fully into the
doubts which life calls forth with reference to those several
questions which have been in turn the object of our considera-
tion. I have everywhere endeavoured to trace the prejudices,
partly tacit, partly appearing only in isolated indications,
574
BOOK IX. CHAPTER I.
which (springing from aesthetic interests of the feelings, and
other mental needs) are the roots that really give to the most
different opinions their hold upon our minds. Hence but
little use could be made of philosophic notions and principles,
which for the most part are furbished and sharpened only at
a later and dialectical stage, for the establishment, defence, or
refutation of such prejudices, permitting but little recognition
of the real and living worth which these have for the human
heart.
My work taking this course I have not been able adequately
to present the connection that exists between the views which
I hold ; I shall now have to show that, looked at in the light
of that connection, many apparently conspicuous contradictions
do not exist ; that many later turns of thought were at the
foundation of earlier ones with which they seem to be in
conflict, and that taken as a whole, the convictions which I
liave here sought to communicate are connected with that
which I pointed out at the beginning as the aim of my whole
work. The unusual nature of my task must be an excuse for
the imperfection of this concluding portion — both for the
repetitions which I shall not be able altogether to avoid, and'
for the references which solicit the attention of the reader to
earlier sections, in order that the repetitions may not be
altogether too numerous.
§ 2. Various philosophic systems, setting out from stand-
points not wholly similar, and having the course of thei
investigation governed by the special interest of some par^
ticular mode of putting the question, have believed that the]
have found more than one exhaustive expression for the
ultimate source of those difficulties in which our view of the
cosmos is involved. Recalling in a synoptic view the points"
at which the lines of our previous consideration have come
into contact, it would seem as though this supreme problem
were to be found in the reciprocal relation of three elemental
forms of our knowledge, forms upon which we must base all
our judgment of things, without, however, being able to
embrace all three in one comprehensive notion, or from any
OF THE BEING OF THINGS. 5 / 5
one to obtain the other two by logical deduction. All our
analysis of the cosmic order ends in leading our thought back
to a consciousness of necessarily valid truths, our perception
to the intuition of immediately given facts of reality, our
conscience to the recognition of an absolute standard of all
determinations of worth.
But none of those necessary truths reveals to us what is ;
as universal laws they speak only of that which must be if
something else is ; they show us what inevitably follows from
conditions the occurrence of which they leave wholly doubtful.
On the other hand, none of those intuitions which present to
us the actual features of reality, exhibit those features to us
as necessary ; however difiBcult it may be for our imagination
to free itself from the impression of those forms in which
experience as a whole has accustomed us to see things be and
happen, yet we do not find in them any reason why we
should regard them as indispensable ; they might either not
be, or be different from what they are. Finally, none of our
Ideas of what has worth, of what is holy or good or beautiful,
can of itself give rise to a definite world of forms as its own
proper consequence; even where reality clearly reflects the
content of any such Idea, this realization still remains in form
and colouring but one out of many possible realizations, con-
ditioned by existing facts, while other and different facts are
quite conceivable which would have caused the same content
to take an embodiment wholly different in form and colour.
Still more obscure than this connection of the necessary laws
of thought on the one hand to the worth-determining Ideas,
|lBand on the other to the factual condition of reality, is the
hbond — wholly concealed from us — rwhich connects together
fthose Ideas of what is holy and good and beautiful with the
■ indifferent but immutable content of mathematical and
[metaphysical truth.
This incoherence not only hinders our knowledge from
'becoming complete, but is also the source of the doubts which
■oppress our life. As long as we cannot help thinking that
the world as by an unfathomable fate follows the fiat of
576
BOOK IX. CHAPTER I.
necessary laws ; that then from some fresh and independent
quarter there comes in the reality which is required for the
carrying out of these laws ; that finally, there are added Ideas
of that which ought to be, which have to be realized so far as
on the one hand the limitations of those it 'priori laws and on
the other hand the inertia and resistance of this underived
reality permit — so long as we cannot help thinking all this,
our cosmic theory has not the unity necessary for knowledge,
and our hopes lack that confirmation which would make them
strong and vigorous. That it is not so — that there is but
one origin of the world from which flow, as from a common
source, its laws, its realities, and its worth — that this origin
is not to be sought in that which in itself is unmeaning though
necessary, but that that which is most worthy is at once the
Alpha and the Omega of all — by this conviction (which has
animated all our considerations hitherto) we abide ; and we
now seek for it both a more exact expression which may take
the place of that just used, and such verification as it is
capable of. Neither that expression nor this verification will
in all respects come up to what in other cases we have — and
with justice — required from scientific statements ; we must
to a large extent content ourselves with making clear what it
is that we mean and that we require, without being able to
show how that which we require and mean can be ; we shall
not be able to prove throughout the necessity of that which
we are seeking, and to develop its whole content with the
certainty of a strict logical deduction from undeniable premises,
but must be content to remove the difficulties that hinder a
living faith in its existence, and to exhibit it as the ultimate
goal to which we have to approximate, although we may not
reach it.
These preliminary remarks, which anticipate the special
questions in the prosecution of which only their real meaning
cm be made clear, are offered merely in order that imprac-
ticable demands may be met beforehand with a confession of
general inability on our part. I will add to them but one
Dther observation, which may serve to indicate our proxim
1
II
OF THE BEING OF THINGS. 577
task or the nearest way to the accomplishment of our task.
Convinced of the formal incorrectness of views which teach
that for an explanation of the world nothing need be con-
sidered except the animating breath of a creative Idea, our
considerations have hitherto, and for quite long enough, been
occupied in taking the part of the Finite against the Infinite,
of the blind necessity of the mechanism of Nature against the
freedom of Spirit-life, of Plurality against Unity ; to many it
will seem as though they had, in all essential points, taken
the side of the small against the great, which they have pro-
visionally neglected. Now that we take the opposite stand-
point (being convinced of the perfect legitimacy of claims
which, in the form in which they are generally put, we felt
bound to reject), we cannot consider that we should gain
anything by setting the view which this standpoint opens to
us in opposition to the one we formerly took, as being also
existent and having also a foundation in the condition of
things. We should only gain if the earlier mode of thought,
traced back to its real principles, itself constrained us to enter
upon the path which leads inevitably to this other view of
the world. It may make one happy to exhibit the world, in
fresh enthusiasm of feeling, as presenting an unspeakably
lofty and beautiful content, which rather possesses our mind
than is possessed by it ; but the nearer we come to particulars
the more are they felt as hindrances which compel the lowering
of this lofty flight ; we should be really raised higher if from
a right handling of these particulars we could derive an
upward impulse, which would give us hope that at the end
of our way (now secure because all hindrances have been
overcome) we should reach that which is highest.
The way that we would indicate is familiar to the natural
course of men's thought. Almost every attempt to justify or
to communicate the fundamental truths of religious conviction
is introduced by the assertions that if there is a conditioned
then there must be also an unconditioned, if something that
passes away, then something that is eternal, if plurality and
something that may change, then also something that is neces-
VOL. II. • 2 0
678
BOOK IX. CHAPTER I.
sary, some being that is one and immutable. It would not
be easy to show a valid connection between antecedent and
consequent in any of these concise maxims ; as commonly used,
they juxtapose the beginning and the end of a long train of
thought, suppressing the intermediate links by which they must
be connected. They meet with approval and seem evident
to the hearer, because he too has been long accustomed, by a
combination of ideas the justification for which he has per-
haps never been clearly conscious of, to strive to pass from
the thought of the Finite to that of the Infinite, from that of
the Many to that of the One ; whilst whatever essential ground
there may be in the content of the one idea on account of
which its reality guarantees also the reality of the content of
the contrasted idea, this recovery of the links which justify
the maxims and connect their members, may be regarded as
the task which first demands our attention.
§ 3. Things — each of which is an harmonious group of
properties — seem, when we first look at the world, to be, in all
essential respects, immovable wholes, untouched at bottom by
the alterations which some of their less important characteristics
undergo. But when investigation begins, it soon appears
that the disturbance which seemed only lightly to graze the
surface of things, really penetrates far deeper into them, and
finally affects everything in them which we had thought to
be permanent and unchanging. Each of their properties
appears to be ultimately dependent upon conditions, and to
change when these conditions change ; and all these condi-
tions consist of variable reciprocal relations subsisting between
many things — that is, of activities which they exercise and
are affected by. Thus in the most favourable case we leam the
relation and behaviour of things under definite circumstances,
but not what they must be in order that they may be able
to exhibit such relation and behaviour. But it is not only
the content of what is that remains enigmatical to us, the
significance of its being is so too — as far as we are concerned
it resolves itself into mere action. For even the most stabL
properties of things, properties which in their permanence o
I
OF THE BEING OF THINGS.
579
imagination may use as the very image of a changeless being,
appear upon close investigation to be undergoing continuous
growth and decay; their existence at every moment is the
transitory result of reciprocal action between many elements,
unceasing renewal of this action being required in order that
their apparently steady continuance may extend for even but
a small space. Where then can we find, and wherein con-
sists, that uniform undisturbed permanent being which we
have been used to regard as comparable to the unchanging
channel in which the current of events flows on ? Even now
we do not find that we can do without it ; for the content of
one moment conditions that of the next, so that there must
be some stable reality, embracing equally all phases of Be-
coming, and assuring to each its power to condition the next ;
what then is, and in what consists, this Being ?
Let us, in order to be brief, follow the path which has been
i taken by an ingenious modern system. Our first question
concerning the to tI of things has regard, not to that nature
by which each is differenced from others, but to that in virtue
of which all are similar and all are things. But this name,
thing, indicates — as far as known to us — nothing other than
the performances which we expect from what we call things
' as evidence of their reality ; they are things in as far as they
are at least participant in immutable independent being, and
present the fixed points to which is attached, in whatever
way, the varying course of events. Now, having once become
doubtful of the correctness of the ideas which we formerly
applied with unquestioning confidence, we must first consider
and make clear to ourselves what that being is which we
Require in things in order that our theory of the world may
find in them a firm foundation ; in the second place, we must
ask how and what things may and must be, in order that
they may participate in this being, of which we have found
the meaning.
The content of the simplest notions does not admit of
being built up out of constituent parts, but only of being
detached from the examples in which it occurs. Therefore
580
BOOK IX. CHAPTER I.
we are justified in starting from the fact that existence is first
present and intelligible to every one in sense-perception ; that
is, which is seen or heard or in any way perceived, and at
this first stage nothing indicates the existence of things except
their being perceived by us. But even at this first stage we
recognise too that this illustration of existence does not suffice
to express that which we mean by it. For, as we think, the
existence of things remains, even when our attention is turned
from them ; they were when we did not perceive them, and
for that reason, when our senses are again applied to them,
they may afresh become objects of sense-perception. Conse-
quently their existence, which at first consisted for us only in
their being perceived, must belong to them without reference
to our sense-perception ; but in what, then, does it consist ?
This question, too, is readily answered by ordinary thought,
according to which, whilst things are not perceived by us,
and perhaps when they have never been perceived by any
one, they still continue to stand in relations of various kinds
to one another ; it was these relations that formerly gave to
them a firm hold upon reality ; and these constituted their
existence up to the moment of their being again perceived by
us. But this being perceived is itself nothing but a new
relation which is added to, or dissolves, the old ones ; while of
greater importance for us, because it is only through it that
we come to have cognisance of existence, it is to the existent
thing itself not more indispensable for its existence than those
relations which subsist or subsisted between it and other
things.
Ordinary thought generally keeps to this standpoint; a
state of relatedness is regarded by it as being the existence
which it has in view ; it is only philosophic reflection that
tries to reach beyond this and in a reality devoid of relations,
in a wholly self-sufficing self-dependence, to find the true and
pure existence which belongs to things in themselves, and first
makes them capable of serving as points from which relations
may start. And in fact to stand in no relation to anything
else — neither to be known nor to know — not to be brought
OF THE BEING OF THINGS. 581
into connection with any other thing, either as having position
in space or order in time — neither to be affected by anything
nor to have any perceptible effect — is exactly what in
ordinary thought is regarded as the fate of the non-existent,
but not as the nature of the existent ; and it asks, and with
reason, In what respects then is this pure existence distin-
guished from non-existence, if not in the fact that we choose
to understand by it the opposite of non-existence ? Now
this question would undoubtedly be foolish if it were the
expression of a curiosity to know the process or the inner
structure by which such existence is endowed with the reality
that differences it from non-existence ; but the impossibility
which we here find of separating that which we mean from
that which we do not mean, even by determinations of
thought, points to some error of commission which we will
now endeavour to discover.
From the total content of any idea by which we think
some fact of reality, analytic abstraction easily separates
individual ideas which are admissible and just as long as
they, conjoined with others in the further course of thought,
lead to conclusions that are again coincident with real facts,
whilst they have not the kind of validity which would enable
them, of themselves and out of such combination, to denote
any reality whatever. From the idea of the movement of a
body, an idea which in its completeness denotes a fact of
{■ observation, we drop all reference to the body, and lay stress
^ upon the idea of movement alone ; we analyse further this
idea itself and thus get the notions of velocity and direction —
pure abstractions, which are just and useful because their
content is capable of an elaboration in thought the results of
which when again applied to the complete idea of the move-
ment of a body, gives us enlarged insight into the nature of
this movement ; but neither velocity in itself without direc-
tion, nor direction without some movement in some direction,
I can denote anything which could of itself actually exist.
That the notion of pure existence is to be reckoned among
these notions, which are in themselves valid but can have no
582 BOOK IX. CHAPIEE I.
real independent existence, is most easily shown by the other
names which are given to it — the names of absolute Positing
or Affirmation,
Affirmation would be a most inadequate mark of that
which we mean by existence ; it is only our habit of virtually
thinking of the real and not of the unreal as that which our
affirmation concerns that can mislead us into thinking that we
exhaust the notion of existence by the notion of affirmation.
It is plain that existence is denoted not by affirmation simply,
but by affirmation of existence ; and both the meaning of this
and its difference from non-existence remain wholly untouched
by appeal to an affirmation which may apply to its opposite
just as much as to itself. The notion of Positing gives us
nothing better. It is readily conceded that something or
other must be thought which the positing posits, or the
affirmation affirms ; but even this addition does not give to
either of the two notions such completeness as would make
it possible to accept them in the sense here assigned. The
affirmation of a single notion has no meaning which we can
specify ; we can affirm nothing but a proposition in which the
content of one notion is brought into relation with that of
another ; and just as unmeaning is it to speak of any positing
in general without at the same time thinking of and naming
those relations, the being brought into which constitutes the
very positing of that which is posited. Nothing can be
simply posited without being posited in some way or other, in
some specified circumstances or connection — and the assertions
that characterize the true existence of things as unconditioned
irrevocable absolute positing cannot compensate for the failure
to state in what this positing consists and what its effect is,
by predicates that emphasize its importance. Undoubtedly
the general notion of Affirmation may be separated from
affirmations of various propositions, and the notion of Positing
from the manifold positings by which we bring various things
into various relations, and both will furnish serviceable
abstractions ; but neither can we in thought make an affirma
tion thus without content, or a mere bare positing, nor ca:
I
OF THE BEING OF THINGS. 583
there be, beyond our thought, any reality corresponding to
either.
The failure of a definition does not do away with the
validity of the notion intended to be defined. Hence we
shall have no difficulty in admitting the fruitlessness of these
attempts to cover the true meaning of existence by the
notions of empty Affirmation or Positing, while yet there
may be very plausible considerations leading men to think
themselves justified in seeking it nevertheless in an absence of
relatedness which we thought to be equivalent to non-existence.
For no view can bind the reality of things to a definite number
of definite and immutable relations ; but things are things
just because their existence lasts on undisturbed throughout
the ceaseless change of all their relations. If we now take
away, all at once, all those relations that we are undoubtedly
justified in taking away one after the other and separately — if
we deny all relations — this denial will not concern that
which was independent of what we denied ; there will
remain, it is supposed, as the object of a distinct and assured
opinion. Pure Existence — which now without relations is the
same reality that it formerly was with relations ; less easily
described indeed in its simplicity than it would be in any of
its relations, which would give us an opportunity of telling
something about it, but not the less something certain and
positive in itself, because of our inability to characterize its
self-dependence in any other way than by denial of that
which it excludes. Thus, it is thought, do we reach a con-
firmation of that which we vainly attempted to call in question
— things must he, hefore they can stand in the relations in
which indeed alone their reality can become perceptible to us ;
and it is thought that this hidden existence is permanently
distinguished from non existence by the capacity of that which
exists to enter at any moment into that network of relation-
ships in which its reality becomes apparent.
What I object to in this train of thought is this insignificant
lefore. When we recall those individual ideas by the joining
of which we make clear the simple meaning of existence, it is
L
584
BOOK IX. CHAPTER L
very natural that this idea of reality which cannot be furthei
analysed, should, just because it is contained in the notion of
emry existent thing, take the favoured position of something
precedent to the various and changeable determinations by
which one existent thing is distinguished from another — these
determinations being only subsequently added to the pre-
existent reality. If this were expressed thus : — In order to
think the existence of things one must first grasp that reality
or affirmation by which all existence is distinguished from
non-existence, and then understand as that to which this
affirmation relates, all those determinations and relations by
which one definite existence is differenced from another — we
should have no objection to make to this logical arrangement
of the notions referred to. But this succession of ideas,
which always arises in a similar way when we compare
numerous examples of some universal, does not always
correspond to a uniform actual process in the compared
objects themselves ; and even in the case which we have
taken it may be shown that the priority of unrelated to
related existence is merely this logical priority, not the
metaphysical priority which would be expressed in the
assertion that there is real unrelated existence, taking real in
the same meaning in which we apply it to related existence.
We only speak of things and of their existence because
these ideas are indispensable for the intelligibility of the
changeable phsenomenal world. Now it may seem quite allows
able to assume that a thing may emerge at any moment out^
of the complete unrelatedness in which it reposes, secure of
itself but not as yet contributing anything to the play of
events in the world, and may enter into those relations to
others in which it is capable of making an efficient con-
tribution to the sum of what is going on in the universe.
But nothing can enter into relations at all without enter-
ing into some definite relation to the exclusion of all other
Yet wherein can lie the grounds of decision for the choice^
of this relation, if not in other relations, which, however
unobserved, have long subsisted between that solitary element
OF THE BEING OF THING «. 585
and the rest of the world, with which it appears — but plainly
only appears — to enter now for the first time into conjunc-
tion ? If, allowing ourselves to use a spatial image, we repre-
sent the whole of reality as a sphere of infinite diameter, but
that solitary element, which as yet has no relation to it, as
actually having a non-spatial existence from which it will
pass into spatial reality, its entrance into space must take
place at a definite point to the exclusion of all others ; it is
impossible to find any reason for the choice of this place
except in the direction of some movement which the solitary
element already had towards it, even when it seemed to us in
its spacelessness to be devoid of all definite relation to spatial
reality. Therefore if we leave undecided whether there is
admissible at all the notion of unrelated existence separated
from related existence (in the idea of which indeed the idea
of unrelated existence is contained), yet we must maintain
that anything which actually was so unrelated could never
enter into those relations through which it would assert itself
in reality as a real thing among other real things. And just
as little is it possible that any existing thing which had once
been in relation to others, should get rid of all relation to the
rest of the world ; it could only get to a greater distance from
it, this, however, being just as much a relation as its former
proximity. Hence there was an error in concluding that
because it may be possible to deny an individual relation
therefore some real existence would remain when all relations
have been denied. In the same way consciousness remains
when any individual idea is removed, but it disappears if all
[are removed simultaneously.
Then — it will be finally objected — there is nothing stable at
all, since the existence of everything presupposes the existence
■of some other to which it must be related, and thus neither
can be without the other which is its foundation. Without
doubt this is the most erroneous of all objections ; it wholly
mistakes the business of philosophy. For that business is
not to state a mode of procedure according to which the world
might be created if unfortunately it did not yet exist, but
586 BOOK IX. CHAPTER L
only (and especially here) to understand the connection of the
world which already exists. We do not inquire what diffi-
culties a world-creating power might have in producing this
reciprocal tension of all those constituent parts of the whole
arch which mutually presuppose one another ; perhaps it had
no difficulty at all, for why should this power have been so
one-armed that it could only fix one element at a time ? It
is just this continuous arch of mutually related things which is
the primal reality that constitutes the object of all our investi-
gations— the object which is given and which alone we can
recognise ; to seek to discover the laws according to which
the course of changes takes place in it now that it exists
seems to us a possible aim of these investigations ; but to ask
by what device it has been made, or how it has been brought
about that there is any coherent world whatever, instead of
none at all, we hold to be a wandering flight of fancy that
shoots beyond the mark. Hence, we may observe incident-
ally, it would be an advantage to banish from the considera-
tion of existence those expressions Affirmation and Positing
which have already troubled us. Being, in form, designations
of actions, their use keeps up the prejudiced belief that some
process may be stated by which the existence of that which
exists is produced — as if in existence itself there took place
that succession which obtains among our ideas when we try to
comprehend it.
And so perhaps we may most quickly come to terms with
the mode of thought opposed to us, in the following way.
When it maintains that each Eeal being in its own pure
existence floats in a condition of complete unrelatedness, but
not only can enter into relations with others, but does so in
reality with infinite frequency, we only ask to be allowed to
regard this relatedness — which is admitted in fact, and there-
fore recognised as possible — as the only kind of real existence;
but that pure existence to which reference has been made, as
something that does not occur in any place or at any time.
If according to that view existing things need no external
relation in order to exist, we would add that at any rate
OF THE BEING OF THINGS. 687
existing things now have enough and to spare of such relations,
and have them everywhere and from all eternity, and that in
point of fact reality contains nothing that is or could be
isolated in its own pure existence, and out of all relation. If
then there is nothing that is unrelated, we are entitled to say
that it belongs to the notion and nature of existence to be
related. For he who holds that existing things devoid of
relation are conceivable but admits that none such do actually
exist, plainly does not speak metaphysically of existent things,
but logically of what is possible but not actual, and hence
certainly not existent.
§ 4. We have already had repeated occasion to distinguish
between the relations which seemed to belong to things
themselves and others into which they are merely brought
arbitrarily by our thought. It is only in the first class that
we shall now seek to find those relations, to be in which
constitutes the existence of things ; and yet those of the other
class are not less important, and it is only apparently that
they are foreign to the nature of things. For to establish by
arbitrary conjunction relations which have no foundation in
the content of the things conjoined would be not thought but
mental aberration ; even a relation of comparison must, in as
far as it is correct, have its root in the actual condition of
that which is compared. If we compare things as contrary
or greater or smaller, it is not our comparison that makes
them contrary, greater or smaller, but the things compared
actually had these relations to one another before we came to
consider them, and the relations are found, not invented, by
our thought. Yet their remains a difference. Sometimes
the contrasts are brought together and exhibit their
opposition only in our thought ; sometimes they encounter in
reality and cancel one another; sometimes in our thoughts
the greater is opposed to the less without affecting it, some-
times in conflict it makes its superior power felt. It will
easily appear from a generalization of these examples that the
former relations afford definite grounds for the form and
content of future action, and that the latter are the effective
588 BOOK IX. CHAPTER L
conditions of actual action, in which the related elements do
and suffer as those conditions indicate. It is to this last
relation that we now wish to devote some attention.
That all which takes place in the world takes place in
obedience to laws will be readily admitted by every one ; but
there is less agreement as to wh/it that is which the most
general laws of existence and action impose upon the
demeanour of all things. Yet it is not this variety of views
as to the last point which stirs us up at present, but just that
assumption in which they all agree. But whilst we raise a
special question as to the conceivability of this assumption —
that there are universal laws — we must be careful to guard
the meaning of the question itself against misapprehensions.
Of course we cannot demand to know how it is that a primi-
tive truth, which is not derived from any other, can be true,
nor how it comes to pass that an universal truth should be
valid in all the cases of its application which we think of ;
the only thing that we wish to make clear to ourselves is,
how a law can be not only a valid truth in the realm of
thoughts, but also a determining power in the world of things.
And this question we do not ask in the hope of obtaining a
graphic picture of the arrangements by which the subordina-
tion of things to the law is brought about ; all we want is an
explanation of the several thoughts which always accompany
the notion which we have when we think of any general law
as a valid truth ; for when we desire to transfer the law to
reality as a governing power, we must, as a condition of the
possibility of that transference of the law, carry with us in
our thinking the content of those thoughts, into the sphere of
reality.
Now every law regarded as a valid truth attaches some
definite consequence to a relation that either always exists or
can be established between some two factors. But in order
that it may be general and not the expression of an individual
case, it not only assumes that that consequence and the con-
ditioning relation to which it is attached belong each to a
series of which the members are connected in some definite
jy
OF THE BEING OF THINGS. 589
way; but it also has to make the same assumption as regards
the factors between which there is this connection of condition
and consequent. And indeed it needs but little consideration
to show that not only must each one of these factors be of a
kind belonging to some genus, but that also both the genera
themselves (to which the two factors severally belong) though
not indeed necessarily kinds belonging to a higher common
universal, must be at any rate members of some relation in
which they occupy definite positions. Under these conditions
the law expresses the general mode of dependence by which
in each individual case the kind and magnitude of its conse-
quent is determined, in accordance with the given kind and
magnitude of an assumed connection which may be variable,
and with the special nature of the factors between which
this connection has place. The general axioms of mechanics
would furnish a multitude of illustrative examples for the
further consideration of these briefly indicated relations ; here
I would only once more emphasize the point (which is, in this
place, of importance for us) that on the one hand the relations
between things, and on the other hand the effects resulting
from them, must be comparable though different cases of
general events, and not only so but also the natures of the
things from the relation between which an effect is to arise,
cannot differ to an immeasurable and incomparable degree, as
long as the part which those natures are to contribute to the
formation of the result in any case is to be determinable by
some general law. And indeed it is not sufficient to allow
to the things such homogeneity as causes them to be co-
ordinated under the general notion of thing ; it is further
necessary that the qualities by which one of them is distin-
guished from the other should be comparable values of general
qualities.
In developing this demand, more laboriously than perhaps
might seem necessary, what we have been insisting upon is
not some assumption that is not naturally made everywhere
in attempts at philosophic explanations of the world, but
certainly one the significance of which men, when they
590
BOOK IX. CHAPTER I.
make it, do not adequately perceive. For we only give a
different expression to the meaning of this assumption when
we maintain that it makes impossible any thought of the
independence of things which allows an individual thing to be
what it is without reference to otliers ; that on the contrary it
constrains us to regard the specific nature of everything as
being a definite member of an all-embracing series in the
existible world — a series of which the equally special natures
of other things constitute the remaining members. That this
assumption is everywhere tacitly made we learn from the
procedure of those who formally deny it. Wholly un-
determined— they say — are the qualities of Real beings ; each
may be what it will, if only what it is is something simple
and positive, and if in order to be what it is, it needs no
relation to anything else. But as soon as the explanation
of phsenomena makes it necessary to give an account of
the consequences which arise from the relation that (not-
withstanding their independence) comes to exist between two
Eeal beings, this assumption has to be supplemented by a
correction which makes it useless in itself. For the simple
natures which make it impossible to divine how the conjunc-
tion of the beings to which they belong could produce any
result, it is thought that there may be substituted combina-
tions of several qualities as equivalent expressions of their
content, and this without detriment to the supposed simplicity ;
and because all opposites tend to cancel one another, these
substitutory expressions, by analysing the simple qualities into
similar or opposite or otherwise contrasted constituents, give
us some insight into the way in which the reciprocally acting
natures of things work into each other so as to produce a new
condition of reality. And thus contingent aspects skilfully
reach — by a roundabout path, and in a form which has dangers
of its own — the same assertion which we held from the begin-
ning, namely that the natures of things do not differ in an
incomparable degree, but that they are members of a series
(or a system of series) susceptible of comparison. Each
indeed has a value of its own, by which independent of others
OF THE BEING OF THINGS. 591
it is what it is, but all these values are in a condition of
relatedness through which it first becomes possible that the
conjunction of several of them should furnish adequate ground
for a definite result. Eealism has an intelligible but unfair
interest in preferring this roundabout path ; it desires that
the independence of each individual Eeal being should not be
endangered by the thought that the commensurability of its
nature with the natures of the others belongs to the very-
notion of it ; only as a completed fact, and a fact which might
have been otherwise, does it admit, as something supplemen-
tary, this comparability of things. But here again it does not
escape confusion between an effort of logical thought and
metaphysical knowledge. For to assume that in itself the
notion of an existent thing does not require that it should be
comparable with others, and then to admit that in point of
fact what exists is comparable, can only signify that just that
being which is insusceptible of comparison belongs not to
what exists but to those possibilities of thought with which
abstraction plays when it takes to pieces the notion of reality
and for its own ends substantiates parts which in reality only
occur in combination.
Now whilst in practice explanations of the world admit
the comparability of things, they misunderstand (as we
remarked above) the significance of this admission, for they
regard the content of it as far more natural and self-evident
than it is. According to them just because nothing keeps
the differences between the natures of things within certain
definite limits, it is equally possible that they should all be
comparable and that each should be immeasurably different
from the others. Now if in reality only the first and not the
second alternative is met with, there need not on that account
be any more intimate relationship, any bond between indi-
vidual things that could in any way detract from their
independence ; each might be wholly independent of others,
the reality of its content (as in every instance of a general
notion) might, in spite of its similarity to some other, yet be
wholly independent of that other. Hence if things should
592 BOOK IX. CHAPTER I.
happen to be partly similar and partly contrary, there would
be no reason for regarding such a state of things with
suspicion, and it would be self-evident that the reciprocal
action of things would have the same result which the
opposition or the similarity of natures brought together in
some definite relation must always have.
But is it a fact that all this is self-evident ? Or if it seems
so, does not the self-evidence result from long custom, which
dulls our apprehension of what is wonderful in familiar things ?
The combined impression of all experience early taught us
to know the world as a coherent whole, within which each
several content, every state, every quality, every nature
of anything comes into conjunction with other contents,
states, qualities, and natures in such a way that from the
combination there may arise the complete cause of a new
result. At present, after having this experience, it does
indeed seem to us self-evident that each individual, however
isolated and independent it may at first seem, is yet included
in the web of this universal world, embracing truth and
correspondence of all existence ; but considered in itself this
fact is calculated to excite inexhaustible wonder. And this
wonder is by no means allayed by the cool reflections which
we have just cited ; the equal or unequal probability of
various cases can be discussed in such a manner only
when those cases themselves are regarded as being already
constituents of a world with reference to which there has
already been established from the beginning the universal
validity of certain laws — ^laws that enable us to distinguish
the possible from the impossible, and to estimate the different
or equal probability of different cases. Only when we have
already assumed that there is one truth which is valid amid
the multiplicity of reality, and have once for all resolved to
regard the signification of this validity as clear, and not to
ask further in what it is precisely that this dominion of truth
and subordination of existence to it consist — only then is it
that everything in reality which is in accordance herewith
seems to us to be self-evident, and to have its validity
OF THE BEING OF THINGS. 593
guaranteed by that universal truth which is past compre-
hension. But what exactly is it that we do in making this
assumption ? How do we reach the assurance that truth,
if only it be true, will achieve dominion over all things,
whatever the nature of these may consist in ?
There is a perverse way of representing these things which
I have already found frequent occasion to criticise. "We aro
accustomed to speak of the laws of Nature and of the cosmic
order as though each were something independent, and were
between or outside of or above things, and ready to enforce
their obedience to its commands. A glance at social relations
showed us a case of this error. Where would be the law of a
state if all its citizens slept, or if the plague had swept them
all off, or if all willed something different from the law ? lu
the last case it would at any rate have an efficient existence
as causing reproaches of conscience in the minds of the
disobedient; in the first two it would exist only in the form
of a temporary continuance of that order of material conditions
that it had created ; in general it has cpntrolling efficacy only
as it lives in the citizens, as conscious idea, as disposition, as
personal conviction, and as conforming will ; it never exists
between or outside of or above them. And with the laws of
things the case is no otherwise. It is not that they constrain
things to act as they do ; but things themselves act, and act
in such a fashion that in reflecting upon their action we are
able to find a law guided by wliich, in predicting a consequence
from given conditions, we reach a conclusion that coincides
|with reality. But after we have developed this thought of a
|few which at bottom is nothing more than the unvarying
'nature of real things and of their action, this creation of our
jthought grows under our hands and easily comes to wear the
(appearance of a truth valid in itself and preceding reality ;
hud it then seems to us self-evident that even existent things
should obey that which is in itself true and necessary. The
self-evidence we may now admit; but not for the reason
given, which represents it erroneously. It exists for us in so
far as we regard it as belonging to the innermost being of
VOL. II. 2 P
594
BOOK IX. CHAPTER L
things — the being in virtue of which they are things — that
their natures are not incommensurably different, but are com-
parable ; that none of them is simply unique of its kind ; that J
even a thing which had no equals would be distinguished I
only by the special position which it occupied in the cosmic |
system, or by some peculiar combination of qualities which
are also found out of that combination as constituents ofj
" contingent aspects" — thus having definite relations among!
themselves and to other things. It is only if these presup-]
positions be made that it is, in our view, conceivable thati
One Truth should control the Manifold of Eeality, and that
changing relations should produce a system of causes from]
which springs an ordered sequence of results.
We do not ascribe to this assertion — that there is a corre-
spondence between all things which is a necessity of thought — ■]
greater significance than it can possess ; it contains no reason
for understanding the connection of things as being yet closer]
— of intensifying it, for instance, to a common origin from
one source or to continuous inherence in one substance. Yet
it abolishes the supposed self-dependence, in unconstrained]
freedom and isolation, of each thing, and draws attention to a *
connectedness between the contents of things which is every-
where assumed in attempts to explain the world without its
being made quite clear how much the assumption admits.
^ 5. We have been hitherto speaking only of the com-
parability of things or of the relations between them whidiy
contain the ground of some future event; we have not as
yet spoken of those connections the introduction of which
constrains that nature in things to which we have referred
actually to produce these possible results by their reciprocal
action. In turning to this subject we shall for the present
disregard some questions which at this point are beginning
to force themselves upon us, but would divide our atten-
tion detrimentally. It may remain undecided under what
form of intuition we are accustomed to imagine, or have to
imagine, those connections between things which constrain
them to reciprocal actions;, and we may likewise leave
OF THE BEING OF THINGS. 59o
undisturbed the question whether we should regard them
generally as sometimes being present and sometimes absent;
or on the other hand as always subsisting, but as being some-
times forced upon our observation and sometimes withdrawn
from it by an infinitely varied gradation of their intimacy or
closeness, and the correspondingly varying magnitude of the
effects that depend upon them. We will set out from the
fact that they have hitherto appeared to us as relations
between things ; connecting with this fact the question how
they can exist thus ietween things ; and how — supposing that
they do thus exist — they could act upon things as condition-
ing forces.
When in thought we compare two things of which one is
greater and the other less, and recognise a difference between
them, the dividing and connecting between that arises here
consists in the consciousness of a change of our inward con-
dition which we experienced when our ideation of the greater
passed into ideation of the less. This third idea, which is
a state of our mind in the same sense as the two previous
ones which are compared in it, partakes of the same kind of
reality as they do. Now what is it that can give to the
between of things themselves — to the connection which joins
them and not their ideational images — a, reality similar to
that possessed by the things ? Besides what exists there is
nothing except what is non-existent ; that which neither is
le things themselves, nor is in them, must sink unsupported
ito a complete vacuum in which it neither can simply exist,
jtlior exist with various definite values ; and can least of all
l&ubsist as a unifying and connecting power superior to things.
fit is easy to imagine a connecting background of all things,
*on which, as a firm support, connections may run from one
;thing to another; but as long as things themselves do not
'Constitute this background, on further consideration the
question will always recur. How can the connection, being a
state of this bond between things, have any power over
things which are themselves other than the bond ? Between
this bond and things there must be another Between, which
596
BOOK IX. CHAPTER I
tbe connections must include — and yet could not include, eitliei
if the Between were empty nothing or if it were filled up by
some reality foreign to the things themselves. This ever-
recurring difi&culty will later force us to recognise that the
thought of an objective connection between things is altogether
impossible, and that what we use to call by this name is in
all cases some state or action in things themselves. But
at the present stage, when further elucidation of this asser-
tion would lead us astray from the proximate topic of dis-
cussion, we will content ourselves with the recognition that
at all events connections which exist between beings would
be without significance as long as they existed only between
ihem, and had not produced any internal state in the things
themselves. As long as things feel and know nothing of thel
connections that hold between them, these cannot contain th(
cause of a change in things, and just as little tlie cause of
their reciprocal action upon each other. Any being can be,
caused to change its state only by something that is actually i:
itself, by some passion of its own ; only in as far as two bein;
cause this passion in one another, can they be reciprocall;
acting causes. But since they cannot produce this passion in^
each other by means of connections between them, the chang<
which we assume in one must he a direct passion in the other^
and the question arises, Upon what assumption is the fulfil-
ment of this requirement thinkable ?
We may escape the tediousness of the explanation here
required by a reference. We have repeatedly had occasion (cf*
i., p. 3 5 8) to consider the possibility of reciprocal action between
things and the suppositions that have been made in the hope of
explaining it. We convinced ourselves that all ideas of some
influence passing from one thing to another, ended in impossi-
bilities and contradictions. It could hardly be made clear
what exactly that should be that did thus (as was supposed)
pass between them — if it was some third real element, that
detached itself from a first in order to pass over to a second,
its movement between the two might indeed be capable of
presentation in idea, but the problem of reciprocal actio*
OF THE BEING OF THINGS. 597
would remain unsolved ; and indeed doubled — for we should
need to ask how this third element could be sent out from
the first, and how its reaching the second could be the cause
of any passion in that second ; if the third something were a
force, an effect, or a state, neither of our two obscure points
would be made clearer, but even what before was plain would
become obscure — namely, how all these which can exist only as
attributes of a being could detach themselves from any one
element, float for an instant in the vacuum between the two,
and then taking a definite direction, arrive at the second as
the goal of their movement ; this second being at the same time
the point of their return to the sphere of existence. All these
difficulties have frequently led to the attempt to deny
altogether this inexplicable reciprocal action, and to put in
its place a predetermined harmony of cosmic order, according
to which the states of the different things accompany and
correspond to one another, without having to be produced by
reciprocal action. But it was quite idle to imagine an order
separated from the things in the changes of which alone it
could have any reality. Only if the course of all, even of the
most trivial, events were fixed by immutable predestination,
could the assumption of a Pre-established Harmony — not
indeed explain anything, but — tolerably well describe the
facts. But it is impossible that there could be such a harmony
which as a general law should predetermine the necessary
consequences of contingent events ; for if a change of some
jnstituent of the universe (and it is of such that all these
msequences must finally consist) has to follow and corre-
spond to any event that may or may not happen whenever it does
|iiappen, then that constituent must be able to distinguish the
jccurrence from the non-occurrence of the event by some
[l^assion which the event produces in it, and the action and
^.reaction which it was desired to banish would thus be
lecessary for the comprehension of that harmony which is
intended to replace it. And the most desperate efforts to find
in the continual mediating activity of God the bond to which
it is due that the states of one thing become the efficient
51>3 BOOK IX. CHAPTER I.
causes of change in another, cannot obviate our speculative
scruples, as long as they separate God and things from one
another in the same way as individual things used to be
separated from one another. For these views, too, only double
the unsolved problem — they suppose an action of things
upon God, and a reaction of God upon them, and explain
neither the action nor the reaction. It has seemed to ua
indispensable to remove this separation, and in a substantial
community of being between all things to find the possibility
of the states of one becoming efficient causes of the changes of
another. It is only if individual things do not float inde-
pendent or left to themselves in a vacuum across which no
connection can reach — only if all of them, being finite indi-
viduals, are at the same time only parts of one single Infinite
Substance, which embraces them all and cherishes them all
within itself, that their reciprocal action, or what we call such,
is possible. For only then can the change which any one of
them experiences le at the same time a state of the Infinite,
so that it is not necessary for its influence to extend across a
gulf which can never be filled up, in order to produce this
state ; only then can the result which this state produces in
the Infinite, in accordance with the truth of its own nature,
appear at the same time as a change of other individual
things without there being any need of some fresh process by
which it may be produced in them.
Now how this itself is thinkable — under what form that
one all-embracing Being may be represented in idea, and how
in its unity the plurality of finite things may be contained —
is a question which we reserve for later consideration, being
quite conscious that what we have hitherto done has been to
make a demand which was unavoidable, without having as
yet shown that it was capable of being satisfied. But there
is another question which we do not reserve for later con-
sideration, and the repetition of which would only convince
us of the fruitlessness of all previous considerations — the
question how within any one being that action could take
place which we must presuppose in order to understand how
OF THE BEING OF THINGS. 599
any fresh state of the being in question could result from ita
preceding states ? I should be glad to hope that I had
succeeded in making clear the self-contradictory circle which
this curiosity involves. For whatever process it may devise
to fill up the apparent chasm between reason and consequent
this process would always consist of a longer or shorter chain
of events of which every two consecutive ones would be
connected by the same uncomprehended action, the very
possibility of which it had been attempted to explain by
means of their collocation. It is not at this impossible
explanation that we have aimed ; how a cause begins to pro-
duce its immediate effect, how a condition is the foundation of
its direct result it will never be possible to say; yet that
cause and condition do thus act must be reckoned among
those simple facts that compose the reality which is the
object of all our investigations. But there was an intolerable
contradiction in the assumption that though two beings may
be wholly independent the one of the other, yet that which
takes place in one can be a cause of change in the other;
things that do not affect each other at all, cannot at the same
time affect each other in such a manner that the one is guided
by the other. It was necessary to remove this contradiction,
in order to make room for recognising the fact of that ever-
incomprehensible connection of states ; but we have never
held that by removing a hindrance that stood in the way of
acknowledging its occurrence, one could make more intelligible
the actual way in which this connection is brought to pass
(if I may for once make use of this self-contradictory
expression).
§ 6. The detail with which on a previous occasion (cf. i.,
p. 365) the last part of this train of thought was elucidated,
may justify the comparative brevity of the present repetition,
k.which is only intended to call to mind the results which we
tnow wish to combine with the preceding results of our
reflection.
I. To our minds all intelligibility of the cosmic course
depends upon universal relations, which connect aU things
600 BOOK IX. CHAPTER I.
I
together. Of course things must he in order that they may
be connected with one another, but the being which we think
as yet unrelated and which we represent to ourselves in idea
as the ground of the possibility of related being, is not a
reality that occurs independently, beginning from which things
enter later into reciprocal relations, and to which (getting rid
of all relations) they can return again ; the triith rather is
that it is latent in the forms of related being, and inseparable
from these, and is in truth only the affirmation, positing, or
reality of these relations themselves.
II. Also that TO Tt of things — namely their nature — by
which each individual one is distinguished from every other,
is at least so far similar or comparable for all things, that
there can be one universal truth, valid throughout the world,
according to which, from certain definite relations of things,
there flow definite results, and from other relations other
results. The possibility that any combinations whatever of
things should become adequate grounds of a consequence
definite in itself or capable of being specified, forbids the
assumption that anything whatever can have a content
absolutely unconditioned or unique ; at most it could only
be the sole actual example of one content which, whether
simple or compound, may be thought as an universal occurring
in various examples, and being combined in thought with
other contents, according to the universal laws of truth,
may be regarded as the adequate ground of any third
content. ^H
III. Not only are the natures of things actually so adaptea
that they can supplement one another so as to become the
causes of results, but also this fact of their correspondence
must be understood by reference to a continuous and sub-
stantial unity of all. That correspondence is not a lucky hit
which alone has been realized among many equally possible |
but actually unrealized cases of non- adaptation of beings •
independent of one another and perfectly self-dependent as j
regards their content — but it depends upon this, that all h
which exists is but One Infinite Being which stamps upo:
po||i
M
OF THE BEING OF THINGS.
601
individual things in fitting forms its own ever-similar and
self -identical nature. Only on the assumption of this sub-
stantial unity is that intelligible which we call the reciprocal
action of different things, and which in truth is always the
reciprocal action of the different states of one and the same
ihinj^
CHAPTER II.
THE SPATIAL AND SUPERSENSUOUS W0RLD3.
The Doctrine of the Ideality of Space — The Correspondence of the Real Intel-
lectual and of the Apparent Spatial Places of Things — Removal of even the
Intellectual Relations between Things ; Sole Reality of Reciprocal Action —
Notion of Action — Summary.
Si. TN considering the connection between bodily and
-I- mental life we have had frequent occasion to ask
what is to be regarded as the real to ri and nature of things.
The numerous transformations which in the course of our
reflection are undergone by the answers which we at first put
forth with undoubting confidence, and the gradual removal of
the prejudices by which at the beginning we commonly allow
ourselves to be ruled, will have been sufficiently traced in our
previous considerations to allow of our now connecting further]
reflections with the results which we had provisionally reached,]
without the need of repetition. The things of the sensuous]
world will first occupy our attention.
We have long ago left behind us the standpoints from]
which it appeared at first that things consisted directly in
combined multiplicity of sensuous qualities, and then that tho]
matter which was at the foundation of them all constantlyj
occupied space ; even the atoms into which the need of
explaining Nature necessarily drove us to resolve that which
is efficient in the world of sense, we could not regard
homogeneous but minute particles of that ever-extendec
universal matter ; spatial extension, form, and magnitude coulc
not belong to their being, much less constitute the whole and
exhaustive content of that being. It seemed to us that these
spatial properties belonged only to what was composite, not
to the simple elements from the repetition of which the com-^
602
THE SPATIAL AND SUPEESENSUOUS WORLDS. 603
posite arises ; that unextended beings sending forth their effects
from different points of space, and by their forces reciprocally
prescribing positions to one another and maintaining tnese
positions, produce images of extended substances which we
intuit, and which with more or less intensity of coherence
and impenetrability seem always under different conditions to
occupy different parts of space. The nature of those simple
beings themselves we left undecided ; we only characterized
them — in expressions chiefly of negative signification — as
supersensuous, intellectual, and intensive, in contrast to that
which we, in accordance with common opinion, had up to
this point regarded as the to rl of things; we could only
point to the nature of souls as furnishing an illustration of
what was meant by these words (cf. L, pp. 326 seq.). But
throughout all these considerations we have in one point held
fast to common opinion — we have retained the idea of an
infinite space stretching beyond us and between things, in
order to serve as a place for things ; as the theatre of their
actions and reactions and an ever-present background, making
possible the existence of connections between them ; and
finally (by the alternations of remoteness and nearness which
it allows) conditioning the exercise of these effects sometimes
as hindrance and sometimes as furtherance. We have now
come to the point at which we must reject this assumption —
the temporary acceptance of which was necessary for the
simplification of the problems with which we have had to
deal, and was possible because the changed view which we
must now substitute for it will allow without detriment of
our using in all the details of our investigation of Nature, the
modes of expression founded upon it.
Although obscured by the last stage of modern philosophy
(which regards its retrogression in this point as a particularly
successful step in advance), Kant's doctrine of the Ideality of
Space is still so fresh in the remembrance of modern culture,
that I shall most simply express what is essential in my own
view by briefly agreeing with it. I hold that space and all
spatial connections are merely forms of our subjective intui-
\
604 BOOK IX. CHAPTER iL
tion, not applicable to those things and those relations of
things which are the efficient causes of all particular sensiious
intuitions — this kernel of Kant's doctrine I accept un-
reservedly. I should be happy if I could accept with equal
unreserve the arguments by which he supports it, or the way
in which he uses it for the construction of his philosophic
theory. But I can do neither ; and being unable to refer to
any accepted doctrine, I am constrained to attempt a very
brief outline of my own view, which could onlj'' be
demonstrated by a special scientific investigation, since it
would necessarily involve laborious examination of countless
objections.
Our ideas are not what they signify — the idea of sweet is
not sweet, the idea of half is not half. And our intuitions of
extended things do not themselves possess those properties
which make up the content intuited, and there do not exist
between them those spatial connections the existence of which
between the objects intuited are indicated by them. Our
idea of the greater is not itself greater than that of the less,
our idea of a triangle is not triangular, and our idea of some-
thing which is to the left is not itself situated to the left of
the idea of something else which is to the right, having the
same position and distance with respect to it which are, ly
the two ideas, ascribed to some two particular points of an
object. Therefore, however certainly it may appear to our
senses that endless space extends around and beyond us —
however self-evident it may seem that the definite local
relations of things which we perceive do exist outside of
us and between the things themselves — yet our intuition
of this space and our perception of these relations proceed
from the reciprocal action of impressions, or inner states of
our being, of which none has in itself spatial form, and
the mutual relations of which are like anything rather than
relations of position in space. Hence space and extension are
not forms of intuiting, that is, not forms in which those mental
activities work which produce our ideas of the extended
universe ; but they are forms of intuition, if by this name we
tf
THE SPATIAL AND SUPERSENSUOUS WORLDS. 605
mean to indicate the result of those activities, the finished
picture itself, the vision of endless extension which fioats
before our consciousness as contrasted with the non-spatial
and merely intensive activities of ideation to which that
vision is due.
If now the very means by which this space-world that we
intuit takes hold of our own mind are so wholly unlike that
world, we may easily be tempted to conclude that there will
therefore be as little, or if possible still less, likeness between
it and the outer world by the influence of which upon
our mental states the space-intuiting activity of our soul is
aroused. Things without form, not therefore unsubstantial
but characteristically differenced by the variety of their
supersensuous content, arranged in a multiplicity of rela-
tions not spatial but intellectual, would then by the direct
reciprocal action subsisting between them and men's souls
constrain those souls to make the various impressions
communicated by things the objects of intuiting conscious-
ness. But in concluding thus, we should have arrived at
a right conclusion by a wrong road ; for the way in which
spatial intuition arises from the reciprocal action of non-
spatial impressions in us, decides nothing concerning the
spatial or non-spatial character of the external world from
which these impressions come. We have long ago reached
the conviction that it is in this way that our intuition of
space must arise, whether an extended universe exists outside
us or not. For even if it existed, our mind, which is not
extended, could never be entered by extended images of
things, with their relations of magnitude and position ; and
even if such did enter the mind, their actual existence in the
soul would have a difi'erent significance from their being
intuited. Even the impressions of a real space-world must,
in order to exist for us, be transformed into an ordered
multiplicity of non-spatial excitations of our soul ; and iu
any case it is only from these that our intuition of the
world of space could be built up. And hence psychological
investigations as to the way in w hich the intuition of what
606 BOOK IX. CHAPTER IL
is extended arises in us, or does not arise, but is, may be,
innate, cannot decide the question with which we are con-
cerned. Only a metaphysical discussion as to the kind of
reality that space, after it has been thought and as it has
been thought, could have on account of that which it then is
or signifies, can establish its ideality or its Eealness.
Now apparently it is not quite easy to say what we really
hold space to be, when we think of it as empty and
infinite extension ; the attempt to do so soon makes us feel
the uniqueness of this idea, for the elucidation of which we
can find no homogeneous analogies, and hardly any images
which are not borrowed from the wholly peculiar nature of
just that which is extended. To regard space as something
infinite or as a property of things, is to entertain thoughts
which no one in the present day will think it necessary to
turn back and refute, for even in the pre-Christian era it
was plainly seen in what contradictions we should be in-
volved by this assumption, partly as to the existence of
things in space, and partly as to their movement through
space. And the habit which modern culture has of calling it
a form, a relation, or an order of things, is little more satis-
factory ; for all this is just what it plainly is not — formless in
itself, it could serve but as a background, lending itself to the
purposes of form, relation, or order, and being in its nature
capable of having an endless variety of forms inscribed in it,
countless relations subsisting in it, and the most varied
imaginable arrangements of a plurality presented in it. But
it will scarcely escape observation that this name background
is but another denomination of space itself; and hence from
this correction of the ordinary view we learn not so much
what space is as what services it can render to our com^
bining and discriminating intuition of a conceived manifold
it appears as the possibility of the juxtaposition of a plurality jj
but what it is in itself that makes it capable of affordin
this possibility remains unexplained. To this we may add
that even this last expression involves a circle, for juxta-
position is a kind of simultaneity which is distinguished from
ich
>m->^^
tyfl
in<T ^i
THE SPATIAL AND SUPERSENSUOUS WORLDS.
607
other kinds of simultaneity only by its thoroughly spatial
character.
And this very remark may put us into the right way of
fixing our attention not primarily on space but on the general
laws of extension, letting space itself arise at a later stage
from the application of these laws — as without doubt
psychologically the intuition of space as an infinite whole
comes later. For we have given to us originally, whether as
innate gift, or as the first result of the reciprocal action of our
impressions, the certainty that any point can be reached from
any other point by one, and only one, straight line, that all
the points in this line are perfectly homogeneous and equal in
value when considered with reference to the two terminal
points, and that they hold a similar relation to every other
point. We have, I say, the certainty expressed in these state-
ments, or in any others — we need not here inquire what — by
which the nature of juxtaposition is so completely expressed
that the first principles of geometry may be based upon them.
In logical form, our expression is an universal law, as must be
also any more exact expression by which its place may be
supplied; but yet the peculiarity of its content essentially
distinguishes it, even formally, from the formative law which
every universal concept imposes on its particular examples.
The concept only requires that each instance of it, regarded in
itself, should contain a definite group of characteristics com-
bined in a definite manner ; hence it does indeed subordinate
to itself its individual examples, but it does not establish
between them any significant connection, by which they may
reciprocally work upon and affect each other. For what we
logically call their co-ordination, only indicates the complete
similarity of the way in which they are swi-ordinated to the
universal, and beyond the similarity which must of course
belong to them on account of this subordination it has no
effect upon their reciprocal behaviour, this remaining wholly
undetermined by it. The same thing holds of all other
general laws which comprise under them a variety of in-
dividual cases ; they are valid in every one of these cases
608 BOOK IX. CHAPTFR IL
taken separately, but do not bring the different cases into any
mutual connection.
It is quite the reverse with the law of juxtaposition.
When it declares that between any two points one and only
one straight line is possible and necessary, it not only asserts
in a general way that every second or third pair of points is
subject to the same law of connection, but it requires at the
same time that the second pair should be regarded as con-
nected with tlie first — in short, every pair with every other
pair — in the same way and after the same fashion as the
members of every pair with one another. Thus it combines
all the different instances of its application into one wliole
which coheres together according to the same rule by which
any two of its parts are connected, and does not allow us to
think of any single case of its application existing as it were
isolated in a world of its own, without attaching itself to this
whole as a part of it. Hence it is that here for the first time
co-ordination has a special meaning; particular spaces are not
only subordinated to a general notion of extension as examples
of it, but they are at the same time joined to and co-ordinated
witli one another according to the general laws of space-con-
struction as parts of one space. Thus it is that space is as it
were a picture, and this is the reason why we prefer, and see
preferred, for it the name of intuition, which denotes some-
thing essentially different from that which is denoted by
notion. In the same peculiarity of the law of extension or
juxtaposition which we have emphasized, there is at the same
time contained (as in the nature of every series) the possibility
of endless progression by which to the members already given
new ones may constantly be added, according to the same
formula by which the old ones are connected ; thus it is that
space extends to infinity. By an arbitrarily chosen expression
that has a tinge of contempt, we may, it is true, describe this
by saying that space is unending because of its inherent
incapacity of self-limitation. Without going into scholastic
controversies we may cheerfully accept even this inter-
pretation ; we are not aware of needing any other infinity of
THE SPATIAL AND SUPERSENSUOUS WORLDS. 609
space than that which is here asserted, and we can hardly
regard as the mere lack of some better property its cha-
racteristic of not only not resisting any advance beyond
temporarily assumed limits, but of moreover pointing out a
definite path for such progression. If we put together what
we have said, space appears to us as a kind of integral by
which that whole is given which proceeds from the summation
of all the infinitely numerous applications of the law of juxta-
position, when we abstract wholly from the nature of the
reality that stands in those relations, and substitute for it the
mere empty framework of the related points. Now when
we have once got hold of the intuition of space, space
appears to us as the all-embracing whole, in which and
through which is possible the multiplicity of all those
relations from the summation of which it has itself really
originated.
Now if this is the signification of space, the question as to
the nature of its reality scarcely needs a special answer.
Even those who regarded space as mere empty form fitted for
the reception of things, must have acknowledged that empty
forms could be thought existing previous to real things only
as formed material, and therefore themselves something
real and capable of receiving the other real things ; as unreal
forms, unsupported by matter of which they are the form, they
can of course exist only in thought that has abstracted from
matter. Just as little could relations and arrangements have
^an independent existence previous to the things which are to
enter into them ; they too, if separated from those things,
fould have a place of existence only in that activity of mind
[)y which they are thought. It is scarcely necessary to add
jihat still less can space as comprising the collected results
^f an infinite number of possible relations have its existence
mywhere else than in the activity of intuition which is con-
scious of this result of its relating movement, manifested in
jombination, division, and systematization. Space does not
&xist between things and preceding them in such a way that
things are in it, but it diffuses itself in things, at least in
VOL. n. 2 Q
610 BOOE rX. CEAPTEE II.
souls, as the extension which can exist only for thought, in
which we assign their places to impressions which we receive
through reciprocal action between our minds and the outer
world, that is the things which are not ourselves. It is only
misplaced respect for a venerable error which would rejoin
that even the non-existent may exist, and that even relations
which have nothing real in them may have an objective
existence independent of our thought. There is but cheap
wisdom in asserting that even mere appearance and nothing-
ness and error do exist after a fashion; that the sense in
which the past and the future are non-existent is different
from the sense in which what has never been and what is for
ever impossible are non-existent ; it is just this fashion and
the meaning of this existence which we have above, in treat-
ing of our present subject, space, endeavoured to fix in a
somewhat better way than by means of these indefinite
expressions. We did it by trying to ascertain the kind of
reality that can be attributed to space, instead of consigning
space offhand to the region of non-existence. And this reality
is to be found in its existence as intuition in ideating beings,
not in existence as a vacuum independent of them. By such
determination its reality is not diminished, but its nature is
fixed. As events really happen although they never are ; as
light really shines although only to the eye that perceives it ;
as the power of money and the truth of mathematical laws
really eoxrt their influence, though the first exists nowhere
except in the estimation of men, and the second nowhere
except in the actual things to which they relate — so space has
reality although it does not exist but only appears. For
reality is like a sun that rises upon the just and upon the
unjust; it embraces not only the existence of that which
exists, but also the process of that which happens and the
validity of relations and the appearance of phsenomena ; the
mistake is in attributing to any one of these the kind of reality
which can belong only to one of the others, and in complain-
ing when there is assigned to each of them the place and the
particular kind of existence possible for it.
THE SPATIAL AND SUPERSENSUOUS WORLDS. 611
§ 2. It was Other reasons than those here advanced that led
Kant to his doctrine of the Ideality of Space, and caused a
further development of that doctrine to which we cannot give
our adhesion. Among the thoughts that belong to this
subject we will only briefly mention the practice of regarding
space as being a subjective form of huinan intuition alone,
and of considering it possible that other knowing beings may
make use of other forms of intuition which we cannot even
guess at. If the chief stress is laid upon reckoning space as
an innate <i priori possession of the mind, as contrasted with
that content of knowledge which is brought to us by experi-
ence, it is natural to bring into prominence the thought that
its peculiarity depends on the nature of the intuiting mind,
and that in differently constituted minds different forms of
intuition may take its place. Herbart's recent attempt to
•exhibit all the d, priori forms of our knowledge as results
which must necessarily be produced by the reciprocal action
of different ideas in every ideating being, has led to the
opposite presupposition with regard to space itself — namely,
that to every being whose mode of cognition depends upon a
mechanism of reciprocally acting individual ideas, the plurality
of his impressions must appear in space-relations. I do not
consider it possible to choose decisively between these two
opposed views. It seems to me that all the deductions have
failed which have attempted to show the necessity that space
mst be, or must be intuited, either from assumptions con-
jming the necessary development of the cosmic content or
from self-evident laws of the reciprocal action in all ideation.
Such attempts, when they took the first way, have only
leduced certain abstract postulates from the notion of a self-
ieveloping Absolute — postulates which did not even posit
space or show how space could be deduced from them; postulates
such that he and he only who was already acquainted
with space, could guess that by it they would be satisfied.
Where they took the second way they have only succeederi
in producing space by taking certain figurative expressions
borrowed from it (expressions which, as they at first main-
Ik.
612 BOOK IX. CHAPTEE 11.
tained, they used only in an abstract non-spatial sense), and
reintroducing into them somewhere in the course of the
deduction their proper spatial meaning. Hence it does not
seem to me to be proved that in every ideating being, whose
mode of cognition may be compared with ours, the intuition
of a manifold must everywhere take place under the form of
space; I would not precisely assert, but still I conjecture
that this demonstration, which has always hitherto failed, is
impossible.
It was natural and right to oppose this space-world as
phsenomenal to the world of real existence, but erroneous to
exaggerate the distinction between the two to such an extent
as to make it appear that they were insusceptible of com-
parison, and especially (after the fashion adopted by popular
culture when penetrated by the doctrine of the ideality of
space) to revel expressly in the thought of this incompara-
bility, as though it were a guarantee of everything that is best.
It was erroneous to regard space as a form of our intuition, by
which things were received, extension being quite alien to
things as they are in themselves ; for it is certain after all
that nothing can be received by a form to which it is not in
some way suited. Equally inexact was the expression used
by Kant himself — that cognition having for so long accepted
from experience the laws by which it judged of things, it was
time to see whether conversely cognition could not prescribe
laws to things, if only the laws of their appearance — for it is
obvious that the cognizing mind itself may determine the
general colouring of the reality that appears to it, but in order ,
that it may cognize at all it must receive from the nature j
of that which appears, at least the special outlines of the
phsenomenon. More generally expressed, the inadequacy of
this view lay in this — that while it attributed the intuition of
space to the mind as an innate possession, it did not attempt
to explain the application of this possession. We have not,
only an intuition of empty space, but also a spatial intuition
of the fuU content of the world ; and it remained to show
how in those empty forms with which, as it was said, w^
THE SPATIAL AND SUPERSENSUOUS WORLDS. 613
encounter the reality of experience, this reality can take its
appointed position, and assume its appointed form. The
solution of this problem was impossible without the assump-
tion that there exist between things themselves manifold
connections the special distinctions and meanings of which are
reflected in corresponding forms of spatial relation, or may be
transposed into the language of space ; however unknown and
inscrutable in other respects the nature of things may be
considered to be, the view in question cannot, without can-
celling itself, disclaim this much knowledge concerning
them.
In order that this standpoint which we have taken up in
the above discussion, and which we do not wish to keep
always to ourselves, may become sufficiently familiar to be
intelligible, we need only call to mind how, when we draw
comparisons, whatever the object of our thought may be,
spatial images always press in spontaneously to give the
; greatest attainable degree of clearness by making it, as it
were, visible to the mind. We may indeed think of a non-
patial plurality ; but we never represent it to ourselves
^without distributing the plurality in different parts of co-
presented space ; we illustrate any unity by spatial boundary
lines by which it is shut off from others and shut into itself ;
there is no abstract idea of variety, contrast, or degree of
relationship that we present to ourselves in idea without
mentally endowing the content of these notions with visible
form, by images of various spatial situation, form, direction,
and distance. And even these words (content, contrast,
presentation, and so forth), as well as innumerable words
which indicate relations (to which the progress of civilisation
has gradually attached the abstract signification which they
now possess), plainly show, when etymologically considered,
hat they owe their origin to spatial intuitions. Therefore
e scarcely need to exhibit further this capacity of space to
ive sensible form to the most multifarious variety and
adation of intellectual relations by the unbounded multi-
licity of the possible relations between its points ; we rather
614 BOOK IX. CHA.PTEE 11.
need to convince imagination, accustomed as it is to this
symbolism, that those very relations which it loves to repre-
sent spatially have a special meaning of their own, that is
merely reflected in this spatial form without being bound
to it. The structure of the world of sound or of mathe-
matical truth may serve as illustrations of such relation.
Without the spatial images of height and depth and intervals,
the relations between tones would not be clear to us in
thought, although in sensation we are conscious of their
simply qualitative nature ; as regards mathematical truths or
the relations of pure number, since they have no sensuous
images, we more easily comprehend them as what they really
are — as systems of members the reciprocal dependence of
which, varying extremely in degree, is of a wholly abstract
nature, neither standing in need of spatial symbolism for its
subsistence nor even, in some cases, admitting of it. These
examples will suffice to illustrate provisionally those intel-
lectual relations which we assume to hold between the
manifold things which exist. Whatever the natures of things
may be, and whatever the general kind of relationship between
them, the things will not be insusceptible of comparison,
and the closeness of the relationship will be capable of
unlimited gradation ; hence everything by its nature and the
totality of its relations to all other things is not only dis-
tinguished from all other things and thereby isolated, but also
— like a note which has its own immutable place in the scale,
or like a truth which has its own definite place in the system,
coming between those upon which it depends, and those which
depend upon it — everything has its own definite place, in the
fabric of reality, between other things whicli are related to it
with different degrees of nearness or contrast. And, more-
over, in correspondence with this intellectual order, every-
thing will appear to a soul in which its influence encounters
a capacity for spatial intuition, to have that definite place
among the images of other things which seems to be assigned
to it by the totality of its intellectual relations to them ; and
this place which it has will seem to change, and the thing
THE SPATIAL AND SUPERSEXSUOUS WORLDS, 615
itself to Tuove through the intuited space, if these relations
which it has to the rest of the world are changed.
The spatial appearance of the world does not altogether
result from the mere existence of the intellectual order among
things ; it is only complete when this order exerts its infiuence
upon those to whom it is to appear. It cannot therefore be
the same to all by whom it is intuited ; for in this intellectual
whole of the universe souls themselves occupy places at
different points of the structure ; on these parts, which have
different values, the action of the whole is different, and
accordingly that whole wears for them a different aspect ; to
each of them there appears but a section of it, and this with
that specially foreshortened projection which corresponds to
the difference of the position in the world which this being,
as compared with its neighbours, occupies in the intellectual
order of things. So as a whole it is indeed the same world
which we see, but to each it is different in detail ; one person
could share exactly the view of another only if he could be
transferred from his ovm relations to the world as a whole,
into those in which the other stands — a change which to him
must seem to be a spatial movement of himself through the
space-world which appears to him. An easy continuation of
these considerations teaches — what to exhibit here in detail
would require a superfluous expenditure of words — that as
the images formed by different souls of the space-world
surrounding them on the one hand are not identical, so on the
other hand they are not without connection. Each appears
to every other to have some definite position in the space-
world intuited by that other, and each attributes at the same
time to his own image in the space-world which he beholds
such a position with regard to the image of the other, that in
order to change places opposite movements in the same line
must seem necessary to each ; hence within the space-world,
which to each seems to stretch between him and the other,
whilst in truth it exists only in themselves, each will be able
to find the other out, and they will be able by definite move-
ments to meet and enter into reciprocal action. It is neces-
616 BOOK IX. CHAPTER II.
sary to think this out thoroughly for oneself; for philosophic
theories have little value if they can only be laboriously
demonstrated in the lecture room, and in practical life remain
uncredited because it is not easy to find the connection
between them and everyday occurrences. Without myself
making the attempt here in detail, I venture to hope that a
further pursuit of the indications 1 have given will wholly
remove the appearance of paradox which the doctrine of the
ideality of space generally has at first sight for the common
consciousness. Under the above-explained conditions of
merely subjectively intuited space, we have in point of fact
exactly what would be afforded us by a real objective exist-
ence of space if such were possible ; no part of the phsenomena
with which we are familiar and of their persuasive evidence
is inexplicable on our assumption as to the real state of the
case; even when our presupposition has been accepted in
principle and on the whole, it does not make necessary a
violent change in received expressions and ideas that refer to
details. As we always speak of the rising and setting of the
sun, and shall never substitute for them awkward expressions
framed according to the actual and well-known condition of
things, we may continue to look at the world, as far as all
practical details are concerned, as though space were spread
around us and we ourselves were floating in it; it is only
when we are concerned to establish ultimate principles
according to which all the connection of phsenomena is to be
judged, that we — just as astronomers are — shall be obliged to
recur to the true condition of things as the foundation of all
the rules of phsenomena.
At this point I would exclude from the circle of subjects
we are considering, a department of thought the development
of which is indeed important in itself, but would require a
diffuseness of treatment which, for the object that we have in
view, would not be compensated by any counterbalancing
advantage. For the fundamental notions of natural philosophy
which we must form concerning the concatenation of physical
events will, it is plain, take a very different turn when we
THE SPATIAL AND SUrERSENSUOUS WORLDS. 617
consider space as a real stage upon which all occurrences are
presented, and when we regard it as a mere phaenomenon in
the semblance of which real action between things, which was
originally of quite a different kind, comes afterwards to be
clothed. In the latter case we can no longer regard move-
ment in space as a performance by which we overcome
distance, as though that distance were a reality ; we cannot
speak of forces having a tendency to move bodies nearer to or
further from one another in space, or which at a certain
distance would encounter a certain amount of opposition to
their action. For us all these simplest intuitions of natural
philosophy will need reconstruction upon a new foundation.
This reconstruction we do not here attempt, and will only
remark by the way that for it many oft-discussed difiiculties
vanish into nothingness, and in their place others arise at
points where, to the hitherto accepted mode of thought,
nothing whatever suspicious seemed to lurk. But the
problems with which we are at present concerned urge us in
quite another direction.
§ 3. Let us grant that the reader was in a certain respect
deceived when we compared the intellectual order of things,
on which we held the order of their spatial appearance to be
dependent, to the relations of sound, or to the articulation of
a system of abstract doctrines. What we then needed was a
provisional illustration, and to it we sacrificed for the moment
.the exactness which we must now turn back and seek. The
[two comparisons are inappropriate because they liken the order
)f immutable and eternally valid systems to an order that is
mtable and merely factual. A system of truths is connected
[^together in but one way, and that a way that never changes ;
|we, choosing different points of departure, may bring its several
Jparts into special prominence in various combinations, and
interpret for ourselves the results that flow therefrom ; but
jthese results do not arise from our procedure ; they are eter-
lally valid, and it is only in our consciousness of them, that
in the real state of a real being, in our own conscious soul,
bhat something happens which has not existed eternally. The
618 BOOK IX. CHAPTER 11.
relations of sound too are eternally the same ; they may, like
those of the hody of truths referred to, afford material for one,
but only for one, spatial symbol! zation. Eightly constructed,
this would for ever express the immutable organization of the
scale, and be capable of being exhibited instead of the scale
itself, as an object of consideration, and its whole wealth of
inner relations being simultaneously present would as known
vary with arbitrary movements of attention. Things on the
other hand do not constitute a motionless organization of a
manifold, in which every individual element, in virtue of its
constant nature and the unchangeableness of its total relations
to the rest, occupies an immutable position ; they are, on the
contrary, subject to movement, and obviously change their
places in the intellectual whole of the cosmos no less than
their phsenomenal images change their places in space. Hence
it follows either that their natures cannot be immutable, but
must be mutable in order that the change in their reciprocal
relations (which corresponds to the change in themselves)
may explain the mutability of their spatial appearance — or
the relations in which things stand to one another must in
themselves be accessible to a mutation which does not at the
same time affect the nature of the things.
If one is led to this alternative by the attempt to deduce
the spatial places of phaenomenal things from the intellectual
places of real things, it is hardly doubtful that one will pre-
fer to make an attempt to affirm in the first place the second
member of the disjunction. For do not things as appearing
in space seem to move without any mutation of their nature ? or
if they seem to undergo any such mutation, is it not just the
change of place which introduces the mutation and constitutes
its cause ? But if we think of things as being enclosed in a
net of mutable intellectual relations, or as being moveable
within this network, we encounter an inconceivability which
is essentially the same as that which we have so long been
trying to refute under the name of extension, which though
empty is yet real in itself. For we regarded objective space
as unthinkable, not on account of its special geometrica!-
3al|l
■
THE SPATIAL AND SUPEKSENSUOUS WOELDS. 619
nature, but because of its presenting a system of empty rela-
tions as an independent whole. But — to take up again a
consideration previously indicated — all relations as such have
existence and reality only in the consciousness of him whose
mind exercises a definite relating activity; apart from con-
sciousness they have not themselves an independent existence
between the things related or relatable, but there is a foundation
for them in the nature of things which are so framed that
consciousness is constrained and enabled by their influence
upon it, to connect and estimate by means of these relations
the impressions which those things make upon it. Hence in
the intellectual world also there is nothing between individual
beings, nothing by change in which the beings themselves can
be removed from or brought near to one another, or have their
reciprocal action roused or hindered; but all these relations
are part of the appearance which the intellectual world as a
whole assumes for each of its parts which is capable of having
anything whatever presented to it ; moreover, by them there
is interpreted only that being which springs up within indi-
vidual beings, that multiplicity of inner reciprocal actions
which in reality things exercise directly upon one another,
being upon being, without the mediation of any such middle
terms.
It must necessarily be difficult for us, considering the mode
of apprehension to which the consideration of daily experience
has accustomed us, to carry out the abstraction which we
here demand ; and it is worth while to elucidate it by some
r supplementary observations before we go on to deduce its
[further consequences. It seems to us all so self-evident that
Uf an effect arises which previously did not exist, there must
^tave been some mediating process by which it was brought
ibout, and, moreover, all our previous considerations have so
[expressly and repeatedly made it a duty to seek the mechanical
inks in all action, that the demand which we now make will
lave a confusing efiect not only in a general way but also as
^regards the coherence of our train of thought itself. But not-
p'ithstanding, we have for a long time been leading up to this
620 BOOK IX. CHAPTER II.
demand. We have already repeatedly emphasized the asser-
tion that we cannot go on indefinitely requiring intermediary
machinery for the bringing about of the most simple results
and the elucidation of the most simple effects ; at some point
or other the chain of intermediaries must consist of simple
members connected together immediately and not requiring
something else to hold them together; somewhere or other
there must be simple processes of reciprocal action, which
consist in this, that the inner condition of some being, as soon
as it exists, is the direct producing cause of some fresh inner
condition in a second being ; there must be somewhere that
real sympathetic afi&nity between existent things which a
widespread superstition unfortunately imagines it sees only
where, according to the unanimous testimony of experience, it
does not exist. We have already had often enough to con-
vince ourselves that all attempts to explain still further these
most simple elements of action and occurrence, to elucidate
them by showing the way in which they come to pass, must
invariably fail ; but they fail not on account of the imperfec-
tion of our knowledge, but because the very existence of thatj
which they erroneously seek is impossible.
There is no process of action adapted to bring to pass'
events which though all their conditions are present are notj
as yet actual, but only a process of the gradual completion
of causes as yet incomplete. If any inner state of a being]
is the adequate cause of change in another, the change
happens forthwith and does not need any process of realiza-
tion ; if that state is not an adequate cause, no process of j
action could constrain it to a result that does not spon-
taneously flow from it; finally, if that state can, through aj
series of intermediate links, pass into a second state, which]
would constitute the complete cause of such a result, and if]
there is a disturbance of states by which this transition is
accomplished, then previously to the accomplishment each of]
these intermediaries must be followed by the event which j
corresponds to it as result to cause, and only when this series
has been coinj)leted will that event occur which flows from
THE SPATIAL AND SUPEESENSUOUS WORLDS. 621
the thus established final state of the acting being as its
necessary consequence. Hence the only path by which the
primarily given state can attain its final operation, leads
through these intermediate events ; taken together and in the
order of their succession, they constitute what we call the
mechanism by which a result is realized. Therefore we can
never refer to mechanism to explain how a result arises the
complete cause of which already exists in actual states of
actual things, and we shall always need a mechanism in order,
in any real occurrence, to connect the first member with a
final member of which the complete cause had not, under,
the form of inner conditions of existing reality, been realized
by that first. For the significance of mechanism never
consists in its being a kind of magic artifice, by which is
brought about an event which though all its conditions are
complete, yet in some incomprehensible way delays to
happen ; in every case it is required only in the interests of
the constancy and regularity of the cosmic course, which
demand not only that every real occurrence should have an
adequate ground, but also require that every intermediate
link, by which the inadequate passes into the adequate,
should itself be previously realized as an actual state of some
real being. For only thus is each of these members an
active cause, which not only within the being of which it is
itself a state carries on the mutation of the inner states of that
being, but also becomes the cause of mutations in other beings.
Our previous remarks have been intended to show that
reciprocal action is not rendered less thinkable by our not
allowing of anything between beings which can separate them
or combine them or connect them with one another. It is
not external mediation that is needed in action ; not a multi-
farious transporting from this place to that, and from that
\ place to this ; we are relieved from all this apparatus by the
! knowledge that all things being parts of an Infinite that
unites them as in one substance, they need no other bond than
[this in order that the states of one thing may have a deter-
l mining significance for those of another. Those mediating
622 BOOK IX. CHAPTEE II.
links were themselves of an internal and intellectual kind ; to
things which by the universal metaphysical justice of this
Infinite cannot in accordance with their meaning follow
directly one from another, they give reality by making actual
the intermediaries which render it possible that those things
should follow from one another in accordance with this
meaning. There is therefore nothing else than an eternal
universal inner stream of reciprocal action in things ; its
individual waves are not caused by impulses communicated
to things from without, they arise from the native consistency,
according to which any previous state of a being that is not
separated by any gulf from the inner existence of another,
becomes directly a subsequent state of this other ; we must get
rid once for all not only of the thought of a network of
spatial relations along which the conditions of action run
backwards and forwards between things, but also of all idea
of supersensuous intellectual bonds of connection which, lying
outside of things and sometimes contracting and sometimes
expanding, at one time bring things together so as to produce
action, and at another break the contact necessary for
reciprocal action.
If I have succeeded in making clear what I mean, I shall
certainly be expected to give an answer to one other question.
The ordinary view took pains to ward off all mutation from
the inner nature of things, and held that change was only to
be admitted in external relations. Now how can our present
view — which puts all action wholly in things, and supposes
universal mutability of their states — comport with the
assumption of the unity which we ourselves have repeatedly
pointed out as essential to the nature of everything? I
might fairly pass this question over, if I were less in earnest;
for even the views which most strongly emphasize the unity
of the nature of things must in the end reconcile with that ;
unity not only a change of inner states but also a simul-
taneous plurality of such states, as otherwise they would be
destitute of a source from which to derive an explanation of
the way in which events can occur at all. I forego this way
THE SPATIAL AND SUPERSENSUOUS WORLDS. 623
of escaping the difficulty, though at this point I cannot fully
answer the question proposed ; and, on the contrary, expressly
admit that I only wish to dispose of it provisionally by (for
the present) merely referring to a previous exposition
(cf. L, pp. 168 seq., 536 seq.) concerning the meaning of that
unity which we really have reason to require in things.
That exposition taught us to seek this meaning only in the
consistency with which changing states of anything are so
connected together that — having regard to the conditions
under which they arise — they appear to be varying and
manifold expressions of one and the same thought, in the
realization of which the being of the thing consists. But we
could never require unity in the nature of a thing in the same
sense in which we are accustomed to use this expression to
denote the monotony of an absolutely homogeneous quality ;
unity of this kind can never be real, but is always a property
of something else which is Eeal, and even this not in the signifi-
cation which it would have if it could ever he even a part of the
nature of this something else ; on the contrary, it is every-
where but a partial appearance which that thing wears for some
consciousness which intuits it. Every simple quality exists
only when it is perceived and only for him who perceives it ;
if it could exist anywhere independent of him, it would still
certainly not be the nature of anything, for in its simplicity it
can only be or not be ; it cannot so change as to remain, in
some fresh condition of its existence, the same that it was in a
previous condition. But only that which is capable of and can
[outlast change can be substance, and this capacity things must
lliave in order to be things ; the invariable, which can only
[either (1) he while it continues entirely homogeneous, or (2) be
[annihilated and give way to some other that takes its place — •
[that thus may indeed have its turn of existence with othei'S
|but cannot change itself — is always something unsubstantial
that may be a predicate, but can never be a subject of
jredicates. However, I admit that this consideration does
lot completely answer the doubt expressed, further discussion
)f which we reserve for a short time.
624 BOOK IX. CHAPTER II.
S 4. Having given these somewhat detailed explanations,
we can now briefly add our later results to the previous ones,
in somewhat changed order.
IV. The nature of everything by which it is distinguished
from other things is one, as regards its consistency, but never
simple in the sense in which a homogeneous quality is simple.
An adequate knowledge of that nature (supposing such to be
possible) would understand it in the form of a thought or of
an Idea, for the unchanging meaning of which there are
innumerable differing expressions, appearances, and verifica-
tions under differing conditions. With the limitation of never
being or appearing, doing or suffering anything that is not a
consistent expression of the fundamental thought which
constitutes the being of anything — with this limitation every-
thing is mutable, and can only be a thing or substance if it
is mutable after this fashion.
V. The objective relations by which the commensurable
natures of individual things are brought together for the
realization of the result of which the content that is thought
together is the hasis, do not consist in spatial movements. The
case is not that things are in space, in which they can move,
but space is in things as the form of an intuition through
which they themselves become conscious of their supersensuous
relations to one another. The place occupied by any element
at any definite moment on account of the totality of the^
relations which it then has to all the rest in the intellectual i
order of the world, determines the place in space at which this |
element must be intuited by the rest ; to the change which j
the element experiences in the intellectual order there cor-
responds in spatial intuition the movement which hence has]
to be regarded as change of place, but not — at least notj
primarily — as a passage through space.
VL The supersensuous order upon which we suppose that]
of the apparent spatial cosmos to depend, cannot be regarded
as a mere intellectual counterpart of space in such a fashion]
that it too, like a web of independent and changing but non-j
spatial relations, comprehends things in itself and extends
THE SPATIAL AND SUPERSENSUOUS WOELDS. 625
between them just in the same way as (according to an earlier
view) space was supposed to have an independent existence
as an encompassing background and as empty extension.
All relations, even these intellectual relations, exist as rela-
tions only in the relating mind at those times when it
exercises its relating activity. Therefore the supersensuous
order of the world does not consist in a tissue of complicated
relations between things, sometimes contracting, sometimes
expanding, but only in the totality of the reciprocal action
between things taking place in the world at every moment.
The actions are not produced, changed, and organized by a
multitude of impulses running backwards and forwards
between things, but they themselves being comparable in
meaning, and hence subject to universal laws, produce in one
another impulses that become realized without the help of
any mediating mechanism, and arrange themselves, according
to their meaning (as constituents of the world's content which
stand in need of one another), in that intellectual order which
is valid for them but does not exist heivmen them.
uVOL. II. 2r
CHAPTER III.
THE REAL AND THE IDEAL.
Conti-adictions in the Notion of Things and in their Formal Determinations-
Idealistic Denial of Things — All that is Eeal is Mind — What it is that we
must seek to Construct, and "What it is that we have to Recognise as
immediately given — Summary. ^
S 1. "TITTHAT we have recorded hitherto as the results of
T T our reflection has been of essentially formal
significance ; we have sought to make clear to ourselves the
conditions under which it seemed that reality ( Wirklidikeit) of
existence could belong to any being whatever its nature, and
reality of occurrence to any event whatever its content ; but we
have not yet sought to determine what that may be which is,
or happens, according to these conditions. In doing this we
have perhaps had in some measure the feeling of a rich man
wlio is not concerned for the moment to reckon up his posses-
sions in detail, but contents himself for the present with
marking in such a way his numerous flocks and herds what-
ever they may consist in, that in case of need he would be able
to recognise and to find his property. But a certain feeling
of perplexity takes hold upon us now that the time is come for
really (wirklich) showing in what our possessions consist, and
giving an account of what actually are the things and the events
which really being or happening satisfy the conditions that
we have sketched out. Wherever we may look there seems
to be nothing that we can specify — all that according to the
ordinary view forms the content of reality, the many-coloured
impressions of sense and the multifarious forms and move-
ments of the extended universe, we have been forced to regard
as phsenomena which do indeed reveal changing relations in
that which is truly real, but do not point out what it is that
this true reality consists in.
J
THE REAL AND THE IDEAL. 627
Now one might hope to get rid of this perplexity by a
candid confession of human incapacity — ^by acknowledging that
>yhat things are in themselves and what effects they actually
have upon one another in reciprocal action, must remain for
ever unknown to us ; that only from the varying relations of
that which appears is it possible for us to conclude to formally
corresponding variations of this unknown, variations of which,
however, we can never cognize the actual content. But the
more certain we may be that at some point or other we shall
be brought to this confession, the more necessary is it not to
reach it prematurely, and by so doing avoid investigations
which we ought to undertake even though they may promise
no other result than the knowledge that we were mistaken
with regard to that which our confession of incapacity
assumed to be the highest attainment of cognition possible
for us.
We shall do well to distinguish two kinds of ignorance.
It may be that of anything which we are seeking in order to
the fulfilment of some definite requirement of cognition, the
general notion under which it should be thought is clear,
while we perhaps only lack grounds for deciding among which
of the various species of this universal we should reckon that
which we seek. It may, however, also happen that nothing is
clear to us except the need which we desire to satisfy by that
for which we are seeking, and that of the essential nature of
that which would be fitted to afford such satisfaction, we have
not even, as it were, a generic image showing the possibility
of that which we seek. If with regard to the question
which at present occupies us, we found ourselves in the
first of these two cases, we should be satisfied. To speak
figuratively, we should then know not indeed what colour
things and events would wear, but that they would have
some colour, that is that their nature would be determined by
some species of a genus familiar to us, the existence of
which would be guaranteed to us by the generic image that
we have of it.
Certainly in the present day people often think that with
628 BOOK IX. CHAPTER III.
regard to the notions by which it has hitherto been attempted
to determine the being of things, we are in this comparatively
favoured position, and possess, in those notions, truths which
rightly mark out the genus of reality, and only leave undeter-
mined the special colouring, the knowledge of which we can
if necessary do without. But to me it seems as though we
were in the second and less favoured position, like a geometer
who, having before him the result of an analytic calculation,
cannot hit upon any geometrical construction by which that
which is abstractly required may be presented in intuition.
It seems that, as regards the formal conditions which we
require from being and action, we are not only not in a
position to point out any essential characteristic of that which
is Eeal {Real), by which those conditions may be satisfied, but
that those demands themselves require, with reference to reality,
much of which either we perceive that it can only be thought,
and cannot he and happen elsewhere than in thought, or at
least of which we cannot perceive how it can be anything
more than thought, how it can hold good of reality or occur in
reality. Taking a brief retrospect, I will illustrate the import-
ance of this consideration by the thoughts which we have
gradually developed concerning the to tI of things, their
unity, and the mode of their existence.
In the popular view the essence of things seems at first
sight to consist in sensible qualities. But it soon becomes
plain that these are only states of our sensation, resulting
in the most plausible case from reciprocal action between
things and ourselves, but neither capable of existing except
in him who feels, nor fitted, even if they could so exist, to
constitute the nature of a thing. We took refuge in super-
sensuous intellectual qualities. That this name is not a mere
combination of words destitute of an object, that there is
something corresponding to it, we believed we could show by
reference to mental properties which — as the properties denoted
by good, evil, holy — seemed as a matter of fact to present
examples of a content supersensuous and at the same time
like sensible qualities in their simple intuitable definiteness.
THE KEAL AND THE IDEAL, 629
But this was only seeming. Having regard to constancy of
action, learnt from past experience or assumed for the future,
beings might have these attributes imputed to them, and in
contrast to the individual actions manifesting the attributes,
the attributes themselves then look like original simple
qualities ; yet in themselves they only indicate a kind of
demeanour of things, not what things are in order that they
should demean themselves thus — this latter, however, being
what we sought. And then one might think for a moment
what it would be to look away from all illustrative examples,
and to seek the being of things in qualities of quite another
kind — a kind of which no one can form the slightest idea.
But in doing this one would commit the error, so often
blamed, of confusing the expression of a necessity of thought
with actual knowledge of the object in question, and of
believing that demands have been fulfilled by the mere
fixation of them in a verbal expression — whilst either it
cannot be shown that those demands are capable of being
fulfilled by the reality to which they refer, or it can be shown
that they are not capable of being fulfilled by it. For the
name unknown qualities does indeed express, by the name
unknown, our incapacity of cognizing those qualities ; but in
calling them qualities it keeps up the erroneous appearance of
our having at least the general notion under which this
unknown may be correctly thought as one of its species.
Now not only have we no idea what kind of quality con-
stitutes the being of things, but we err even in thinking that
we may subsume this under the general notion of quality.
For this name quality, as long as it has any definite
meaning at all, always denotes something that by its nature
has reality only as a state of feeling of some sensitive being,
but which except in such a being, except as felt, cannot exist
either independently or in dependence on something else.
It would seem then that nothing remains for us to do but
to regard the being of things not as an unknown quality but
simply as unknown. But even this complete renunciation of
all pretensions to knowledge proves untenable ; for as long as
630 BOOK IX. CHAPTER HL
we wish to speak of things at all — and it is not apparent
how we can comprehend phaenomena without supposing
things — we must assume that things have a nature capable
of producing varying appearances under varying conditions.
In this respect too, as we have already pointed out, a simple
quality, even if it could be, would be incapable of constituting
the being of things- — that being, it seemed to us, could only
consist in the unchanging significance of a thought which,
without changing its meaning, manifests itself in different
ways under different conditions. Now the word tliought has
a double meaning, signifying on the one hand the activity of
the thinher, in virtue of which all his thoughts are thoughts,
and on the other hand the content thoiight, by which one
thought is distinguished from another. We have, of course,
intended here to employ only the second meaning ; things are
not the thoughts of a thinker, hut their being is so constituted
that if knowledge of their content were possible at all, it could
be adequate only in the form of a thought, combining many
individual ideas by definite relations into one significant whole ;
this nature of things itself, however, remaining an undivided
unity, and by no means consisting of the plurality of relations
and related points which we require for its representation in
cognition. That this mode of thought also has its secret
defects was betrayed by the difficulty which we had in rather
silencing than refuting objections to it. The question how
that which is in us the content of a thought can, independent
of us, be a thing, we put off by the remark, just in itself,
that this difficulty would recur in any case ; that whatever
image we may frame in thought as to the nature of the thing,
we are still left asking how that which is in us a thought-
image can, without us, be a thing ; that therefore we should not
seek to know how reality is produced, and that it is enough
to know the content which, when realized after a fashion
which must be always incomprehensible, is a Eeal thing.
But all this is not quite convincing ; a thought in order to
become a thing needs not merely this affirmation of reality that
requires only to take it as it is found and posit it, but the
THE REAL AND THE IDEAL. 631
tbonslit itself lacks something in order to be that which when
posited would be a thing. The thought, however affirmed,
posited, or realized, would remain an existing thought and no
more, and that this is not quite what we mean by the name
thing, we certainly feel, although we may find it hard to point
out what is lacking. We shall perhaps most easily get a clear
notion of it by recalling a view which, little fettered by such
scruples as ours, delights to characterize the being of things
with the utmost brevity as an operative Idea. Here we see
exactly what we want — the possibility of being operative is
lacking to the realized thought, if it is nothing more than that.
That identity with itself of the thought-content which wo
presupposed, as confirmed in the most diverse forms of its
expression or manifestation, actually has reality only in as far
as we think it, and follow it out in a train of thought which,
bringing together its different steps, can become conscious of
itself; we, the thinkers, in accepting a definite Idea, as
determining the direction of our reflection, or in, as it were,
putting at the disposal of that Idea the real living power
of our thought — we alone it is who realize its identity with
itself, by seeking for and finding that identity ; it is we alone
who by so doing give to the Idea (which yet certainly was a
valid truth without any co-operation of ours) the only kind
of reality that could possibly belong to it, namely that of
being a thought really thought by some thinker. Our
intention and our living efibrt either theoretically to recognise
the meaning of the Idea, in all its instances or consequences,
as self-identical, and to remove all apparent exceptions to this
consistency, or in practice to carry out the Idea under the
most diverse circumstances, to get rid of all opposition to it,
and to secure an adequate expression of its essential content
under the most varied conditions — all this alone it is, this
action of our own, that lends to the Idea the appearance of
real active efficacy, power of self-conservation, and impulse to
development ; these appertain to the Idea only in as far as it
is thought by us, while according to our previous view they
appertained to it in as far as being an unthought and objec-
632 BOOK IX, CHAPTER IIL
tive content — thinkable indeed, but only incidentally so — it
constitutes things. This requirement is one that cannot be
iulfiUed ; for the permanent and tangible difference between
thoughts and things will ever consist in this, that the contents
of thought, both when differing and when similar, may be put
in opposition without having any effect upon one another ;
things on the other hand are disturbed by one another and
offer resistance ; it is true that they do this in accordance
with the content of their nature, which is perhaps susceptible
of being expressed by thoughts, but this capacity of conflict
and this active efficacy do not accrue to them from that Idea
of their being which they vindicate through them. This then
is what was wanting ; if we express the being of things as
actively efficacious Idea, we do, it is true, express correctly
enough what we need, but as a matter of fact active efficacy
does not on that account accrue to the Idea with the ease and
speed with which we can bestow it on the Idea in speech bv
means of an adjective. On the contrary, it remains doubtful
whether the name of operative Idea without addition or
omission denotes anything which exists or can exist; the
presumption is against its validity, for it is plain that in it
we transfer to Ideas regarded not as thought but as existent,
a power which demonstrably belongs to an Idea only when it
is thought.
The difficulties to which the idea of the unity of the thing
in the course of its mutations is subject, are not merely
connected with what we have referred to above, they are
intimately related to it. After having convinced ourselves
that things could no longer be things if they had the absolute
rigidity of complete unchangeableness, we found their per-
manence to consist only in the logical connection between their
internal states. What then exactly are the states of a being ?
We know what we mean by this expression in two cases —
the first is where we are concerned with the various possible
arrangements of a plurality ; there is reason for understanding
these arrangements as being not really different facts but
different states of this plurality, only in as far as one feels
THE REAL AND THE IDEAL, 633
justified in regarding this plurality as a coherent whole, and
some primary order as an original law destined for the self-
conservation of this whole. The second case is presented by
our own inner life ; in it our ideas, feelings, and efforts appear
to be in their nature the states of a being, of the necessary
unity of which, as contrasted with them, we are immediately
conscious. The first case has no interest for us ; and that
which in the second case makes inner states possible, does
not seem transferable from the Ego to the non-Ego. Eor these
inner events appear to us as states only through the marvellous
nature of mind, which can compare every idea, every feeling,
every passion with others, and just because of this relating
activity with reference to them all, knows itself as the per-
manent subject from which, under various conditions, they result.
Now it might be said that though on account of its lack
of consciousness it may not be possible for a thing to know
its states as belonging to it, in the same way that we know
our states as being ours, yet in the unity of the thing its
states may always exist, for even our states do not become ours
by becoming apparent to us. But such reasoning we cannot
admit. If a thing within those limits within which we have
admitted that it may change, setting out from the value a,
gradually acquires the values i, c, d, . . ., then our thought,
comparing these values, may always recognise in them
members of a series which, taken altogether, are connected
together in the logical coherence of one identical law of
development — but in what way could it be shown that those
values are more than the realized members of that series,
simultaneous or successive, yet independent of one another ?
that they are to be thought not as separate realities that
alternate with one another, but as states of one being that
changes in them, and holds them together by the continuity
of its presence in them ? It is of no use whatever to say,
We believe that it is so, and liave never held any other
opinion ; the important point is rather to be certain that in
real things those conditions are fulfilled under which that
which is thought can be actualized. Now the possibility of
634 BOOK IX. CHAPTER IIL
regarding our inner experiences as our states depends not at
all upon the bare general predicate of unity, appertaining to
every substance, not to the Ego alone but also to things ; but
upon the special nature of consciousness, by which the Ego is
distinguished from the non-Ego. It is only because memory
and recollection can range the past beside the present, only
because a relating activity of attention can comprehend variety
and produce in contrast to it the idea of the permanent Ego
— in short, only because we appear to ourselves to be unity,
that in truth we are unity. Supposing that a mind reacted
at every moment to external stimuli, and that these reactions
taken together would constitute for a second observer a series
as logically coherent as the most scientifically developed
melody, but that the mind itself knew nothing of this, but
was destitute of memory and at every moment absorbed in
the action that at that moment it was carrying out, and at
every succeeding moment forgot in the new reaction all
remembrance of the preceding one — then this mind would no
longer be a changing unity, a substance self-conserving in the
midst of change; it would be a series of real existences
succeeding one another according to a definite law — existences
of which it would be impossible to say wherein their simil-
arity differed from the similarity of substances that were
originally distinct and continued to be distinct. Hence there
would not be the slightest ground for calling the members of
this series the states of one being, and that unity which wo
are thinking of when we speak of the states of a being,
cannot therefore be simply transferred from the Ego, in which
is the special ground of its reality, to things in general, in
which this special ground is lacking.
Let us pass on, finally, to our third difficulty. It seemed
that we must characterize the existence of things as related-
ness. But when we tried to give a name to the relations
referred to, it seemed that spatial connections (which really
afford us the only intuitable example of that which we mean
by relation) are received by us as holding not of existent
things but of their appearance. We substituted for them
THE EEAL AND THE IDEAL. 635
siipersensuous intellectual relations; that this expression
really signifies something that is actually to be met with, we
believed to be testified by all the graduated relationships,
similarities, and contrasts which we find between non-spatial
sensuous qualities or abstract truths. But when we came to
examine these cases more closely, they all turned out to be
something different from what we wanted. It is true that
they all as causes determine the content of some future event
as their result ; but we could not regard them (as we formerly
did spatial relations) as variable conditions, which sometimes
bring together things the natures of which remain unchanged,
so as to cause the realization of consequences which have
their basis in those natures, and sometimes hinder this
realization. And here, again, we might for a moment have
amused ourselves by inserting between things changeable
relations of quite another kind, namely such relations as no
one can frame an idea of, and by making the changeable
action of things dependent on their sometimes increasing and
sometimes diminishing closeness. But then we remembered
how perfectly vain it would be to invent a special and
mysterious kind of connection for this end ; the general con-
cept of relation is wholly adverse to every attempt at such
objectifying. No kind of relation could be assumed as sub-
sisting between things, acting upon them, conditioning, pre-
paring, favouring, or hindering their reciprocal action ; but
reciprocal action itself, the passion and action of things, must
take the place of relation. Just when and in as far as things
act upon one another, are they related to one another ; there
are no objective relations other than this living action and
passion, and least of all relations in which things merely stand
provisionally, without having any effect upon each other's
natures, only coming to act later, as a result of this related-
ness ; the mode of expression here reprobated is figurative,
and we now no longer doubt that in a metaphysical point of
view it is wholly meaningless.
But have we now reached the conclusion of the matter ?
Hardly — for what more could we understand by the action of
636 BOOK IX CIIAPTEB IIL
a thing than that a change of its states is followed by a
change of the states of some other being ? To this succession
it is due that as we reflect and compare, we regard the
second event as emanating from the first, because perception
of it is conditioned by perception of the first ; but there does
not exist between things any authenticated connection of such
a kind as that a state of one is wrought by the activity of
the other. When we call the active element active, properly
speaking we say of it nothing whatever ; we simply affirm
that a second being suffers in consequence of its states. But
is this suffering or passion itself clearer and more significant
than that action ? "What meaning has this expression when
applied with such generality to the changes of state of any
existing thing we choose to consider ? We fear that it has
not any which can be specified. For in characterizing the
change of any being not merely as the appearance of a new
condition in place of an earlier one which vanishes away but
as passion, our intention plainly is to indicate that the unity
of the being feels and wards off the imputed change as pre-
judicial to its own permanent nature. But what we thus
require can never be performed by a being in the nature of
which we presuppose nothing but a capacity of being changed
and also of being not wholly changed, but of preserving or
restoring from change an abiding part of its essential content
— it is only we who, feeling pain and joy, desire and aversion,
measure by them the value of our inner states for our own
being. It is only in this feeling that actual suffering, to
which we have here tacitly referred, really has a place ; and
every time that we apply this word to unconscious existences
its real meaning vanishes, and with it that for the sake of
which we desired thus to transfer it. That which does not
feel good and ill suffers as little as it acts ; but that which
cannot suffer is no Eeal (reale) unity, and is not for itself, but
only for the apprehension of some other, a whole that deserves
to be called by one name.
§ 2. If we bring together the results of the foregoing obser-
vations— which, dry as they are, we could not well avoid —
THE REAL AND THE IDEAL. 637
we find that concerning that nature of things which has to
he assumed in order to make the course of the world intel-
ligible, we are forced to make definite presuppositions ; but
are not only unable to say how things could set about satis-
fying these presuppositions, but have also to acknowledge to
ourselves that the nature of things, thought as we think it, is
adverse to the fulfilment of the demands which we make upon
it. Three inferences which seem to exclude one another, and
yet finally lead to the same goal, make it possible for us to hold
such a conviction. Either we content ourselves with ascribing
to our notions of things (as we previously did to the intuition
of space) only a subjective validity as forms under which there
appears to us the unity of the real world, which in its true shape
we are incapable of cognizing ; or we give up the thought of
things, which we cannot work out to a satisfactory conclusion ;
or finally, we supplement the notion of things in such a way that
it includes the conditions under which those demands upon their
nature which we could not retract become capable of fulfilment.
Against choosing the first of these three ways no objection
can be made, if it is taken to signify a complete breaking off
of all investigation, and an unconditional renunciation of all
pretensions to knowledge ; but as a proposition containing a
permanent addition to knowledge in the form of a positive
assertion, the view from which this resignation flows cannot
be maintained. For however much one may think that the
nature of things is in itself beyond the reach of all knowledge,
so that even the most unconditional and certain declarations
of knowledge concerning things can only be understood sub-
jectively of the mode in which they appear to the cognizing
mind — even in such a case our assertions are not intelligible
unless we presuppose the existence of things, and reciprocal
action between them and us, for only thus can we give to
tlie notion of their appearance a meaning that is intelligible
and capable of being stated. Hence we should always in one
breath both deny the cognizability — even in the most general
way — of the nature of things and of action and (in order
that we may be able to speak of their appearance) presuppose
638 BOOK IX. CHAPTER III.
afresh the validity of our most general determinations of both ; a
familiar circle, from which this doctrine of Subjective Idealism
has never been able to escape. Kow this circle might itself
be put to the account of that imperfection of our knowledge
which we are forced to recognise, and it might be admitted
that we certainly cannot explain how the phsenomenal world
can originate for us except by supposing that things have
some kind of influence upon us, but that this reciprocal action
of which we have a notion indicates the ground of that
appearance, not as it is in truth and fact, but only in a
way that is comprehensible to us. But then the things pre-
supposed by us and the action assumed between them, would
be wholly emptied of all special content of their own,
altogether incapable of being intuited, indeed wrongly called
by the names of thing and action, and would probably
signify nothing more than the wholly unknown cause of
our perception of the world, or rather our craving for some
such conditioning cause. What is maintained from this
standpoint would be as follows : thought, in order to make
its own activities intelligible, is obliged to suppose a pro-
ducing cause of them, and to present to itself in idea the
conditioning power of this cause as a varying action of
external things upon itself, being yet at the same time forced
to recognise this whole mode of presentation in idea as only
its own explanation of that cause, or of the action and passion
which it attributes to that cause — this explanation being one
that is not truly accurate. And in this case the notion of
things must be reckoned among the ideas by which we seek
to interpret our perception of the cosmos ; it does not stand
alone, established from the beginning by a special revelation, so
that it would only be our further metaphysical thoughts con-
cerning the unity and reciprocal action of things that would
be incapable of combining with it as established truth ; it too
is, on the contrary, a product of our thought, the necessity
and validity of which may be matter of question.
And here we — following the example of the historical
development of philosophy — turn to the second of the ways
THE REAL AND THE IDEAL. 639
above pointed out, namely that of Idealism. That all sensu-
ous impressions which supply the content of our image of the
cosmos, and all ideas of relations to which its order is due,
are subjective states and activities of our mind, is an observa-
tion that at an earlier stage (cf. supra, pp. 346 seq.) seemed to
us an inadequate ground on which to found the conviction that
the whole phsenomenal world which floats before our con-
sciousness is but the product of a mysteriously ordered play
of our imagination. But we here reach a similar view with
better reason — not the subjective source of our idea of the
world, but the very content of that idea, as we seem forced to
think it forbids us to concede to it any other reality than
that of an appearance in us. In pursuing the course of this
Idealism for a while, we will assume that the lonely thinker
may have been tempted, at least for a moment, to regard all
physical and mental reality as an ordered dream of his per-
sonal individual Ego, the only Eeal thing which he immediately
knows ; but then his scientific instinct will, by some easily
supplied middle terms, have brought him again so near to the
ordinary view as to make the reality of other individual minds
with which life brings him into contact, as indubitable to him
as his own. It is only the realm of things, an intermediate
region, which to the ordinary view seems to be spread out
between minds, and by its own changes to initiate, keep up,
and guide their inner life, that Idealism declares to be a mere
appearance within minds. According to Idealism conscious
beings interpret the connection of their own direct action and
reaction by the image of a world of changeable things inserted
between them, and acting upon them, in the same way as
(according to our earlier assumption) in spatial intuitions the
intellectual order of a world of things in themselves then
presupposed by us, became transformed to the image of a
space-world embracing those things themselves.
At any rate (so this Idealism maintains) the phsenomenal
v/orld in which all minds have a common interest, and in
which yet different minds participate with differences which
have a correspondence among themselves, cannot have its
640 BOOK IX. CHAPTER III.
ground in individual minds as such. But why should we seek
this ground nowhere but in the presence without us of a muiti-
tude of things, when, on the one hand, what these do towards
explaining the microcosmic order can be done without them,
and, on the otlier hand, we always fail to understand how things
can do tliat which they must do in order to be things. For
•when it comes to the point, the assumption of things has no
other use for us than this, that things mark for us fixed posi-
tions in the real world, positions in which we find, grouped
together and realized, causes which give rise to results, points
of departure for some occurrences which we call their effects,
and, as it were, the goal of other occurrences which we call
their states, although we cannot make it clear how these
things possess an inner nature from which actual effects
could proceed, or which could experience actual suffering. To
regard these points of intersection of action — which are in
themselves wholly empty and selfless, and seem on the one
side to bring together that which on the other side tliey
disperse again — as Eeal beings, may be a fiction convenient
for our survey of the connection of phoenomena, but must not
be affirmed as an established dogma; on the contrary, this
assumption must give place to any and every other wliich
affords an equally intelligible explanation of the course of the
world, without requiring the impracticable assumption of the
Eealness (Bealitdt) of that which is destitute of all the inner
conditions of Eealness.
Now such an assumption offers itself to Idealism in a
conviction which we have already reached by another
path — the conviction that all individual things are think-
able only as modifications of one single Infinite Being.
What might be the positive signification of this word
vwdijication we left in obscurity ; it sufficed for us that
it denied the independence of things with reference to the
Infinite Being. We did not mean that the Infinite should be
conceived after the analogy of some plastic material from the
various parts of which all the multitude of different things
should be cut out, and become independent objects; but if
THE REAL AND THE IDEAL. 641
we now explain our meaning to be that things are states oi"
the action and passion of the Infinite, we do not imagine that
they — though without attaining the independence of self-
sufficing substances — have reality as such states of the
Infinite, elsewhere than in minds ; we regard them rather as
acts of the Infinite, wrought within minds alone, or as states
•which the Infinite experiences nowhere but in minds.
Manifesting itself in the individual mind, and being in it and
in all its like the efficient source of their life, the Infinite
develops a series of activities, as to which how they take
place remains incomprehensible to finite consciousness, which
intuits their product, as they occur, under the form of a
multiform and changing world of sense. In this appear-
ance which it presents to the eye of our mind, the Infinite
exerts its own unity after a double fashion. For to the
observing consciousness it first shows that similar con-
sequences are attached to similar causes, and different
consequences to different causes, thus revealing the logical
consistency of its action which is governed by general laws ;
and also among the changing phaenomena produced by the
varying play of its action, there are brought into prominence
the images of Things with their perdurable natures, as
witness to certain and constant activities that are always
maintained in it, and the rich content and significant
reciprocal relatability of which it unfolds in the multiplicity
of those changing events. Finally, being actively efficacious
in all individual minds, as a power which in the whole
spirit-world has assumed innumerable harmonious modes of
existence, the Infinite brings to pass the exhibition of those
same universal laws, by the totality of the various world-
pictures which arise in various individuals ; and moreover,
the constant activities which appear to every individual
mind as the real points of contact and intersection for the
events within its world, are exercised by the Infinite with
such accord in all that the same things — or at any rate the
same world of things — appear to all as a common object of in-
tuition, as an -external reality common to all and connecting all.
VOL. 11. 2 R
642 BOOK IX. CHAPTER IIL
This explanation of the world given by Idealism with
reference to the relation between individual minds and the
Infinite would still leave outstanding some obscurities which
we do not yet wish to draw attention to ; but it would
certainly make superfluous the assumption of Keal things
in which are lacking all the inner qualifications of Eealness.
But whilst Idealism thus reduces to mere appearance that
which as thought could not be a being at all, we held it
possible to take a third path, which amounts to this, that we
add to our idea of things that which their content seemed to
lack in order to make Eealness possible for them. In fact,
if the doctrine of Idealism reserves to spiritual beings the
Eealness which it refuses to selfless things (and this it tacitly
does), what hinders us from flnding in this mental nature that
addition which the previously empty notion of things needed
in order to become the complete notion of something Eeal ?
Why should we not transform the assertion that only minds
are Eeal into the assertion that all that is Eeal is mind —
that thus things which seemed to our merely external observa-
tion as working blindly, suffering unconsciously, and being
self-contradictory through their incomprehensible combination
of selflessness and Eealness, are in fact better internally than
they seem on the exterior — that they, too, exist not merely
for others but also for themselves, and by this self-existence
are capable of being after the fashion which we have felt
compelled to require of them, though hitherto without any
hope that our requirement could be fulfilled ?
This assumption of a soul in all things would be much
nearer common opinion than the more artistic view of
Idealism; we ourselves have previously been led to it by
other causes, and it has so many roots in the human mind
that from the most varied standpoints we might describe
the satisfying and interesting prospects which it opens to us
concerning the connection of things. But we would now
turn with indifference from all these inducements, and devote
ourselves to some other questions raised by a comparison of
the two views which we have last developed. As I have
THE EEAL AND THE IDEAL. 643
already noticed at an earlier point, their assertions have much
more affinity than at first appears, and I fear lest there should
be maintained between them a distinction which would rest
upon an inadmissible prejudice. Idealism, it will be said,
denies that things have Eealness, and regards them as being
by their nature incapable of detaching themselves from the
Infinite, of which they are states, and attaining complete
independence ; whereas the last-mentioned view allows
Eealness to things, in that it regards them as having minds,
and minds (in the self-existence {Filrsichsein) which con-
stitutes the distinctive peculiarity of their nature) possess
that which makes them capable of existing not only within
or in dependence upon the Infinite, as states of it, but also
detached from it and in self-dependence. This mode of
expression would involve the thought that the attribute of
mentality is merely the legitimate ground in virtue of which
beings which have minds can obtain Eealness as a form of
existence distinguishable from that self-existence to which we
have referred. The influence of this thought is frequently
encountered in the region of religious speculation, where it
gives rise to the familiar question, whether the world, or things,
properly exist in God or not, whether they are or are not
immanent in Him — the complete dependence of the nature and
existence of the world (or of things) upon God being conceded
from the first. The answers to this question, whichever
alternative they may assert, plainly betray the opinion that
it is not existence in God which would make the complete
Eealness of things indubitable, but only an existence external
to God, whether that existence were original or due to some
creative act of God. Thus they regard Eealness as a definite
formal relation to God, which they characterize by spatial
images that are certainly wholly inadequate ; of this relation
they presuppose universally that it gives independent exist-
ence to any content to which it applies, and they will only
admit partially and in detail that it is not every content
which can stand in such a relationship, but that the title and
the capacity thus to stand must be the result of some peculiar
644 BOOK IX. CHAPTER IH.
advantages of natural endowment. That this could not he
our view, and why it could not, may most simply be made
clear by the consideration to which we now proceed, in which
for the sake of brevity we shall retain to some extent the
phraseology of those religious investigations which we have
mentioned, although our doing so is not perhaps quite
justified at this stage of our reflections.
Let us assume that in God the idea of a definite content is
thought in such a way as to include all the consequences
which it has in the world of the divine thought, these
thoughts of God being at the same time the very power
which is in finite minds the efficacious cause of their intuition
of the world ; or, in other words, let us assume that in the
Infinite a definite activity is so exercised that at the same
time — as must happen in consequence of the unity of this
Infinite — there are also consistently exercised all those other
activities which, in accordance with the universal orderliness
of the action of the Infinite, must flow from that one ; and
that this activity of the Infinite is again the efficacious
power which produces in individual minds the image of an
external world : — if we assume this, then according to the view
of Idealism, these inner acts of the Infinite really are the Eeal
forces which (being in fact efficacious within the Infinite, each
calling out and conditioning the other according to law)
produce true action, that is at the same time incidentally
perceived by individual minds as a world of external things
embracing them all. And now we would ask ourselves, AVhat
exactly would be gained by these thoughts of God or these
states of the Infinite, both of which have now been thought
as immanent in God and in the Infinite as states of the one
or of the other — what exactly would be gained (to use the
phraseology of the discussions referred to) by their being ezter-
Tial to God, or what exactly would be gained for them by being
dissatisfied with this their immanence in God, and finding out
for them in addition to this some transcendental existence ?
Finally, in what would this existence external to God
ultimately consist, and what would be the real meaning of
i
THE REAL AND THE IDEAL. 645
that which is figuratively intended by this spatial expression
external to ?
If one ponders these questions it will be found that nothing
whatever is gained for selfless unconscious things, but that
they rather lose by having ascribed to thera that existence
external to God; all the stability and all the energy which
they exhibit as active and conditioning forces in the changes
of that course of events which is visible to us, they — thought
as mere states of the Infinite — possess in all the same fulness
as if they existed as things external to it; nay more, it is
only through their common immanence in the Infinite that
they have in any degree — as we saw earlier — that capacity
of reciprocal action that could not belong to them as isolated
beings detached from that substantial substratum. Thus by
doing away the immanence of things in God, we reap no
advantage as regards that which things should be and do for
one another and in connection with one another ; but it is
true that as long as things are only states of the Infinite, they
are nothing for themselves. It is desired that something should
be gained for things themselves ; this is plainly what is
meant by the insistence upon existence external to God ; but
the more genuine and true Eealness of bei7ig something foo'
oneself, or more generally of self-existence, is not attained by
things by their being made external to God, as though this
transcendency (of which it would be wholly impossible to give
the exact significance) were the precedent formal condition to
which self-existence were attached as its consequence ; but in
that a thing is something for itself, consciously refers to itself,
apprehends itself as an Ego — by just this, which is its very
essence, it detaches itself from the Infinite. It is not that it
thereby acquires an existence external to the Infinite, but that
by the very fact it has such existence ; it does not fulfil
thereby a condition by which is secured to it complete
Eealness, as a kind of existence including and bestowing
something other than is contained in the condition itself — but
self-existence or Selfhood (Ichheit) is the only definition which
expresses the essential content and worth of that which we, from
646 BOOK IX. CHAPTER IIL
accidental and ill-chosen standpoints, characterize formally as
Kealness, or independent existence external to God, in contrast
to immanence. He therefore who, constrained by necessity,
regards minds as well as things, as being states, thoughts, or
modifications of God or of the Infinite, yet as not serving
merely to propagate the logical results of the nature of the
Infinite from point to point, being connected amongst them-
selves as links of a chain, but as also feeling that which they do
and suffer as their states, in some form of relation to self {sich),
as events experienced by their self (Selhst) — he who assumes
this, and yet believes in addition that for these living minds
immanent in God, he needs to prove an existence external to
God, in order that they may be Eeal in the full meaning of
the word, does not, it seems to us, know what he is about — he
does not know that he already possesses the kernel whole and
complete, and that what he painfully seeks is but the shell.
The result of these considerations admits of being differently
expressed. If we continue to use the phraseology in accord-
ance with which we designated Eeality as the general affir-
mation which belongs to action as well as existence, then
Eealness is the special kind of reality which we attribute to
or seek for things, as the points from which action sets out
and in which it is consummated. This Eealness has appeared
to us as dependent upon the nature of that to which it is to
belong ; it is the being of that which exists for self. But we
want the name self-existence in order to characterize in a more
general way the nature of mentality, which only reaches its
highest stage in the self-consciousness of the being that knows
itself as an Ego {Teh), and is not, because of this being its
highest stage, absent in the being which, though far removed
from the clearness of such self-consciousness, yet in some
duller form of feeling exists for itself and enjoys its existence.
Hence to Eealness in this sense we can attribute various
degrees of intensity ; we cannot say of everything that it is
either altogether Eeal, or altogether not- Eeal; but beings,
detaching themselves from the Infinite with varying wealth
and unequal complexity of self-existence, are Eeal in different
THE REAL AND THE IDEAL. 647
degrees, while all continue to be immanent in the Infinite.
Hence the distinction between Idealism and the standpoint
which we have just taken up does not consist in this, that we
ascribe to things a transcendental and hence Eeal existence,
while Idealism ascribes to them only an immanent and hence
merely apparent existence ; rather there exists between the
two this difference, that the idealistic view, convinced of
the selflessness of things, on this account will not allow
that they are more than states of the Infinite ; while we,
agreeing herewith in principle, leave undecided, as something
which we cannot know, the question whether this assumption
of selflessness is appropriate, holding, however, that it is far
more likely to be mappropriate, and that all things really
possess in different degrees of perfection that selfhood by
which an immanent product of the Infinite becomes what
we call Eeal.
S 3. We seem now to some extent to have struggled
upwards out of the helplessness to which we confessed at the
beginning of this chapter. The nature of that which is Eeal
is no longer so wholly unknown to us and so wholly incapable
of being showed forth as it then seemed ; we are no longer
so completely limited to going round about it at a distance
with purely formal abstract notions of Eealness and unity
and inner states of passion and action, without being able to
make clear the living meaning of any of these notions by
pointing to some well-known and pregnant intuition. To the
nature of Mind, of the Ego that apprehends itself, that is
passive in feeling and active in willing, and that is one in
remembrance in which it brings past experiences together,
we can now point as to a similitude of that which is the
nature of beings endowed with Eealness ; or we may believe
that directly and without any similitude we find the thing
itself, the nature of all Eealness in this living self-existence.
I will leave undecided whether we are really free to choose
between these two alternatives ; in order to cut short the pro-
lixity in which this consideration would involve us, we shall
be satisfied to have it granted to us that at any rate there is
648 BOOK IX. CHAPTER III.
in mind the nature of a Eeal being, although the nature of
things may not be made properly clear to us by the analogy
of mental existence, but only imperfectly and figuratively
illustrated by it.
But will even this be granted to us ? Shall we not rather
be met with the reproach that we have characterized as the
original being of things that which, as a late and mediated
result, most of all needed that we should show how it was
put together out of more simple and more essential material ?
For are not ideation, feeling, volition, self-consciousness, events
the possibility of which can only be understood by pre-
supposing the nature of a Eeal unconscious being which in
itself neither ideates, nor feels, nor wills, and assuming that
this nature is stirred by numerous stimuli, and that from
the reactions by which — in accordance with its unknown
peculiarities — it responds to those excitations, the familiar
phsenomena of mental life are produced ? Has not the more
enlightened psychology of modern times devoted all its
strength to this problem, partly with valuable results, partly,
so far, without any results at all ? Must not then this mental
nature, this self- existence that we have here inconsiderately
characterized as the essential nature of Eealness, be rather
understood and explained as one of the products arising from
conditions which act upon the far more recondite nature of
that which is properly Eeal and which is incapable of being
intuited, and can only be held fast in the subtlest ontologic
abstractions ?
I may easily seem to be contradicting the greater part of
what I have already said when I pronounce the under-
taking here indicated to be a decided step into the perverse
region of those investigations which seek to know by what
machinery reality is manufactured, without considering that
there cannot well be any machinery unless there has existed
previously some reality, from the constituents of which,
and according to the already valid laws of which, that
machinery could be put together. We are tempted to take
this step wherever our interest in investigation has been first
THE KEAL AND THE IDEAL. 649
aroused by the varying values of certain fundamental pliseno-
mena or fundamental facts, for the alternating occurrence of
which there must be different conditions that make now the
one and now the other necessary. And if we have moreover
had full opportunity to remark that even diverse phsenomena,
which on account of the difference of their content seem at
first to be each something special in itself, are yet dependent
on mere changes of magnitude of homogeneous conditions,
we are likely to be seized by a sort of constructive passion
from which nothing is safe, and which would end by deducing
the whole positive content of real things — the place of
which in the world we have to explain — from mere modifi-
cations of the formal conditions upon which the variations of
those places depend. However, if this remark is to be of any
use to us, I must try to illustrate it by reference to some
examples which are not alien to our subject.
Our eye sees sometimes light and sometimes shade, and
sees various colours one after the other. Now when the
student has learnt that these changing sensations proceed
from mathematical differences in the light waves, he generally
becomes inclined to assert that colours are nothing whatever
but different vibrations of ether ; though he may perchance
bethink himself at this stage of his scientific knowledge and
admit that they do indeed proceed from those vibrations, but
yet are in themselves something new and different, namely
special states of psychical excitation in us. But now perhaps
he learns in psychology that we have reason to regard even
these qualitatively different impressions — indeed even those
sensations of the different senses which differ so as to be
incapable of comparison — as mere phsenomenal forms, under
which the soul becomes aware of a countless multitude of
excitations, which qualitatively are quite homogeneous, and
are only quantitatively or formally different ; that perhaps to
a sensation of colour as distinguished from the hearing of a
musical note there corresponds only a more intense degree of
disturbance, or one that takes place with a different rhythm
in the succession of its individual nervous shocks, but that
650 BOOK IX. CHAPTER III.
this psychical disturbance or movement is always generically
the same in both, and indeed in all cases of sensation. And
having learnt this he easily grows accustomed to look down
upon the many-coloured qualitative variety of mental phaeno-
raena with a certain feeling of superiority as a sort of juggle
of which one has penetrated the secret ; and this feeling is
appropriately expressed thus : — Internal phsenomena are not
actually different from one another at all, they only appear to
us to be different, being in truth mere formal modifications of
one process which is everywhere in essentials the same.
I do not think that I present this perverse view in too
glaring colours ; it is a fact that many act as though they
believed at the moment when they come to perceive this
similarity of the origin of psychical processes, that their
dissimilarity has ceased to exist ; they forget altogether that
it is the mode in which these supposed modifications of one
homogeneous process appear to us, that is the very point with
which we are concerned. If it were certain past a doubt that
the sensations of light and those of sound depend upon two
psychical disturbances which at most differ from each other
only as quantitatively and formally as vibrations of ether
from sound waves, yet the disparateness of these sensations,
in as far as felt, is not thereby done away with, but lasts on
afterwards just as it did before ; their worth and their reality
are not lessened by the fact that both sensations are but
modes in which the processes referred to appear to us ; these
modes of appearance are, on the contrary, real permanent
mental facts, of which those external facts of physical sense-
stimulation or the psychical disturbances corresponding to
them, are indeed the occasioning causes, but the nature of
which is not determined by those causes, and the difference
between which is not in the least diminished by the slighter
degree of difference that exists between tlieir causes. Or if
we hear that feelings and stirrings of the will are really
nothing more than manifold pressures and movements which
ideas cause in one another by their reciprocal action, ought we
to allow this " nothing more " ? If we have made the dis-
I
THE REAL AND THE IDEAL. 65t'
covery that they are nothing more, does pain, on that account,
cease to hurt, or can we root out from our consciousness the
fact that a motion of our will is and remains, always and for
ever, something totally different from a non- voluntary rise and
subsidence of ideas ? Such explanations even if correct teach
us only the occasioning causes to which it is due that the
characteristic content of mental events appears upon the
stage of consciousness, they do not inform us as to the pro-
ducing causes of this content ; they teach us to know condi-
tions upon the change of which depend alterations of the
consequences attached to them, but the dependence of these
alterations is regulated in such a peculiar manner that from a
comparison of two values of the condition, no thinking can,
without using other data as well, divine how that difference
of the two results will appear which corresponds to the given
difference of the two values of the condition. Hence as far
as changing action depends upon altering conditions, so far
(taking the sense we have indicated) has science in general,
including psychology, to solve explanatory and constructive
problems. It may seek out the occasioning conditions of the
various forms of presentation in idea, and feeling and willing,
and of the varying course of these changing events and the
multiform products of their reciprocal action ; but it cannot
hope to make out, from any data, how it can happen at all
that there can be ideas, feelings, and volitions, and that one
inner state can influence another ; still less may it believe that
in the mere explanation of instrumental machinery it has
reached the essential meaning of spiritual events, or appre-
hended that which actually and in truth they are, as contrasted
with that which in direct inner experience they appear to us
to be.
§ 4. I feel that my remarks so far have been devoted to
blaming admitted errors, and that they have not had sufficient
reference to the case before us. It may be unhesitatingly
admitted that all explanation can but set forth the inner
regularity of a given reality in its changing development, and
cannot deduce back until it reaches either the simplest elements
652 BOOK IX. CHAPTER III.
of action, the combinations of whicli it investigates, or the
original proportions between them, the consequences of which
it tries to trace. But within the boundary lines thus drawn may
we not yet find a constructive task ? For the different funda-
mental phsenoraena of mental life are not, it may be said,
given to us in experience as unconnected occurrences, each of
which changes and develops according to its own law and in
dependence on the alteration of conditions that are valid for
it alone; on the contrary, they occur in our observation as
states of beings, and indeed as all states of one being, or at
least it is only when regarded as such that they have meaning
and significance for us. And how it is that in one being the
possibility of such various manifestations can exist, and can
exist in such a way that some appear under some conditions
and others under other conditions, is not self-evident, and we
are justified in attempting to investigate the inner structure
which this being must have in order that it may be mental ;
nothing being less admissible than to give out that this mental
nature is to be recognised off-hand as being in general the
original nature of the Eeal — as though the nature of mind
involved no puzzle.
I still, however, hold to my opinion ; only I understand
the difiRculty of refuting the prejudices opposed to it, because
I am fully conscious of the power of those impulses which
continually beguile men into such attempts. We have an
ineradicable inclination to regard the laws which enable us to
apprehend the development of any real being, hecaiise it
develops thus and no otherwise, as precedent conditions on
account of which it is constrained to develop thus ; we have
further an ineradicable inclination to regard the " contingent
aspects," the analyses, the auxiliary notions and relations by
which we succeed in thinking the connection between real
things when they already exist, as actual machinery by means
of which those things come to exist; and finally, we are
specially inclined to reverence analogies to which we have
become accustomed through intercourse with the world of
sense as types of universal validity, to which all reality must
THE REAL AND THE IDEAL. 653
conform. From the first inclination arises the habit of
speaking of a world of truths preceding the world of realities
as something which by its very notion is earlier, an error of
which I shall soon have occasion to speak more at length ;
the third inclination produces those materialistic conceptions
of the world of mind to the refutation of which we decline to
return again ; from the second bias that we mentioned arises
the mania for giving to that which is most real and most
original a still more secure foundation constructed from its
own consequences. How this is to be understood I will try
to make clear with such means as I can here make use of.
"We may say — not with exactitude, but as helping towards
comprehension — that in all the notions of things — of their
unity, their states, their passion and action — by which we
introduce order and connection into our perceptions, what the
mind in effect does is to copy the general features of its own
nature, and because it feels that itself and its reality subsist
and are contained in them, it seeks to transfer them to
external reality too, and to work them into it, as the only
characteristics of true existence which it knows. But in being
thus transferred, these features lose the living content which
they had in the mind's sense of self, and which the non-Ego,
observable only from without, cannot be regarded by mind as
possessing likewise ; they are transformed in this transference
to forms empty of content which do no more than preserve
and express the modes of connection which both relate the
manifold content of the mind to it, and relate the constituent
parts of that content to one another. In self-consciousness
experience of the Ego as the subject of mental life is so
immediate that it brings with it also experience of what is
meant by being such a subject ; at present it is the fashion
for knowledge to attenuate the living intuition of the Ego
into the formal notion of a substance which in some way, not
intelligible to us, renders to a manifold of external phaenomeua
the same office of a subject by which the parts of that mani-
fold are held together ; remembrance, by which the soul really
connects into one all-embracing consciousness its temporarily
e$4 BOOK CL CBARtt UL
s»p>ml<d wtpmeMtt^ ftides into Um lonMl aokkm of at unit^r
vith selC whkh m soma v«^ w)u^ ire oertadnly cumot tok«
in aqppntoins otuk to Amim wnoottsooos itnd selfless sab>
skSBOSs; aotMNKS of stotos lokd «cliQ«s ame like emplj shsdo V3
of tiA ^fatemt Tolitioi^ «nd peinM sttB^riog of living expwi>
«M3^ end esUbli^ between ^ sbedows of things many and
Tenons alMdovs of conaeotMn& And then the soul ha\*ing
in its intareonise iri& Ike irorid of sense beoome eocnstomed
to ^ nse of these abstniClioBS» it tons* ns it weie, sniodaUy
against itself end imagines that it can comprehend its own
natttie only bj help of these ontok^al notions which from
the Teij begiinning had s^gnifioanoe only in as far as they were
idkciMins — tifeon^ pele and ftdnt — of the miiuVs own nature.
And finally, it readies the point oi no longer understanding
its own self, and hits upon the devioe of enriching its nature
bj a ooie of nnoonscioiRS sabstanoe with which in imagina-
tien it endows itsdl^ and in wlu«^ it tries to induce self-con>
si^oiKaess by an ingenioQsly devised system of stimulation.
That this must always happen, that there is in the very
nataie of the soul a otaving whidi drives it to bring aU reality,
indnding ks own life, nndo- these forms, and to make it an
olget^ of v^tedion, is a fact which we do not deny, and to
the inevitahlaiess of which we have already referred (cf. i
Pl 626) ; it is just here that we find the difficulties with which
at this poant we have to straggle. But it is possible, never-
theless, to be oonataotts that all those ontological notions are
but piodads of thought, not conditions of the possibility of
him who tiiinks or of that which is thought, are but aspects
which tmtii weais to finite mind, and not the very form of
troth itself; and this trae state of the case forces itself
npon ns on diffident occasions with different d^;rees of clear-
ness Thns we ha^^pen perchance to say, Omr Ego jwttMim aa^-
wJBMnMH ; then stnick by the perveisity of mating out
that our veiy being is possessed by us, and that the most
essoktial featme of oar nature is a possession of that which
is thus poBseBsed, we amoid our expression, and say, / am a
acmi; \kA evoi so we oaSj vml the still miremoved perplexity ;
I
THE HEAL ASD THE WEAL. 655
we know now no mote ibam we did b^one in wbali CMentMl
relations the mlfiect, oopola, and pvedieate of diis jndginept caa
stand to one aooUiar as kM^ as tlief aie that disdognUied,
And we make op our minds to admit tiiat it is rain to
attempt to s^axate that whidi is one hy expiemdng it in tine
fonn ot a jodgmot, and Ihea bj leeomiwdi^ tlie parts to
oonstrnet a unit j wbidi ean ool j be known in dineet intnitioii,
Bot tbii^ win sUn go coi as b^iwe^ and the atten^ wiU
ever be lenewed Wheaevet we are eomadenng some mHated
action of any being, tfae rest of its natme appeam a» some-
tbing constant firoia width the action proceeds ; and continniiig
this {oooess, we come at last to eontiaet the tetany at its
actions and pn^oties witk a pomaneiit root from wUdi tJbef
arise, and divide the bong into— (1) something that is ncdung;,
saffennotfaii^ and does nothing; and (2) a host of qualities and
actitms whidi proceed fiom tiiis something. Hev^ after some
conndeiataon, there is a division of views; some rescue bangi
into pore activity without an jthii^ that acts, while othos in
some incomprdi^uiUe wajr eonneet activity with somethiiig that
is inactive ; if we asf to both. The tiiii^ wfaieii acts is ftadi
the beln^ tiien this and everjr similar expresnoii invcives
the error o€ regarding the article as indicating the true being
whidi onfy participates in action. When i^on tibe j^pliea-
tion oi an ext^nal stimnlns a sensation arisei^ it seems as
though it, being a reaction of the soul, must have been preceded
by some passion whidi calls it fcHth, and to whidi it corre-
^onds; thus we come to imagine unconsrions stiningi of the
soul, impresnons whidi are smandtd by sensation, as by an
elastic rebound; cm the other hand, we reflect that if tibe
reaction is to proceed from the pisrinn there must be pae
moment in which they are both coincident as an indivisiUe
action; but itforaae moment, uiqr not Cdt all? aadwhymot
admit that tiie distinction between excitation and reaction is a
fiction of theory, as induyenaable lor many purposes of egm-
pazii^ and combining eognition, but in fret joit as unreal as tiie
movmnents along two sides of a paolldogam into widtkwe
arlnfaarflyanalyBe some given sim^ movement f Whensome
656 BOOK IX. CHAPTER III.
idea hinders or obscures in consciousness some other idea
differing in content, and perhaps not capable of being com-
pared with it, or when in external Nature two substances
differing in appearance produce in one another movement or
equilibrium, we draw the conclusion that both must, notwith-
standing, have a hidden similarity in order that they may be
able to act upon one another, and regard them as differing
values of a homogeneous process or a homogeneous substance.
But why not admit that their homogeneity consists in just
that capacity of reciprocal action which belongs to them, — that
is, that they are in truth only equivalent, and not homogeneous in
the sense that they are really constituted by, or have arisen from,
some one third thing, — and that this reduction of elements,
qualitatively different but equivalent in working to different
quantities of one identical substratum, is indeed a fiction that
is very convenient for our calculations, but one that certainly
needs a special proof of its essential truth if we are to accept
it as valid ?
It would be easy to multiply such examples ; cognition
everywhere seeks to make clear to itself the inner connection
of the living nature of reality, by such analysis or reference
to co-ordinates as it may find convenient — which after-
wards it easily comes to regard as essential determinations
of the being of things. The temptation to this is not
equally great in all cases. Often the nature of the truth
which applies to all reality admits of our reaching the same
goal from different starting-points and by different roads, and
then we easily convince ourselves that none of these roads is
that taken by the thing itself and that the relation of the
thing to the system of co-ordinates by the help of which we
seek to determine it is a relation of indifference; in other
cases — among which we must reckon those simplest and most
general ontological notions of which we have been speaking —
we have not such a choice, but are constrained always to
return to the same modes of conceiving reality. And then
these inevitably appear to us as conditions which not only
make our knowledge of the thing possible, but make the thing
THE REAL AND THE IDEAL. 657
itself possible ; and this is the case to such a degree that
doubtless the conclusion of this long exposition of mine will
be rewarded by the incredulous question, But how must
it come to pass that minds can suffer these states and
develop these reactions ? This is once more the question
that demands to know how reality is created ; and we once
more answer it by saying that it does not seem to us as
though it must come to pass that this should he possible,
but that minds do so suffer and react that considered in
detail there is a process of the development of events one
out of another, from point to point. We shall soon have
occasion to return to this question ; and we will defer until
then the explanation of any obscurities which may yet remain
in these considerations, the results of which we shall now try
to formulate, in the same way as we have done the results
previously reached.
§ 5. VII. The notions by means of which we seek to deter-
mine the nature and connection of things, make demands with
regard to which on the one hand we cannot understand how
things thought as selfless can set about fulfilling them, and
of which on the other hand it is clear that the nature of
things thought as it has hitherto been thought excludes their
fulfilment. For anything that we could imagine as an accom-
plished and concretely intuitable fulfilment of these postulates
— not merely a fulfilment demanded and indicated in abstract
formulae — is only possible in some mind, in virtue of the peculiar
nature which distinguishes it from that which is not mind.
VIII. If now that which we must require from things as
the subjects of phsenomena at the same time cannot be
performed by them as long as they are things, then either
things cannot exist, or they must exist otherwise than they
have hitherto been thought to exist. Either only minds exist,
and the whole world of things is a pheenomenon in minds, or
things which appear to us as permanent yet selfless points of
departure, intersection, and termination of action, are beings
which share with minds in various degrees the general
characteristic of mentality, namely self-existence.
VOL. n. 2 T
658 BOOK IX. CHAPTER HI.
IX. The Eealness of things and their self- existence are
notions which' have precisely the same significance. The
meaning of this assertion is twofold. First, that a mind
which continues immanent in the Infinite as a state, activity,
or modification of it, directly that (notwithstanding this
immanence) it exists for self, has in this very self-existence
the fullest Eealness, and does not obtain Eealness by being
detached from the Infinite and attaining the independence of
an existence out of it ; self-existence is the positive content of
this independence for which we seek, the* meaning of which
becomes quite incomprehensible if it is regarded as some
different kind of formal relation to the Infinite into which
that which possesses self-existence has yet to enter. But our
proposition asserts in the second place (and this second
assertion is most intimately connected with the first) that
Eealness is not to be understood as a consequence attached to
self- existence as something to be earned by it, and hence dis-
tinct from it. Even the expression. Mind is Eeal in virtue
of its self-existence, has not in this reference the exactness
which we would desire ; for that in virtue of allows of the
misinterpretation that Eealness may depend upon certain
general conditions, which mind may fulfil by its self-existence,
but which something else, for instance selfless things, may
fulfil in some other way. But there are no such conditions ;
there is no law precedent to all reality, according to the pre-
scriptions of which Eealness and not-Eealness are distributed
among all that is conceivable. It is only the living mind
that is, and nothing is before it or external to it ; but it exists
in such a way that it can only make its own existence and
action objects of reflection by giving to their manifold content
a framework of abstractions, connections, and other auxiliary
constructions by which that content is divided, combined, and
systematized — and these easily come to appear to it as not
merely conditions of its thought about itself, but as being also
conditions of its reality.
I
CHAPTEE IV.
THE PERSONALITY OF GOD.
Faith and Thought — Evidence of the Existence of God — Impersonal Forms of
the Supreme Being — Ego and Non-Ego — Objections to the Possibility of
the Personality of the Infinite — Summary.
^ 1. /^UR exposition, which is now hastening to a
V^' conclusion, must, for brevity's sake, be allowed to
omit the mention of middle terms so obvious as to be easily
supplied by the reader. Our reflections hitherto have been
busy about the nature of finite things and the possible modes
of conceiving their reciprocal connection, but we have not
spent much pains in attempting to elucidate the notion of
that One Being which we have notwithstanding regarded as
the indispensable presupposition of all intelligibility in finite
things. The course of our investigation would now naturally
lead us to this attempt ; for however perseveringly we may
have had to turn away from every expectation of an explana-
tion as to how reality comes to exist, yet in the assertion of a
dependence of the finite many upon the infinite One there is
involved the assertion of a permanent relation of real to real ;
and to determine as far as possible the meaning of this rela-
tion is a task which we are bound to recognise as admissible.
But it would not be useful here to carry on this investigation
to further developments logically resulting from the purely
metaphysical motives that have hitherto been its mainspring ;
we find such development of it already existing in the region
of religious thought — a rich and full development, having a
form which must attract our attention in a high degree for
this very reason, that it seeks to satisfy the needs of the heart
and the conscience as well as of speculative knowledge. To
this familiar development we will turn and take as the object of
6j9
660 BOOK IX, CHAPTER IV.
our reflection, not the metaphysical postulate of the Infinite,
but instead of it the full and complete concept of the God
who is to realize this postulate.
Here we must think, at least for a moment, of the doubt
which may arise at this point, reminding us of the resultless-
ness of philosophic investigations concerning those ultimate
questions which only the new and special faculty of Faith is
competent to answer. Whatever may be thought concerning
the origin of religious truths, the view taken will unquestion-
ably leave something to be done by scientific cognition. If
religion were a pure product of human reason, philosophy
would be the only competent organ of its discovery and inter-
pretation. If reason is not of itself capable of finding the
highest truth, but on the contrary stands in need of a revela-
tion which is either contained in some divine act of historic
occurrence, or is continually repeated in men's hearts, still
reason must be able to understand the revealed truth at least
so far as to recognise in it the satisfying and convincing
conclusion of those upward-soaring trains of thought which
reason itself began, led by its own needs, but was not able to
bring to an end. For all religious truth is a moral good not
a mere object of curiosity. It may therefore include some
mysteries inaccessible to reason, but will only do so in as far
as these are indispensable in order to combine satisfactorily
other and obvious points of great importance ; the secrecy of any
mystery is in itself no reason for venerating it ; a secrecy that
was permanent and in its nature eternal would only be a
reason for indifference towards anything which should thus
refuse to be brought into connection with mental needs ; and
finally, above all things, to revel in secrets which are destined
to remain secrets is necessarily not in accord with the notion
of a revelation.
But must that which is a secret for cognition be always
really a secret ? Does not the nature of faith consist in this,
that it affords a certainty of that which no cognition can
grasp, as well of what it is, as that it is ? And does not all
science itself, when it has finished its investigations of par-
i
THE PEKSONALITY OF GOD. 661
ticulars, come back to grasp, in a faith of which the certainty
is indemonstrable and yet irrefragable, those highest truths on
which the evidence of other knowledge depends ? There is
certainly a germ of truth in this rejoinder ; but not the less
clear is the essential difference that separates such scientific
faith from religious faith. It is only in universal propositions,
which in innumerable conceivable cases indicate those modes
of relating a manifold which occur under definite conditions,
that scientific faith places immediate confidence. When it
declares that everything which is thinkable is identical with
itself, that similar things under similar conditions produce
similar results, and under dissimilar conditions dissimilar
results, and that every change is preceded by a cause — all
these propositions are universal truths which tell us indeed
what must necessarily happen or take place if any case in
which they are applicable should arise, but tell us nothing
whatever about the actual occurrence of something real. The
essential truths of religion have all an opposite character;
they are assurances of the reality of some being, or event, or
series of events, assurances of a reality of which the content
when it has once been recognised may certainly become
indirectly a source of universal laws, but which in itself is not
a law but a fact. Now those universal truths in which
scientific cognition puts absolute faith, are at bottom but the
very nature of cognizing reason itself, expressed in the form of
principles of its procedure, and it is conceivable that reason,
unable to escape from its own nature, may be overpowered by
the evidence of these rules of thinking, which to it are inevit-
able. But not more than its own being can be known to the
mind in immediate consciousness; it cannot have innate
revelations of facts other than itself, however great and
incomparable the value and significance of these facts may be.
Eeligious faith is comparable not to this immediate evidence
of ultimate principles but to another element that co-operates
in the construction of knowledge — namely to the intuition by
which content is given to those principles, and by which
those universal laws are supplied with cases to which they
662 BOOK IX. CHAPTER IV.
may be applied. Even in sense -perception we receive the
content of sensations just as revelations which can only be
accepted as they are ; we have no reason, we have no need,
we have no means to prove the reality of an impression of
colour, nor has knowledge any conceivable task adapted to
show how this colour should appear. It is, and is as if is, by
immediate revelation which we can but receive. The same as
we here experience under the influence of physical stimuli,
we may experience from direct divine operation within our
heart ; thus faith would be an intuition of those supersensuous
facts revealed to us by this operation. There is truth in this
— more truth than in the previous comparison. But every
sensuous impression regarded in itself is but a way in which
we are affected, some phase of our own condition ; in itself it
gives no knowledge of any matter of fact, taken alone it con-
stitutes no experience. Here again it is only our thought
which, mastering the manifold revelations of sense, compares
and combines them, or interprets given combinations, thus
arriving through them at the knowledge of some fact. We
can hardly picture to ourselves the workings of God upon the
heart otherwise than after this pattern ; we cannot imagine
the recognition of any fact as something that- can be simply
communicated, something that reaches the mind ready made
and without any activity on its part, we can only imagine
that occasion can be given to the mind to, as it were, produce
such recognition by exercising this activity, and in this it is
that every appropriation of a truth must consist. As sense
in itself furnishes merely an impression, so also this divine
influence would produce merely a feeling, a mood, a mode of
affection ; what is thus experienced becomes a revelation only
through some work of reflection which analyses its content and
reduces it to coherence by clear notions that are capable of
being combined with our ideas of the real world.
It will not always be possible for this to happen ; much of
this inner life of the believing heart must always remain
purely subjective experience, and these incommunicable states
will by no means contain only that which is of least value in
I
THE PilRSONALITY OF GOD. 663
our faith ; on the contrary, that which is best and fairest and
most fruitful in our experience will always be realized in us
only in the shape of these living emotions which are superior
to the forms of knowledge. It cannot be our business to
interpret this wealth of inner experience — to interpret either
that in it which transcends knowledge, or that which is too
insignificant to become matter of knowledge. The only part
that can hold our attention is that which is not only beheld
by the individual in his rapture, but which every one can com-
municate to others, which is capable of becoming common
property, and which, by arguments that all human reason
must recognise, he can either prove as truth, or justify to
faith as a convincing probability, by which formidable objec-
tions are refuted, and thus a possible solution furnished of
problems that press upon us.
§ 2. Eeason at one time tried to solve the essential part of
this problem of interpreting and defending the content of faith
by proofs of the existence of God. It would be unfair to
reproach this form of procedure with the contradiction of try-
ing to exhibit that which is highest and (by its own assump-
tion) unconditioned, as being, notwithstanding the necessary
and conditioned result of truths, the validity of which must —
since they are to be accepted as grounds of proof — be earlier
and more fundamental than the reality of that which is proved
by them. Although this error has not always been avoided,
yet these proofs — like all investigations which strive to go
back from results to their causes — are only intended to
mediate our knowledge of the principle by those of its conse-
quences which are given, and with this view they presuppose
the absolute validity of a truth which knits all the world
together, and which allows of our divining the notiora naturce
from the notiora nobis. But the way in which the under-
taking has been carried out seems to show that human insight
has not received in sufficient completeness those data of reality
which it needs in order that it may, under the guidance of
general principles of reason, reach with exactitude and com-
pleteness the end to which it strains, and this even if we do
664 BOOK IX. CHAPTEE IV.
not reckon those chance wanderings by the way due to defec-
tive criticism of the desired end to which we were pressing on.
We will now only take a brief retrospective view of this
region of thought, to which previous reflections have already
sufficiently introduced us.
The Cosmological Proof concludes from the contingent and
conditioned character of everything in the world to the exist-
ence of a Necessary and Unconditioned Being, and it seems to
it that nothing but an absolutely perfect being can be thus
unconditioned. We call that contingent which in the realiza-
tion of some intention occurs as an unintended and accessory
result — occurs because the means which we must use,
possess, besides the properties by which they serve our
purpose, others which for our ends are indifferent or even
obstructive — properties which, since they are there, cannot be
prevented from having their own effect, as far as general laws
permit. If we transfer the application of this word contingent
to the course of Nature, attributing intentional design to that
course as a coherent whole, then contingent signifies every-
thing that is not part of Nature's plan, but only some un-
avoidable consequence of the means and laws by which Nature
proceeds at every step. Hence the contingent being without
end and aim, it has only grounds and causes by which it is
produced in the coherent whole of reality ; but as external to
this whole, neither being nor action considered in themselves
can be either contingent or necessary. For that which in
such case would be signified by the name contingent — exist-
ence which might be non-existent or might be other than it
is — .is not a special and more imperfect kind of existence, in
contrast to which some other and better kind might be
imagined, but any part of reality, considered as detached from
the rest, is contingent simply in the sense that its non-
existence, or its existence otherwise than as it is, is con-
ceivable. There is nothing which is necessary and of which
the non-existence is impossible, except the conditioned, which
as consequent is determined by some antecedent, as an effect
by some cause, and as a means by its end ; but the notion of
THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 665
a beiD^ isolated and conditioned by nothing, and yet possessed
of necessary existence, is wholly impossible. If, therefore,
contingency is so often rejected as belonging to the ultimate
reason of the universe and necessity so eagerly claimed for
it, this happens because both expressions, having lost their
speculative meaning, have come to be used as determinations
of value. Taken thus, contingent connotes that which does
indeed exist, but has not any significance, for the sake of
which it need exist ; necessary connotes something not that
must be but that has such unconditional value that it seems
in virtue of this value to deserve also unconditional existence.
Only in such a sense can it be required that the Supreme
Principle of the universe should be necessary. But to demand
that God should be represented not only as really existent,
but as being obliged to exist, would be wholly erroneous and
involve a confusion of notions. All religious needs would be
perfectly satisfied by proof of His reality; to wish to prove His
necessity, would not only be to exaggerate our demands in a
wholly useless manner, but would in fact also lead to the
contradiction of conceiving God as dependent upon some
being superior to Himself, and containing the constraining
cause of His existence.
The other part of the Cosmological Proof also gives occasion
for similar remarks. Perfection is an unequivocal predicate
only when it denotes agreement between the nature of an
object and some standard to which that nature ought to con-
form. Hence it is only failure to accomplish that which is
due which is imperfection, but a thing is not imperfect because
we do not find in it some merely conceivable excellence.
That we do yet in such a case speak of imperfection, proceeds
from the fact that the word perfection has also lost its specu-
lative meaning of conformity to a standard, and has become
an independent designation of that which is directly commend-
able, and worthy in itself. Now if a thing does not fulfil the
obligations of its own nature, we may perhaps have reason to
assume that it has been restrained by some foreign power
from the attainment of that to which it was destined ; but the
666 BOOK IX. CHAPTER IV.
mere absence of some conceivable beauty or excellence does
not show that that which in this sense is imperfect is
either dependent or conditioned. For, in fact, unconditioned
existence may belong to that which is indifferent and petty
as well as to that which is significant and great, and is not
the exclusive privilege of that which is most excellent.
Thus then the Cosmological Proof could only conclude from
the conditionalness and conditioned necessity of all individual
real things in the universe, to an ultimate Real Being which,
without being conditioned by anything else, simply is, and
simply is what it is, and finally may be regarded as the
sufficient reason through which all individual reality is, and
is what it is. And this way of looking at the proof clearly
shows that it cannot of itself attain to the religious conception
of a God, but only to the metaphysical conception of an
Unconditioned. And it is not even able to establish the unity
of this Unconditioned. It is indeed possible that at a further
stage of development the demand for unconditionalness may
be found to have connected with it a demand for unity too ;
but this connection has not been discovered by the proof
which we are considering, and hence it does not refute the
assumption of an indefinite plurality of cosmic beginnings, of
a plurality of unconditioned Eeal beings, in which, on the other
hand, students of Nature may hope to find an explanation
of the multiplicity of phsenomena more easily than in the
unity of the Supreme Principle.
The Teleologic Proof seeks to attain certainty of the reality
of God from the purposiveness in the world. In order to be
convincing, it would have strictly to fulfil several require-
ments with regard to which we have long ago seen that it
can satisfy them only with various degrees of probability. It
would first have to show that there is in the world a pur-
posive connection which cannot result from an undesigned
co-operation of forces, but must have been designed by some
intelligence. But we have seen that even conscious design
can effect the realization of its purpose only by means of instru-
ments, from certain conjunctions of which that which is desired
I
THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 667
proceeds as a necessary result ; and that even the conjunction of
instruments for this result is only possible when the conjoining
design works also upon each of them with a blind force,
which in accordance with general laws is able to move it in
the way necessary to bring it into such conjunction with the
rest. Hence though it may be in a high degree improbable
it yet remains possible that a course of Nature destitute of
design may of itself have taken all the steps, which in oider to
realize a purpose must have been taken under the guidance of
design ; and therefore this first requirement cannot be fulfilled.
And we do not succeed better in fulfilling the second
requirement — in showing that purposiveness does not occur
merely here and there but that it pervades the whole world
harmoniously and without exception, so that not merely do
intelligent actions occur in it, but the whole is embraced in
the unity of one supreme design. How little does our actual
experience suffice to show this ! How much seems to us
wholly inexplicable, purposeless, even obstructive to ends of
which we had assumed the existence ! The few brilliant
examples of a harmony that we can at least partly recognise,
which are presented principally by the animate creation, may
w^ell confirm an already existent faith in God, in the conviction
that in that also which we do not yet understand the unity
of the same wisdom may work purposively ; but empiric
knowledge of the purpose in the world does not furnish the
means necessary for enabling any one to attain indisputable
faith who does not yet possess it. Taken alone it would much
more easily produce the polytheistic intuition of a plurality
of divine beings, each of which rules over a special department
of !N"ature as its special genius, and the varying governments of
which agree so far as to attain a certain general compatibility,
but not a harmony that is altogether without exceptions.
Not merely the defectiveness of the scientific knowledge
which we have through experience but also internal difficulties
hinder the fulfilment of the third requirement — that, namely,
of showing that creative wisdom in carrying out its designs
never experiences opposition, and is never forced to produce
668 BOOK IX. CHAPTER IV.
that which is even only indifferent as regards its purposes ;
but only if this were so would wisdom be omnipotent. Not
merely, however, does observation show us much which at
least our limited knowledge can understand only as an acci-
dental and accessory effect of the struggle between a formative
design and the independent and resisting nature of the
material to be formed; but, moreover, general reflection
cannot get clear the notion of design without contrasting
with it some material independent of it by elaborating which
it attains realization ; and thus all our consideration of purpose
leads us only to the notion of a governor of the universe and
not to that of a creator, which was what we sought.
Finally, how little men have succeeded in fulfilling the
fourth requirement, and in proving the unconditional worth
and the sacredness of the designs which we plainly see pursued
in the world, is taught by a glance at the development of the
doctrines which attempt this proof. For has not philosophy
often pointed out to us as supreme and unconditionally sacred
cosmic ends much in which living feeling can find no worth
at all ? Have not popular faith and dogmatic theology found
cause in the ills of the world, and the logical consistency with
which evil develops, to divide the dominion of the world
between God and the devil, taking comfort in the thought
that even of this apparent discord there may be some explana-
tion inaccessible to human reason ? But though that which is
inaccessible to human reason may indeed be an object of faith,
it cannot furnish any proof that such faith is true; and
thus the Teleological Proof is destitute of all demonstrative
force, however great and unmistakeable may be the efficacy
with which it brings together for the strengthening of faith all
that is best in secular knowledge.
Perhaps, if we were to ask less, we should on the whole
obtain more, and the fundamental thoughts which animate
these proofs may be not incapable of being turned to account
in another way. The Cosmological Proof prematurely pushed
its demand for the full and complete concept of God into an
assertion of the supreme perfection of the unconditioned, not
THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 669
having as yet established the unity of that unconditioned.
This it could have done if it had considered more searchingly
what is involved in the thought of the conditioned existence
of things, in the thought of any ordered course of the world.
Not the purpose in the world, for this is subject to doubt,
but the fact that there is a cosmic course in which events
are connected according to laws, must have led it to the
necessary unity of that which is the substantial basis of the
world. But we will not now return to this consideration,
which we discussed at an earlier stage, and to which we
also devoted the beginning of this last division of our
inquiry. We found — so we thought — the impossibility of that
pluralistic theory of the world which presupposes a plurality
of original Eeal beings, independent of one another, and then
imagines that from the reciprocal actions of these according
to general laws, a cosmic order may be produced. If it had
really considered deeply what is meant by saying that one
truth holds of many things, and that for the many, of which
each at first existed in a world of its own, there is yet the
possibility of a community, in which these may act upon one
another, it would have found that both these conceptions are
unthinkable without an original unity of existence of all that
is real — the activity of this reality, after it works and
whilst it works, being capable of appearing as action which in
an orderly fashion ia bound together by one universal truth,
and produced by connections between the separate elements.
This unity of that which while unconditioned conditions all
finite things, having been established, it became permissible
to try and determine the notion thus obtained — the notion of
an Infinite Substance — by those more significant predicates
by which it was transformed into the notion of a living God.
What the Teleologic Proof has attempted to contribute here,
seems to me to have been more impressively stated in the
despised form of the Ontologic Proof, though it is true that
in the scholastic form given to this proof not much of what
I have referred to is to be recognised. To conclude that
because the notion of a most perfect Being includes reality as
670 BOOK IX. CHAPTER IV.
one of its perfections, therefore a most perfect Being necessarily
exists, is so obviously to conclude falsely, that after Kant's
incisive refutation any attempt to defend such reasoning
would be useless. Anselm, in his more free and spontaneous
reflection, has here and there touched the thought that the
greatest which we can think, if we think it as only thought, is
less than the same greatest if we think it as existent. It is
not possible that from this reflection either any one should
develop a logically cogent proof, but the way in which it is put
seems to reveal another fundamental thought which is seeking
for expression. For what would it matter if that which is
thought as most perfect were, as thought, less than the least
reality ? Why should this thought disturb us ? Plainly for
this reason, that it is an immediate certainty that what is
greatest, most beautiful, most worthy is not a mere thought,
but must be a reality, because it would be intolerable to
believe of our ideal that it is an idea produced by the action
of thought but having no existence, no power, and no validity
in the world of reality. "We do not from the perfection of that
which is perfect immediately deduce its reality as a logical con-
sequence; but without the circumlocution of a deduction we
directly feel the impossibility of its non-existence, and all
semblance of syllogistic proof only serves to make more clear the
directness of this certainty. If what is greatest did not exist,
then what is greatest would not be, and it is impossible that that
which is the greatest of all conceivable things should not be.
Many other attempts may be made to exhibit the internal
necessity of this conviction as logically demonstrable ; but all
of them must fail. We cannot prove by thought, we can only
know by experience, that anything endowed with beauty is
beautiful, or that any disposition of mind has the approval
of conscience — except in those easily intelligible cases in
which, taking something compound, derived, or as yet
obscure, to which those determinations of worth had already
been attached by immediate feeling, we bring it under some
universal by a brief logical process of analysis. And just as
little can we prove from any general logical truth our right to
I
THE PEESONALITY OF GOD, 67 1
ascribe to that which has such worth its claim to reality; on
the contrary, the certainty of this claim belongs to those inner
experiences, to which, as to the given object of its labour, the
mediating, inferring, and limiting activity of cognition refers.
As such an immediate certainty, this conviction lies at the
foundation of the Ontological Proof; and it too it is which
carries the Teleologic Proof far beyond the inferences which
could be reached by means of its own impracticable assump-
tions. For when once the dominion of significant moral
forces that operate purposively has been confirmed by expe-
rience, though over but a small portion of the world, the silent
enlargement of this experience into an assertion that there is
a wisdom, a beauty, a goodness, and a perfection that pervade
the whole world without exception, rests in this case not
merely on the common logical mistake of a generalization of
some truth proved to be valid in a particular case, but is
supported by the living feeling that to this, which is greatest and
most perfect, there belongs a perfect and all-embracing reality.
Lively as this conviction may be, and sufficient as its cer-
tainty may be for us, yet it shares the formal indeterminateness
which attaches to all the inner experiences of faith. Por it
leaves us in doubt as to what the reality is which that which
is highest and most worthy must possess ; it believes only
that it knows that this highest and best must be one with the
Infinite which speculative philosophy found itself bound to
recognise as the true reality. The reasons which- justify this
attempt to blend the Existent and the Worthy into the notion
of the living God belong to those intermediate links of the
course of thought which we may fairly skip, and this all the
more because the following consideration of that to which the
attempt has led will include our opinion as to the right and
wrong of that attempt.
§ 3. Two distinct series of attributes through which man
tries to comprehend the being of God recall to us the two
impulses from which arose the notion of God and belief in Him.
Metaphysical attributes of Unity, Eternity, Omnipresence,
and Omnipotence determine Him as the ground of all finite
672 BOOK IX. CHAPTER IV.
reality; ethical attributes of Wisdom, Justice, and Holiness
satisfy our longing to find in that which has supreme reality,
supreme worth also. We have no need to give a complete
account of these attributes or to touch doubtful questions as to
their reciprocal limits ; the only really important point for us is
to reach a conviction as to the mode of existence that is to give
a definite form to this essence of all perfection, determining
also at the same time the special significance of several of the
attributes referred to. If these reflections, which are now
struggling to a conclusion, were allowed once more to run into
the prolixity of systematic completeness, it would be easy to
develop from the preceding investigations as to the nature of
existence the answer which we should have to give to this
last question as to the nature of that Infinite which we have
there discovered. But just because it is easy for the reader
to supply this transition we will regard the goal to which it
would lead, the notion of a Personal God, as being already
reached, and endeavour to defend this against doubts as to its
possibility, as being the only logical conclusion to which our
considerations could come.
The longing of the soul to apprehend as reality the Highest
Good which it is able to feel, cannot be satisfied by or even
consider any form of the existence of that Good except
Personality. So strong is its conviction that some living Ego,
possessing and enjoying Self, is the inevitable presupposition
and the only possible source and abode of all goodness and all
good things, so filled is it with unspoken contempt for all exist-
ence that is apparently lifeless, that we always find the myth-
constructing beginnings of religion busied in transforming
natural to spiritual reality ; but never find them actuated by
any desire to trace back living spiritual activity to unintelligent
Eealness as to a firmer foundation. From this right path the
progressive development of reflection turned off for a time.
With increasing cosmic knowledge, it grew more clear what
must be required in the notion of God, if He were not only to
contain in Himself all that is greatest and most worthy, but
also to contain it after such a fashion as to appear at the same
THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 673
time as tlie creative and formative ground of all reality; and
on the other hand, in more refined observation of spiritual life,
the conditions became clear to which in us finite beings the
development of personality is attached ; both trains of thought
seemed to combine in showing that the form of spiritual life
is incompatible with the notion of the Supreme Being, or that
the form of personal existence is incompatible with the notion
of the Infinite Spirit. And there arose attempts to find more
satisfying forms of existence for the Highest Good in ideas
of an Eternal World-Order, of an Infinite Substance, of a
Self-developing Idea, and to depreciate the form of personal
existence which had previously seemed to the unsophisticated
mind to be the only one that was worthy. Among the
infinitely manifold variations which these views have experi-
enced we will content ourselves with briefly showing, of the
three we have mentioned, the grounds of their untenableness.
What noble motives and what moral earnestness may lead
to the dissolving of the notion of the Divine Being in that of
a Moral World-Order, as contrasted with crude anthropomor-
phism, must be still fresh in men's remembrance. And yet
Eichte was not right when, with inspired words, lie opposed
his own sublime conception to the common narrow-minded
idea of a Personal God ; because he sought that which was
most sublime, he thought that he had found it in the concep-
tion which he reached ; if he had followed out to the end the
path which he took, he would have recognised that by it that
which he sought could not be reached. The question. How is it
that a World-Order can be conceived as the Supreme Principle ?
cannot he put off by appealing to the fact that we cannot
demand a history of the origin of the Principle itself ; he who,
regarding Personality as an impossible conception of the God-
head, prefers some other to it, will at least have to show that
the one which he brings forward is not contradictory ; for
nothing will be gained by substituting for an impossibility
some other assumption of which the possibility is not proven.
Kow tlie fact is that the one sufficient reason which will
always forbid that some World-Order should be put in the
VOL. IL 2 U
674 BOOK IX. CHAPTER IV.
place of God, is to be found in the simple fact that no order
is separable from the ordered material in which it is realized,
still less can precede such material as a conditioning or
creative force ; the order must ever be a relation of something
which exists, after or during its existence. Hence if it is
nothing but Order, as its name says, it is never that which
orders, which is what we seek, and which the ordinary notion
of God (however inadequate in other respects) determined
rightly at any rate in this, that it regarded it as a Keal being,
not as a relation.
But in considerations concerning these highest things, which
often make us feel the defectiveness of human language,
names seldom mean exactly what they connote, but generally
more or less ; only it mostly happens that what we have to
add or to omit cannot without contradiction be combined
with or subtracted from that part of the signification which is
retained. For this reason all the manifold views which we
here group together will complain of our interpretation of
their proposition, God Himself is the Order of the world, as
being a misinterpretation. — In the first place, the World-Order
can not take up that position with regard to the world, which,
according to the common view, is occupied by the extra-
mundane God ; this position must remain empty, seeing that
it is an impossible place, which nothing could occupy. Again,
it will be said, to understand Order merely as a relation estab-
lished by some ordering being, would only betray an incapacity
to understand the true reality, which, through and through,
without any residuum of dead substance is living activity,
movement, and growth, not indeed indeterminate, but deter-
mining itself in unvarying consistency to the coherence of
one thought. But yet if we more clearly analyse these
enthusiastic ideas, must they not, if they are to mean what
they are intended to mean, return again to that which they
avoid ? "We have already had occasion to argue how little
possible it is by the notion of a law of Nature regulating
mere phsenomena to avoid the assumption of reciprocal action
between things, or to explain their apparent effects : even if
i
THE PEllSONALITY OF GOD. 675
what is meant by saying that a law commands were clear, it
would still be incomprehensible how things or phsenomena
should obey it ; only an essential unity of all existent things
could cause the states of one thing to be efficient conditions
of the changes of another. On the universal World-Order
which, claiming to govern the moral world also, takes the
place of that law, we must pass a similar verdict. To us, too,
it is not doubtful " but most certain, and indeed the ground
of all other certainty, that there is this Moral Order of the
world ; that for every intelligent creature there is an appointed
place and a work which he is expected to perform, and that
every circumstance of his lot is part of a plan, in independence
of which not a hair of his head can be harmed, nor (in another
sphere of action) a sparrow fall from the house-top ; that
every good action will succeed and every evil action certainly
fail, and that to those who do but truly love that which is
good all things shall work together for good." (Fichte,
Sdmmtliche Werke, v. p. 188.) But now how can all this be
thought ? Or more accurately, When we think this, what is it
that we think ? Could that World-Order ever bring together
any plurality to the unity of any definite relation or maintain
such a unity, if it were not at the same time present in each
individual of the plurality and sensitive to every state
occurring in all the other individuals, and capable also of
bringing the reciprocal relations of all into the intended form,
by an alteration of position determined by reference to their
remoteness from the point aimed at ? This is no sophistical
construction by which we would attempt to show how this
Order comes to exist, but it is an analysis of that which we
must think, if we would think that which is ascribed to this
Order. And now, after all our detailed discussions on this
point, we cannot say exactly how this notion of an Order which
is affected by facts, and by reaction correspondent to its
nature and affection alters facts, is to be distinguished from
the true notion of a being. But on this account to call it
simply Order is the mistake of an opposition which, shunning
erroneous conceptions of being, obstinately tries to attach
676 BOOK IX. CHAPTER IV
those juster conceptions of which it is itself possessed, to
a notion with which they are wholly incapable of being
combined.
Now if the notion of any active order necessarily and
inevitably leads back to that of an Ordering Being, the notion
of a Moral Order leads further. Is it possible to imagine a
Being which, stimulated by the influence of every existing
condition of the cosmic course, should, with purposeless and
blindly working activity, impart to that course the ameliorat-
ing impulses by which the thoroughgoing dominion of what
is good is established, — a Being which cannot consciously
indicate the place of each individual and appoint his work, or
distinguish what is good in a good action from what is bad in
a bad action, or will and realize the good with its own living
love, but yet acts as though it could do all this ? It is not
open to speculation to decline answering this question, for
every view must take account of the necessary points of con-
nection, without which its own meaning would be incomplete ;
but whoever should seek to answer it by imagining an uncon-
scious, blind, impersonal mechanism, of which yet goodness
should be the moving spring, would entangle himself profoundly
in those impracticable subtleties among which the great mind
whose error we here deplore, thought he must reckon the
conviction that Personality is the only conceivable form of
the Supreme Cause of the universe. Whether the answering
of this question is equally necessary for practical life may
seem doubtful ; but I believe that it is so. The conviction
that there is a World-Order may suffice to guide our conduct
and to comfort us concerning its apparent resultlessness ; but
the religious mi^d is led to apprehend the Supreme Good
under the form of a Personal God both by humility and by
the longing to be able to reverence and love, motives which
the religion of a mere strict fulfilment of duty has too little
regarded.
We cannot consider the remaining views in even as much
detail as we have those above referred to. The common
admission of substantial unity in the World's-Cause, connects
I
THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 677
US only apparently with the reverence of Pantheism for the
one Infinite Substance ; and, moreover, the conceptions which
we have formed concerning the meaning of the Keal have
removed us so far from the circles of thought in which
Pantheism moves, that it is not possible to give a brief
explanation of our relation to it. It regards as existent being
what we can conceive only as phaenomenal — the spatial world,
with its extension, the figures which it contains and its
unceasing movements ; it regards it as conceivable that an
inexhaustible vital force of the Unconditioned and the One
should find relief in manifesting itself in these extended
figures and their changes as though in so doing it really
accomplished something ; but for us all this was but the
shadow of true and supersensuous being and action ; hence
Pantheism might think it possible to understand the spiritual
world as an isolated blossom, growing from the strong stem of
material Realness that works unconsciously, but to us it seems
inconceivable that spirit should arise from that which is not
spirit, and inevitable that all unconscious existence and action
should be regarded as an appearance, the form and content of
which springs from the nature of spiritual life. From a
metaphysical point of view, we could only agree with
I'an theism as a possible conception of the world if it
renounced all inclination to apprehend the Infinite Eeal
under any other than a spiritual form ; from a religious point
of view, we cannot share the disposition which commonly
governs the pantheistic imagination — the suppression of all
that is finite in favour of the Infinite, the inclination to
regard all that is of value to the living soul as transitory,
empty, and frail in comparison c^ the majesty of the One,
upon whose formal properties of immensity, unity, eternity,
and inexhaustible fulness it concentrates all its reverence.
But this as well as the reason which holds us back from
seeing that which is highest in the universe in an infinite and
self-conscious Idea, we shall notice later — as far as it is
possible to give a mere passing consideration to subjects that
have been so endlessly discussed.
678 BOOK IX. CHAPTER IV.
S 4. An Ego (or Self, Ich) is not thinkable without the
contrast of a ISTon-Ego or Not-Self; hence personal existence
cannot be asserted of God without bringing even Him down
to that state of limitation, of being conditioned by something
not Himself, which is repugnant to Him. — The objections
that speculative knowledge makes to the personality of God
fall back upon this thought ; in order to estimate their
importance, we shall have to test the apparently clear content
of the proposition which they take as their point of departure.
For unambiguous it is not ; it may be intended to assert that
what the term Ego denotes can be comprehended in reflective
analysis only by reference to the Non-Ego ; it may also mean
that it is not conceivable that this content of the Ego should
be experienced without that contrasted Non-Ego being
experienced at the same time ; finally, it may point to the
existence and active influence of a Non-Ego as the condition
without which the being upon which this influence works
could not be an Ego.
The relations which we need in ideation for making clear
the object ideated, are not in a general way decisive as to its
nature ; they are not conditions of the possibility of the thing
as they are for us conditions of the possibility of its presenta-
tion in idea. But the special nature of the case before us seems
to involve something which is not generally included — for it
is just in the act of ideation that Selfhood (Ichheit) consists,
and hence what is necessary for carrying out such an act is
at the same time a condition of the thing. Hence the first
two interpretations which we gave of the proposition referred
to seem to run together into the assertion that the Ego has
significance only as contrasted with the Non-Ego, and can be
experienced only in such contrast. "Whether we agree with
this assertion will depend in part upon the significance
attached to the words used. We see in the first place that at
any rate Ego and Non-Ego cannot be two notions of which
each owes its whole content only to its contrast with tlie
other; if this were so they would both remain without
content, and if neither of them apart from the contrast had a
THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 679,
fixed iiieaniijg of its own, not only would there be no ground
for giving an answer one way or the other to the question
wliich of the two members of the contrast should take the
place of the Ego and which that of the Non-Ego, but the very
question would cease to have any meaning. Language has
given to the Ego alone its own independent name, to the
Non-Ego only the negative determination which excludes the
Ego without indicating any positive content of its own.
Hence every being which is destined to take the part of the
Ego when the contrast has arisen, must have the ground of its
determination in that nature which it had previous to the
contrast, although before the existence of the contrast it is
not yet entitled to the predicate which in that contrast comes
to belonsj to it. Now if this is to remain the meaning of the
term, if the being is to be Ego only at the moment when it
is distinguished from the Non-Ego, then we have no objection
to make to this mode of expression, but we shall alter our own.
For it is our opponents' opinion and not ours that personality
is to be found exclusively where, in ideation (or presentation).
Self-consciousness sets itself as Ego in opposition to the Non-
Ego ; in order to establish the selfhood (Selbstheit) which we
primarily seek, that nature is sufficient in virtue of which,
when the contrast does arise, the being becomes an Ego, and it
is sufficient even before the appearance of the contrast. Every
feeling of pleasure or of dislike, every kind of self-enjoyment
(Selbstgenuss), does in our view contain the primary basis of
personality, that immediate self - existence which all later
developments of self- consciousness may indeed make plainer
to thought by contrasts and comparisons, thus also intensifying
its value, but which is not in the first place produced by them.
It may be that only the being who in thought contrasts with
himself a Non-Ego from which he also distinguishes himself, can
say / {Ich) to himself, but yet in order that in thus distinguishing
he should not mistake and confound himself with the Non-
Ego, this discriminating thought of his must be guided by a
certainty of self which is immediately experienced, by a self-
existence which is earlier than the discriminative relation by
680 BOOK IX. CHAPTER IV.
which it becomes Ego as opposed to the Non-Ego. A
different consideration has already (cf. i., pp. 241 seq.) led us
by an easier path to the same result, and we may refer the
reader to this passage for explanation and completion of what
is said here. The discussion referred to showed us that all
self-consciousness rests upon the foundation of direct sense of
self which can by no means arise from becoming aware of a
contrast with the external world, but is itself the reason that
this contrast can be felt as unique, as not comparable to any
other distinction between two objects. Self-consciousness is
only the subsequent endeavour to analyse with the resources
of cognition this experienced fact — to frame in thought a
picture of the Ego that in cognition apprehends itself with the
most vivid feeling, and in this manner to place it artificially
among the objects of our consideration, to which it does not
really belong. So we take up our position with regard to the
first two interpretations of the proposition of which we are
speaking, thus : — We admit that the Ego is thinkable only in
relation to the Non-Ego, but we add that it may he experienced
previous to and out of every such relation, and that to this is
due the possibility of its subsequently becoming thinkable in
that relation.
But it is not these two interpretations but the third that
is most obstructive to that faith in the Personality of God
which we are seeking to establish. In one form indeed in
which it sometimes occurs we need not make it an object
of renewed investigation ; for we may now consider it as, in
our view, established that no being in the nature of which
self-existence was not given as primary and underived, could
be endowed with selfhood by any mechanism of favouring
circumstances however wonderful. Hence we may pass over
in complete silence all those attempts which think to show by
ill-chosen analogies from the world of sense how in a being as
yet selfless an activity originally directed entirely outwards is,
by the resistance opposed to it by the Non-Ego (comparable
to that which a ray of light encounters in a plane surface),
thrown back upon itself and thereby transformed into the
I
THE PEllSONALTTY OF GOD. 681
self-comprehending light of self-oonsciousness. In such ideas
everything is arbitrary, and not a single feature of the image
employed is applicable to the actual case which it is intended
to make clear; that outgoing activity is an unmeaning
imagination, the resistance which it is to meet with is some-
thing that cannot be proved, the inference that that activity
is by that resistance turned back along the path by which it
came is unfounded, and it is wholly incomprehensible how
this reflection could transform its nature, so that from blind
activity it should turn into the selfhood of self-existence.
Setting aside these follies which have influenced philo-
sophic thought to an unreasonable extent, we find a more
respectable form of the view which we are combating occupied
in proving that though that self-existence cannot be produced
by any external condition in a being to which it does not
belong by nature, yet it could never be developed even in one
whose nature is capable of it, without the co-operation and
educative influences of an external world. For that from the
impressions which we must receive from the external world,
there comes to us not only all the content of our ideas, but
also the occasion of all those feelings in which the Ego,
existing for self, can enjoy self without as yet being
conscious of a relation of contrast to the Non-Ego. That all
feeling must be conceived as (in some definite form of pleasure
or displeasure) interested in some definite situation of the
being to which it belongs, some particular phase of its action
and its passion ; but that neither is passion possible without
some foreign impression which calls it forth, nor activity
possible without an external point of attraction which guides
it and at which it aims. That in any single feeling the being
which is self-existent is only partially self-possessing ; that
whether it has self-existence truly and completely depends
upon the variety of the external impulses which stimulate by
degrees the whole wealth of its nature, making this M^ealth
matter of self-enjoyment — that thus the development of all
personality is bound up with the existence and influence of
an external world and the variety and succession of those
682 BOOK IX. CHAPTER IV.
influences ; and that such development would be possible even
for God only under similar conditions.
It is not sufficient to lessen the weight of this objection by
the assertion that this educative stimulation is necessary only
for finite and changing beings, and not for the nature of
God, which, as a self-cognisant Idea, eternally unchangeable,
always possesses its whole content simultaneously. Though
this assertion grazes the truth, yet in this form it would be
injurious in another respect to our idea of God, for it would
make the being of God similar to that of an eternal truth — a
truth indeed not merely valid but also conscious of itself. But
we have a direct feeling of the w^ide difference there is between
this personification of a thought and living personality ; not
only do we find art tedious when it expects us to admire
allegorical statues of Justice or of Love, but even speculation
rouses our opposition forthwith, when it offers to us some
self-cognisant Principle of Identity, or some self-conscious
Idea of Good, as completely expressing personality. Either of
these are obviously lacking in an essential condition of all
true reality in the capacity of svffering. Every Idea by
which in reproductive cognition we seek to exhaust the
nature of some being, is and remains nothing more than the
statement of a thought-formula by which we fix, as an
aid to reflection, the inner connection between the living
activities of the Eeal ; the real thing itself is that which
applies this Idea to itself, which feels contradiction to it as
disturbance of itself, and wills and attempts as its own
endeavour the realization of the Idea. The only living
subject of personality is this inner core, which cannot be
resolved into thoughts, the meaning and significance of which
we know in the immediate experience of our mental life, and
which we always misunderstand when we seek to construe it —
hence personality can never belong to any unchangeably valid
truth, but only to something which changes, suffers, and
reacts. We will only briefly point out in passing the insur-
mountable difficulties which the attempt to personify Ideas
thus would encounter if there were any question of determin-
I
THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 683
ing tlie relation between the Ideas so personified and the
changing course of the world ; it would immediately appear
that these could as little do without the additions necessary
to transform them into suffering and acting beings as the
World-Order to which we have before referred.
Yet the transference of the conditions of finite personality
to the personality of the Infinite is not justified. For we
must guard ourselves against seeking in the alien nature of
the external world, in the fact that it is Hon-Ego, the source
of the strength with which it calls out the development of
the Ego ; it operates only by bringing to the finite mind
stimuli which occasion the activity, which that mind cannot
produce from its own nature. It is involved in the notion
of a finite being that it has its definite place in the whole,
and thus that it is not what any other is, and yet that at the
same time it must as a member of the whole in its whole
development be related to and must harmonize with that
other. Even for the finite being the forms of its activity
flow from its own inner nature, and neither the content of its
sensations nor its feelings, nor the peculiarity of any other of
its manifestations, is given to it from without ; but the incite-
ments of its action certainly all come to it from that external
world, to which, in consequence of the finiteness of its nature,
it is related as a part, having the place, time, and character of
its development marked out by the determining whole. The
same consideration does not hold of the Infinite Being that
comprehends in itself all that is finite and is the cause of its
nature and reality ; this Infinite Being does not need — as we
sometimes, with a strange perversion of the right point of
view, think — that its life should be called forth by external
stimuli, but from the beginning its concept is without that
deficiency which seems to us to make such stimuli necessary
for the finite being, and its active efficacy thinkable. The
Infinite Being, not bound by any obligation to agree in any
way with something not itself, will, with perfect self-suflficing-
ness, possess in its own nature the causes of every step
forward in the development of its life. An analogy which
684 LOOK IX. CHAP'j' R IV.
though weak yet holds in some important points and is to
some extent an example of the thing itself, is furnished to ns
by the course of memory in the finite mind. The world of
our ideas, though certainly called into existence at first by
external impressions, spreads out into a stream which, without
any fresh stimulation from the external world, produces plenty
that is new by the continuous action und reaction of its own
movements, and carries out in works of imagination, in the
results reached by reflection, and in the conflicts of passion, a
great amount of living development — as much, that is, as can
be reached by the nature of a finite being without incessantly
renewed orientation, by action and reaction with the whole
in which it is comprehended ; hence the removal of these
limits of finiteness does not involve the removal of any pro-
ducing condition of personality which is not compensated for
by the self-sufficingness of the Infinite, but that which is
only approximately possible for the finite mind, the condition-
ing of its life by itself, takes place without limit in God, and
no contrast of an external world is necessary for Him,
Of course there remains the question what it is that in
God corresponds to the primary impulse which the train of
ideas in a finite mind receives from the external world ? But
the very question involves the answer. For when through
the impulse received from without there is imparted to the
inner life of the mind an initiatory movement which it subse-
quently carries on by its own strength, whence comes the
movement in the external world which makes it capable of
giving that impulse ? A brief consideration will sufi&ce to
convince us that our theory of the cosmos, whatever it may
be, must somehow and somewhere recognise the actual move-
ment itself as an originally given reality, and can never
succeed in extracting it from rest. And this indication may
suffice for the present, since we wish here to avoid increasing
our present difficulties by entering upon the question as to
the nature of time. When we characterize the inner life of
the Personal God, the current of His thoughts, His feelings, and
His will, as everlasting and without beginning, as having never
THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 685
known rest, and having never been roused to movement from
some state of quiescence, we call upon imagination to perform
a task no other and no greater than that which is required
from it by every materialistic or pantheistic view. Without
an eternal uncaused movement of the World-Substance, or
the assumption of definite initial movements of the countless
world-atoms, movements which have to be simply recognised
and accepted, neither materialistic nor pantheistic views could
attain to any explanation of the existing cosmic course, and
all parties will be at last driven to the conviction tliat tlie
splitting up of reality into a quiescent being and a movement
which subsequently takes hold of it, is one of those fictions
which, while they are of some use in the ordinary business of
reflection, betray their total inadmissibility as soon as we
attempt to rise above the reciprocal connection of cosmic
particulars to our first notions of the cosmos as a whole.
The ordinary doubts as to the possibility of the personal
existence of the Infinite have not made us waver in our con-
viction. But in seeking to refute them, we have had the
feeling that we were occupying a standpoint which could only
be regarded as resulting from the strangest perversion of all
natural relations. The course of development of philosophic
thought has put us who live in this age in the position of
being obliged to show that the conditions of personality which
we meet with in finite things, are not lacking to the Infinite ;
whereas the natural concatenation of the matter under discus-
sion would lead us to show that of the full personality which
is possible only for the Infinite a feeble reflection is given
also to the finite ; for the characteristics peculiar to the finite
are not producing conditions of self-existence, but obstacles
to its unconditioned development, although we are accustomed,
unjustifiably, to deduce from these characteristics its capacity
of personal existence. The finite being always works with
powers with which it did not endow itself, and according to
laws which it did not establish, — that is, it works by means
of a mental organization which is realized not only in it but
also in innumerable similar beings. Hence in reflecting: on
686 BOOK IX. CHAPTER IV.
self, it may easily seem to it as though there were in itself
some obscure and unknown substance — something which is in
the Ego though it is not the Ego itself, and to which, as to
its subject, the whole personal development is attached. And
hence there arise the questions — never to be quite silenced
— "VVliat are we ourselves ? What is our soul ? What is our
self — that obscure being, incomprehensible to ourselves, that
stirs in our feelings and our passions, and never rises into
complete self-consciousness ? The fact that these questions
can arise shows how far personality is from being developed
in us to the extent which its notion admits and requires. It
can be perfect only in the Infinite Being which, in surveying
all its conditions or actions, never finds any content of that
which it suffers or any law of its working, the meaning and
origin of which are not transparently plain to it, and capable
of being explained by reference to its own nature. Further,
the position of the finite mind, which attaches it as a con-
stituent of the whole to some definite place in the cosmic
order, requires that its inner life should be awakened by
successive stimuli from without, and that its course should
proceed according to the laws of a psychical mechanism, in
obedience to which individual ideas, feelings, and efforts press
upon and supplant one another. Hence the whole self can
never be brought together at one moment, our self-conscious-
ness never presents to us a complete and perfect picture of
our Ego — not even of its whole nature at any moment, and
much less of the unity of its development in time. We
always appear to ourselves from a one-sided point of view,
due to those mental events which happen to be taking place
within us at the time — a point of view which only admits of
our surveying a small part of our being ; we always react
upon the stimuli which reach us, in accordance with the one-
sided impulses of this accidental and partial self-consciousness;
it is only to a limited extent that we can say with truth that
we act ; for the most part action is carried on in us by the
individual feelings or groups of ideas to which at any moment
the psychical mechanism gives the upper hand. Still less do
I
THE PEESONALITY OF GOD. 687:
we exist wholly for ourselves in a temporal point of view.
There is much that disappears from memory, but most of all
individual moods, that escape it by degrees. There are
many regions of thought in which while young we were quite
at home, which in age we can only bring before our mind as
alien phsenomena; feelings in which we once revelled with
enthusiasm we can now hardly recover at all, we can now
hardly realize even a pale reflection of the power which they
once exercised over us ; endeavours which once seemed to
constitute the most inalienable essence of our Ego seem, when
we reach the path along which later life conducts us, to be
unintelligible aberrations, the incentives to which we can no
longer understand. In point of fact we have little ground for
speaking of the personality of finite beings ; it is an ideal,
which, like all that is ideal, belongs unconditionally only to
the Infinite, but like all that is good appertains to us only
conditionally and hence imperfectly.
^ 5. The more simple content of this section hardly needs
the brief synoptical repetition in which we now proceed to
gather up its results and to add them to those already
reached.
X. Selfhood, the essence of all personality, does not depend
upon any opposition that either has happened or is happening
of the Ego to a Non-Ego, but it consists in an immediate self-
existence which constitutes the basis of the possibility of that
contrast wherever it appears. Self-consciousness is the eluci-
dation of this self-existence which is brought about by means
of knowledge, and even this is by no means necessarily
bound up with the distinction of the Ego from a N"on-Ego
which is substantially opposed to it.
XI. In the nature of the finite mind as such is to be found
the reason why the development of its personal consciousness
can take place only through the influences of that cosmic
whole which the finite being itself is not, that is through
stimulation coming from the Non-Ego, not because it needs
the contrast with something alien in order to have self-
existence, but because in this respect, as in every other, it
688 BOOK IX. CHAPTER IV.
does not contain in itself the conditions of its existence. Wd
do not find this limitation in the being of the Infinite ; hence
for it alone is there possible a self-existence, which needs
neither to be initiated nor to be continuously developed by
something not itself, but which maintains itself within itsell
with spontaneous action that is eternal and had no beginning.
XII. Perfect Personality is in God only, to all finite minds
there is allotted but a pale copy thereof ; the finiteness of the
finite is not a producing condition of this Personality but a
limit and a hindrance of its development.
CHAPTER V.
GOD AND THE WORLD.
Difficulties in this Chapter — The Source of the Eternal Truths and their Relation
to God — The Creation as Will, as Act, as Emanation — Its Preservation and
Government ; and the Ideality of Time — The Origin of Real Things — Evil
and Sin — Good, Good Things, and Love — The Unity of the Three Principles
iu Love — Conclusion.
§ 1. "WT"^ traced back the manifoldness of reality to
» » one unconditioned primary Cause ; and this
One, which can give coherence to finite multiplicity and the
possibility of reciprocal action to individual things, we found
not in a law, not in an Idea, not in any cosmic order, but
only in a Being capable of acting and suffering ; in Mind
alone, self-possessing and having self-existence, and not in a
substance developing with blind impulse, did we find in truth
and reality the substantiality which we felt constrained to
require in this Supreme Being. The rapidity with which we
hurried towards this goal of our thoughts carried us past
difficulties to which we now return.
Our ideas concerning even God and divine things can
satisfy us only when they are in harmony with those general
laws of thought and those truths which reason sets before us
as having binding force with regard to every object of which
we can judge. Hence even that Supreme Being whom we
reverence as the unconditioned and creative Cause of all
reality, as soon as He becomes an object of our investigation
may easily seem to be conditioned by general truths and laws
possessing a validity independent of and priot to Him. When
we speak of the wisdom of God we seem obliged to think of it
as applied to truth, the independently valid content of which
is recognised by God, and hence prior to Him ; we seem
obliged to think of His justice or any other of His ethical
VOL. IL ^^^ 2 X
690 BOOK IX. CHAPTEK V.
perfections as expressing nothing more than the immutable
and thoroughgoing conformity of His being to an ideal of all
good, the eternal worth of which is independently established ;
even creative activity, as it produces real things, is hardly
intelligible to us except as a deliberative choice that summons
into reality whichever it will from the abundance of the con-
ceivable and possible forms of future existence, spread out
before it as a store from which to choose. All this is incom-
patible with that unconditionedness which must belong to the
Supreme Eeality, not only as regards its existence, but also in
such a way that it determines through itself alone the form
and object of its activity. We will divide the discussion of
these difficulties, and unite in one inquiry concerning the
origin of eternal trutlis, an explanation of the relation to the
being of God (1) of the laws of cognition and of the course of
events, and (2) of the determination of moral worth ; and
later we shall turn to consider (3) in what way we must
conceive the forms of reality to have their foundation in the
same divine nature.
§ 2. The philosophy of common sense generally seems to
take it for granted as self-evident that even the divine activity
moves within the limits which the general laws of all being
and action set to any conceivable activity. When expressly
questioned on this point religious faith may occasionally
hesitate somewhat ; but for the most part it admits this tacit
presupposition and recognises eternal truth as primary and
unconditioned, as being an absolutely valid necessity, to which
even the living reality of God is subject. If we ignore the
contradiction with reference to the unconditionedness of God
which is plainly involved in this view, we yet find that it
involves another contradiction which equally invalidates it —
namely one that concerns the nature of truth. It is only as re-
gards an individual and finite thing that an individual law before
it is realized in it can appear as a power existing external to it ;
for in such a case this law is realized in other things in the
states of which it is embodied, and by the coherent action of
which it becomes possible for it to subject to itself things which
GOD AND ME .WOKLD, 691
had as yet escaped its dominion. But the whole body of
truth cannot precede the whole of reality, or that One Supreme
Being from which it flows, as though it were a power existing
independently in vacuo ; for of truths we can only say that
they are valid, not that they exist. They do not hover among
or external to or above existing things ; as forms of connec-
tion between multifarious states, they are present only in the
thought of some thinker whilst he thinks, or in the action
pf some existing being at the moment of his action. If they
rule not only the present but also the future, they can do this
not because they are enthroned in eternal splendour beyond
and above all reality and all time, but because, really being
in that which is real, they are continually produced afresh
by its action. Existing things receive through their own
action in unbroken continuity, and as it were transmit to
themselves from moment to moment, the unchanging forms of
their being and their states and the connection between these,
and thus they every moment reproduce the conditions of the
influence which truth exercises upon them. If it were think-
able that the course of the world should suddenly cease to con-
tain the efficient causes of that which truth commands, then this
truth would no longer he in the world, and certainly he who
should then think of it as existing external to the world in its
inactive validity, would not be able to say how it could happen
that reality should come to be again subject to it. Hence it
is impossible that a realm of external truths should in any
way exist external to God as an object of His recognition, or
lefore Him as a rule of His working, and this impossibility does
not disappear if we avoid the spatial and temporal expres-
sions, the figurative use of which we have just indulged in.
It would only be a useless change of terms if we were to call
such truths not external to and before God but in Him and
with Him ; thought as universal necessities, to which the
Divine Being like all else is subject, they would still continue
to lay claim to this impossible validity, preceding and trans-
cending all reality — a validity which we must deny to them,
and through which, if they had it, they would be alien and
692 BOOK IX. CHAPTER V.
limiting conditions of that by which the being of God is dis-
tinjmished from all other being in which their influence is
shown.
The course of our thought is so thoroughly accustomed to
the perverse idea of an independent truth, giving laws to
reality, that we do not take offence at the contradictions
which it involves. But so much the more is natural feelin<:f
hurt by our detraction from that unconditionedness of God
which cannot be surrendered, if we regard it as subject to a
truth which is independent of it. So a second form of the
view we are considering resolves to regard the eternal truths
as creations of God, which He might have left uncreated, or
have created other than they are. But this opinion too
speedily leads to contradiction and is incompatible with the
notion of truth. For truths can no more be made than they
can exist independent of reality, and no thought which is of
questionable validity can by the will, or the recognition, or the
command of any one, be made true if it were not so before.
Statutes may be enacted ; but statutes are only commands which
choose some one thinkable order of relations from among a
number all equally thinkable, and that which is chosen they
do indeed endow with actual validity, but never with that
intrinsic necessity which its nature lacks. But in order that
the statute itself should be enacted, there must pre-exist some
truth intrinsically and independently valid which enables men
to distinguish what is possible from what is impossible, and
the cases to which the order that is to be established applies
from those to which it does not apply. Now if it is unthink-
able that any truth should arise by creation, it is still more
impossible to imagine creative activity directed to such an
impossible aim as the original production of all truth. For
in whatever way we may picture it to ourselves, as long as we
imagine that through this activity something arises which but
for it would not exist, we must imagine that the activity takes
effect in a certain sequence of events in which as a producing
condition it brings its results to pass. But in a world in
which as yet there is no truth (supposing such a world to be
GOD AND THE WORLD. 693
thinkable) what could be called a condition and what could
be called the result of a condition ? Where should we find
any guarantee of the connection of the one with the other, of
any act having any result, or of its having the one at which it
aims, and not another at which it does not aim ?
The ill-success of these two extreme views is sought to be
avoided by a third view which takes a middle path, declaring
these eternal truths to be neither objects recognised by God,
nor creations of His arbitrary will, but the necessary con-
sequences of His own being. But it is a mistake to think
that the difficulty can be avoided in this way. If there is to
be any meaning in saying that something proceeds as a logical
consequence from the nature of God, we must, in thought at
least, oppose to this another something, proceeding as an
illogical consequence from the same nature. In order to
distinguish the two we need some universal intrinsically valid
standard, measured by or compared with which the one some-
thing may be recognised as deducible from a definite source,
and the other something as not deducible from the same source.
Thus we find ourselves led back by a very short road to the
necessity of assuming some unconditioned primary truth as
having binding force even upon the being of God, in order
that by it we may be able to comprehend as logical results of
the divine nature those eternal truths which can be deduced
from it. However sensible we may be that this attempt
follows a true impulse, still this formulation of its results is
a failure, and other considerations are needed in order that
we may turn to advantage the good which it does contain.
The resultlessness of all these views, wliich we have pre-
sented in their most unmodified and therefore most intelligible
forms, is due to the concealed ambiguity with which they
apply the name of God. When we doubt whether God
recognises truth or establishes it, whether He wills that
which is good, or whether if He wills anything it is thereby
good, we must first of all get clear the question. Is the God
to whom these propositions refer regarded as the God whom
our religious consciousness seeks and acknowledges, in His
694 BOOK IX. CHAPTER V.
fulness and completeness; and are the activities or pro-
perties which form the predicates of those propositions
already included in the concept of Him in such a way that
the propositional form only serves to set them out afresh for
the sake of explanation after the manner of analytic judg-
ments ? Or is the name of God here merely a provisional
anticipatory designation of a being to whom the content of
these predicates does not as yet belong, so that the proposi-
tions referred to express, after the fashion of synthetic judg-
ments, some process, some activity, or some event, which is
intended to endow that being with these predicates for the
first time ? That the second of these assumptions is in a
religious sense unmeaning, and is in itself unthinkable, we
will try to show by taking for illustration two familiar questions,
around which the strife of opinions has been concentrated, as
representatives of the metaphysical and ethical difficulties of
the subject.
The first of these questions — whether God recognises or
brings to pass the truth of the proposition 3 + 2 = 4, and
whether He could make true the proposition 2 = 2 + 5, does
not very happily express the point which is here in question.
It gives an impression that the point in dispute is whether
God could replace the one proposition which is now true, by
the other which is now false, arbitrarily raising the latter to
the rank of a truth. In doing this, however, He would not
create truth at all, but presuppose it. For in order that it
may be possible to express any proposition in the form of an
equation, in order that the correct proposition A=A, the
questionable proposition A=B, or the erroneous proposition
A=-Non-A, should have any imaginable meaning, the truth or
untruth of which we could discuss, it is indispensable that
each of these letters should indicate a content which is in
itself something stable, self-identical, and distinct from- every-
thing else, and can hence be called by a name which belongs
to it alone. Hence from every individual thing that is to be
thought as having any relation, true or false, to some other,
the Law of Identity must be of prior validity as the simplest
I
GOD AND THE WORLD. 695
truth, without which there can be neither other truths nor
any untruth at all. Hence, more generally expressed the
question would run thus — Can the will of God establish
the Law of Identity so as by means of it to make true some
individual relation which contradicts it ? But the answer to
this question is devoid of interest ; there is no natural and
unavoidable motive for raising it. He who should believe
that he must answer it affirmatively for the sake of uncon-
ditioned divine omnipotence, would be obliged both in the
question and in the answer to treat the notions of the con-
tradictory and of the non-contradictory as having an already
established definite significance, lefore it could be decided
what attitude the divine omnipotence would take with reference
to those notions. Now if it should decide to estabKsh as
truth the contradictory — that is what was contradictory he/ore
its decision — it would not create all truth, it would not first
establish the notion of truth, it would be but an arbitrary
will, struggling to upset, as far as possible, truth which it
found already binding. No religious need drives us to seek
in God omnipotence thus devoid of intelligence. Hence the
second clause of this much-debated question must be dropped,
and limiting ourselves to the first clause, we ask only whether
the truth which is not yet can be established by God ? Now
an omnipotence which could only accomplish whatever was
possible would indeed be merely the greatest among all finite
powers, but such as could accomplish the impossible would bo
none the less finite; for it would presuppose something
impossible in itself, that is impossible without the help of
omnipotence — something that omnipotence would be able to
make possible ; but the only true omnipotence must be that
which first produces the whole unnameable region within
which there is a distinction not previously existent between
the true and the untrue, the possible and the impossible.
Now if this is the real meaning of creating truth, who is
the God to whom we ascribe this creation ? Is He not the
perfect and complete God in whose being we imagine that all
truth already is — but if for him who is to create truth it is
696 BOOK IX. CHAPTER V.
not yet valid, in what does his being and his omnipotence
consist, except in a general capacity of doing, that is without
content and. without direction, and that certainly appears
wholly unlimited, but only for this reason, that it neither
finds objects with which it could enter into relation, nor rules
by which it might regulate its procedure ? This, however, is
an idea that signifies nothing which could possibly exist. If
from examples of various performances we frame the general
notion of capacity or power, we obtain an abstraction logically
allowable, and applicable in thought, the content of which,
however, does not denote anything that can exist until we
supply that which we had previously abstracted. As there is
no motion without velocity and direction, and none which
could be endowed with velocity and direction after it had
come into existence, so we cannot conceive of any power that
has not some mode of procedure, nor of any empty capacity
that in its emptiness hits upon definite modes of activity.
Hence even the divine power cannot be thought as without
content and without direction ; and the definite mode of
action in which it thus consists, and which when we reflect
seems to exclude every other conceivable mode of action, is
by no means to be regarded as a limitation of its uncon-
ditionedness. It would indeed be so for a finite being ; for
such a being finds the modes of activity from which its
nature excludes it existing beside it as regions really subject
'0 the power of other beings, regions which are closed to it,
and hence form impassable boundaries of its own activity.
There is nothing of this kind in the case of the Infinite ;
being itself the ground of all reality, it is also the source of the
various possibilities of manifold activity which reality contains ;
no mode of action beyond its own can be opposed to it as
independent of it, or at least as a reality inaccessible and
forbidden to it. If it should be asserted finally that the
imconditionedness of the Divine Omnipotence is detracted
from not only by the reality but by the very conceivability of
other action than its own, we deny this also, and the denial
will serve to make perfectly clear the meaning of our own view,
GOD AND THE WORLD. 697
For we use this necessity of associating with the notion of any
power the thought of some definite mode and kind of action, in
order to maintain that just that which we know as the sum of the
eternal truths is the mode in which Omnipotence acts, but is not
f-reated by Omnipotence — in otlier words, this sum of eternal
truths is the mode of action of Omnipotence, but not its product.
This signifies, in the first place, that Omnipotence remains an
imperfect notion, signifying nothing real, if eternal truth is
not associated with it in thought, showing the direction and
kind of its action ; it signifies further that truth is real not
merely in itself, but only as the nature and eternal habitude of
the highest activity; and finally, it signifies that truth regarded
as truth, that is as a whole of thoughts connected together and
conditioning one another, has but a derived and secondary
existence in the mind of the thinker by whom it is thought.
Au intelligence which being itself a part of reality, is itself
under the dominion of these eternal habitudes of all action,
in comparing the various examples of being and action
discovers truths as the general ideas which make compre-
hensible to it the connection of the details of reality posterior
to its existence as a whole. And then for such an intelligence
there arises for the first time the delusive appearance that this
universal, which the individual may think as the precedent
and conditioning principle of his thoughts, has also preceded
all reality as a destiny existing and ruling in the shadowy
emptiness of unreality; it appears to this intelligence that
before the existence of the world and of God, there existed an
ordered realm of possibilities and necessities — that real things
which only subsequently come to exist, by assuming some one
of these ready-made forms, realizing some one of these
possibilities, become thereby finite and limited, and, by the
fiat of that already existiug necessity, excluded from being
some other possible thing which goes on possessing an inde-
scribable existence, in some indescribable locality beyond the
world and reality, itself bounding and limiting all reality.
We have here touched an absolutely decisive point in our
philosophic theory ; but since it has already so often, and
698 BOOK IX. CHAPTER V.
in so many forms, been tlie topic of our discussion, it is
sufficient here to give it the expression which we have just
done, which gives an answer to the second as well as the first
of the questions raised. For impossible as it appears to
imagine truth as the creation of Omnipotence for which it is
as yet not valid, equally impossible is it to understand it as
an object of recognition for any being that does not by its own
nature participate in it. Only he for whom truth is true can
recognise it as truth. An intelligence which, being destitute
of any innate rule of its procedure, should serve only as a
mirror to bring into view everything existing external to it,
M'ould, if it were possible to imagine it at all, reflect truth
and error with equal impartiality, and without observing the
distinction between them. The understanding can find truth
only where it sees the content of its thought agreeing with a
standard which it carries within itself, agreeing that is with
the laws of its own procedure in the combination of given
material. Hence it only recognises truth in as far as it
belongs to its own nature from all eternity ; truth that was
originally unconnected with it, it would neither comprehend
as such, nor, as a matter of fact, recognise in such a way that
this could subsequently become a rule of its procedure. Thus
it appears to be in every way impossible to set up in opposi-
tion to truth, a God for whom truth has as yet no validity,
whether we regard Him as its creator or as accommodating
Himself to it ; truth cannot be created by His act, but it is
only through His existence that it subsists ; it cannot be
external to him who is to recognise it, on the contrary its
recognition is only thinkable as cognition of one's own being
in it.
It would be superfluous to analyse at equal length the
second example to which we referred. The Good cannot be
established by any divine will, nor be to it an object of
recognition, unless that will already contains that Good in the
same way as we have said that truth must be contained by
the mind which apprehends it. If God, without being deter-
minable by ethical predicates, were merely a power developing
I
GOD AND THE WORLD. 69 d
in some living form or other, or a will working from the
beginning in some one direction, harmony with those forms of
development, or movement in that direction of working, would
certainly be a condition of subsistence and wellbeing for any
finite thing dependent upon Him ; and if there subsisted in
this finite thing a consciousness of its existence and position,
those conditions would appear to it as commands, the neglect
of which it would be dissuaded from by fear, and punished
for by remorse. But in such a case the notion of Good as of
an ideal having binding force in virtue of its own majesty,
could arise only through a somewhat incomprehensible error
of limited finite insight ; the binding force could not be
deduced from such a will, and faith in its unconditioned
supremacy would have to be explained as an illusion But
for the same reason Good could not be an object of recogni-
tion to God. Supposing the uneonditionedness of the Divine
Being not to be lessened by the fact of its being decided
external to and independent of Him, what is good and what
is not good, yet even then His will could only recognise the
value of the Good thus given, if He Himself in virtue of His
own nature had already attached equal value to it, just in the
same way as the understanding comprehends given truth as
truth only because it is true for that understanding itself.
So that in the case of goodness as well as in that of truth it
appears inadmissible to separate from God those essential
perfections by which only the notion of Him is made complete,
and then to assume as an already existing Being an unintel-
ligible Divine Nature to which these perfections are subse-
quently added by a deed or a series of events which might
possibly never have come to pass. Every such attempt
mistakes the arbitrary circuits made by our thought in the
consideration of its object for a movement of the object itself,
which, being eternally the same, is simultaneously all that
which our thought can comprehend only in succession.
§ 3. Eeligious reflection analyzes the relation of God to
reality into Creation, Conservation, and Government, and we
will now make these three notions of divine working the
700 BOOK IX. CHAPTER V.
subject of a question as to tlie formal conditions of the relation
between God and the world wliich they indicate ; we do not
as yet touch upon the origin of the inventive thought by
which God has given content to that which He created, order
to that which exists, plan and direction to that which happens.
Creation cannot be an object of investigation in the sense
of our seeking to find the process by which it was brought
about ; such processes can take place only within a world that
already subsists, the constituents of which are capable of
action and of being combined in an orderly fashion so as to
produce results. But creation, regarded as having taken place,
establishes a permanent relation between creator and creature,
the meaning and religious worth of which it is the more
necessary for us to consider because it is not similarly under-
stood by all. Is reality a production of the divine will only ?
Or is it an act of God ? Or, finally, is it a non-voluntary
emanation of His nature ? In giving an affirmative answer to
the first of these questions, we receive only partial approbation
from religious feeling, which, especially in the present day,
seems more inclined to regard as an act of God that which it
intends to indicate by the notion of creation. For the soul
feels that it possesses the living God after which it longs
only when it is allowed to speak of a work of creation, in
which God, pervading every smallest part of existing reality
with His living nature, would in truth produce that which,
according to our view, would on occasion of His will arise as
it were spontaneously.
If a movement of our limbs seemed only to follow our
volition, we should almost cease to regard it as ours ; it would
be as foreign to our own being as now those further results
appear to be which our action brings forth in the external
world — they come from us, it is true, but we are no longer
present in them. But this is not the case ; on the contrary,
at the moment of movement we think that we directly feel
the transmission of active will into our limbs ; we think that
we directly feel even the smallest remission or increase of
Innsion which the will from moment to moment calls forth in
GOD AND THE WORLD. 701
the living members of the body ; and all this happens, not as
though at a distance from us, so as to be indirectly experienced
by us, but we believe that we are ourselves present at every
point at which these processes take place ; nay more, it seems
to us as though we plainly felt how our active force is
efficiently transmitted even to the foreign body which we
handle, and as it were pervades and restrains the non-Ego in
its own domain. It is this self-enjoyment of our own living
energy which the view that regards creation as an act refuses
to omit from the notion of God, and the worth of this religious
need may be recognised, although we must hold that this
mode of satisfying it is erroneous.
For a well-known psychological illusion has here misled
men into looking for the distinction between our action and
that which merely has its origin in us, in a place wliere it
cannot be. The feeling which accompanies ' our movements
is not a sense of volition in the full swing of an activity by
which it compels results, but is a perception of the effects of
volition after they have been produced in a fashion wholly
imperceptible to us. Our will does not really produce the
movement in the sense in which this view always holds that
it does ; but to every volition that arises, in as far as it is a
definite state of the soul, there is attached as an inevitable
consequence some definite movement in accordance with an
ordered connection of natural effects which is equally with-
drawn from our insight and our control. Whilst this move-
ment is taking place, or after it has taken place, we receive
from the changed condition of the limbs which it brings about,
or in which it consists, sensations of which this changed
condition is the cause, and which do indeed reveal to us that
which has taken place in us as a consequence of volition, but
not the slightest hint of the mode and fashion in which this
result has been brought about. That by which our act is
made our act and distinguished from that of which we are
merely the cause, does not consist in such an outgoing of the
active being beyocd the limits of its self that it still remains
itself in that foreign object ol iis energy mto which it flows
702 BOOK IX. CUAPTEB V.
with active efficacy ; all acts are consequences of volition,
inevitable consequences, and not requiring any special impulse
to realization, provided the volition itself is once definitely
present, and the way in which these consequences arise is
precisely similar to that in which arise the consequences of
other and non-voluntary mental conditions, or the incidental
consequences of volition directed to some other end. The
essential characteristic of an act is that it is the consequence
of a volition which willed it and nothing else, that it is not
the consequence of a feeling, or of an idea, or of any other
mental state except volition. The will may be prevented
from actually realizing its result ; but no one can contribute
more towards making the result of that volition his own act
than a steadfast and undistracted volition ; it belongs to us
only because we will it, and do not by divided willing put
liindrances in the way of the mechanism by means of which
it follows our volition as a necessary result ; but nowhere is
there any work of ours through which, by fresh activity on
our part, it is either necessary or possible for us to bring
about the result of our volition.
For a finite being work is the sum of all those intermediate
operations which it has to set in action because its will cannot
influence directly the foreign objects which it intends and
strives to modify ; but the finite being feels itself working to
the degree and extent to which the connection of natural
processes furnishes it with direct sensations of the conse-
quences of its action ; hence the movements of our own body
are the only part of the result which seem to us to be our
own work — those changes which we aim to produce in the
external world do not seem so, because we perceive them only
mediately as facts that have taken place, and are not made
aware of them as our act by an immediate feeling of effort. But
in this meaning of work there can be no work for God, for
His will does not find in the alien nature of the objects with
which He deals the same barrier as ours does ; but for the
same reason the self- enjoyment of His own vitality and energy
belonors to the Divine Beincr in boundless measure ; for stind-
GOD AND THE WORLD. 703^
irig in an ungraduated and equally intimate relation to all
parts of reality that either already exist or are coming into
existence, He will be directly conscious of every consequence
of His will as being what it is, and it is not conceivable that
any event proceeding from God's will should be for Him such
an alien development of something external, as the last
ramifications of a series of events which we initiate must
certainly be for us. Hence we may affirm in conclusion that
we do not attribute to God .any greater vitality by charac-
terizing His creation as work, for all work, in as far as it is
indirect action, belongs only to the finite ; the divine will does
not work out its result, but is that result ; we do not impute to
Him any greater vitality by describing creation as His act and
not as a simple consequence of His will, for such a distinction
does not exist, every act being but a consequence of volition ;
but if we drop all notion of mediating activity or of work, or
of action that goes out of itself, and regard as equivalent
divine volition and its consummation, then we can imagine
the living pervasion of the creature by the Creator and bound-
less enjoyment by the Deity of His own activity — -a self-
enjoyment which we finite beings can attain to only by the
roundabout path of that obliging psychological illusion to
which we referred.
If then we do not regard creation as an act, what is the
attitude which we take up towards the view which considers
it as an efflux of the divine nature, or in the more definite
form which alone can interest us, as an emanation of the
divine intelligence ? Has it been our intention to agree with
the view which regards the imagination of God as having
indeed designed and planned the possible content of the
universe, but as awaiting the realization of the same from
the will which is to summon into existence but one, and that
the best, of many possible worlds hovering in the realm
of potentiality ? On the contrary, we must characterize this
splitting up of the divine activity as also erroneous.
And above all things it would be not the will but the
insight of God which among many possible worlds should
704 BOOK IX. CHAPTER V.
discern the best ; not the choice but the realization of that
which was chosen, would be the work of the wilL But I fear
that for this work he only could specify a special content who
should seek reality in a wholly incomprehensible separation
of the world from God, whether as proceeding out from Him
or being established external to Him. If we drop this impos-
sible spatial image, how shall we distinguish those divine
thoughts which have been realized from those which hover
unrealized in the divine imagination ? How but after the
same fashion as that in which we distinguish our own ideas
of empty possibilities from perceptions of reality, and unful-
filled projects from efficient motives of our action ? All these
empty possibilities too are, real — as real as their nature {i.e.
the nature of their content) permits; they subsist as our
thoughts, as movements of our soul, and have all the influence
upon us of which their content, and the form of their existence
as our states, makes them capable. But it appears later that
regarded as motives of our action they would not be adequate
causes of a desirable result, and hence they do not become
efficient motives of our action ; or it appears that regarded as
perceptions they are not causes of those results in the phaeno-
menal world which we attributed to them, and hence we come
to regard them as illusions, not because they are nothing
whatever or are non-existent, but because they are without
effect in the system of things external to us. And it is in the
same way that we distinguish the unrealized from the realized
thoughts of God ; not by supposing that many possible worlds
hovered before Him and that His will realized one of them by
an act the content of which must remain altogether incapable
of being specified. For in being all equally possible they
all possessed reality already, and we could conceive nothing
else by which, as by a reality now starting up for the first
time, the elective will might be induced to prefer any one of
them to the rest. If we may speak of the subject after the
manner of men, then we would say that what remained
unrealized was clearly seen by God from the beginning in its
resultlessness, in its lack of such consistency as would have
GOD AND THE WOKLD. 705
made it possible for it to become the basis of progressive
cosmic order, and in its incapacity of combination with that
which God's will had determined as the content of creation.
In us finite beings there may be permanent illusions and
projects incapable of being carried into effect, to which we yet
continue to cling ; for the ends at which our action aims are
presented to us by the course of external circumstances so
that we have only an imperfect view of their advantages ;
our knowledge of reality is gained not by direct and penetrat-
ing insight into things but by interpretation of subjective
excitation. But it is not so with God ; and hence our
thoughts concerning His creative action must set out not from
the equal possibility of that which was uncreated, but from its
impossibility which was originally recognised by Him.
But this expression needs some correction and explana-
tion. Above all we cannot mean that the images of different
worlds were present to and known by God as being in them-
selves possible or impossible in the same way as many com-
binations of our ideas, which we, being conscious of the laws
of a real world independent of us, regard as being in
themselves impossible, or incapable of being carried out in
that world of reality. For God there was no reality within
which He had to realize His creation, nor laws which, prior to
Him, of themselves determined what was possible and what was
impossible. But when God thought and wUled the thought
of His world, He created also in it that logical order in virtue
of which it became possible that there should arise empty
images of other realities as incompatible with that world ; the
cause and ground upon which is founded a distinction of the
possible from the impossible and from the real, is subsequent
to the reality of the first real existences. And further, we do
not believe God to have drawn such a distinction between
these two realms of thought — that which was willed and that
which is alien thereto — as to induce Him to realize the
content of the first, and by withholding His realizing activity
to consign the second to the eternal nothingness of empty
thought — of thought which is mere thought ; it is, we repeat,
VOL. II. 2 Y
706 BOOK IX. CHAPTER V.
simply impossible to say in what the distinction between the
two could consist, if we consider this distinction to be estab-
lished by a divine act, and do not seek its significance in the
difference between that which has been and that which has
not been realized. Both are thoughts of God; but the
thoughts of the non-existent are thoughts which on account
of their content — of their own resultlessness, their incoherence
and the incapacity of development of their constituents — could
neither form worlds, nor enter into connection with those
thoughts of existing things which are connected and logically
consistent. Thus to the consciousness of God they appear as
unconnected with the world which He wills, of active inter-
ference with which their own content makes them incapable,
and to finite beings they appear as non-existent. For the
thought of such beings can indeed produce the empty images
of them, but it nowhere discovers a trace of their efficient
connection with that order of things which from the stand-
point of finite beings, is regarded as reality because it is the
thought of God in which they themselves have their place
and which influences them with all the fulness of its logical
consistency. And thus there arises for finite minds the
illusion that this reality (that is the active efficiency of real
things that results from their content) is due to an act by
which that is realized which is in itself merely possible — an
act that must always remain insusceptible of definition.
And now at last we need no longer fear that any one will
misunderstand us to such an extent as to suppose that we
have wished to represent the world as an emanation of the
divine intelligence and not as proceeding from His will. We
do not indeed use the expression product of His will because
we do not wish to call up afresh the already rejected thought
of a special act of realization. But yet we say that the world
was willed by God, and this expression we have already
frequently used provisionally. It is only for the finite being
that will is principally an impulse towards change, towards
the establishment of something which did not exist ; but the
real nature of will is only the approval by which the being
GOD AND THE WOELD. 707
tliat wills attributes to himself that which he wills, whether
it is something that is to be realized in the future, or some-
thing that exists in eternal reality. The objects upon which
a finite mind is occupied are brought to it in succession by a
cosmic order which is independent of it; and all the more
on this account does it seek its will in the mobility which
produces what was non-existent, changes or abolishes what
was existent, and demeans itself as independent towards those
occasions of its exercise which it cannot with equal independ-
ence bring about. And yet at last even for the human mind
that which is most important in will is to be found, not in this
mobility of the change-producing impulse, but in the approval
or disapproval with which the whole man wills or does not
will, accepts or rejects, himself. It is such an uniform and
unchanging will that we have regarded as connected with or
eternally based upon the divine thought of the world ; we
could not understand it as the mere conclusion of deliberations
carried on by unvolitional divine insight without unduly
assimilating the divine being to the image of a finite mind.
And it would not be impossible to show that intelligence
without will is as inconceivable as will without insight ; we
are withheld from setting about the proof here by remember-
ing the extent to which we have already penetrated into a
region where countless misunderstandings may attach to each
of the imperfect expressions which we are obliged to employ
in order to indicate in some way those extreme limits of
human ideation of which we are forced to take account.
§ 4. Conservation and governance in as far as they concern
Nature and the course of Nature have already frequently been
objects of our consideration (cf. supra, p. 130, and i. p. 446).
And it is only in so far that they belong to the task which
we have set before ourselves, and we never considered it part
of that task to exhaust the relation of God to the spiritual
universe, to the meaning, end, and destiny of all things. But
a single point in this wide world of thought induces us to
make an addition which is called for by what has gone before.
If the world were but a chain of mutually conditioning
708 BOOK IX. CHAPTER V.
events, if all the future were but a logical development of
the past, conservation and governance, without being beset by
any peculiar difficulties, would be but various expressions of
the divine creative activity. But religious faith finds such a
mechanism of the cosmic course neither correspondent to its
own need nor worthy of being the divine creation ; it assumes
that the freedom of finite beings introduces into the cosmic
course new beginnings of action, which, having once come into
being, proceed according to the universal laws of that course,
but have not in the past any compelling cause of their appear-
ance. Thus it is that conservation and governance come to have
a work to do. But how does this assumption agree with the
unconditionedness and perfection of God, how with His omni-
science which that perfection cannot lack, and which could
not subsist without foreknowledge of the future ? To attain
by inference to a knowledge of the future which has its causes
in the present is a prescience possible for us in a limited
degree and belonging to God to an unlimited extent; but
what can be the meaning of saying, as people do, that God
foreknows that which is to happen through freewill in the
future, not as something that must come, but as something
that will come ? If the future does not exist, how could this
non-existent (unless represented in the present by its causes
and thus Twt free) stand in any other relation to cognition than
that which never will be, and how therefore could it be
distinguished from the latter ?
It is certainly a somewhat strange proceeding when we
finite beings who are so often reminded of the limits of our
knowledge, ask questions concerning the possibility and con-
ditions of omniscience, and expect an answer to our questions.
We can foresee that we shall end with a postulate, of which
we cannot describe the fulfilment, satisfied if the reflections
from which we can start do not make that unknown fulfilment
appear as a dream that is altogether ridiculous.
It has been attempted to make the unconstrained freedom of
fresh beginnings compatible with omniscience by the assump-
tion that time is but a form of intuition under which the world
I
GOD AND THE WORLD. 709
appears to ns, but in which it does not exist. This inversion
of the ordinary view, however, cannot be so easily carried out
as the similar inversion with regard to space ; space could be
given up because without it there still remained to us a com-
plexly organized world of intellectual reality, clearly exempli-
fied in our own inner life ; but in order that any event should
appear in time, must we not presuppose that there is an actual
succession of its phases, or at least an actual temporal succes-
sion of ideas in us by which the merely apparent succession
of these phases would then be determined ?
Much may be said in answer to this natural objection
without invalidating it. It is true that empty time in which
events take place, or a current of empty time flowing on of
itself, could be neither a producing nor a determining condi-
tion of the course of events. The passing moments could not
bring reality with them, they could not choose what should
last or what should pass away, they could not determine the
place at which each event should enter into their current. It
is only through that position with regard to the whole which
every individual occupies in virtue of its significance, of its
being conditioned by one and having itself conditioning force
with reference to another, that the point of its entrance
into time and the length of its duration in time are deter-
mined. Now if this one essential of action — the direction
which it takes and the order into which it falls — lies only in
the conditioning bond of the content itself, as it is taking
place, empty time is just as little capable of producing from
this timeless connection the movement and succession of
action. Any given extent of empty time is exactly the same
at the end as at the beginning of its course ; however great or
however small we may imagine it, nothing occurs in conse-
quence of its lapse through which there could be produced a
condition of or necessity for the appearance of any event of
which the cause already subsists, more adequate or more
constraining than that cause and that condition respectively
were at the beginning of this vain expenditure of time. If
the causes which then subsisted were not capable of effecting
710 BOOK IX. CHAPTER V.
the realization of the event in question, then no lapse of time
of whatever length would be sufficient to supply this lacking
motive force. Such reflections favour the attempt to seek
true reality only in the conditioning force which every
event exercises upon its own result, regarding time, which
appears to our imagination as the unending form in which
this order is embraced, as a mere form of conception in which,
for us only, is spread out the timeless connection of the
cosmic content. And it is possible, up to a certain point, to
give clearness even to this unusual mode of thought. In
themselves, past, present, and future are not different as far as
time is concerned, but simultaneous — if we can allow that this
phrase, incorrect in itself, is intelligible ; in this whole of
reality nothing passes away ; but the whole is a whole of
members which condition one another, and is comparable to a
system of truths of which the simplest condition all the rest,
and (to make use here of a natural figure) precede them not
in time but in importance ; not only does the series of conse-
quences proceed in a straight course from them, but also all
the propositions which depend in equal degree upon those
principles, appear as co-ordinate, simultaneous, and of equal
value. Eeality, as we know, is no system of truths, and we
must allow for the inadequacy of the comparison ; but it is so
organized by means of relations of reciprocal conditionings
that each of its parts presupposes immeasurable series of
causes, draws after it an equally immeasurable series of results,
and finds itself at the same distance as countless other
members, from the first causes, or from any given member of
the whole. It is this organization which is intuited by
cognition in temporal succession ; the condition precedes that
which it conditions, the latter follows, the causes and results
which are most closely connected are in immediate juxta-
position, the more distant results are divided from their
immediate cause by a space of time which is filled up by
the successive intermediate links which connect it with that
cause. And it is not to a cognizing mind, standing without
and regarding it as some alien mechanism, that this organiza*
GOP AND THE WORLD. ^11
tion appears thus ; all finite beings are themselves members of
this series, and to each, in its due place in the series, the
assumptions which it involves, as far as it knows them, appear
to be past, its consequences, as far as it is certain of them, to
be future ; and for the rest, the whole of its unknown causes
and of its incalculable effects appear as an endless past and
an endless future.
This view admits of development so far, and is right as far
as regards the order and connection of the events as they take
place ; but if it denies with cogent arguments the existence
of unending empty time, which even according to our natural
way of thinking is never held to exist thus, but is regarded
as unceasingly passing away and then again coming into
being, it cannot by any ingenious torture of thought really
avoid that unceasing ebb and flow, the temporal succession of
events. It is indeed true that it does not fail because the
idea of that which we think as earlier must precede in time
our idea of that which we think as later ; on the contrary, it
is only a consciousness that comprehends both in one wholly
indivisible act, that is in a position to compare them and to
assign them their different places in the apparent extension of
time ; but even these indivisible acts are repeated and follow
one another. Any finite being placed at some particular
spot in a timeless system would always necessarily see as its
future some one special content whether clear or obscure,
and some other as its past; life which makes the former
more and more clear and the latter gradually more and more
faint, is not conceivable without a real stream of occurrence
which carries consciousness past the content of the world, or
the content of the world past consciousness, or lets both change
together.
But this necessary recognition of the course of time is
connected in us with a strong feeling that the recognition
cannot contain any final utterance on the subject. We are
very ready to declare that what is gone is gone for ever —
but are we fully conscious of all that this declaration implies ?
Is all the wealth of the past wholly non-existent ? Is it
712 BOOK IX. CHAPTER V.
^ entirely broken off from all connection with the world, and not
in any way whatever preserved as part of it ? And is cosmic
history nothing but the infinitely narrow and incessantly
changing streak of light which we call the present, glimmering
between the obscurity of a past which is done with and is no
longer anything, and the obscurity of a future which is also
nothing ? In expressing these questions thus, I follow that
turn of thought which seeks to modify the monstrousness of
their content. For these two abysses of obscurity, however
empty and formless, are yet supposed to exist, and to con-
stitute an environment of which the unknown interior offers
a kind of dwelling-place for the non-existent — a place into
which it has disappeared or whence it comes. But if one
tries to do without even these images and not even to imagine
the emptiness which bounds existence in both directions, one
will find how impossible it is to do with the naked contrast
of existence and non-existence, and how ineradicable is men's
desire to be able to regard even the non-existent as being in
some wonderful way a constituent of reality. Hence we
speak of the distant future and the distant past, this spatial
image satisfying the need we feel of not letting aught of that
which does not belong to the present escape from the greater
whole of reality.
Unable as we are to specify how the lapse of time comes
about, and how the condition of any given moment passes
from existence into non-existence, in order to make room for
the condition of the succeeding moment, we are equally
unable to say how on the other hand there comes to pass
this comprehension in a contemporary or supratemporal
leality, of that which is ever flowing on. But accustomed to
find the world more wide and rich than thought which tries
to follow its marvellous structure, I entertain no doubt as to
the fulfilment of this postulate, of which indeed we can only
Bpeak in a limited human fashion. There does not exist for
God the condition which binds us to one definite spot in the
universe, making it possible to refer to this region of our
immediate experience — our present — as past or future every-
GOD AND THE WOELD. 713
tiling that is or happens external to us ; God Himself being
not a member of this whole but its all-embracing essence is
as near to any one part of this reality as to any other, and
although there lie open to His all-penetrating knowledge those
inner relations by which this whole would be systematized
into temporal order, yet for Him no particular point has
exclusively the specific worth of the present ; for God, this
belongs to the infinite whole.
And finally — to return to the point which gave rise to
these reflections — free actions also find their place in this
timeless reality ; not as non-existent and future, but as
existent. For although not conditioned by the past, they
would be unmeaning unless they had reference to present
occasions which furnish the ends at which they aim, and
unless they attained reality by producing results. Hence
their place in this timeless existence is determined not by
members which preceded them as conditions, but by members
which succeed them as conditioned, or are co-ordinate with
them; hence omniscience need not foresee free action as
something that will be, but can observe it as something real,
which, regarded as a temporal phaenomenon, has its place at
some definite point in the future.
§ 5. We have already (cf. i., p. 384) so unreservedly
acknowledged that it is impossible to derive from anything else
the inventive thought from which spring the forms of natural
reality and also (as we may now add) those of the historical
course of the world, that we need not now venture on any
fresh attempt in this direction. But as far as we are con-
cerned, one of the motives which generally urge men to such
efforts has become inefficacious. We no longer hold that a
realm of eternal truths, of formal necessities, of abstract
outlines of all later reality, is absolutely prior to all else in
the Divine Being in such a way that the rich and varied
forms of reality when compared to it must appear as some-
thing wholly new, as sonie spontaneous action which, showing
itself under forms that we cannot calculate beforehand, submits
to this alien Being. The eternal truths are for us onlv the
714 BOOK IX. CHAPTEK V.
modes in which creation itself proceeds ; they subsist not
before it but after it as laws to which the products of creative
activity appear subject. And at this point we must go
back to a more exact determination which in what precedes
we let drop for the sake of clearness. Properly speaking,
neither a law nor the sum of eternal truths can be accepted
as the direct mode of procedure of any power ; for truths and
laws determine only the reciprocal behaviour of the various
manifestations of any force, but they do not give the very
content that can be broken up into these various manifesta-
tions. Hence if we cannot derive from universal necessary
truths the reason why this particular reality arid no other
subsists, we have also to remark that it is no longer any part
of our task to make such an attempt — that direction of the
eternal power which led to the existing world of forms is the
original first and only reality, and whilst it acts or when it
has acted it appears to thought (which itself is included in it
as its product) from the double point of view of living
creation in a definite direction, and of an activity which in its
procedure follows universal laws ; and it is then that for the
first time occasion is given to thought to dream of other
directions of that creative activity which do not exist, and the
possibility of merely thinking which depends upon the reality
of the direction which does exist and of the inner order of the
creative force that works in it.
But this consideration does not furnish us with a com-
plete conclusion. Even upon the assumption that we are
only concerned with a natural cosmic order, and are not
called upon to give any account of worth and goodness, it
would still only be satisfactory if it could be shown how from
the content which the creative force strives to realize, the
sum of the eternal truths results, as an abstraction which
separates that which is universal in the self-evident pro-
cedure of the force that produces all the parts of this very
content itself. There is no hope of any such achievement.
Stress may with justice be laid upon a difficulty which would
make it impossible for us, even if the connection to be
I
GOD AND THE WOELD. 715
pointed out did actually subsist — it is ouly a very small
part of reality, only Nature as terrestrial that we know ; we
do not know the forms of existence and action which sub-
sist elsewhere, or the connection between these and our own
sphere of experience ; hence we are quite unable to com-
prehend the tendency of creative force, the inventive and
formative thought which it obeys, in one notion which should
characterize it completely, exhaustively, and impartially ; hence
it is impossible for us, from the fragmentary view of the
connection and meaning of Nature, which is all that has been
accorded to us, to deduce the universal laws of its procedure
as they might be gathered from the complete content of the
creative Idea as an abstract expression of its action, by any
one who knew that content. I do not doubt that such an
all-embracing knowledge of Nature as a whole would oblige
us to give up a number of our ordinary • points of view,
would cause many perplexities to disappear, and would
wholly transform many difficulties ; but I need not under-
take the perplexing inquiry whether it really would do
what is expected of it, and make possible the achievement
referred to, for I have a conviction (which I trust the reader
shares) that just this boundless insight into Nature would
show the invalidity of the assumption with which we set
out ; it would appear that there is not working in the world
any bare formative force, but that the inventive thought
which determines cosmic forms is indissolubly connected with
the realm of Worth and Good. The lesser question. How are
the universal laws connected with the formative thought ? is
absorbed into the more important one, In what connection
do both stand to that which has eternal worth ?
Eeligious faith is accustomed to consider some supreme
good as the guiding end, free creative divine imagination as
the means by which the end is reahzed, eternal truth as the
law according to which this imagination and its products
work. Now if we beheld in the world unequivocal and
thoroughgoing harmony between these three principles, the
attempt to combine them might be regarded as practicable.
716 BOOK IX. CHAPTER V.
Creative imagination indeed could never properly be derived
from the Supreme Good ; for no end, regarded abstractly and
in isolation, determines more than certain general require-
ments which seem capable of being fulfilled by various
means ; and just as little could laws be derived from the
direction taken by that imagination. But it might perhaps
be shown that just as the power is not conceivable in itself
but only as acting in some definite direction, so also Good,
thought in its universality, is but an abstraction from some
definite existing good, which would not be opposed to the
coming reality as a formless end, the mode of carrying it out
being as yet undetermined ; but would be directly identical
with that which we called the direction of the creative im-
agination. And then there would be only one thing : only
the one real power appearing to us under a threefold image
of an end to be realized — namely, first some definite and
desired Good, then on account of the definiteness of this, a
formed and developing Eeality, and finally in this activity an
unvarying reign of Law.
Before giving to this view, which is a confession of my
philosophic faith, the furthest elucidation which I am able
to give, I would lay stress upon the decisive and altogether
insurmountable difficulty which stands in the way of its
being carried out scientifically — that is, upon the existence ot
evil and of sin in Nature and in History. It would be quite
useless to analyse the various attempts that have been made
to solve this problem. No one has here found the thought
which would save us from our difficulty, and I too know it
not. It may be said that evil appears only in particulars,
and that when we take a comprehensive view of the great
whole it disappears ; but of what use is a consolation the
power of which depends upon the arrangement of clauses in
a sentence ? For what becomes of our consolation if we
convert the sentence which contains it thus — The world is
indeed harmonious as a whole, but if we look nearer it is
full of misery ? — He who justifies evil as a means of divine
education, ignores the suffering of the inferior animals and
I
GOD AND THE WOELD. 717
all the incomprehensible stunting of the life of Mind which
^ye see in history, and limits the omnipotence of God ; for
evil is only used as a means of education because there is no
other means. And finally, we are not satisfied even if this
limitation is admitted not secretly but openly as by Leibnitz,
who in every case of irreconcilable difference between the
omnipotence of God and His goodness, believed himself bound
to decide for the latter, and to explain evil by reference to the
limits imposed by the primeval necessity of the eternal truths
even upon the free creative activity of God. For of all im-
aginable assertions the most indemonstrable is that the evil
of the world is due to the validity of eternal truth ; on the
contrary, to any unprejudiced view of Nature it appears to
depend upon the definite arrangements of reality, beside which
other arrangements are thinkable, also based upon the same
eternal truth. If there were retained the separation (which,
however, we do not admit) between necessary laws and the
creative activity of God, in our view evil would undoubtedly
belong not to that which must be, but to that which is freely
created. Let us therefore alter a little the canon of Leibnitz,
and say that where there appears to be an irreconcilable
contradiction between the omnipotence and the goodness of
God, there our finite wisdom has come to the end of its tether,
and that we do not understand the solution which yet we
believe in.
§ 6. I was no doubt wrong when I first offered these
reflections to the courtesy of my readers, in passing over this
gap in our philosophic theory, which cannot be filled, with
words which though they seemed to me emphatic enough were
yet but brief. What moves me to the following remarks
is not the hope of now filling up the gap, but the wish that
no doubt should remain as to the meaning and end of all
the reflections in which the reader has hitherto been so
obliging as to accompany me. I have never cherished an
assurance that speculation possesses secret means of going
back to the beginning of all reality, of looking on at its
genesis and growth, and of determining beforehand the
718 BOOK IX. CHAPTER V.
necessary direction of its movement ; it seems to me that
philosophy is the endeavour of the human mind, after this
wonderful world has come into existence and we in it, to
work its way back in thought and bring the facts of outer
and of inner experience into connection, as far as our present
position in the world allows. I acknowledge my steadfast
adherence to the old-fashioned conviction, that not only is
our scientific knowledge but fragmentary, but that also there
are ways to lead us to fuller light which are as yet hidden
from us ; the task of our philosophy is not vast and cosmic
but modest and terrestrial — it has to construct the image of
the world as projected on the plane surface of our mundane
existence. I might work out this simile, and appeal to the
fuller dimensions of true reality in which may be reconciled
supreme goodness and the existence of evil, which in our
view must always conflict ; but all that I should accomplish
mth such a juggle of words would be to veil the admission
which we must frankly make, that we cannot even imagine
the direction in which the unknown conciliation of the differ-
ence is to be sought.
If I still hold fast my confidence in the existence of a
solution which we do not know, what I wish to give
expression to is not a didactic affirmation to be bolstered up by
some kind of speculative support, but only the watchword of
a struggle in which I desire that my readers should participate
— a struggle against the confidence of views which impoverish
faith without enriching knowledge. But to regard the course
of the world as the development of some blind force which
works on according to universal laws, devoid of insight and
freedom, devoid of interest in good and evil — are we to con-
sider this unjustifiable generalization of a conception valid in
its own sphere, as the higher truth ? Is it not rather the
unsatisfying conclusion to which weary thought may come
back at any moment, if it gives up its unattainable but not
the less certain goal ? But as to all that is good and
beautiful and holy — will the arising of this light out of the
darkness of blind development be really more intelligible
I
GOD AND THE WORID. 719
tlian is, for us, the shadow of evil in the world which we
believe to be cast by that light ?
§ 7. If we go back to the facts which cause us to form the
notions of Good and good things, we find that our con-
science approves and enjoins definite kinds of disposition
and volition — what are thus approved we call good ; we
find further that certain objects and their impressions upon
us are felt by us to be helpful and agreeable — as being
thus helpful they are called good when they correspond to
some permanent and general need of our nature, but useful
in as far as they are conducive to some isolated end, the
importance of which as regards our whole destiny is left
undetermined. Conscience and feeling by their indemon-
strable but irreversible declarations directly assign these
values to very various objects ; but on the other hand, the
similarity of the declarations urges us to seek in these
various objects similarity of the grounds upon which those
declarations have been made concerning them. This path of
abstraction leads us to find by comparison of individuals the
invariable condition in virtue of which any content is good,
useful, or beautiful. But the end of this path may be
conceived in two different ways. Either there appears as
such a condition only a universal formal relation which has
reality not in this universality, but only in any one of the
individual forms from which it was abstracted ; or a hope is
entertained of reaching some universal which actually exists
in such universality, and in fact is that which it indicates as
a quality in the individual real thing.
With regard to what is useful and what is agreeable, we
all think that we are in the first case, and the scientific
instinct of our time does not, like that of antiquity, seek
what is useful in itself or what is agreeable in itself. We are
content if we can find general notions of both, which are not
in themselves that which they denote in other things. For
as in general no notion is that which it connotes — as the
notion of red is not red, and the notion of sweet is not sweet
— so also the contents of the general notions of what is
720 BOOK IX. CHAPTER V.
useful and of what is agreeable are not themselves agreeable
and useful, but they are conditions under which agreeableness
or usefulness appear as predicates of something else, that is of
the individual real thing which fulfils these conditions. On
the other hand, Beauty-in-itself and Good-in-itself are still
goals and even starting-points of manifold speculations. In
these two cases men seek to find in the universal not only
conditions under which something other than the universal
itself, something fulfilling the conditions, is beautiful or good,
but also seek to find something which is in itself the goodness
or beauty which we originally know only as a quality in the
individual. I leave beauty to the reflection of the reader, and
only pursue the question whether and how the peculiar
nature of what is good makes it possible to carry out in its
case the task which is not, in all cases, practicable.
Actions are not good simply as events that occur, nor their
results simply as facts that have been established — it is only
the will from which the actions proceed that is good. And
the will itself is regarded as good not as a mere impulse to
execution, but as the outflow of a frame of mind which is not
simply knowledge of a command but also agreement with it,
and this agreement is not — like the obedience of any natural
force to the law which it follows — a mere factual agreement,
but is a case of compliance where non-compliance was possible.
And it must be not simply a possibility of disobedience which
is perceived, but the disobedience, by its own worth, which it
opposes to the worth of the command, must withstand the
tendency of the will to compliance. But worth can exist
only for a sensitive subject ; whatever may proceed from an
intelligence that feels neither pain nor pleasure and from a
will guided thereby, no moral judgment could be passed upon
it. And finally, we should not even call good the frame of
mind of him who, by a choice involving no sacrifice, should
simply prefer the worth which is greater, both objectively and
to him, to the worth which is lesser ; on the contrary, that
which for the feeling mind is the nearest and most urgent
worth, must be sacrificed to some other worth, which to it, as
i
GOD AND THE WORLD* 721
feeling, is not greater — the welfare of self must be sacrificed
to the content of a recognised command.
rrora this point our path diverges from that of the popular
view with which hitherto in this hasty recapitulation of
familiar points of view it has coincided. For as we long
since acknowledged, we do not agree with those who seek
this higher worth in an Idea of the Good which requires men
to strive after some formal relation of wills to one another, or
the realization of some particular condition of things as a
directly binding duty or as the Supreme Good. No relation
however profound between conditions and events which
merely occur without their harmony being enjoyed by any
one, is a good in itself, and no will is good because, being
conscious of the complete unfruitfulness of such relations,
it yet devotes itself to establishing them. If any heart
postpones its own good to some other good, this other can
only be found in the happiness of some one else, and the
sacrifice is good only because it is made on this account.
Good and good things do not exist as such independent of
the feeling, willing, and knowing mind ; they have reality
only as living movements of such a mind. What is good
in itself is some felt bliss ; what we call good things are
means to this good but are not themselves this good until
they have been transformed into enjoyment ; the only thing
that is really good is that Living Love that wills the blessed-
ness of others. And it is just this that is the Good-in-itsdf
for which we are seeking ; this, having reality as a movement
of the whole living mind which feels, wills, and knows itself, is
just on that account not merely a formal general condition the
fulfilment of which by any other thing would entitle that other
to the appellation of good, without the condition itself being
good ; but this it is which alone in the true sense has or is
this worth, and all else — resolves, sentiments, actions, and
special directions of the will — all these share with it only
derivatively the one name of good. We finite beings,
included in a world the plan of which is not revealed to us,
cannot allow benevolent love to act unregulated, in the hope
VOL. i;. 2 z
722 BOOK IX. CHAPTER V.
that however it may be directed by our defective foresight,
it will lead to the good at which it aims ; our conscience
holds up before us in a number of moral commands the
general laws under the guidance of which our action, however
variously caused, is sure of taking the right path — but there
is not set before the Divine Being in like manner a Good-in-
itself that takes the form of a command valid even for Him.
JSTo kind of unsubstantial unrealized and yet eternally valid
necessity, neither a realm of truth nor a realm of worth is
prior as the initial reality ; but that reality which is Living
Love unfolds itself in one movement, which for finite
cognition appears in the three aspects of the good which
is its end, the constructive impulse by which this is realized,
and the conformity to law with which this impulse keeps in
the path that leads towards its end.
In returning for the last time to this thought, which, from the
beginning of these concluding considerations, has been hovering
before us, I would recall the confession of its scientific impracti-
cability made at the commencement of this Book (supra, p. 5 7 2
seq). This limitation of our capacity has in a general way
been confirmed by numerous attempts, which we cannot but
respect, and which in individual cases have borne much
fair fruit, in clearing up and establishing our vague con-
victions. Christian ethics would be likely to succeed best
in exhibiting particular moral Ideas as the various forms
which active Love must prescribe to itself. It would be
able to show that all the sterner and apparently more
exalted forms of morality which distinguished the heathen
heroism that " scorned delights," are yet nothing compared to
the gentleness of Love, and nothing unless they have their root
in it ; that all the commands which, in a scientific point of
view, particularly attract our attention, by the definiteness of
their content and the ease with which they may be drawn
out into a series of sharply defined maxims, are nothing
more than a mechanism devised for its own development by
the principle of Love, which seems comparatively formless and,
as it were, merely potential. On the other hand, the attempts
GOD AND THE WORLD. 723'
to explain existing reality from the same principle will always
be far less convincing. In the first place, not one of them, in
trying to express its meaning, has in its description of the
tasks and the needs of that Everlasting Love which is regarded
as the source of the universe, been able to avoid such an
extended use of analogies drawn from the life of the human
sold, as must necessarily displease scientific instinct. We cannot
otherwise than unwillingly see the core of our conviction, of
which in its simplicity we are sure, developed into a system, if
this has to illustrate the origin of things by ideas the meaning
of which only becomes clear through references to connec-
tions occurring much later in the course of the world which
we are explaining, and to reduce the figurative expression of
which to its real significance (which in this case is admissible)
would be an almost interminable task. This general insecurity
is intensified by the frequent endeavour to immediately derive
particular forms of reality from particular impulses which are
supposed to be discovered in the nature of the Supreme Prin-
ciple. Whatever the world may be in which Creative Love
manifests itself, that world is undoubtedly devised as a whole
by that Love ; from the whole of the ideal picture which
Creative Love sets before itself, Nature and History as wholes
have their task as a whole assigned to them, and carry it out
by means of a connected system adapted to its realization.
The labour of deduction would have to be directed in the first
place to developing the existence of an universal mechanism
in the procedure of all things from the notion of Supreme Love,
and then to developing from the total content of that which
this Love designs, that definite form of the mechanism which
is adequate to the production of all reality, with steady order
and unvarying fidelity. The fulfilment of this task, as we
have already noticed, can hardly be carried out in the form
of an unbroken deduction, starting from the principle itself —
it will be possible only in more modest measure, as an explana-
tion, by reference to the principle, of actually existing facts.
For we do not possess either of Nature or of History such
complete knowledge as would enable us to guess the whole of
724 BOOK IX. CHAPTER V.
the divine plan of the universe ; the attempts that have been
made to determine this from meagre earthly experience betray
only too plainly the unfavourable nature of onr standpoint,
■which, with all the one-sidedness of its limited outlook, wishes
to be taken for that topmost summit, from which the whole
world may plainly be seen spread out below. This lack of a
commanding view is the reason why those attempts so often
err in estimating the reality of their particular objects ; they
present as the immediate ends of the creative Idea that which
even an empirical knowledge of things regards as only a very
incidental consequence of general laws, and thus they fall into
permanent disagreement with physical science, which in its
own less lofty region, rules with an incomparably superior
exercise of exact knowledge.
But it is not only the different moral Ideas and the forms
of reality that would have to be explained from the same
source of Eternal Love — the eternal truths also, the sum of
that which, as it seems to us, we must necessarily think, and
which could not be otherwise, must be similarly explained,
[f the scientific solution of this task appeared to me possible,
I would employ all my powers in trying to carry it out ; for
only thus could 1 furnish a complete justification of my belief
that the sphere of mechanism is unbounded, but its signifi-
cance everywhere subordinate. I should have to show that
the fact that truth exists at all cannot be understood by itself,
and is only comprehensible in a world of which the whole
nature depends upon the principle of Good that we learnt to
know in Living Love itself ; and no less should I have to point
out specially how it is but of the nature of this Love, and,
as it were, its primary work, to establish an universal order
and regularity, within which various individuals, comparable
in kind, could be brought into a connection of reciprocal
action. If this eternal sacredness and supreme worth of Love
were not at the foundation of the world, and if in such a case
there could be a world of which we could think and speak,
this world, it seems to me, would, whatever it were, be left
without truth and order. I sliould further have to call to
GOD AND THE WORLD. 725
remembrance that the strongest pillar of all truth, the Law of
Identity, of which we were conscious as a sheet-anchor amid
the complications of those contradictory phsenomena of reality
wliich we have just been considering, might easily appear to
us as a truth that prevails of its own power and uncaused;
but that even its own content is but the formal reflection of
that significant trueness to itself, the immediate connection of
which with the supreme worth of Goodness we are again
strongly conscious of, when we assume the eternal identity of
God with Himself not merely as a logical perfection of the
notion of God, but also as an ethical perfection of His nature.
I should then have to show what is meant by saying that
there is something which we call adequate cause, and causal
connection ; however impossible it may seem to us that either
of these should have been other than absolutely primary, we
are yet just as directly conscious that a world would be
unmeaning in which one thing sliould be established or pro-
duced by another merely in order that things should be or
should happen after this fashion. If the natures of things are
such that two can join in any way so as to become the
adequate cause of some third, this marvel is to me intelligible
only in a world in which what is aimed at is not mere
occurrence of some kind, but deeds that are to have results,
and the freedom of which presupposes an universal reign of
law as well as fruitfulness in the production of new results in
the world of things, results which furnish this freedom with
aims and objects of its endeavour. From this consideration
of the metaphysical principles of all our cognition, we should
have to go on to mathematical truths and their validity in the
world of reality. We would not indeed commit the solecism
of trying to deduce mathematical propositions from other
principles than the fundamental ideas of mathemdtics itself;
but of those fundamental ideas — the ideas of magnitude,
recurrence, equality, unity, plurality, addibility, divisibility —
we should have to show that the fact of their thinkableness is
not a bare and uncaused fact, but an essential presupposition
of that order which the Good as Supreme Principle imposes
726 BOOK IX. CHAPTER 7.
on the world, and which another principle (to express the
empty thought for clearness' sake) would not have imposed
upon it in a similar fashion We should have to refer to the
dominion of mathematical truth over reality, and to show as
regards it that it is only in a period of as yet imperfect
elaboration of mechanical science that the regularity of Nature
seems to be of an unique kind, recognisable only by means of
the magical rules of an arithmetic abounding in formulae, and
not capable of being reduced to simple ideas ; the further
mechanics progresses, the more do we see its most general
results revert to the form of propositions, the easily under-
stood sense of which (pointing out everywhere what is most
simple and rational as the law of action) may be expressed in
notions, and needs a mathematical dress only in order that the
signification of these notions may be made susceptible of those
precise determinations of magnitude which they require in appli-
cation to the concrete. And so the time may come in which
these simplified propositions of all mechanics will become
more directly connected with the Supreme Principle, and will
admit of being interpreted as the last formal offshoots of that
Good which is the beginning and the end of the whole universe.
Much might yet be said upon this subject ; but I will not
part from the reader with a profession of holding back some
important knowledge concerning these questions. On the
contrary, any further development that we might seek to give
to these thoughts would not satisfy us, but in its inevitable
incompleteness would be open to the reproach of being mere
sentimental trifling. I participate fully in the scientific
instinct whence this reproach would spring ; and since every-
where in these discussions I have contented myself with an
explanation of those intelligible principles which may be of
use in the examination of our doubts, and on the other hand
have never entered upon those vast regions which hitherto
have been filled only by the vague imaginings of poetic fancy,
it may here be sufficient to express once more my faith in a
goal from attaining which we are held back by a chasm which
it seems impossible to fill up.
GOD AND THE WORLD. *!2T
•
§ 8. It is but seldom that after a long journey we have
the satisfaction of being able to say to ourselves that we
have not passed by any eminence which promised a good out-
look, and have examined all the best points of view, and that
we have never, through lingering in any one spot longer than
was fitting, on account of some insignificant attraction, neglected
to seek out any more important prospect obtainable from a
neighbouring point. And still less shall we succeed in
grouping together the manifold moods and thoughts which
arose in us by the way, into one simple memory-picture
without giving up much which in the brightness of its living
individuality attracted and enchained us. Such self-reproaches
and such difficulty do I feel in parting from a work of which
I desire to express yet once more the essential meaning,
unburdened by the special explanations which I have under^
taken in it. It would be vain to attempt this in any other
way than by emphasizing once again the scientific attitude
which has guided and been at the foundation of the whole —
on the one hand a struggle against veneration of mere empty
forms, and over-estimation of what is but presupposition or
result, means or mode of manifestation, of that which is truly
worthy and living and real; and connected with this the
struggle against all fanaticism which would like to see the
Supreme Good active in some other way than that which it
has itself chosen, or which believes that Good to be attainable
by some shorter path than the roundabout way of formal
orderliness which it has itself entered upon.
From this attitude arose our respect for the scientific worth
of mechanical investigation in Nature and History, and from
it likewise our obstinate refusal to see in all mechanism any-
thing more than that form of procedure — susceptible of
isolation in thought — which is given by the Highest Eeality
to the living development of its content, which content can
never be exliaustively expressed by this form alone. And
this struggle has been not only against materialistic views, but
also and equally against that Idealism which imagines itself
to be fishtinjj against them for the right. It seemed to us
728 BOOK IX. CHAPTER V.
wholly indifferent whether the most essential core of reality
from which all else is to proceed as a matter-of-course
accessory should be sought in soulless atoms, blind forces, and
mathematical laws of action, or in necessary notions of any
kind, in relative or absolute Ideas, and the jugglery of their
dialectic movements. All these views uniformly degrade
Nature and History by making them representations of some-
thing absolutely indifferent and worthless, the presence of
which in the world of thought is only comprehensible when
it is thought as the final formal reflection of the living mind
and its living activity.
And as in knowledge so it seemed to us in life also to be
the sum and substance of wisdom neither to neglect what is
small nor to give it out as great; to be enthusiastic only for
that v/hich is great, but to be faithful even in the least. We
agreed neither with endeavours to arrange human relations
in accordance with ingenious suggestions, without regard for
the universal mental mechanism by which Eight is realized,
nor with schemes which having stiffened into rigidity in
the service of this mechanism can further nothing but the
establishment of orderly conditions. It seemed to us that
everywhere the universal was inferior as compared with the
particular, the class as compared with the individual, any
state of things insignificant as compared with the good
arising from its enjoyment. For the universal, the class, and
the state of things, belong to the mechanism into which
the Supreme articulates itself; the true reality that is and
ought to be, is not matter and is still less Idea, but is the
living personal Spirit of God and the world of personal
spirits which He has created. They only are the place in
which Good and good things exist ; to them alone does there
appear an extended material world, by the forms and move-
ments of which the thought of the cosmic whole makes itself
intelligible through intuition to every finite mind.
It may be thought that our conclusion is fanatically enthu-
siastic; still we would repeat here an avowal that we have made
before — the avowal that when we view the world as a whole
I
GOD AND THE WORLD. 729
we see everywhere wonders and poetry, that it is only limited
and one-sided apprehension of particular departments of the
finite that are prose. But to this we would add that it is the
business of men not to take the name of these wonders and
this poetry in vain, and to revel in continual contemplation
of them, but above all things to cultivate that more modest
realm of scientific knowledge which is able not indeed to lead
us into the promised land, but to keep us from wandering too
far out of the road that leads to it.
INDEX
Aboeigines, displacement of, by set- Aristocracies and priesthoods, develop-
tlers, ii. 248, 249
Absolute becoming, conception of, i.
551.
Absolute natural riglit and historic
and legitimate right, contrast be-
tween, ii. 532.
Absolutism, mediaeval, ii. 529, 530,
532.
Acclimatization, i. 480.
Act, essential characteristic of an, ii.
702.
Action and reaction, problem of science
in investigating, i. 279 ; adapted to
ends, i. 413, 414 ; and reaction of
simple beings, i. 434, 435 ; man's
impulse to, i. 659 seq.
jEschylus, ii. 372.
Esthetic judgment, i. 582 ; its con-
nection Avith bodily organs, i. 324.
Affirmation and positing, ii. 582 seq.
Agent and patient, part of, in causation,
i. 145, 146, 186, 200, 279, 281, 293,
349, 350, 365.
Ahriman, ii. 459.
Albumen, i. 93.
Alexander the Great, ii. 263, 410.
Alternation of generation, ii. 140.
A.merica, discovery of, ii. 285.
Anaxagoras, ii. 316.
Andromache, ii. 372.
Animal body, structure of the, i. 99
seq.
Animal forms, i. 459 seq. ; structure,
chemical type of, i, 462 ; structure,
economic type of, i. 462 ; structure,
morphological type of, i. 463.
Animals, bodily size and strength of,
1. 470.
Animal-worship, and belief in trans-
migration of souls, ii. 455.
Animation of matter involves unreality
of extension, i, 354 ; of the whole
world, i. 2 seq., 360, 394, 398.
Anselm, ii. 670.
Anthropomorphism, ii. 129.
Aphasia, i. 331, 332, 611.
Appearance (phsenomenon, Erschei-
nung), i. 157.
Aiabs, the, ii. 248.
ment of, ii. 249, 250.
Aristocratic constitution, ii. 559.
Aristotle, ii. 314, 327, 329, 332, S40,
344, 373, 374; philosophy of, ii.
330 seq.
Artificial kind (Spielart), or variety,
i. 522-524.
Artistic activity, i. 583, 584.
Aryans, migrations of, ii. 256.
Ashantee, blacks of, i. 518.
Asiatic nomads, ii. 247.
Assassins, ii. 59.
Association, laws of, i. 215, 222, 232.
Astronomical and geological theories,
ii. 141, 142, 448, 449.
Atavism, i. 501.
Athens, ii. 510, 517.
Atomists, i. 427-432, 341.
Atoms, i. 31, 34, 36, 347 ; unextended,
hj'pothesis of, i, 360.
AurapKUX, ii. 375.
Birds, singing of, i. 607.
Biton, ii. 464.
Blood, circulation of the, i. 106 seq.
Blumenbach, i. 516.
Body and soul, bond between, i. 273
seq. ; reciprocal action between, i.
316 seq. ; contrast between, retained,
i. 364 seq. ; relation between, i. 366
seq.
Bolotuh, island of, ii. 234.
Brahmanism, ii. 458, 459.
Brain, in what sense an organ of
intelligence, emotion, volition, L
342.
Brain substance, i. 94.
Brutes, instinctive expectation of,
235.
Buddhism, ii. 458, 459.
Cannibalism, ii. 57 seq.
Carbo-hydrates, i. 93 seq.
Carbon, i. 92 seq.
Carbonic acid, i. 95.
Caste, ii. 250.
Caucasians, i. 511, 512, 520.
Causation, lawof, i. 259 seq., 671, 672,
677, 678.
731
732
INDEX.
Cause, all-embracing, i. 15 ; impelling,
i. 15, etc. ; first, i. 25, 227-234 ;
supreme, i. 445 seq.
Cellulose, 1. 93.
Cerebro-spinal system, i. 129.
Ceremonies, i. 597 seq.
Chance, i. 677.
Chaos, i. 427 ; elements of, i. 432 seq.
Character, iactors in the formation of,
i. 340 ; of a coniitrv, its connection
with the character of the inhabitants,
ii. 14, 15.
Charlemagne, ii. 278.
Chemical forces in relation to life, i.
80 seq.
Childhood, i. 660,
China, India, and Egypt, ancient
civilizations of, ii. 251, etc.
China, Mexico, and Peru, ancient
states of, ii. 504.
Chinese, i. 520.
Christian thought, philosophic pro-
blems of, ii. 336 seq.
Christianity, ii. 269 seq.
Christianity as morality and religion,
ii. 468 seq. ; as history, ii 476 seq.
Church, the, ii. 282 seq.
Civilization, ii. 95 seq. ; theories of
the origin of, ii. 177 seq. ; theory of
divine origin of, ii. 179 seq. ; theory
of organic origin of, ii. 183 seq. ;
difficulties connected with the be-
ginnings of, early, in the East, ii.
245 seq. ; harshness of its begin-
nings, ii. 252, 253 ; citizett of the
state, notion of, ii. 661.
Classification, man's impulse towards,
i. 666.
Climate, influence of, ii. 11, 14.
Comparison, i. 165, 655, 656.
Concept, i. 233, 663 seq.
Concepts, classification by, i. 536 ; and
their relation to the particulars to
which they apply, iu 521, 522.
Conclusion of vol. L in original, i.
393-401 ; of vol. ii. in original, ii.
119-121.
Conscience, i. 685 seq.
Consciousness, i. 161, 166, 328, 329,
330 ; narrowness of, i. 198, 212;
based on unconsciousness, i, 199 seq.
Consonants, i. 909.
Constitutional government, ii. 560.
"Contingent aspects" (cf. art. " Her-
bart," Encydopcedia Britannka,
9th ed.), ii. 317, 590, 594.
Contingent and necessary, iu 664, 665.
Conversation, i. 638,
Co-operation, ii. 392 seq.
Cosmic history, idea of, ii. 477.
Cosmological proof, the, ii. 664 seq.
Cosmos, two conceptions of the, L 374
seq.
Course of events, unity of, L 448 seq.
Created beings, ends of, i. 421.
Creation, Mosaic history of, i. 0 ; ii.
139, 140 ; anthropomorphic concep-
tion of, i. 412 seq. ; as will and as
act, ii. 700 seq. ; as emanation, ii.
703 seq.
Crcesns, ii. 464.
Crossing of ditferent races, i. 505, 521
seq.
Cruelty and bloodthirstiness, ii. 59
seq.
Crusades, the, ii. 285.
Culture, and a state of nature, ii. 76
seq. ; conditions of, ii. 80, 81.
Cultured reflection, ii. 311 seq.
Cyclops, ii. 406.
Darwin, i. 526.
Death, i. 51, etc., 61.
Decomposition, chemical, i. 52, etc.
Definition, i. 630.
Demeter, i. 5.
Dependence, i. 228.
Destiny, ii. 311.
Determinism and freedom, ii. 199
seq.
Development of plants and of souls,
i. 646 seq.
Differentiation and Connection of thb
ditferent mental activities, ii. 305.
Diogenes, ii. 76.
Dogmatic theology, ii. 481 seq.
Dress and ornament, i. 592 seq.
Auva/nii, concept of, ii. 331, 332.
East, kingdoms of the, ii. 501.
Eastern life and thought, character-
istic of, ii. 253, 254 ; reverence for
magnitude, ii. 399 seq. ; life and
thought compared with Western, iL
444 seq.
Effort (Strebung), i. 254.
Ego, i. 248, 249 se(i.
Ego and non-Ego, i. 11, ii. 678 seq.
Ego, empiric, i. 252, 253.
Ego, true, i. 252, 253, ii. 126.
Egoism and universalism, i. 702 seq,
Egypt, cosmology and religion of, iL
456, 457.
Elegance, ii, 240, etc.
Elements, inherent vitality of, i. 434 ;
material, and their distribution, i.
447 seq.
Emotional expression, i. 604.
Emotions of self, i. 700 seq. ; of sense,
i. 697 seq.
'EtipyuK, concept of, ii. 331, 332.
Enlightenment {Avf Ida rang), the, ii.
178, 286, 291.
'EvTtXt;(^6/«, ii. 332.
Erect and horizontal cairiage, i, 480
seq.
Eries, the, ii. 233, 234.
Essential heterogeneity of difl'erent
INDEX.
733
things and of individual souls, L
540 seq.
Established order, advantages of, ii.
502, 503.
Etiquette, ii. 74, 75.
Eudsemonism, ii. 473, 474,
Eumenides, the, ii. 372.
Euirifiiia, ii. 463.
Evil and sin, ii. 716 seq.
Exact science and its limitations, ii.
341 seq.
Excitation, capacity of, i. 68 seq.
Excretion, i. 118 seq.
Exhibitions, ii. 395.
Extended beings, concerning the pos-
sibility of, i. 356 seq.
Extension, meaning of, i. 357, 359.
Facttlty, a single primitive, i. 177 seq.
Faith and dogma, ii. 482 ; thought, ii.
660 seq.
Family, the, ii. 495 seq.
Family life, ii. 88 seq.
Fat, i. 93 seq.
Federation, ii. 555, 556.
Feeling, faculty of, i, 176 seq.
Feeling, its influence on ideational
(cognitive) life, i. 243 seq. ; its con-
nection with worth (value, Werth), i.
243 seq. ; its relation to mind, i.
247 ; its connection with self-con-
sciousness, i, 250 ; its connection
with impulse, conation, and volition,
i. 255 seq. ; corporeal basis of, i. 321,
322 ; and movement, connection be-
tween, i. 585.
Feeling and action, i. 687 seq.
Feeling and impression, i. 689.
Feelings, philosophy of the, i. 682 seq.
Feelings (pleasure aud pain), i. 240
seq.
Fellatahs, i. 518.
Fetichism, ii. 453.
Feudalism, ii. 279.
Fibre, i. 98.
Fichte, ii. 673, 675.
Finite and infinite, relation between,
i. 381 seq. ; things parts of one in-
finite Being, i. 445 seq. ; spirit, be-
lief of, concerning itself, ii. 126 ;
individuals must be parts of one
infinite substance, ii. 598 ; beings,
their personality a feeble reflection
of the personality of the Infinite, ii.
685.
Flood, legends of the, ii. 207, 208.
Food, i. 476 seq., ii. 55 seq.
Forces not communicated by one thing
to another, i. 56, 58; elemental, i. 59.
Form, symbolism of, i. 489 seq. ; beauty
of, i. 491 seq.
Freedom of moral action, i. 24 ; of
will, i. 146, 226, 256 seq. ; of inter-
nal self-determination, i. 144.
French language, developmont of the,
ii. 440 ; Revolution, ii. 560.
Future generations, men's care for, ii.
172 ; our prospect for the, ii. 293
seq.
General sense (organic feelings or
sensations, Oemeingefuhl), i. 133,
330, 331, 334, 341, 343, 568, ii. 37
seq. ; images, i. 663.
Generic notions (Artbegriffe), i, 657,
668.
Genesis in nature of living creatures,
and impossibility of setting it out iu
detail, ii. 137 seq.
Genghis Khan, ii. 248.
Germanic nations, the, ii. 274 seq.
Germans, heroic poetry of the, ii. 406.
God, forms of the existence of, ii. 672 ;
as a moral world-order, ii. 673 seq. ;
as infinite substance, ii. 677 ; as a
self-cognizant idea, ii. 682.
Good, its relation to God and to finite
things, ii. 698, 699 ; aud good
things, 719 seq.
Government based on incorporations of
classes, ii. 561, 563, 564.
Gratitude and revenge, i. 700.
Greece, ancient, ii. 257-263 ; in the
time of Homer, ii. 369 ; liberal cul-
ture of, ii. 369 seq. ; political con-
structions of, ii. 506 seq. ; place of,
iu political development, ii. 511.
Greek thought, development of, ii.
314 seq. ; sages, gnomes of, ii. 314,
315 ; language and life, ii. 404 seq. ;
beauty and art, ii. 410 seq. ; song,
characteristics of, ii. 413 ; mind,
characteristics of the, ii. 521.
Greeks, religion of the, ii. 460 seq. ;
and Romans compared, ii. 264, 265.
Greenlander, the, ii. 231.
Growth ( Wachsthum), mystery of, i.
58, 60.
Guilds, ii. 378, 379.
Hayti, negro state of, ii. 236.
Heat, production of, in living organ-
isms, i. 92, 109.
Heavenly bodies, worship of the, ii.
456.
Hebrew sublimity, ii. 402 seq. ; lan-
guage and literature, ii. 402 seq.
Hebrews, the, ii. 467 seq. ; religion of
the, ii. 466 seq.
Hector, ii. 372.
Helios, i. 6, 14.
Heraclitean flux, ii. 344.
Herbart, ii. 611.
Herder, i. 481, 486.
Heredity, i. 497 seq. ; and original
difference of endowment, ii. 47, 48.
Hereditary callings, ii. 250 ; monarchy
iL 557 seq.
734
INDEX.
Herodotus, ii. 245.
Heroic age, the, ii. 368 seq.
Hesiod, ii. 345.
Historical development towards perfec-
tion, denial of, ii. 169 seq. ; order,
laws of, ii. 192 seq. ; development,
its uniformities and contradictions,
ii. 203 seq. ; development, influence
of external conditions on, ii. 222 seq. ;
development, conditions ot its be-
ginning and advance, ii. 228 ; ideal-
ism, ii. 223, 228 ; realism, ii. 229 ;
development influenced by geo-
graphic and climatic conditions, ii.
230 seq. ; conditions, force of, ii.
542 seq.
History, what it is, ii. 144, 145; as
the education of humanity, ii. 145-
] 54 ; as the development of the idea
of humanity, ii. 154 seq. ; as a
divine poem, ii. 168, 169.
Home {Heimat), ii. 83 ; {daa Haiis), ii.
86 seq.
Homer, ii. 405 seq.
Horace, ii. 421, 422.
Hottentots, i. 518.
How far do beings exist for themselves ?
i. 666, 567.
Human hand and arm, i. 480, 481,
586, 587 ; likeness to brutes, i. 503
seq. ; life as stationary and as pro-
gressive, ii. 3-6 ; beings, sacredness
of, ii. 38, 59 ; life, ends and aims of,
ii. 101 seq. ; life, its relation to the
world of nature and to the world of
man's own making, ii. 225 seq. ; life,
view which antiquity took of, iL 425,
426.
Humanism, ii. 294, 297, 489.
Hunters, life of, ii. 81, 82.
Hydrogen, i. 92 seq.
Hyksos, the, ii. 248.
Idea (Idee), i. 15, 16, 546; of the
whole {Idee des Ganzen), i. 63-66 ;
of anything considered as its essence,
i. 545 seq. ; of anything, unity of, i.
551 seq. ; double meaning of, i.
554.
Idea and particulars, ii. 577.
Ideal primitive state, theory of, ii. 179.
Idealism, ii. 351 seq. ; of youth and
realism of maturity, ii. 312; the
author's provisional stitement of, ii.
359 ; subjective, ii. 639 seq.
Ideas, Plato's doctrine of, ii. 325
seq.
Ideas (Vorstellungen), heterogeneous,
are kept distinct by consciousness, i.
164 seq.
Ideas (presentations), train of, i. 193
seq. ; disappearance from conscious-
ness of, i. 196 seq. ; persistence of, i.
196 seq. ; interaction of, i. 197 ; in-
compatibility of, i. 198 ; reciprocal
pressure of, i. 198; "unconscious"
or ' ' forgotten, " i. 202 ; strength of,
i. 203 ; strength of, three meanings
of, i. 204 seq. ; simultaneity of,
greater in sense-perception than in
memory, i. 212 ; conditions of simul-
taneous plurality of, i. 213 ; associa-
tion of, i. 215, 222, 232 ; reproduction
of, i. 216 ; connection between their
order in memory and in apprehension,
i. 220 seq. ; necessary connection
between, i. 228 ; train of, influence
of bodily states upon, i. 330, 331 ;
general, formation of, i. 662 seq. ;
abstract, ii. 581.
Ideation (cognition, presentation, Vor-
stellen), faculty of, i. 177 seq.
Idee compared with Begriff, Vorstel-
lung, Anschauung, i. 555.
Identitj'', idea of, i. 165 ; law of, i.
671, 672, 673, 676, 677, 694, 695,
725.
Ignorance, two kinds of, ii. 627.
Imagination, sympathetic, i. 584 seq.,
599.
Implements, use of, i. 587 seq.
Impression, i. 201.
Impressions, latent, i. 199.
Impulses ( T^nefte), i. 255 seq. ; animat-
ing, i. 75.
India, cosmology and religion of, ii.
457.
Individual life, estimation of, among
the Greeks and in the modern times,
ii. 515 seq.
Individual peculiarities, origin of, i.
602 ; minds, their relation to the
yjast and the present, i. 640 seq.
Individual, the, and ordered society,
conflict between, ii. 97 seq. ; the,
and history, ii. 100 ; minds, un-
steadiness and incoherence of, ii.
117, 118 ; development towards per-
fection, ii. 171.
Individuality, bodily and mental, in
men and animals, i. 495, 496 ; worth
of, for persons and nations, ii. 554,
555.
Individuals, historical importance of,
ii. 188 seq.
Individuals, callings of, ii. 93.
Infinite, the, i. 12, etc.; personality of
the, ii. 683 seq.
Innate ideas, i. 226 seq., 669, ii. 226.
Inner life, the, its constitution dif-
ferent from that of external nature,
L 261.
Inner sense, the, i. 214.
Instinct and experience, ii. 224.
Instrument, conditions of employment
of any, i. 317.
Intelligence, development cf, L 661
seq.
INDEX.
735
Intensity, idea of degree of, i. 165.
International relations, ii. 564 seq. ;
arbitration, ii. 566, 567.
Intuition and discursive thought, i.
634 seq.
Investigation, different stages of, i.
268 seq.
loloff, blacks of, i. 517.
Ionic communities, ii. 509, 510.
Japanese, i. 520.
Judgment, universal principles of, i.
226, 233, 234.
Jupiter, i. 5.
Justice and eternal ideas, ii. 512,
513.
Kaffirs, i. 518.
Kant, 1. 690, ii. 548, 603, 604, 611,
612, 670.
Kepler, i. 596.
Kleobis, ii. 464.
Klephthen, the Greek, ii. 368.
Knowledge of change, i. 223 seq. ;
limitations of, i. 370, 371 ; thirst
for, i. 658.
Knowledge of relations between ideas,
i. 223 seq.
Labour and enjoyment, ii. 364 ; de-
velopment of, ii. 377 seq. ; modern
forms of, and their consequences, ii.
385 seq.
Language, syntactical forms of, i.
624 ; dangerous pliability of, 628,
029 ; order of thought and of con-
struction in, i. 631 ; organization
of, i. 678, 679 ; origin of, ii 184
seq.
Latin language and poetry, ii. 416 seq.
Learning to speak, i. 611, 612.
Legends and customs, origin of simi-
larity in, ii. 207 seq.
Legitimacy, notion of, ii. 531.
Leibnitz, ii. 717.
Life and the Church, ii. 489 seq.
Life, basis of, i. 50 seq. ; mechanical
conception of, i. 51-70 passim; an
organized decomposition, i. 52 ; pro-
pagation of, i. 56, 57, 58.
Life, conservation of, i. 121 seq. ; with
nature, ii. 16 seq.
Life, remedial energy (recuperative
power, curative energy, Heillcraft) of,
i. 61 ; structure of, i. 63 ; mechanism
of, i. 75 seq.
Light, significance of, i. 574, 577.
Living organisms, processes of, i. 76
seq. ; progressive evolution of, i. 76
seq.
Local signs, i. 309, 319, 320.
Xoyos, the, ii. 488.
Longevity, i. 471.
Love, ii. 721 seq.
Lucretius, i. 424.
Lycurgus, ii. 515.
Machines, i. 69 seq.
Majority, tyranny of the, ii. 289.
Malays, i. 512, 519.
Man not a mere creature of nature, ii.
21, 22 ; his worth and place in the
world, ii. 103 seq. ; as a transitory
natural product, ii. 106 seq. ; his
life, obscurity of its beginning and
future, ii. 125-127.
Man's origin, ethical significance of
theories as to, 524, 561.
Mandingoes, i. 518.
Mankind, connection and origin of, ii.
210 seq. ; Mosaic account of the
origin of, ii. 212 seq. ; supposed
plural origin of, ii. 214 seq. ; variety
of mental endowments of, ii. 218
seq.
Marriage, different kinds of, ii. 69, 70.
Materialism, i. 262, 263, 316, 339,
433, 442.
Mathematical faculty, i. 580 seq.
Matter, the manifestation of something
super-sensuous, i. 355.
Mechanical working, conditions of, i.
276.
Mechanical theory, the, and ideals of
action, i. 441, 442.
Mechanism, its place in nature, i. 387 ;
restricted application of, i. 436 ; its
place in action, ii. 620, 621.
Memory Images, their degrees of clear-
ness, i. 206 seq. ; organ of, i. 325
seq.
Mental phsenomena, their invariable
connection with material phsenomena
in our experience, i. 143.
Mental faculties, i. 169 ; original and
acquired, i. 175, 176.
"Mental chemistry," an inaccurate
idea, i. 216.
Mental form, dependence of, on con-
tent, i. 661.
Men and women, differences between,
ii. 39 seq.
Metaphysic (author's), i. 531, note.
Metaphysics and logic, ii. 324, 333.
Mexico, kingdom of, ii. 241 seq.
Microcosm, the, i. 401.
Microcosmits, statement of the essential
meaning of the, ii. 727 seq.
Middle Ages, the, ii. 277 seq. ; views
and character of the, ii. 426 seq. ;
political life and society in the, ii.
529 seq.
Mind, essential attributes of, i. 10 ;
unity of, i. 228 ; higher energies of,
and their connection with bodily
organs, i. 323 seq. ; obstruction to,
caused by its union with the body,
i. 342, 343 ; more modifiable than
736
INDEX.
body, i. 496 ; (Geist), rational, pecu-
liar to man, i. 532 ; (Oeist) and soul
(Seele), relation between, i. 533 seq. ;
is that which thinks, i. 548 ; more
than thinking, i. 555, 556 ; and its
idea {Idee), i. 645 seq. ; all that is
real is, ii. 642 seq.
Miracles, i. 451, 452, ii. 478 seq.
Modern times, economic character of,
its causes and effects, ii. 380 seq.
Modern times, characteristics, prob-
lems, and difficulties of, ii. 286 seq. ;
politics, ii. 290, 291 ; science, ii.
291, 292 ; science, character of, ii.
338 seq. ; humanism, ii. 294, 297 ;
society, positive morality of, ii. 295,
296 ; educatioa, spirit of, ii. 370 ;
art and life, ii. 443 seq.
[Modesty, ii. 66 seq.
Monad, ruling, i. 162.
Monads, i. 162, 163.
Mongolians, 1. 512, 519.
Moral ideas, 1. 247 ; sense, i. 247 ;
(ethical) judgment, its connection
with the body, i. 323, 324 ; laws, i.
693 seq.
Morality, stages of, i. 706 seq.; con-
tent and psychological basis of, i.
710-713 ; basis and development of,
ii. 50 seq.
Motion, communication of i. 56,
58.
Movement, i. 332 seq. ; corporeal
mechanism of, i. 332 seq.
Movements, how they arise, L 203 seq.,
283 seq.
Movements of decapitated animals,
two explanations of, i 338 ; grace
of, i. 696, 597.
Muscles, the, i. 102 seq.
ilythologic fancy and its analogues, ii.
306 seq.
Mythology, i. 3 seq., 394, 395 ; and
common reality, i. 6, ii. 308 ; Greek,
i. 4 ; Teutonic, i. 4.
Nations, decay of, ii. 205 seq.
Natural kind (natilrliche Art) or
species, i. 522-524.
Natural selection, i. 526.
Nature, blind necessity in, i. 9 ; con-
flicting views of, i. 1 seq. ; law and
order in, i. 2 ; personal spirits in, i.
5, etc., 13, 14, 393, 395; mechanical
view of, i. 27 seq., 28 etc., 48, 347,
397 seq., 407 seq.; mechanical view
of, opposition to it of man's emotional
nature, i. 344 ; idea of, i. 406 ; unity
of, i. 406 ; creative, i. 407 ; as law,
i. 407 ; ideal interpretation of, i.
407 seq. ; as the evolution of a world-
soul, i. 414 seq.; as fact ; unity and
purposiveness of, questioned ; design
ia, L 425, 428 seq.; and the ration-
ality of things, i. 429 ; unity of, as a
])ro'.luct of actions and reactions, i.
439 seq. ; terrestrial, limitedness of,
i. 455, 456 ; grades of the products
of, i. 457 ; terrestrial, uniqueness of,
i. 464 ; external influence of, ii. 6
seq. ; disparagement and exaltation
of, ii. 67, 68 ; and creation, ii. 127
seq. ; and divine activity, ii. 130 seq. ;
and history (or necessity and free-
dom), ii. 134-137 ; Greek attitude
towards ; as a source of religious
ideas, ii. 448 seq.
Negroes, i. 511, 512, 516 seq., 624, ii.
234 seq.
Neptunists and Vulcanists, ii. 448,
Nerve, axis-cylinder of, i. 94.
Nerve-fibres, isolated, i. 310 seq.
Nerves, motor, i. 105 seq.
Nervous excitation, i. 601 seq. ; and
movement, i. 603 seq. ; and respii-a-
tion, i. 604 seq.
Nitrogen, i. 92 seq.
Noah, ii. 208.
Nominalism and realism, ii. 338.
Non-ego, i. 11, 248.
North America, settlers in, i. 621.
N«S,-, ii. 316.
Nutrition, i. 113 seq.
Occasionalism, i. 280.
Odyssey, the, iL 93.
Omnipotence, ii. 695 ; and truth, iL
696 seq.
Ontologic proof, the, ii. 669 seq.
Organic compensation of corporeal dis-
turbance, i. 122, 123, 128 seq. ;
constant activity of what is, i. 135
seq.
Organisms, development of, from
germs, i. 83 seq. , 426 ; theory of the
origin of, i. 437 seq.
Organs of living bodies, L 98.
Origin, i. 228.
Ormuzd. ii. 459.
Oxygen, i. 92, 93, 95 seq.
Pain, i. 329.
Pantheism, ii. 195, 677.
Pastoral life, ii. 82, 83.
Perfection, ii. 665, 666 ; for man and
brute, ii. 24.
Persistence, law of, i. 37, 41, 46, 196,
199, 601.
Personal rights, existence of, depen-
dent on society, ii. 527, 540
seq.
Peru, kingdom of, ii. 243.
Phsenomena, explanation of, ii. 155 ;
recurrent, ii. 196 seq. ; conditions of
uniformity of, ii. 198.
Phcenomenologic meaning of common
terms transformed to essential mean-
ing, i. 537 seq.
INDEX.
737
Plisenomciion (nppearance, Erschei-
nung), i. 157, ii. 160, 161.
Philosophical discussion, starting-point
of, i. 350.
Philosophy, three problems of, ii. 346
seq. ; scope of analytic and construc-
tive activity in, ii. 651 sec[.
Phrenology, i. 339 sec[.
*uir/f, i. 415.
Physical compensation of corporeal
disturbances, i. 122, 124 seq. ;
research, sphere of, i. 436.
Pindar, ii. 413, 414.
Plato, ii. 314, 325, 327, 329, 332, 340,
344, 407, 505, 537 ; his ideal state,
ii. 504, 508.
Pleasure, and worth, i. 690 seq. ; as an
ethical end, i. 694 seq. ; what it is,
i. 695.
Political life, language, morality, and
religion, rationalistic theory of, ii.
178.
Politics, tradition and reason in, ii.
510 seq.
Possibility involves adaptability to
design, i. 428.
Pre-established harmony, ii. 597.
Prima materia, i. 372, 374.
Primeval history, questions concerning,
i. 372 seq.
Printing, dis'^overy of, ii. 286.
Private law (cf. law of private riglit),
ii. 642.
Private right, law of (private law,
PrivatrecJd, Jus Privatum, cf. Aus-
tin's Jurisprudence (student's edi-
tion), pp. 195, 196, and 366 seq.), ii.
524, 525, 526, 542.
Probability before and after the event,
estimation of, ii. 140, 141.
Proo;ress, scientific and human, ii. 152,
153.
Protestantism, its principle of action,
ii. 288, ii. 492.
[Protoplasmic] cell, i. 97.
Psychic life, characterized by (1) self-
determination, i. 144 seq. ; (2) in-
comparability of its processes with
jdiysical processes, i. 148 seq., 211;
and (3) unity of consciousness, i.
152 seq. ; influence of bodily organi-
sation on, i. 558, 560 ; of different
human races and individuals, i. 561,
562; in matter, i. 150 seq., 161,
162 ; capacities in general, ditKculty
of investigating their nature and
development, i. 193, 194 ; mechan-
ism, i. 194 seq., 232 ; substance
(Seelensubstanz), i. 539 seq., 546 ;
life, is it explicable from action
and reaction of ideas ? i. 540 seq. ;
life of men and brutes, i. 556 seq.,
578, 644, 652 seq., 681, 684, 713,
714, ii. 294.
VOL. II.
Psychical compensation of corporeal
disturbances, i. 123, 124 ; processes
need a special ground of explana-
tion, i 148, 149.
Public law {Staatsrecht, Jus Publicum,
cf. Law of Private Eight), ii. 524,
526, 528.
Purity in body and mind, ii. 61 seq.
Pyramids of Egypt, ii. 252.
QtTALiTATiVB resemblance taii differ-
ence, idea of, i. 165.
Quality, simple, as the essence of
things, i. 552, 553.
Quetzalkohuatl, ii. 242.
Race characteristics, transmission of.
i. 497, 505, 506.
Race, influence of external conditions
on, i. 511 seq.
Radicalism, ii. 540, 545.
Rationalism, ii. 480.
Reaction, acquired forms of, i. 336,
337.
Real existence belongs only to living
beings, i. 362 ; involves relations,
ii. 585 ; real unit}', conditions of,
ii. 636 ; things, origin of, ii. 713 seq.
Real, the {das Reale), i. 546 seq.
Realism, ii. 350.
Reality {Wirhlichlceit) and realness
{Realitai), ii. 646.
Really existent, necessary symmetry of
the, ii. 318.
Healness and self-existence, ii. 647.
Reason, infinite, i. 15 ; universal, i.
23 ; and consequent, i. 228, 23C
seq. ; and understanding, i. 244, 245 ;
practical, i. 246, 247.
Reason, unconscious, in things, i. 9,
10, 13.
Reciprocal action the only real bond,
i. 274 ; ultimateness of, i. 276 seq. ;
between elements, qualitative homo-
geneity not a sufficient ground of, i.
301, 302, i. 378 seq. ; of (1) living
beings, (2) material substances, i.
492.
Red Indians, i. 512, 518, ii. 238 seq.
Redintegration, chemical, i. 252, etc.
Reflection, stages of, i. 654 seq.
Reflex movements, i. 335, 336.
Reformation, the, ii. 287.
Relating knowledge, i. 164 seq., 213,
318 ; forms of, i. 220 seq. ; three
grades of operation of, L 229.
Relation, ii. 635.
Relation involves unity, i. 380 ; 'be-
tween the good and the actual, i.
392, 396, 397.
Relations of things all have their root
in the things themselves, ii. 587_;
between things resolved into reci-
procal action, ii. 619 seq.
8 A
738
I^'DEX.
Religiousness, il 115, 116.
Republicau constitutions, ii. 558.
Respiration, i. 110 seq.
Responsibility, idea of, ii. 115.
Revolution, the French, ii. 289.
Rights of man, i. 709.
Rococo style, ii. 441, 442.
Roman art, ii. 420 seq. ; dignity, ii.
424 ; mind, temper, and procedure
of the, ii. 522 seq. ; law and political
life, ii. 524 seq. ; jurisprudeuce, ii.
428 ; law, ii. 265.
Romance, ii. 432.
Rome, ancient, ii. 263-267.
Rome, ii. 520 seq.
Riickert, i. 5.
Rudolphi, i. 606.
Sakdanapalus, ii. 401.
Science {Wissenschaft), definition of,
ii. 152.
Science and common life, standpoints
of, i. 271, 272 ; foundation of, due to
the Greeks, ii. 259, 318 seq. ; and
life, ii. 361 seq.
Scientific knowledge (science, das
Wissen), ii. 306,
Seasons, influence of, ii. 11, 12.
Self-consciousness, i. 248 seq. ; -exist-
ence, ii. 643, 645 seq.
Self and other, ditference between, i.
249, 250.
Semitic and Indo-Germanic nations, ii.
255 seq.
Semitic patriarchs, life of, ii. 366 seq.
Sensation, i. 318.
Sensation, unity of the process of, i.
201.
Sensations, how they arise, i. 282, 283;
their place and nature, i. 348 ; how
far connected with intelligent li(e,
i. 563 ; connected by us with the
nature of their causes, i. 573, 574.
Sense, constant illusion of, i. 345 seq. ;
has a peculiar worth of its own, i.
349 seq.
Sentience, i. 236 ; central organ of, i.
319 ; explanations of, i. 564 seq. ;
human, distinctive character of, i.
571, 573, 578, 599, 627.
Series, apprehension of a, i. 220 seq.,
229, 230.
Shakspeare, ii. 437.
Sich darzvlbben the business of life, ii.
71, 72. .
Slavery among the Greeks and Romans,
iL 372 seq.
Sleep, i. 328 seq.
Social life as a source of religious ideas,
ii. 451 seq.
Social mechanics, ii. 194.
Socialism, ii. 564.
Society, ii. 91 seq. ; simple and com-
plex sLructure of, ii. 94 ; and the j
State, 510, 518 seq. ; autonomy of,
ii. 534 seq. ; limitations of its action,
ii. 545 seq. ; an universal, ii. 549,
551, 555 ; ideal of, ii. 554.
Socrates, ii. 318, 320, 407, 410.
Solitude, conditions of the usefulness
of, ii. 170.
Solon, ii. 464, 465, 515.
Sophocles, i. 531.
Soul, i. 144, 531, note.
Soul, does not organize body, i. 67 ;
animal, i 87; existence of, i. 143
seq. ; general belief in, i. 143,
144 ; nature and faculties of, i.
168 seq. ; constant activity of its
whole nature, i. 180, 181 ; primary
and secondary reactions of, i. 181
seq., 225 ; its capacity of change, i.
184 seq. ; its nature, known and
unknown, i. 188 seq. ; to ii ( Was) of
the, i. 188, 189 ; unity of, i, 197,
229 ; immortality of, i. 226, 387 ;
influence on bodily form of, i. 287-
289 ; seat of the, i. 290, 291 ; defini-
tion of, i. 290 ; limited sphere of its
direct operation, i. 295 seq. ; brain
the seat of, i. 297 ; a mobile {Beweg-
lichen), i. 301 ; theory of its omni-
presence in the body, i. 313 seq. ;
organ of, i. 316 seq. ; what it is, i.
316 ; unconscious states of the, i.
320 ; divisibility of, i. 337 ; the per-
manent subject of mental phaiuo-
mena, i. 389.
Soul, nature of, how far expressed in
its development, i. 544, 545.
Soul (Seele), sentient, common to man
and brute, i. 532.
Souls, origin of, i. 390.
Souls, transmigration of, i. 559.
Sound, articulate, i. 606 seq.
Sound, significance of, i. 577.
South Sea Islanders, ii. 232 seq.
Sovereign power, development of, ii.
501, 502.
Space, i. 226, 227, 229 seq. ; relations
of beings in — three possibilities, i.
291-295 ; and unity of being, i. 294,
295, 290-295 passim; space-percep-
tion (intuition, Baumanschauung),
conditions of, i. 306 seq., especially
308, 309 ; central organ of, i. 320 ;
space and time, order in, i. 579, 583 ;
ideality of, ii. 603 seq., 611.
Sparta, ii. 506 seq., 517.
Species visible, hypothesis of, L 806.
Speech, parts of, i. 622, 623.
Speech influenced by acoustic, pho-
netic, and syntactic conditions, i.
613, 614.
Speech, corporeal organ of, i. 611.
Speech, articulate, conditions of, i.
610, 611 ; and thought, relation be-
tween, i. 618 seq.
INDEX.
739
Spirit, nniversal [AUgemeiner Geist),
i. 30.
Spiritual life, physical basis of, ii. 65
seq.
" Spiritual organisms," ii. 398.
Starch, i. 93.
State, the, ii. 96, 97 ; and society, ii.
649 seq. ; conditions necessary for
development of a, ii. f)52 seq. ; ideal
of, ii. 557.
State, the, and national life, ii. 561 seq.
Stationary life and agriculture, ii. 84
seq.
Statistics, ii. 194 seq.
Structure and function, relation be-
tween, i. 424.
Struggle for existence, i. 526.
Subjectless thinking or action, notion
of, i. 549.
Substance (material), changes of {Stojf-
wechsel), i. 54, 55, 87, 88, 92 seq.
Substance, the infinite, i. 381, 382.
Substance, i. 227.
Sugar, i. 93.
Sum of motions, conditions of a, i.
160.
Summary, ii. 599-601, 624-625, 657-
658, 687-688.
Summum bonum, i. 11.
Supersensuous soul and material body,
contrast between, i. 166, 167.
Supersensuous world, questions con-
cerning the, ii. 108 seq.
Superstition, ii. 113 seq.
Syllogism, i. 235.
Sympathetic system, L 129 seq.
Syrinx, i. 5.
Tantalus, i. 5.
Teleologic proof, the, ii. 666 seq., 671.
Tellos, ii. 464.
Temperament, ii. 25 seq. ; sanguine, Li.
27-29 ; sentimental (Melancholic), ii.
29-32; choleric, ii. 32-34; phleg-
matic, ii. 34-36.
Teocallis of Me,xico, ii. 252.
Terrestrial conformation, influence of,
ii. 12, 13.
Tespi, ii. 208.
Theology, narrow sense of, ii. 487.
Thing, i. 227 ; a thing is where it acts,
i. 293
Thing and thought, ii. 630, 631.
Things, impossibility of their being
copied in our perception, i. 347, 348 ;
inner activity of, i. 353, 354 ; {Ding)
i. 537 ; TO T/ of, ii. 351, 352, 579,
600, 602, 603, 628 seq. ; being of,
ii. 578 seq.; comparability of the
natures of, ii. 589 seq. ; reciprocal
action between, ii. 594 seq. ; real,
intellectual, and apparent, spatial
places of, ii. 613 seq. ; and sub-
stance must be capable of change.
ii. 623 ; notions of the nature of, ii.
626 seq. ; our ignorance of the nature
of, ii. 628.
Things, unity of, ii. 682 seq.
Things are acts of the Infinite, wrought
within minds alone, ii. 640 ; is mind
the original being of? ii. 648 ; their
reciprocal action does not prove
their homogeneitj'-, ii. 656.
Thinking (thought, das Denken), i.
232 seq., 619 seq. ; what it is, ii.
354, 355.
Tliought, train of, conditions deter-
mining, i. 218 ; form and matter of,
i. 226 ; and names, i. 627, 628 ;
necessities of, i. 660 seq. ; its rela-
tion to its objects, ii. 321 seq. ;
(Gedanke), two meanings of, ii.
630.
Thugs, ii. 59.
Time, i. 226, 227, 229 seq. ; ideality
of, ii. 708 seq.
Toltekiau legend, the, ii. 242.
Tradition, ii. 209.
Treaties, validity of, ii. 565.
Tribal sfcites, ii. 498 seq.
Trinity, theological and philosophical
doctrine of, ii. 486 seq.
Truth, notion of, i. 674, 675 ; and
things, ii. 327 ; and its relation to
God, ii. 690 seq. ; relation to God of
mathematical, ii. 694 seq. ; can
only be recognised by a nature to
which truth belongs, ii. 698.
Truths, facts, and determinations of
worth, reciprocal relations of, ii.
575 seq.
Truths as objects recognised by God,
ii. 691 ; as creations of God, ii.
692 ; as consequences of God's being,
ii. 693.
Unconditioned, necessary unity of
the, ii. 669.
Unconsciousness, i. 328 seq. ; based
oji consciousness, i. 201, 202.
Understanding, the, and its action, i.
236 seq.
Union of materiality and mentality in
the same being, assumption of, i.
150 seq.
Unity of consciousness, what it means,
i. 152 seq., 164 ; what it does not
mean, i. 154, 155 ; does not result
from the action of a plurality, i. 158
spq.
Unity of humanity and men's motives
for seeking it, ii. 173 seq. ; of
humanity, Koman, Cliristian, and
modern conception of the, ii. 522,
533 ; in things, how is it compatible
with change in them, ii. 622, 623 ;
in love of moral ideas, forms of
reality, and eternal truth, ii. 721.
740
INDEX.
Unity of the supreme can so and unity
of a finite life, i. 452 seq.
Universal laws as determining powers
in the world of things, ii. 588 seq.
Universals, i. 233.
Variation, i. 526.
Varieties of race, origin of, i. 506 seq.,
522, 526, 527.
Veneration, of mere forms, ii. 536 seq. ;
of forms and facts, ii. 164 seq.
Vertebrates, advantages of, i. 468.
Vital force (Lehenskraft), i. 22, 50-74
passim, 75.
Vital reaction, i. 201.
Voice, i. 605 seq.
Volition (Wollen), i. 254 seq. ; dis-
tinguishing characteristics of, i. 256.
Vowel sounds, i. 608 seq.
Wateu, its office in living organisms,
96.
What is subordinate to what ought to
be, i. 392.
Wiiat things are in themselves, ho^
far important and cognizable, i. 543.
Whole and parts, i. 63, 64 ; whole
universal as fundamental ideas of
political constructions, ii. 505.
Will ( Wille), i. 255 ; its limitations,
i. 257, 258.
Will, faculty of, i. 177 seq.
Women, position of, among the Greeks
and American Indians, ii. 372.
Words, meaning of, i. 614 seq.
Work, idealism of, ii. 71, 73 ; (Arbeit),
meaning of, ii. 702.
World, internal coherence of the, i.
231 ; the, not a blind and necessary
vortex of events, i. 259 ; conservation
and governance oP, ii. 707, 808.
World of values (worth, Wcrth), i. 244,
396, 400 ; forms, i. 244, 396, 400.
World-soul (universal soul, Weltseele),
i. 15, 16, etc., 23, 396.
Zeus, i. 6.
Zoroaster, ii. 459.
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