Full text of "The philosophy of life, and philosophy of language, in a course of lectures"

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SCIILEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE,

AND

PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE.

* ^o ->*^ ^"-v X

^4=*^

THE

PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE,

AND

PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE,

IN A

COUKSE OF LECTURES,

FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN ^^^/ 1 10

1<*

BY (

THE REV. A. J. W. MORRISON, M.A.

LONDON:

HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, CO VENT GARDEN.

1847.

LONDON;

HUNTED TV/ T. R.

ST. MAiiTISr'S 1AXE.

CONTENTS.

PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE,

LECTURE I. page

Of the thinking Soul as the Centre of Consciousness, and of the false
procedure of Reason 1

LECTURE II.

Of the loving Soul as the Centre of the moral Life ; and of Marriage 23

LECTURE III.
Of the Soul's share in Knowledge, and of Revelation 44

LECTURE IV.
Of the Soul in relation to Nature 67

LECTURE V.
Of the Soul of Man in relation to God 93

LECTURE VI.

Of the Wisdom of the divine Order of Things in Nature, and of the
relation of Nature to the other Life and to the Invisible World .... 114

LECTURE VII.

Of the divine Wisdom as manifested in the Realm of Truth, and of the
Conflict of the Age with Error 141

LECTURE VIII.

Of the divine Order in the History of the World and the Relation of
States 163

LECTURE IX.

Of the true Destination of Philosophy ; and of the apparent Schism
but essential Unity between a right Faith and highest Certainty, as
the Centre of Light and Life in the Consciousness 187

LECTURE X.

Of the twofold Spirit of Truth and Error in Science, of the Conflict of
Faith with Infidelity 209

VI CONTENTS.

LECTURE XI. page

Of the Relation of Truth and Science to Life, and of Mind in its
application to Reality 236

LECTURE XII.

Of the symbolical Nature and Constitution of Life with reference to
Art and the moral Relations of Man 261

LECTURE XIII.

Of the Spirit of Truth and Life in its application to Politics, or of
the Christian Constitution of the State and the Christian Idea of
Jurisprudence 282

LECTURE XIV,

Of the Division of Ranks, and of the reciprocal Relations of States,
according to the Christian Idea : of Science as a Power, of its
Constitution, and of the right Regulation of it 306

LECTURE XV.

Of the true Idea of a Theocracy; of the Might of Science, and of the
final Restoration and Perfection of the Human Consciousness 326

PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE.

Preface of the German Editor 349

LECTURE 1 351

LECTURE II 373

LECTURE III 392

LECTURE IV 413

LECTURE V 435

LECTURE VI 456

LECTURE VII 482

LECTURE VIII 506

LECTURE IX 528

LECTURE X 552

PREFACE.

THESE fifteen Lectures on the Philosophy of Life are intended
to give, as far as is possible, a clear and succinct exposition
of the following subjects. The first five treat of the soul,
1, as the centre of consciousness : 2, as the centre of moral
life: 3, as co-operating with mind in the acquisition of
knowledge: 4, in its relation to nature: 5, in its relation
to God. The next three investigate the laws of Divine
Wisdom and Providence, as manifested in the system of
Nature, the World of Thought, and the evidences of History.
The subject-matter of the remaining seven is the unfolding of
the spirit [or spiritual nature] of man, in consciousness and
in science; in external life and its great social relations; in
its struggle with the age; and in its course of restoration
through the several grades of human development, until it
arrives at the end and aim of perfection.

PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE.

LECTURE L

OF THE THINKING SOUL AS THE CENTRE OF CON-
SCIOUSNESS, AND OF THE FALSE PROCEDURE OF
REASON.

" THERE are," says a poet as ingenious as profound,* " more
things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in our phi-
losophy." This sentiment, which Genius accidentally let
drop, is in the main applicable also to the philosophy of our
own day ; and, with a slight modification, I shall be ready to
adopt it as my own. The only change that is requisite to
make it available for my purpose would be the addition
" and also between heaven and earth are there many things
which are not dreamt of in our philosophy." And exactly be-
cause philosophy, for the most part, does nothing but dream
scientifically dream, it may be therefore is it ignorant, ay,
has no inkling even of much which, nevertheless, in all pro-
priety it ought to know. ' It loses sight of its true object,
it quits the firm ground where, standing secure, it might
pursue its own avocations without let or hindrance, when-
ever, abandoning its own proper region, it either soars up to
heaven to weave there its fine-spun webs of dialectics, and to
build its metaphysical castles in the air, or else, losing itself
on the earth, it violently interferes with external reality, and
determines to shape the world according to its own fancy,
and to reform it at will. Half-way between these two
devious courses lies the true road ; and the proper region

* Shakspeare. Hamlet, Act I. Scene V.

" There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Schlegel seems to have read our, which is the reading of the folio of
1263. Trans.

2 PLATO COSMOGONIES OF THE IONIAN SCHOOL.

of philosophy is even that spiritual inner life between heaven
and earth. ;

On both sides, many and manifold errors were committed,
even in the earlier and better days of enlightened antiquity.
Plato himself, the greatest of the great thinkers of Greece,
set up in his Republic the model of an ideal polity, which,
in this respect, cannot bear the test of examination. His
design indeed finds, in some measure, its apology in the dis-
orders and corruption which, even in his day, had infected
all the free states of Greece, whether great or small. His
work too, by the highly finished style of the whole, the vivid
perspicuity of its narrative, its rich profusion of pregnant
ideas and noble sentiments, stands out in dignified contrast
to the crude and ill-digested schemes of legislation so hastily
propounded in our own day. Still, it will ever remain the
weak point of this great man. One needs not to be a Plato
to see how absolutely unfeasible, not to say practically absurd,
are many of the propositions of this Platonic ideal. Accord-
ingly it has ever been the fruitful occasion, not only among
contemporaries, but also with posterity, of ridicule to the
ignorant and of censure to the wise. In this respect it cannot
but excite our regret that such great and noble powers of
mind should have been wasted in following a false direction,
and in pursuit of an unattainable end. The oldest philo-
sophers of Greece, on the other hand those first bold ad-
venturers on the wide ocean of thought, combined together
the elements of things, water, or air, or fire, or atoms, or
lastly the all-ruling Intellect* itself, into as many different
systems of the universe. If, however, each in his own way
thus set forth a peculiar creed of nature, we must ever bear
in mind that the popular religion, with its poetical imagery,
and the fabulous mythology of antiquity, as affording not only
no sufficient, but absolutely no answer to the inquiring mind,
as to the essence of things, and the first cause of all, could
not possibly satisfy these earlier thinkers. Consequently they
might well feel tempted to find, each for himself, a way to
honour nature, and to contemplate the supreme Being. Since
then, however, the world has grown older by nearly twenty-

* The vovs of Anaxagoras. A brief, but characteristic sketch of these
earlier philosophemes is given in Thirlwall's History of Greece, vol. ii. See
also Hitter's History of Philosophy, vol. i. Trans.

OBJECTS ^N'D LIMITS OF PHILOSOPHY. 3

five centuries, and much in the meanwhile has been accom-
plished by, or fallen to the share of, the human race. But
when philosophy would pretend to regard this long succession
of ages, and all its fruits, as suddenly erased from the records
of existence, and for the sake of change would start afresh,
so perilous an experiment can scarcely lead to any good
result, but in all probability, and to judge from past ex-
perience, will only give rise to numberless and interminable
disputes. Such an open space in thought cleared from all
the traces of an earlier existence (a smoothly polished marble
tablet, as it were, like the tabula rasa of a recent ephemeral
philosophy) would only serve as an arena for the useless
though daring ventures of unprofitable speculation, and could
never form a safe basis for solid thought, or for any permanent
manifestation of intellectual life.

In itself it is nothing surprising if young and inexperi-
enced minds, occupying themselves prematurely, or in a
perverted sense, with the grand ideas of God and Nature,
liberty and the march of thought, should be wholly over-
mastered and carried away with them. It has often hap-
pened before now, and it is no new thing if youthful and
ardent temperaments should either yield to the seductive
temptation to make, not to say create, a new religion of their
own ; or else feel a deceitful impulse to censure and to
change all that is already in existence, and, if possible, to
reform the whole world by their newly acquired ideas.

That this twofold aberration and misuse of philosophical
thought must prove universally injurious, and prejudicial
both to education and the whole world, is so evident that
it can scarcely be necessary to dwell upon it. Its effect has
been to cause men, especially those whose minds have been
formed in the great and comprehensive duties of practical
life, to view the thing altogether in an. evil light, although it
must be confessed there is much injustice in this sweeping
condemnation. In several of the great statesmen of Home
we may observe a similar contempt for Grecian philosophy as
useless and unprofitable. And yet, as is happily indicated by
its Greek name, this whole effort was assuredly based upon
a noble conception, and, when duly regulated, a salutary
principle. For in this beautiful word, according to its ori-
ginal acceptation, science is not regarded as already finished

4 FORM AND METHOD OF TRUE PHILOSOPHY.

and mature, but is rather set forth as an object of search of
a noble curiosity and of a pure enthusiasm for great and sub-
lime truths, while at the> same time it implies the wise use
of such knowledge. Merely, however, to check and to hinder
the aberrations of a false philosophy, is not by itself suffi-
cient. It is only by laying down and levelling the right
road of a philosophy of life, that a thorough remedy for the
evil is to be found. True philosophy, therefore, honouring
that which has been given from above and that which is
existent from without, must neither raise itself in hostility to
the one, nor attempt to interfere violently with the other.
For it is exactly when, keeping modestly within its proper
limits of the inner spiritual life, it makes itself the handmaid
neither of theology nor of politics, that it best asserts its true
dignity and maintains its independence on its own peculiar
domain. And thus, even while it abstains most scrupulously
from intermeddling with the positive and actual, will it operate
most powerfully on alien and remote branches of inquiry, and
by teaching them to consider objects in a freer and more
general light, indirectly it will exercise on them a salutary in-
fluence. Thus while it proceeds along its appointed path, it
will, as it were, without effort disperse many a mist which
spreads its dangerous delusion over the whole of human
existence, or remove perhaps many a Hone of stumbling, which
offends the age and divides the minds of men in strife and
discord. In this manner consequently will it most beauti-
fully attest its healing virtue, and at the same time best
fulfil its proper destination.

The object therefore of philosophy is the inner mental life
(geistige Leben\ not merely this or that individual facility
in any partial direction, but man's spiritual life with all its
rich and manifold energies. With respect to form and
method : the philosophy of life sets out from a single assump-
tion that of life, or in other words, of a consciousness to a
certain degree awakened and manifoldly developed by ex-

C'ence since it has for its object, and purposes to make
wn the entire consciousness and not merely a single
phase of it. Now, such an end would be hindered rather
than promoted by a highly elaborate or minutely exhaustive
form and a painfully artificial method; and it is herein that
the difference lies between a philosophy of life and the philo-

PHILOSOPHY OF THE SCHOOLS UNINTELLIGIBLE. 5

sophy of the school. If philosophy be regarded merely as one
part of a general scientific education, then is the instruction in
method (whether under the old traditionary name of Logic
or any other) the chief point to be regarded. For such a mere
elementary course, passing over, or at least postponing for a
while the consideration of the matter, as possessing as yet but
a very remote interest for the student, and, in the default of an
adequate internal experience of his own, incapable of being
understood by him, concerns itself rather with the practice
of methodical thought, both as necessary for the future, and as
applicable to all matters. But the preliminary exercise in
philosophical thinking is only the introduction to philosophy,
and not philosophy itself. This school-teaching of philosophy
might perhaps be rendered productive of the most excellent
consequences, if only it were directed to the history of the
human intellect. What could be more interesting than a
history which should enter into the spirit, and distinctly em-
body the various systems which the inventive subtlety of the
Greeks gave birth to, or which, taking a still wider range,
should embrace the science of the Egyptians, and some Asiatic
nations, and illustrate the no less wonderful nor less manifold
systems of the Hindoos those Greeks of the primeval world !
But this, perhaps, would be to encroach upon the peculiar
domain of erudition, and might, moreover, fail to furnish equal
interest for all ; and at any rate the history of philosophy is
not philosophy itself.

Now, the distinction between the philosophy of life and the
philosophy of the school will appear in very different lights
according to the peculiarity of view which predominates in the
several philosophical systems. That species of philosophy
which revolves in the dialectical orbit of abstract ideas, ac-
cording to its peculiar character presupposes and requires a
well-practised talent of abstraction, perpetually ascending
through higher grades to the very highest, and even then
boldly venturing a step beyond. In short, as may be easily
shown in the instance of modern German science, the being
unintelligible is set up as a kind of essential characteristic
of a true and truly scientific philosophy. I, for my part,
must confess, that I feel a great distrust of that philosophy
which dwells in inaccessible light, where the inventor in-
deed asserts of himself, that he finds himself in an unattain-

6 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE INTELLIGIBLE.

able certainty and clearness of insight, giving us all the
while to understand thereby, that he does see well enough
how of all other mortals scarcely any, or perhaps, strictly
speaking, no one, understands or is capable of understanding
him. In all such cases it is only the false light of some
internal ignis fatuus that produces this illusion of the unin-
telligible, or rather of nonsense. In this pursuit of wholly
abstract and unintelligible thought, the philosophy of the
school is naturally enough esteemed above every other, and
regarded as pre-eminently the true science i.e., the unin-
telligible.

In such a system a philosophy of life means nothing more
than a kind of translation of its abstruser mysteries into a
more popular form, and an adaptation of them to the capacity
of ordinary minds. But even such popular adaptations, though
evincing no common powers of language and illustration, in
spite of their apparent clearness, when closer examined, are
found as unintelligible as the recondite originals. For inas-
much as the subject-matter of these abstract speculations was,
from the very first, confused and unintelligible, it was conse-
quently incapable of being made clear even by the most
perspicuous of styles. But the true living philosophy has
no relation or sympathy with this continuous advance up to
the unintelligible heights of empty abstraction. Since the
objects it treats of are none other than those which every
man of a cultivated mind and in any degree accustomed to
observe his own consciousness, both has and recognizes within
himself, there is nothing to prevent its exposition being
throughout clear, easy, and forcible. Here the relation is
reversed. In such a system the philosophy of life is the chief
and paramount object of interest; while the philosophy of
the school, or the scientific teaching of it in the schools, how-
ever necessary and valuable in its place, is still, as compared
with the whole thing itself, only secondary and subordinate.
In the philosophy of life, moreover, the method adopted must
also be a living one. Consequently it is not, by any means, a
thing to be neglected. But still it need not to be applied
with equal rigour throughout, or to appear prominently in
every part, but on all occasions must be governed in these
respects by what the particular end in view may demand.

A few illustrations, drawn from daily experience, will per-

BIGHT USE OF PHILOSOPHICAL METHOD. 7

haps serve to explain my meaning. Generally speaking, the
most important arts and pursuits of life are ultimately based
on mathematics. This science furnishes them, as it were,
with the method they observe; but it is not practicable,
nor indeed has man the leisure, to revert on every occasion,
with methodical exactness, to these elements, but, assuming
the principles to be well known and admitted, he attends
rather to the results essential to the end he has in view.
The economical management of the smallest as well as of the
largest household, rests in the end on the elementary princi-
ples of arithmetic ; but what would come of it if, on every
occasion, we were to go back to the simple " one-times-one"
of the multiplication table, and reflected upon and sought for
the proofs that the principle is really valid and can con-
fidently be relied on in practice ? In the same way the art of
war is founded on geometry, but when the general arranges
his troops for battle does he consult his Euclid to satisfy
himself of the correctness and advantages of his position?
Lastly, even the astronomer, whose vocation is pre-eminently
dependent on accurate calculation, when he would make us
acquainted with the phenomena of the sidereal heavens, con-
fines himself almost entirely to them, without wearying those
whom he wishes to interest, with the complicated reckonings
which, however, in all probability, he was obliged himself to
go through. With all these arts and pursuits of practical life,
the intellectual business of thinking of such thinking at
least as is common to most men and of communicating
thought, has a sort of affinity and resemblance. For, unques-
tionably, it is one among the many problems of philosophy to
establish a wise economy and prudent stewardship of that
ever-shifting mass of incoming and outgoing thoughts which
make up our intellectual estate and property. And this is
the more necessary, the greater are the treasures of thought
possessed by our age. For, in the highly rapid interchange
of, and traffic in ideas, which is carrying on, the receipts and
disbursements are not always duly balanced. There is much
cause, therefore, to fear lest a thoughtless and lavish dissipa-
tion of the noblest mental endowments should become preva-
lent, or a false and baseless credit-system in thought spring up
amidst an absolute deficiency of a solid and permanent capital
safely invested in fundamental ideas and lasting truths. As for

8 MATHEMATICAL FORMULAE INAPPROPRIATE.

the second simile : I should, by all means, wish to gain a victory,
not indeed for you, but with you, over some of the many errors
and many semblances of thought, which are, however, but
cheats and counterfeits which distract the minds of the present
generation, disturb the harmony of life, and banish peace even
from the intellectual world. And as respects the third illus-
tration : I should indeed rejoice as having, in a great measure,
attained my object, if only I shall succeed in directing your
attention to some star in the higher region of intellect, which
hitherto was either totally unknown, or, at least, never before
fully observed.

But above all, I think it necessary to observe further, that
in the same way as philosophy loses sight of its true object
and appropriate matter, when either it passes into and merges
in theology, or meddles with external politics, so also does
it mar its proper form when it attempts to mimic the rigorous
method of mathematics. In the middle of the last century
scarcely was there to be found a German manual for any of
the sciences that did not ape the mathematical style, and
where every single position in the long array of interminable
paragraphs did not conclude with the solemn act of demon-
strative phraseology. But it is also well known that the
philosophy which was propounded in this inappropriate form,
and method was crammed full of, nay, rather, was hardly any-
thing more than a tissue of arbitrary, now forgotten, hypo-
theses, which have not brought the world at all nearer to the
truth, not at least to that truth which philosophy is in search
of, and which is something higher than a mere example of
accurate computation.

And even in the present day although, indeed, the appli-
cation is made in a very different way from formerly
German philosophy is anything but free from those algebraic
formularies, in which all things, even the most opposite, admit
of being comprised and blended together. But, be it as it
may, this elaborate structure of mechanical demonstration can
never produce a true, intrinsic, and full conviction. The
method which philosophy really requires is quite different,
being absolutely internal and intellectual fgeistigej. As in
a correct architectural structure it is necessary that all its
parts should be in unison, and such as the eye can take in
easily and agreeably; so in every philosophical communica-

UNITY OF PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 9

tion, the solid simple basis being laid, the arrangement of all
the parts and the careful rejection and exclusion of all foreign
matter, is the most essential point, both for internal correctness
and external perspicuity. But, in truth, the matter in hand
bears a far closer resemblance and affinity to natural objects
which live and grow, than to any lifeless edifice of stone ;
to a great tree, for instance, nobly and beautifully spreading
out on all sides in its many arms and branches. As such
a tree strikes the hasty and passing glance, it forms a some-
what irregular and not strictly finished whole ; there it stands,
just as the stem has shot up from the root, and has divided
itself into a certain number of branches and twigs and leaves,
which livingly move backwards and forwards in the free air.
But examine it more closely, and how perfect appears its
whole structure ! how wonderful the symmetry, how minutely
regular the organization of all its parts, even of each little leaf
and delicate fibre ! In the same way will the ever-growing
tree of human consciousness and life appear in philosophy,
whenever it is not torn from its roots and stripped of its
leaves by a pretended wisdom, but is vividly apprehended by
a true science, and exhibited and presented to the mind in
its life and its growth.

Not only, however, the arrangement of the whole, but also
the connexion of the several parts of a philosophical treatise
or development, is of a higher kind than any mere mechanical
joining, such, for instance, as that by which two pieces
of wood are nailed or glued together. If I must illustrate this
connexion by a simile from animated nature, the facts of
magnetism will best serve my purpose. Once magnetically
excited, the iron needle comes into invisible contact and con-
nexion with the whole globe and its opposite poles ; and this
magnetic clue has guided the bold circumnavigator into new
and unknown regions of the world. Now, the intrinsic vital
coherence of the several thoughts of philosophy resembles this
magnetic attraction ; and no such rude, mechanical, and in
fact mere external conjunction of thought, like that lately
alluded to, can satisfy the requirements of philosophical con-
nexion.

But the supreme intrinsic unity of philosophical thought, or
of a philosophical series of ideas, is quite different from every
thing hitherto mentioned. It belongs not to nature, but to

10 tJNITY OF PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT.

life ; it is not derived from the latter by way of figure or
illustration, but is a part and constituent of it, and goes
to the Tery root and soil of the moral life. What I mean is,
the unity of sentiment the fixed character, remaining ever
the same and true to itself the inner necessary sequence of
the thoughts which, in life no less than in the system and
philosophical theory, invariably makes a great and pro-
found impression on our minds, and commands our respect,
even when it does not carry along with it our convictions.
This, however, is dependent on no form, and no mere method
can attain to it. How often, for instance, in some famous
political harangue, which perhaps the speaker, like the rhap-
sodist of old, poured forth on the spur of the moment, do we
at once recognize and admire this character in the thoughts,
this consistency of sentiment ? How often, on the contrary,
in another composed with the most exquisite research and
strict method, and apparently a far more elaborate and finished
creation of the intellect, we have only to pierce through the
systematic exterior to find that it is nothing but an ill-connected
and chance-medley of conflicting assumptions and opinions
taken from all quarters, and the crude views of the author
himself, devoid of all solidity, and resting on no firm basis,
without character, and wholly destitute of true intrinsic unity ?

If now, in the present course of Lectures, I shall succeed in
laying before you my subject in that clearness and distinct-
ness which are necessary to enable you to comprehend the
whole, and while taking a survey of it, to judge of the agree-
ment of the several parts, you will find, I trust, no difficulty
in discovering the fundamental idea and sentiment. And
further, I would venture to entreat you not to judge hastily of
this sentiment from single expressions, and least of all at the
very outset, but, waiting for its progressive development, to
judge of it on the whole. Lastly, I would also indulge a hope,
that the views of an individual thinker, if perspicuously enun-
ciated, may, even where they fail of conviction, and though
points of difference still subsist, produce no revolting impres-
sion on your minds ; but, by exercising a healing influence on
many a rankling wound in thought and life, produce amongst
us some of the fairest fruits of true philosophy.

Hitherto we have been considering, first of all, the object
and proper sphere of the philosophy of life ; and secondly, its

MODERN PEENCH PHILOSOPHY CONDILLAC. 11

appropriate form of communication, as well as all other
methods which are alien and foreign to it. Of great and de-
cisive importance for the whole course and further develop-
ment of philosophical inquiry, is it to determine, in the next
place, the starting-point from which it ought to set out. It
will not do to believe that we have found this in any axiom
or postulate such as are usually placed at the head of a system.
For such a purpose we must rather investigate the inmost
foundation the root out of which springs the characteristic
feature of a philosophical view. Now, in the philosophy of
life the whole consciousness, with all its different phases and
faculties, must inevitably be taken for the foundation, the
soul being considered as the centre thereof. This simple
basis being once laid, it may be further developed in very
different ways. For it is, I might almost say, a matter of
indifference from what point in the circumference or peri-
phery we set out in order to arrive at the centre, with the
design of giving a further development to this as the foun-
dation of the whole. But in order to illustrate this simple
method of studying life from its true central point, which is
intermediate between the two wrong courses already indicated,
and in order to make by contrast my meaning the plainer, I
would here in a few words, characterize the false starting-
point from which the prevailing philosophy of a day whether
that of France in the eighteenth century or the more recent
systems of Germany has hitherto for the most part proceeded.
False do I call it, both on account of the results to which it
has led, and also of its own intrinsic nature. In one case as
well as in the other, the starting-point was invariably some
controverted point of the reason some opposition or other to
the legitimacy of the reason ; under which term, however, little
else generally was understood, than an opposition of the rea-
son itself to some other principle equally valid and extensive.
The principal, or rather only way which foreign philosophy
took in this pursuit, was to reduce every thing to sensation
as opposed to reason, and to derive every thing from it alone,
so as to make the reason itself merely a secondary faculty, no
original and independent power, and ultimately nothing else
than a sort of chemical precipitate and residuum from the
material impressions.* But however much may be con-

* Schlegel is here alluding to Condillac and his theory of transformed
sensations. Trans.

12 MODERN FRENCH PHILOSOPHY ATHEISM.

ceded to these, and to the external senses, and however great
a share they may justly claim in the whole inner property of
the thinking man, still it is evident, that the perception of
these sensuous impressions, the inner coherence in short,
the unity of the consciousness in which they are collected
can never, as indeed it has often been objected on the other side,
have come into the mind from without. This was not, how-
ever, the end which this doctrine had exclusively, or even princi-
pally, in view. The ultimate result to which they hoped to come
by the aid of this premise, was simply the negation of the supra-
sensible. Whatever in any degree transcends the material
impression, or sensuous experience, as well as all possible
knowledge of, and faith therein, not merely in respect to a
positive religion, but absolutely whatever is noble, beautiful,
and great, whatever can lead the mind to, or can be referred
to a something suprasensible and divine all this, wherever it
may be found, whether in life or thought, in history or in
nature aye, even in art itself, it was the ultimate object of
this foreign philosophy to decry, to involve in doubt, to attack
and to overthrow, and to bring down to the level of the
common and material, or to plunge it into the sceptical abyss
of absolute unbelief. The first step in this system was a
seeming subordination of reason to sensation, as a derivative
of it a mere slough which it throws off in its transformations.
Afterwards, however, the warfare against the suprasensible was
waged entirely with the arms of reason itself. The reason,
indeed, which supplied these weapons, was not one scientifically
cultivated and morally regulated, but thoroughly sophistical and
wholly perverted, which, however, put into requisition all the
weapons of a brilliant but sceptical wit, and moved in the
ever- varied turnings of a most ingenious and attractive style.
Here, where the question was no longer the abrogation of any
single dogma of positive religion, but where the opposition
to the divine had become the ruling tendency of philosophy,
it is not easy to. refrain from characterising it as atheistical
what indeed in its inmost spirit it really was, and also histo-
rically proved itself by its results.

The other course adopted by French philosophy, in the
times immediately preceding the Revolution, was to lay
aside the weapons of wit. and (.0 employ a burning eloquence
as more likely to attract and to carry away minds naturally

GERMAN PHILOSOPHY KANT. 13

noble. It had consequently, if possible, still more fatal results
than the former. The reason, as the peculiar character of
man in a civilised state so it was argued is like civilised
man himself, an artificial creation, and in its essence totally
unnatural ; and the savage state of nature is the only one
properly adapted to man. As the means of emancipation
from an artificial and corrupt civilisation, the well-known
theory of the social contract was advanced. Our whole age has
learned dearly enough the lesson, that this dogma, practically
applied on a large scale, may indeed lead to a despotism of
liberty, and to the lust of conquest, but can as little effect
the re-establishment of a true civilisation as it can bring
back the state of nature. It would be a work of superero-
gation to dwell upon the pernicious results or the intrinsic
hollowness of this system. It is, however, worth while to
remark, that, in this theory also, the beginning was made
with an opposition to reason. Starting with a depreciation
of it as an artificial state and a departure from nature, at the
last it threw itself, and the whole existing frame of society,
into the arms of reason, and thereby sought to gain for
the latter an unlimited authority over all laws, both human
and divine. A somewhat similar phenomenon may every-
where be observed, and the same course will invariably be
taken when philosophy allows itself to set out with some
question or impugning of the reason, and, in its exclusiveness,
makes this dialectical faculty the basis of its investigations.

Modern German philosophy, wholly different from the
French both in form and spirit, has, from its narrow metaphy-
sical sphere, been of far less extensive influence ; and, even if it
has occasionally led to anarchy, it has been simply an anarchy
of ideas. And yet, notwitstanding its different character, a
similar course of inversion is noticeable in it. Beginning with
a strict, not to say absolute, limitation of the reason, and
with an opposition to its assumptions, it also ended in its
investiture with supreme authority not to say in its deifica-
tion. The founder* of the modern philosophy of Germany
commenced his teaching with a lengthy demonstration that

* Kant. For a full and systematic view of modern German philosophy,
see Michelet's Geschichte d. letsten Systeme d. Phil, in Deutschland,
Berlin, 1837 8. Some able and ingenious essays on its errors and abuses
are to be found in Fred. Ancillon's Essais de Philosophic, de Politique,
et de Litterature. Trans.

14 GERMAN PHILOSOPHY JACOBI, FICHTE.

the reason is totally incapable of attaining to a knowledge
of the suprasensible, and that by attempting it, it does but
involve itself in endless disputes and difficulties. And then,
on this assumed incompetency of the reason for the supra-
sensible was based the doctrine of the need, the necessity
of faith nay, faith itself.* But this arbitrary faith appeared
to have but little reliance on itself; and, when closely \iewed,
turned out to be the old reason, which, after being solemnly
displaced from the front of the philosophical palace, was
now again, slightly altered and disguised, set up behind it as
a useful but humble postern. Dissatisfied with such a sys-
tem, the philosophical Me (Ich, Ego) chose another and a
new road, that of absolute science,! in which it might, from
the very first, do as it pleased might bluster and fluster at
will. But soon it became plain, that in this idealistic doc-
trine there was no room for any but a subjective reason-
god devoid of all objective reality. In it the absolute Ego
or Me of each individual, was substituted for and identified
with the divine. Against this certainty of the "Me," there-
fore, there arose first of all a suspicion, and lastly the
reproach of atheism. But, in truth, we ought to be ex-
tremely scrupulous in applying this term in all cases where
the question does not turn on a rude denial of the truth, but
rather on a highly erroneous confusion of ideas. At least, it
would be well if, in such a case, we were to distinguish the
imputed atheism by the epithet of scientific, in order to
indicate thereby that the censure and the name apply in
truth only to the error of the system, and not to the character
of the author. For with such a scientific atheism, the sternest
stoicism in the moral doctrine may, as indeed was actually
the case here, be easily ..combined. Quite weary, how-
ever, of the transcendent vacuity of this ideal reason and
mere dialectical reasoning, German philosophy now took a
different road. It turned more to the side of natui-e, J in
whose arms she threw herself in perfect admiration, thinking
to find there alone life and the fulness thereof. Now, al-
though this new philosophy of nature has borne many noble
fruits of science, still even it has been haunted by that

* Jacobi, in his Glauben's-Philosophie. Trans.
t Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre. Trans.
J Schelling's Natur- Philosophic. Trans.

GERMAN PHILOSOPHY SCHELLING, HEGEL. 15

delusive phantom of the Absolute, and it is not free from
liability to the reproach of a pantheistic deification of Nature.
But properly and accurately speaking, it was not nature it-
self that was set up as the supreme object of veneration, but
this same phantom of reason, which was taken as the basis
and fundamental principle of nature. It was, in short, no-
thing but the old metaphysical one-times-one* in a somewhat
novel application and more vivid form. Here, therefore,
also did the system commence with a seeming disgust at the
reason, and with a subordination of it to nature, in order to
conclude with the absolute principle of the reason.

Viewed, however, as a philosophical science of nature, it
has rather to answer for some occasional errors and perverse
extravagances, than for any thoroughly consequent and
systematic carrying out of the ingrafted error into all its
parts. Moreover, a broad distinction must undoubtedly be
drawn between its different advocates and promulgators. In
these last days German philosophy has, in a measure at least,
reverted again into the empty vacuum of the absolute idea.f
The latter, indeed, and the idol of absolute reason which is
enshrined therein, is no more a mere inward conception, but
is objectively understood and set up as the fundamental prin-
ciple of all entity. But still, when we consider how the
essence of mind is expressly made to consist in negation, and
how also the spirit of negation is predominant through the
whole system, a still worse substitution appears to have taken
place, inasmuch as, instead of the living God, this spirit 01
negation, so opposed to Him, is, in erroneous abstraction, set
up and made a god of. Here, therefore, as well as elsewhere,
a metaphysical lie assumes the place of a divine reality.

Thus, then, do we everywhere observe a strange internal
correspondence and affinity between the several aberrations of

* Schlegel is alluding to those systems which suppose a primary and
original essence, which, by its successive spontaneous developments, pro-
duces every thing else out of itself. This absolute original of all things
was by Schelling, after Spinosa, called natura naturans, while, by a
phraseology which happily indicates the identity of the self-developing
subject and its objective developments, the totality of the objects derived
from it are termed natura naturata. Trans.

t Hegel. For a view of his philosophy see the Article Hegel, in the
Penny Cyclopaedia, and Morel's Speculative Philosophy of Europe in the
Nineteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 131. Tram.

16 BYRON'S CAIN FRENCH PHYSICAL SCIENCE.

our age. Here the remotest mental extremes, which ex-
ternally seem to repel each other, suddenly converge at the
same point of delusive light, or rather of brilliant darkness.
Instances of this correspondence startle us where we least
expect to meet with them. An English poet,* perhaps the
greatest, certainly the most remarkable poet of our age, in
his tragic delineation of the oldest fratricide, has pourtrayed
the prime mover of this deed, the enemy of the human race,
and the king of the bottomless pit, as the bold censurer of
the divine order of things, and the head of all discontented
spirits, and leader of the opposition of the whole creation.
In this light he has painted him with unparalleled boldness,
and with such moving and astonishing truthfulness, that all
previous descriptions by the greatest poets seem but arbi-
trary and unreal phantoms wiien compared with this portrait,
which was evidently a favourite sketch, for the author's secret
partiality betrays itself in the skill and pains with which he
has lavished on this dark figure all the magic colours of his
fancy. Thus, then, in this poetic creation, the same hostile
principle the same absolute, i. e., evil spirit of negation and
contradiction that forms the consummation of the errors of
German philosophy, notwithstanding its abstract unintelligi-
bility is enthroned amidst the disordered system. And so,
by a strange law of " pre-established harmony," the anti-
christian poet and these anti- Christian thinkers unexpectedly
meet together at the point of a spurious sublimity. In any
case, however, this last instance forms the third stage of idea-
listic confusion, and certainly the last grade of scientific
atheism.

Now, briefly to recapitulate my own convictions and my view
of the relation subsisting between the philosophy of life which
I propose to set before you, and the prevalent philosophy and
science of the age, the following few remarks will suffice,
honour and admire the discoveries so pregnant with important
results which natural philosophy has made in our days, but
especially the gigantic strides which the study of nature in
France has taken; so far, at least, as they contain and have
established a real and solid advance of human science ; so far,
too, as I am acquainted with them, and in my sphere under-

* Schlegcl is speaking of Byron, and his Cain, a Mystery. Trans.

GERMAN PHISIOLOGY THE SOUL. 17

stand them. On the other hand, I cannot but take exception
to that admixture of materialism which has been infused into
them by the ruling philosophical system of a previous age,
which in France has still so many followers. I honour too
and love German science, with its diligent and comprehensive
research. Nay, I value the natural philosophy of Germany
even still more than that of France, since, while it adopts
the same great discoveries, it views them in a more spiritual
light. As for that idealistic jargon, however, which runs
parallel and is interwoven with it, on which, indeed, it was
originally based, and from which even now it is anything but
clear ; this I cannot regard in any other light than, what it
really is, an intellectual delusion of the most pernicious kind,
and one which will inevitably produce the most destructive
and fatal consequences on the human mind.

What has been now said will suffice for our notice of the
opposing systems of philosophy. Henceforward we shall have
no need to turn our looks to this side, but shall fee able to
give our attention solely and calmly to the development of
that which I have already announced, and have now to commu-
nicate to you. Previously, however, to entering upon this
subject, it seemed to me advisable, by contrasting the false
starting-point with the true centre of philosophy, to set the
latter before you in a clearer and distincter light.

The dialectical faculty of abstraction is naturally the pre-
dominant one, and the most completely evolved in the think-
ing mind. Accordingly, most thinkers have set it up as the
basis of their speculations, in order to arrive the more rapidly
at the desired end of an absolute science ; or, if the habit of
mind be more disposed that way, at an absolute not-knowing,
and the rejection of all certainty ; which, in the main, is quite
as false, and, in this respect, identical with the former. But
it is not sufficient to follow any such a partial course, and to
start from any one side merely of the human consciousness.
On the right and sure road of a complete and thorough in-
vestigation, our first duty is to study the human consciousness
in its fulness and living development, in all its faculties and
powers. And then, in the second place, when, by thus
assuming a position in the centre, man has enabled himseli
to take a complete survey of the whole, he may unquestionably
proceed to inquire what kind and what degree of knowledge,

18 MAX COMPARED WITH SPIRITUAL BEINGS.

with such a consciousness, he is capable of attaining, both
of the external world and of the suprasensible, and how far
the latter is conceivable and its existence possible. Now,
just as generally the soul is the principle of all life in nature,
so is the thinking soul the centre of the human consciousness.
But in the thinking soul is comprised the reason which dis-
tinguishes, combines, and infers, no less than the fancy which
devises, invents, and suggests. Standing in the centre be-
tween the two, the thinking soul embraces both faculties.
But it also forms the turning-point of transition between the
understanding and the will; and, as the connecting link, fills
up the gulf which otherwise would lie between and divide
the two. It comprises also all sorts and degrees of concep-
tions, from the absolutely necessary, precisely definite, and
permanently unchangeable, down to those which arise and
pass away half involuntarily from those in no degree clearly
developed up to those which have been advanced to the
highest clearness of the understanding those which are
witnessed with a calm indifference, and those also which
excite a gentle longing or kindle a burning resolve. The
thinking soul is the common storehouse where the whole of
these conceptions are successively lodged. Indeed, to describe
it in general terms, it is but the inner pulse of thought, cor-
responding to the pulsation of the blood in the living body.

This general description, it must be confessed, is very far
from being an adequate explanation of the matter, and at
best does but imperfectly convey our meaning. But perhaps
a different line of thought, however bold and hazardous it
may seem, may bring us far more simply to the point at
present in view a more accurate description, namely, of
the peculiar property of the human mind, and of the cha-
racteristic feature which distinguishes man from other beings
equally finite, but endowed in the same manner with conscious-
ness. That the rational soul, or the reason, distinguishes him
from the brutes, is a remark common and trite enough. But
this is only one aspect of the matter : and must we always
cast our looks downwards, and never upwards ? What I mean
is this: supposing that there are other created spirits and
finite intelligences besides men, might not the comparison
of their purely spiritual consciousness with man's serve,
perhaps in an eminent degree, to elucidate the distinctive

THE HIGHER SPIRITS INCORPOREAL. 19

properties of the human consciousness in that other aspect
which is too commonly neglected ? I am far from intending
to make this matter a subject of investigation in the present
place. I take it merely as an hypothesis, warranted indeed
by universal tradition, and solely as an aid to elucidate the
matter in hand. Universal, however, I may well call this
tradition, since, agreeing in the main with what Holy Writ
asserts, the oldest and most civilised nations of antiquity
(among whom I need only mention the Egyptians, and espe-
cially the Persians and the Hindoos) have admitted, as a
well-established fact, the existence of such finite intelligences
and created spirits, invisible indeed to man, but not altogether
alien to him. And as for the Greeks and Romans, if occa-
sionally they allude to the genius of Socrates as something
strange and singular, this was only because the wise Athenian
spoke of this subject in peculiar language, and referred to it
more habitually than was the wont of his countrymen and
contemporaries. Otherwise it was the general belief, both
of Greeks and Romans, that every man has his guardian
spirit or genius. Now this hypothesis being once admitted
to be possible, let us inquire in what light were these
ancients accustomed to regard, and what ought we to con-
ceive of the peculiar nature of these spiritual beings in con-
formity with the representation of so universal a tradition ?

Now, in the first place, they have always been thought of as
pure spiritual beings, having no such gross terrestrial body as
man has. At least if they were supposed to require and possess
a body as the organ and medium of their spiritual operations,
it was considered to be of a special kind ; an ethereal body of
light, but invisible to the human eye. But this incorporeity
is little more than a negative quality. A more positive and a
profounder distinction lies perhaps in this, that these pure
spiritual beings are wholly free from that weakness of cha-
racter, or frailty, which is so peculiar to man. That pervading
internal mutability, that midecided vacillation between doing
and letting alone, that reciprocation between effort and relaxa-
tion the wide gulf between volition and execution, the thought
and the carrying into effect nothing of all this admits of being
applied or transferred to these pure spiritual beings without
contradicting the very idea of their essence. It is thus only, or
not at all, that we can conceive of them. Coining and going

c 2

20 FANCY, MAN'S DISTINCTIVE PROPERTY.

like the lightning, and rapid as the light, they never grow
weary of their endless activity. They need no rest except the
spiritual contemplation which constitutes their essence. All
their thoughts are marked with unity and identity. With
them the conception is at the same time a deed, and the pur-
pose and the execution are simultaneous. Every thing, too,
in them has the stamp of eternity. This prerogative, how-
ever, has, it must be confessed, its disadvantages. When
once they have deviated from the true centre, they go on for
ever in their devious course.

But still all this is little more than a description of the
whole idea which I have allowed myself, merely with a view
of employing it as a passage to the point which is at present
in question. That purpose was, on the supposition of the ex-
istence of such superior beings, accurately to indicate which
of man's powers or faculties of mind and soul may rightly be
attributed to them. Now, to my mind, the distinction is very
strikingly suggested in the well-known sentiment of one of
our famous poets. Thus he addresses man : " Thy knowledge
thou sharest with superior beings ;" superior, for in the
clearness of their eternal science, they undoubtedly stand far
higher than men and then he continues, " But art thou hast
alone."* But, now, what else is art than fancy become visi-
ble, and assuming a bodily shape or word or sound ? It is,
therefore, this nimble-footed, many-shaped, ever-inventive
fancy, which forms the dangerous prerogative of man and
cannot be ascribed to these pure spiritual beings. And as
little justifiable would it be to ascribe to them that human,
reason, with its employment of means, and its slow processes
of deduction and comparison. Instead of this, they possess the
intuitive understanding, in which to see and to understand
are simultaneous and identical. If, then, in an accurate
sense of the terms, neither fancy nor reason belongs to them,
it would further be wrong to attribute them a soul as dis-
tinct from the mind or spirit, and as being rather a passive
faculty of inward productiveness and change and internal
growth. Briefly to recapitulate what has been said: The
existence of the brutes is simple, because in them the soul is

* " Dein Wissen theilest du mit vorgezogenen Geistern ;
Die Kunst, o Mensch, hast du allein."

SCHILLER'S Kunstlehre. Trans.

MAN'S TRIPLE NATURE BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT. 21

completely mixed up and merged in the organic body, and is
one with it ; on the destruction of the latter it reverts to
the elements, or is absorbed in the general soul of nature.
Twofold, however, is the nature of created spirits, who besides
this ethereal body of light are nothing but mind or spirit; but
threefold is the nature of man, as consisting of spirit, soul,
and body.* And this triple constitution and property, this
threefold life of man, is, indeed, not in itself that pre-eminence,
although it is closely connected with that superior excellence
which ennobles and distinguishes man from all other created
beings. I allude to that prerogative by which he alone of all
created beings is invested with the Divine image and likeness.
This threefold principle is the simple basis of all philosophy ;
and the philosophical system which is constructed on such a
foundation is the philosophy of life, which therefore has even
" words of life." It is no idle speculation, and no unintelli-
gible hypothesis. It is not more difficult, and needs not to
be more obscure, than any other discourse on spiritual sub-
jects ; but it can and may be as easy and as clear as the read-
ing of a writing, the observation of nature, and the study of
histoiy, For it is in truth nothing else than a simple theory
of spiritual life, drawn from life itself, and the simple under-
standing thereof. If, however, it becomes abstract and unin-
telligible, this is invariably a consequence, and for the most
part an infallible proof of its having fallen into error. When
in thought we place before us the whole composite human
individual, then, after spirit and soul, the organic body is the
third constituent, or the third element out of which, in com-
bination with the other two, the whole man consists and is
compounded. But the structure of the organic body, its
powers and laws, must be left to physical science to investi-
gate. Philosophy is the science of consciousness alone ; it has,

* That by geist, spirit, and not mind merely, is here meant, will be
doubted by no one who considers the scriptural basis of these Lectures.
Schlegel seems to have had in view 1 Thess. v. 23. In the German,
geist stands both for mind and spirit, which, however, in English are
equivalent neither in use nor meaning. Whenever, therefore, the trans-
lator is compelled by the English idiom to translate geist and its deriva-
tives by mind and its cognates, and it is essential to keep in view the
identity of the matter by the sameness of expression, he will indicate it by
adding the German original in a bracket.

22 MAN'S FOUR-FOLD CONSCIOUSNESS.

therefore, primarily to occupy itself with soul and spirit or mind,
and must carefully guard against transgressing its limits in
any respect. But the third constituent beside mind and soul,
in which these two jointly carry on their operations, needs not
always, as indeed the above instance proves, to be an organic
body. In other relations of life, this third, in which both are
united, or which they in unison produce, may be the word,
the deed, life itself, or the divine order on which both are de-
pendent. These, then, are the subjects which I have proposed
for consideration. But in order to complete this scale of life,
I will further observe : triple is the nature of man, but four-
fold is the human consciousness. For the spirit or mind, like
the soul, divides and falls asunder, or rather is split and
divided into two powers or halves the mind, namely, into
understanding and will, the soul into reason and fancy. These
are the four extreme points, or, if the expression be preferred,
the four quarters of the inner world of consciousness. All
other faculties of the soul, or powers of mind, are merely
subordinate ramifications of the four principal branches ; but
the living centre of the whole is the thinking soul.

END OF LECTURE I.

LECTURE II.

OF THE LOVING SOUL AS THE CENTRE OF THE MORAL
LIFE ; AND OF MARRIAGE.

THE development of the human consciousness according to the
triple principle of its existence, or of its nature as compounded
of spirit or mind, soul, and animated body, must begin with
the soul, and not with the spirit, even though the latter be
the most important and supreme. For the soul is the first
grade in the progress of development. In actual life, also,
it is the beginning and the permanent foundation, as well
as the primary root, of the collective consciousness. The
development of the spirit or mind of man is much later,
being first evolved in or out of, by occasion of, or with the
co-operation of the soul. But even when thus developed, the
mind (under which term we comprise the will, as well as the
understanding) is neither in all men, nor always in the same
individual, equally active. In this respect we may apply to
it what has been said of the wind, which imparts vital motion
and freshness to all the objects of outward nature : we " hear
the sound thereof, but we cannot tell whence it comes, nor
whither it goeth."* The thinking soul, on the contrary, is,
properly speaking, always, though silently, working ; and it
is highly probable that it is never without conceptions. Of
th se, indeed, it may either possess a clear or an almost totally
indist* ct consciousness, according to that principle of un-
conscious representations propounded as a fundamental axiom
of psychology by a great German philosopher! of earlier
times, with whose opinions I often find myself agreeing,
and with whom before all other men I would most gladly
concur.

Applied to the alternating states of sleeping and waking
in the outward organic life, this would merely mean that in sleep

* St. John iii. 8. Trans. f Leibnitz. Trans.

24 UNCONSCIOUS CONCEPTIONS KEASON AND FANCY.

we always dream, even at those times when our vision leaves no
traces on our memory. The great majority of dreams, even
those which in the moment of awakening we still remember,
are absolutely nothing but the conjoint impression of the
bodily tone and the ever- varying temperament of life and
health and of the disorderly repetition of such ideas as pre-
viously to sleeping had principally engaged the attention.
Now, since every opposite comes near to its correlative in one
or more points of contact, which, as they establish, also
serve to maintain the relationship between the two, so the
state of the soul in dreaming will serve strikingly to illus-
trate its waking action. Of the great multitude of dreams,
which are for the most part confused and unmeaning, some
occasionally stand out from the rest extremely clear and well-
connected, in which the feelings oftentimes discover a profound
significance, or which, at least, as significant images, interest
the fancy. And just in the same manner in the state of \vaking
there passes before the soul no inconsiderable number of
obscure and vague conceptions, which are not much if at all
clearer or more methodically disposed than the train of images
which in a dream succeed one another without the least intrinsic
order or connexion. Still we should greatly err were we to
assume, that like the latter they leave no trace behind them
on the soul. On the contrary, in these undeveloped beginnings
of thought there often lies the germ of very definite ideas,
and especially of the various peculiarities of mental character,
as also of the impulses and determination which, at first slowly
and spontaneously formed, eventuate in some definite suscepti-
bility or direction of the will. Now, as the external life of
man alternates between the waking activity and the state of
repose in sleep, so, too, the thinking soul is divided between
the abstracting and classifying Reason and the inventive
Fancy.* These two are, as it were, the halves, so to speak,
or the two poles of the thinking soul, of which the one may be
regarded as the positive, the other as the negative. In re-

* It is clear from what follows, that Schlegel used the term Fancy in a
wide and general sense, which embraces, first, its original use in ancient
philosophy,! as the faculty of conception (<airao-ia), which reproduces
the images of objects whether present or absent ; secondly, imagination,
which is essential to all authors ; and thirdly, fancy, in a narrow sense
or the poetic fancy. It is in this wide sense that the translator employs it

FANCY THE POSIT I YE, ftEASON THE NEGATIVE POLE. 25

spect to the inner fruitful cogitation itself to the origination
and production of thoughts the imagination, as the reproduc-
tive faculty, is the positive pole. As for the fancy, properly
so called the poetic fancy, or that which plays an important
part in the inclinations and passions it is only a particular
species and operation of this faculty, which in its general form
also manifests itself in many other directions and spheres of
human thought and action. To it belongs, for instance, that
talent of extensive combination which distinguishes all the
great discoverers in mathematics. Opposite to this pro-
ductive faculty of thought, tbe negative pole is formed by the
classifying faculty of reason, which further elaborates, closely
determines and limits the materials furnished to it by the
fancy. Thus, then, the place which the fancy with afi the
powers, emotions, and impressions which belong to it assumes
relatively to the external world, is subordinate and ministerial,
since it is only within certain prescribed limits that it can
duly make use of its rich productive energies, realize its inmost
ideas, and act upon the,m.

Here, therefore, the first place belongs to the ordering and
determining reason, and which here ought to hold the helm.
In this respect it may justly be called the regulative faculty.
And yet, since the reason is, so to speak, only one-half of the
soul, it must not pretend to exclusive authority ; while, on
the other hand, it is but little likely that that which we may
have set before our mind and imagination as the innermost
wish of our hearts, will simply on that account prove inva-
riably a real and lasting good.

I called the understanding and the will, the reason and the
fancy, the four principal branches of the human consciousness,

after Milton, who uses it, as more extensive than imagination, when he
says of fancy,

" Of all the external things

Which the five watchful senses represent,

She forms imaginations, aery shapes."

Par. Lost., Book V.

Indeed the whole of the speech of Raphael in this fifth book contains a
Striking affinity of thought and idea with Schlegel. We have there man's
triple constituents, body, soul, and spirit reason and fancy in the soul, of
which reason is the being or essence while discursive reason is appro-
priated to man, but intuitive reason is made the prerogative of the " purest
spirits" " the pure intelligential substances." Trans.

26 FANCY THE SENSES AND INSTINCTS.

of which all other mental powers or faculties of the soul,
usually ascribed to man, are but so many offshoots. These
other powers however cannot with perfect propriety be called
subordinate, since in another point of view they may per-
haps be entitled to assume a higher rank. Assigned* faculties
is, therefore, what I should prefer to term them. Now of
such faculties belonging to the domain of the combining and
distinguishing reason, the memory and the conscience are pre-
eminently to be mentioned. For the memory also in another
way is a combining just as the conscience is a distinguishing
faculty; the latter, however, being so not only in another
but even in a far higher sense. But we must postpone for
the present the further consideration of this matter, and con-
sider rather those faculties or functions which are under the
influence of, or at least immediately connected with, the fancy.
These are the senses, and the inclinations or instincts. With
regard, then, to the senses : in the first place, I would simply
call your attention to the fact, that the triple principle of human
existence according to which the latter consists of a spirit or
mind, of a soul, and of a living body or a bodily manifesta-
tion is repeated as it were in miniature in every smaller and
narrower sphere of man's consciousness. This is especially
the case with the external senses. Thus -viewing them, how-
ever, we should have to reckon but three senses instead of the
usual number of five. This can be managed easily enough
by taking the three lower and counting them as one, since
they constitute pre-eminently the corporeal sense, as contra-
distinguished from the other two, which are both higher and
more incorporeal. For to the three lower senses, not only
is a material contact indispensable, but also, as in the case
of smell, a sort of chemical assimilation with matter. No
doubt, in the act of seeing and hearing there is likewise a cer-
tain but imperceptible contact of the nerves of the eye and
ear with the waves of light and the undulations of the air ; but
still this contact is of a different kind from the former, and of
another and indeed of a higher nature, producing the relations
of tone, colour, and shape. Now, in this classification, the
eye is the mind or spirit's sense for beauty of form, and grace

* In the original zugetheilte, said of a matter assigned for investigation
to a particular judge, or of the judge appointed to examine and report
upon it. Trans.

INFLUENCE OP FANCY ON THE SENSE. 27

of motion. It is so in truth, not merely in those who are
endowed with a taste for the arts or the artistic eye, but
far more universally, being diffused in a greater or less degree
through the whole human family. Special gifts of it, or
rather higher though varying endowments, are to be found
in some highly-favoured individuals ; and in the same way
the ear for music is not imparted to all who possess the
general organ of hearing, which we very properly term the
soul's sense. The external senses man shares, indeed, in
common with the brutes, in some of whom they are found of
an exquisite and highly developed susceptibility. But these
higher endowments of eye and ear, and above all the natural
artistic feeling for beauty of form, and the musical talent, are
the prerogatives of man, conferred upon him by his peculiar
faculty of fancy. On this account they, like that faculty,
are distributed unequally among men, though they are not
on that account less real and undeniable.

The brutes, I said, do not possess them. No doubt there is
a certain melodious rhythm perceptible in the songs of birds.
Some also of the more eminently docile and sagacious of ter-
restrial animals do indeed evince peculiar signs of pleasure
in the music of man. Still I would call this but so many
single, unconnected echoes or reverberations of fancy, since
everything like free choice, further development, or intrinsic
coherence, is wanting to them all is broken, abrupt, and
incapable of being formed into a whole. In the same man-
ner the artistic instinct and skill of some animals exhibits no
doubt a certain likeness in its operations to the rational works
of man, but still it ever remains a resemblance at best, and
is for ever divided from reason by a wide and impassable
gulf. It is, as it were, the indistinct trace of a weather-worn
and nearly obliterated inscription the dying notes of some
far-off music. And hence the agreeable, but at the same
time melancholy impression which such things make upon
our feelings. A something human seems to be stirring in
them. They appear to revive a faint but nearly forgotten allu-
sion to an originally close and intrinsic relation between
animated nature in its highest developments and man as its
former master and as the divinely appointed lord of the
whole earthly creation. But if the influence and the opera-
tion of the fancy on the external senses be thus indistinct and

28 INFLUENCE OF FANCY ON THE PASSIONS.

difficult to be traced, it is far more apparent, as also far
greater and more decided, on the inclinations, instincts, and
passions, which form the second class of the faculties subordi-
nate to the fancy. It can easily be shown how even the sim-
plest instincts of self-preservation, and the gratification of the
most natural wants, are in man perceptibly affected by the
working of fancy, so as to be manifoldly diversified thereby.
But still more is this the case with the higher impulses and
instincts, as confirmed and strengthened by use and indul-
gence, especially when, in their most violent and intensest
development, they become passions. For in this shape, both
by this excess and by the false direction they give to the
mental powers, originally designed for nobler and more exalted
purposes, they form so many moral perversities and faults of
character. I would here, in the first place, call your attention
to the fact, that in all the passions, when by their intensity
they become immoral, the fancy exercises an essential and
co-operating influence. And in the second place, I would
remind you that in the same way as in the external senses
generally, so also in all the principal phases of ill-regulated
passion, the threefold principle of human existence manifests
itself once more, and is even repeated anew in all the several
forms and subdivisions of these special spheres.

Now the first of these false tendencies and moral infirmities
unbounded pride and haughtiness is essentially a mental
blindness and aberration; and vanity, with its delusions, is the
same disease in a lower and milder phase. And all will
admit that the source of this moral failing is an overweening
love of self. But in self-conceit the co-operating influence of
fancy is easily and distinctly traceable. As to the second of
those infirmities which distract and disturb life : I should
also be disposed to consider the sensual passionateness or
passionate sensuality as a disease indeed, but of a brutalising
tendency an inflammatory habit, a fever of the soul, which
either spends itself in acute and violent paroxysms, or with
slower but certain progress secretly undermines and subverts
all man's better qualities. In either case, the true source of the
evil the irresistible energy and the false magic of this
passion lies in an over-excited, deluded, or poisoned fancy.
The natural instinct itself, in so far as it is inborn and agree-
able to nature, is obnoxious to no reproach. The blame lies

PRIDE SENSUALITY AVARICE. 29

altogether in the want of principle, or that weakness of
character which half- voluntarily concedes to the mere instinct
an unlimited authority, or at least is incapable of exercising
over it a due control. The third false direction of man's
instincts which, after the two already noticed, involves human
society in the greatest disorder, and most fatally disturbs the
peace of individuals, is an unlimited love of gain, selfishness,
and avarice. No doubt, in a certain modified and lower sense,
the hope of advantage or profit is the motive that prompts
every enterprise ; at least, according to the judgment of the
world, nothing is undertaken or transacted without a view to
some object of a selfishness more or less refined. But when
we look to the worst and most violent cases of this disease
an insatiable avarice and a morbid love of gain, then we
at once see the baneful effects which the fancy, dwelling
exclusively on material property and chinking coin, has on
this moral disease, where, with the golden treasure, mind and
soul are shut up and buried, and both completely numbed and
petrified, in the same Way that, by certain organic diseases of
the body, the heart becomes ossified.

By these pernicious passions, the higher moral organ of
life is in different ways attacked and destroyed. In the
first case, that of the blinding of the mind by pride and vanity,
the moral judgment is perverted and falsified. In the second
case, where the soul is brutalised by a life of sensuality, the
moral sense is clouded, loses all its delicacy, and is at last
totally obliterated. In the third instance, that of a
thorough numbness of the inner life produced by selfishness
and avarice, the idea of moral duty is in the end totally lost,
dies away, and becomes extinct, while the dead Mammon is
regarded as the supreme good of life, and, being set up as
the sole object of human exertion, is substituted for the best
and noblest acquisition of mind and soul. The three passions
which we have already examined, are founded indeed on a
positive pursuit, however false may be the extent or per-
verted the direction in which it is carried out. We might
now proceed with our speculation, and progressively de-
veloping it from the same point of view, extend and apply
it to the aggressive passions, which are based on a merely
negative pursuit the attack, annihilation, and destruction of
their objects. I allude to the passion of hatred, in its three

30 INFLUENCE OF FANCY ON THE NOBLER FEELINGS.

different elements or species, viz.-, anger, malice, and revenge.
But to enter further upon such investigations would be inappro-
priate in the present place. Generally, indeed, in touching
upon matters so universally known, my object has been
merely to consider and exhibit them from their psychological
side, in order to show partly how the triple principle of
human existence, according to mind or spirit, and soul, and
the third element, wherein the former two conjointly operate,
finds its application, and is repeated, as it were, in miniature,
in the narrower sphere of the natural inclination, both good
and bad, and also in that of the external senses. At the same
time it was also my wish to call attention to the fact, that the
dominion of the fancy over its subordinate faculties, whether
of the external senses or the instincts, manifests itself like-
wise in the pernicious passions, as exercising over them a
very baneful influence, and, indeed, as being the principal
source of the prevailing aberrations.

These three passions and leading defects of character, which
destroy the inward peace of individuals, and disturb the
order of society, may be regarded as so many Stygian floods,
so many dark subterranean streams of lava and fire, which,
bursting from the crater of a burning fancy, pour down
upon the region of the will, there again to break out in law-
less deeds and violent catastrophes, or perhaps, what is far
worse, to lie smouldering in a life frittered away in worth-
less pursuits, without object or meaning, or in the frivolous
routine of an ordinary existence.

Having thus fully set forth the injurious influence of a
disordered fancy on the deadly and pernicious passions of
man, we shall be more at liberty to consider the other and
better aspect of this mental faculty. For fancy, which, as
his peculiar prerogative, distinguishes man from all other
intellectual beings, is a living and fruitful source of good no
less than of evil. Accordingly, in the higher aims of his
good instincts, noble inclinations, and true enthusiasms, fancy
gives life and stability to his exertions, and arouses and calls
to his aid all the energies of mind and intellect.

But here I must make the preliminary remark, that in the
ethical domain generally, and in all moral matters and re-
lations, nothing but a very fine line divides righj from wrong.
The fault lies not unfrequently in the undue exaggeration or

HONOUR INDUSTRY LOVE. 31

false application of a right principle. Pride and vanity, for
instance, are the commonest subjects of the world's censure ;
but who would banish from existence a true sense of honour,
and a noble thirst of fame. And how would society lose all its
tone and its true ring, if we were to withdraw from it all
those precious metals ! Avarice and the love of gain are, no
doubt, fruitful sources of evil, and bring into society a thou-
sand nay, we may rather say, without exaggeration, ten
thousand times ten thousand woes. They are the occasion of
countless feuds and endless litigation ; so that the prevention
and settlement of these numberless commercial quarrels and
disputes about property, occupy the chief part of the atten-
tion, and absorb the best energies of domestic government.
But a gainful industry, directed to utility and even to private
utility labour and assiduity which have no other end in
view than a lawful gain and a fair profit, which not merely
does not violate the rights of others, but even pays a due
regard to their interests, will be universally recognised as an
essential part of the frame of society. It forms, indeed, the
alimentary sap of life, which, as it ascends through its differ-
ent vessels, diffuses everywhere both health and strength.

Lastly, we will now consider that other instinct of our
nature, which, even as the strongest, most requires moral regu-
lation and treatment. By all noble natures among civilised
nations in their best and purest times, this instinct has, by
means of various moral relations, been spontaneously asso-
ciated with a higher element. And indeed, taken simply as
inclination, it possesses some degree of affinity therewith.
Such a strong inclination and hearty love, elevated to the
bond of fidelity, receives thereby a solemn consecration, and
is even, according to the divine dispensation, regarded as a
sanctuary. And it is in truth the moral sanctuary of earthly
existence, on which God's first and earliest blessing still rests.
It is, moreover, the foundation on which is built the hap-
piness and the moral welfare of races and nations. This soul-
connecting link of love, which constitutes the family union,
is the source from which emanate the strong and beautiful
ties of a mother's love, of filial duty, and of fraternal affection
between brethren and kindred, which together make up the
invisible soul, and, as it were, the inner vital fluid of the
nerves of human society. And here, too, the great family

32 INFLUENCE OF PAXCY LOVE, MARRIAGE.

problem of education must be taken into account and by
education, I mean the whole moral training of the rising
generation. For, however numerous and excellent may be
the institutions founded by the state or conducted by private
individuals, for special branches and objects, or for particular
classes and ages, still, on the whole, education must be re-
garded as pre-eminently the business and duty of the family.
For it is in the family that education commences, and there
also it terminates and concludes at the moment when the young
man, mature of mind and years, and the grown-up maiden,
leave the paternal roof to found a new family of their own.
In seasons of danger, and of wide-spread and stalking cor-
ruption, men are wont to feel but often, alas! too late
how entirely the whole frame both of human and political
society rests on this foundation of the family union. Not
merely by the phenomena of our own times, but by the
examples of the most civilised nations of antiquity, may this
truth be historically proved ; and numerous passages can be
adduced from their great historians in confirmation of it.
In all times and in all places a moral revolution within the
domestic circle has preceded the public outbreaks of general
anarchy, which have thrown whole nations into confusion, and
undermined the best ordered and wisely constituted states.
When all the principal joists of a building have started, and
all its stays and fastenings, from the roof to the foundation,
have become loose, then will the first storm of accident easily
demolish the whole structure, or the first spark set the dry
and rotten edifice in flames.

Next in order and dignity to this soul-binding tie of a noble
and virtuous love, which promotes and preserves the intimate
union of all the parts of social life, another species or form of
a lofty, a good, and a beautiful nay, even of a sublime endea-
vour shows itself in what we call enthusiasm. The latter
has for its positive object a thought which the soul having
once intellectually embraced, is ever after filled and possessed
with. But the mere inward idea does not suffice here, how-
ever it may in the case of the simple conception or admira-
tion of a noble thought. The distinctive characteristic of en-
thusiasm is rather the 'untiring energy with which, even at
great personal sacrifice, it labours to realize or to preserve in
realisation the idea which has once fully possessed the soul.

INFLUENCE OF FANCY ENTHUSIASM, PATKIOTISM. 33

The commonest form or species of this enthusiasm is patriot-
ism or the love of country, which best and most plainly
manifests itself in seasons of national danger or calamity.
As the daily life of the individual alternates between labour
and rest, and the refreshing sleep of the night renews the
strength which has been exhausted by the toils of the day,
so is it on a larger scale with the public life of the state in,
its alternations between peace and war. For although peace
is justly prized and desired as the greatest of public blessings,
still it is some comfort and compensation for its unavoidable
absence, to know that the presence of war, and the struggle
with its dangers and hardships, first awaken and call into
being many of man's best energies and noblest virtues, which
in uninterrupted peace and tranquillity must have remained
for ever dormant. But, as is everywhere the case throughout
the moral domain, a spurious enthusiasm stands close alongside
of the true and genuine species, and requires to be carefully
distinguished from it. Forced to speak of the love of country,
and to paint its genuine traits, I rejoice that I am standing on
one of its chosen and most familiar scenes, where my hearers
will understand me at the first sound, when I declare that the
true enthusiasm of patriotism reveals itself most plainly in
misfortune in the midst of deep and lasting calamities.
Another characteristic is, that it does not arbitrarily set up its
object, or capriciously make its own occasion, but at the first
call of its hereditary sovereign rushes to the post of danger.
The second mark, therefore, of a true patriotism is obedience,
but an obedience associated with the forward energies of a
fixed and prepared resolve, which far outruns the exact requi-
sitions of duty, and gives rise to a true and real equality the
equality of self-sacrifice, wherein the high and noble vie with
the poor and lowly in the magnanimous oblation to their
country of their best and dearest possessions.

Another generally known and admitted species of enthu-
siasm, viz., a taste for the arts, has not so universal a founda-
tion in the constitution of the human mind as the feeling
of patriotism, but implies a particular mental disposition
and certain natural endowments, and consequently the sphere
of its operation is far narrower. But here also, as in the
former case, enthusiasm manifests itself as a property or state
of the soul which is far from being contented with a calm

34 LONGING FOR THE ETEENAL AND DIVINE.

philosophical contemplation or admiration of its inward
thought, but which, longing eagerly to realize and exhibit
externally the idea with which it is possessed, knows no rest
nor peace till it has accomplished its cherished object. And
such an ideal enthusiasm is not confined to the sphere of art
alone, but even in the calmer regions of science is its influ-
ence felt. It is, in short, the animating impulse of all great
inventions, creations, and discoveries. Without it Columbus
would never have been able to overcome all the dangers and
obstacles which beset the first design and the final consum-
mation of his bold conception. But in the latter instances the
object of enthusiasm is no longer a pure ideal, like that which
animates the artist, but something great or new in the region
of useful science or of practical life. In every case, however,
enthusiasm has for its object a something positive and real,
which, even if it be not one which captivates the soul with
its transcendent beauty and excellence, yet, at least, by its
exalted nature fills it with w r onder and admiration. Quite
otherwise is it with a longing an indefinite feeling of pro-
found desire, which is satisfied with no earthly object, whether
real or ideal, but is ever directed to the eternal and the divine.
And although it presupposes, as the condition of its existence,
no special genius or peculiar talents, but proceeds imme-
diately out of the pure source of the divinely created and
immortal soul out of the everlasting feelings of the loving
soul still, from causes which are easily conceivable, a pure
development of this species is far rarer than even of the en-
thusiasm for art. No doubt, in certain happy temperaments,
under circumstances favourable to their free expansion, this
vague longing is peculiar to the age of youth, and is often
enough observed there. Indeed, it is in that soft melancholy,
which is always joined with the half-unconscious but pleasant
feeling of the blooming fulness of life, that lies the charm
which the reminiscence of the days of youth possesses for
the calm and quiet contemplations of old age. Here, too, the
distinctive mark between the genuine and the spurious mani-
festation of this feeling is both simple enough, and easily
found. For as this longing mav in general be explained as
an inchoate state a love yet to be developed the question
reduces itself consequently to the simple one of determining
the nature of this love. If upon the first development and

INFLUENCE OF FANCY ON ALL MAN ? S EMOTIONS. 35

gratification of the passions, this love immediately passes over
to and loses itself in the ordinary realities of life, then is it
no genuine manifestation of the heavenly feeling, but a mere
earthly and sensual longing. But when it survives the youth-
ful ebullition of the feelings, when it does but become deeper
and more intense by time, when it is satisfied with no joys,
and stifled by no sorrows of earth when, from the midst of
the struggles of life, and the pressure of the world, it turns,
like a light-seeing eye upon the storm-tossed waves of the
ocean of time, to the heaven of heavens, watching to discover
there some star of eternal hope then is it that true and ge-
nuine longing, which, directing itself to the divine, is itself also
of a celestial origin. Out of this root springs almost everything
that is intellectually beautiful and great even the love of
scientific certainty itself, and of a profound knowledge of life
and nature. Philosophy, indeed, has no other source, and
we might in this respect call it, with much propriety, the
doctrine or the science of longing. But even that youthful
longing, already noticed, is oftentimes a genuine, or, at least,
the first foundation of the higher and truer species, although,
unlike the latter, it is as yet neither purely evolved nor re-
fined by the course of time.

One general remark remains to be added. This beautiful
longing of youth, a fruitful fancy, and a loving soul, are the
best and most precious gifts of benignant nature, that dis-
penses with so liberal a hand, or rather, not of nature, but of
that wonderful Intelligence that presides in and over it. They
form, as it were, a fair garden of hidden life within man. But
as the first man was placed in the garden of Eden, not merely
for his idle enjoyment, but, as it is expressly stated, " to dress
it and to keep it," so here also, when this law of duty is
neglected, the inmost heart of the most eminent characters
and of the most richly endowed natures becomes, as it were,
a Paradise run wild and waste.

In the consideration of these three forms of man's higher
effort viz., longing, true love, and genuine enthusiasm I
have throughout silently implied, what no one can possibly
deny, the co-operating influence of fancy. As in the evil
passions it exercises an injurious, inflammatory, and de-
structive effect, so also it co-operates beneficially with the
longing which is directed to the good and the divine, and
D2

36 THE POETICAL FANCY.

imparts to it its animating ardour, and its highest energy.
In the pure longing, indeed, the inventive fancy is dissolved
in what has ceased to be an earthly feeling, and has become
completely identified with the loving soul. But in the love
and enthusiasm which are directed to some actual object, it is
the sustaining flame of life, and of all loftier aspirations which,
as they spring from the source of fancy, attest its co-operation.
It may be that the pure spirits are filled and pervaded with
that loving veneration of the Deity which makes up their
blissful existence, simply by means of the intuitive under-
standing and the pure will, without even any admixture of
fancy. A human love or enthusiasm, however, which should
be totally devoid of fancy, and free from its influence, will
very rarely, if ever, be met with, and is but barely conceivable.
This, however, does not involve any reproach or censure
against man's love and enthusiasm, as though they were un-
real and founded on an untruth. For nothing can be more
erroneous than to suppose that the fancy must invariably be
untrue and deceiving, or at least self-deceived. Such a sup-
position is derived merely from one species of it the poetical
fancy. And yet even this, in its genuine manifestations, con-
tains beneath its privileged and permitted garb of external
untruth, a rich store and living source of great and profound
verities, of a peculiar kind, and belonging to an internal truth
of nature. Or, perhaps, this misconception of fancy in general
may have its origin in that abortion or corruption of it which
operates so powerfully in the evil passions, which is undoubt-
edly in the highest degree deceptive and delusive. In and
by itself, and taken in its widest signification, this faculty of
fancy is, generally speaking, the living productive thought-
the faculty of internal fertility and which also with its out-
ward organs, both of an earthly and a higher sense, apprehends
the whole external world. It enters, therefore, with a living
interest into every good as well as base pursuit of man, and
giving new shapes of its own to all that it has once appre-
hended, labours to invest it with a living form, to apply and
to realize it. In itself, therefore, and in its pure and uncor-
rupt state, far from clashing with the divine truth (which,
however, is not in every case identical with the ordinary
reality), fancy, as we shall show more fully in another place,
admits of being easily reconciled with it. But of human

10YE AND MARRIAGE. 37

things we must always judge by a human standard, and with
due allowance. Even supposing that in the case of a true
love and a genuine enthusiasm a passing thought may be de-
tected, a momentary excitement or manifestation which goes
beyond the exact line of the actual truth ; even in such a case
this love and this enthusiasm would not therefore be less real
and genuine still would not all be exaggeration that might
seem so to the unsympathising and unenthusiastic intellect.
At all events, it must ever remain undeniable, that emergencies
occur in human life which are not met by the rigorous and
mathematical formularies of ethical science, and where by
nothing but a noble sacrifice of love far transcending all the
common and general requisitions of the practical reason by
nothing but a lofty energy and resolute enthusiasm can a
man extricate himself from his perplexities and arrive at a
happy result. At least, it will not do to overlook or misre-
present this element of human life, even though it must be
admitted that it is not exempt from those traces of human
infirmity which are also but too apparent in the other aspect of
it, the one, viz., in which the formal reason decides every
thing, and is supreme.

As, therefore, the thinking soul is the living centre of the
human consciousness, so, on the other hand, the loving soul
is the middle point and the foundation of all moral life as it
shows itself in that soul-bond of love, which, while it consti-
tutes marriage, is tied and completed therein. On this union,
then, which, as historically represented, appears to be the
true commencement of civilised life, it will be necessary to
say a few words. And the present seems the most appropriate
place for them. Now, both in philosophy and in all general
speculation, there are many reasoners who would derive every
thing from material sensations, and seek to degrade all that
is regarded as high and noble by mankind. So here, also, in
the world's mode of judging of this union which, however,
all publicly acknowledged principles regard as holy it, and
all that belongs to it, is accounted for by some evanescent
passion, some sensual impression, or some interested view or
other, while the existence of anything like true and genuine
love is absolutely denied. But in the first place, in the case
of an union w^hich embraces the entire man his sensuous as
well as his rational, or, as I should prefer to say, his earthly

38 GENUINE AND SPUBIOTJS LOVE.

no less than his spiritual nature and temperament it cannot
fairly be urged in objection to it, that both the elements of
his mixed constitution are present in it. On the contrary,
it is obviously most unjust, in our estimate of it, violently to
separate what, even in the least corrupted disposition and
purest characters, are most closely interwoven, or rather fused
together, and to subject them to an invidious and destructive
analysis. This is not the way to determine the characteristics
of a true and of a false love. The distinction between them
must rather be sought by a simpler method, similar to that
which we followed in the case of longing and enthusiasm
by considering merely the total result. A feeling of this
kind may appear at the beginning never so violent ; it may
even amuse itself with a thorough mental hallucination, which
betrays itself in its very outward aspect, with the profoundest
veneration, nay, deification of its admired object ; but in
married life this intense admiration soon gives place to satiety
or indifference, and embittered by mutual distrust and mis-
understanding, it terminates in incurable discord. In such
a case the feeling, even in its ardent beginnings, was no true
love, but simply passion. But in those happy unions, where
the first passionate ardour of youth yields only to an ever-
growing and still purer development of mutual good-will and
confidence while self-sacrifice and patient endurance, both
in good and evil fortune, do but cherish the same deep affec-
tion and calm friendship here, from the very first, it was
true and genuine love. For, however much the outward
appearances of human life may seem to contradict it, there is
not in nature, and even in the higher region, any love without
a return. And as all true love is reciprocal, so also is true
love lasting and indestructible; or, to "speak as a man, : '
even because it is the very inmost life of humanity, it is,
therefore, true unto death.

Moreover, in the case of an union which extends to the
whole of life, it is quite consistent that a due regard should
be paid to the other circumstances and relations of existence.
Only no general rule can be laid down in this respect. This
is a matter which has been left to the discretion of individuals,
even by the divine laws, those sacred guardians of wedlock,
which, however, rigorously insist on the absence of all com-
pulsion, inasmuch as the free consent of all parties is an

THE THREE CONDITIONS OF WEDLOCK. 39

essential condition of this union. And as we should be justi-
fied in taking for granted that this reciprocal act of free will
must not be any inconsiderate or extorted assent, or one
induced by other interested feeling or consideration ; o is
this expressly asserted by the fact that, according to the spirit
of these holy laws of matrimony, this union must be founded
on mutual affection, and regarded as an indissoluble bond of
souls, and not as a mere civil contract or deed of sale and
transfer of rank and property. The latter, as well as all else,
are mere subordinate matters. Three things, according to
God's moral government of the world, are indispensable to
and required by the essence and spirit of these holy laws.
In the first place, there must be a mutual consent of the will
a reciprocal fondness and liking, to which the will, when-
ever it is left free and unshackled, gives an appropriate utter-
ance and expression. In the second place, these laws require
that unison of temper which is indispensable to its permanence ;
while, thirdly and lastly, they provide that this union, so
sacred in the sight 6f all civilised nations, should be indis-
soluble. In perfect harmony with this last condition is mono-
gamy the fundamental law of Christian wedlock. And even
among the 'heathen nations of antiquity, though without the
sanction of law, yet, nevertheless, under the influence of an
instinctive sense of what is morally right and noble, mono-
gamy had practically become the almost universal rule.
Highly important to the welfare of the human race is the in-
violable maintenance of this sacred law of marriage. So
incalculable are the disasters which follow from its violation,
that I can safely venture to assert, without fear of exaggeration,
that a religion which would venture to desecrate or pull down
the venerable sanctuary of wedlock, and consequently to ex-
pose the weaker sex to degradation and oppression, would
even thereby bespeak its own falsity, and renounce all pre-
tensions to a divine origin. Wherever, on the contrary, this
noble institution and woman's dignity are acknowledged and
respected, there this union of souls in consecrated love operates,
by the means of lasting personal intercourse, a reciprocal
mental influence of the most diversified, salutary, arid beauti-
ful kind. And this influence tends to promote the develop-
ment not only of the soul and character, but also of the mind
or spirit. Accordingly in this, the first and the most inti-

40 MARRIAGE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE.

mate of all unions, all the three principles of human existence,
body, soul, and spirit, or mind, alike meet together, and par-
take of a common evolution. And the result of this mutual
influence relatively to the different characters of the mental
capacities and consciousness of the two sexes, and the de-
velopment of each produced thereby, forms, merely in its
psychological aspect, a remarkable and pregnant phenomenon.
Consistently, therefore, with the law I have proposed myself
in every case, to set out in my investigations from life itself,
and from the very centre thereof, I cannot well avoid, while
treating of the several grades of the development of man's
consciousness, to give some, though it must be but a partial
consideration to this interesting topic.

Congeniality of mind and temper forms, it is confessed, the
sole basis of domestic peace and contentment, and of a happy,
i. e., of a well-assorted marriage. But to determine on what
this depends, in each individual case, is a problem w r hich,
considering the extremely great and infinite varieties of human
dispositions, admits not of a precise or particular solution. On
this point the closest observers are not unfrequently deceived
in their predictions. How often do those agree very well
of whom previously it would not have been supposed possible ?
On the contrary, those frequently live most unhappily together
of whose blissful union the judgment of society and the ordi-
nary estimate of human character had led to the most favour-
able anticipations. Nevertheless, for the latter fact a general
reason may be given. It is not so much the similarity of tastes
and pursuits, as rather the want in one of some mental quality
possessed by the other, that forms the strongest source of
attraction between the two sexes, so that the inner life or
consciousness of the one finds its complement in that of the
other, or, at least, receives from it a further development and
elevation. For in the same way that a certain community of
goods and property, even though not complete nor enforced
by law, yet still, in some measure and by daily use, does
practically take place in wedlock so, also, by the constant
interchange of every thought and feeling, a sort of com-
munity of consciousness is produced, which derives its charm
and value from the very difference in the mental character
of the two sexes. When I would attempt to give a more
precise determination of this difference, I feel how difficult

MAN AND MIND WOMAN AND SOUL. 41

and incomplete must be every attempt generally to define
the varieties of mental character. And this is especially
the case when men take in hand to paint the characters
of whole ages and nations, and by contrasts endeavour dis-
tinctly to limit and sharply to define them. Thus, for in-
stance, the predominant element in the mental character of
the Greeks is usually said to be intellect -comprising under
this term every form and manifestation of it, the scientific
as well as the artistic, profundity not less than acuteness,
and vivid perspicuity, together with critical analysis while
energy of will, strength of mind, and greatness of soul, are
assigned to the Romans as their distinguishing peculiarity.
No doubt these descriptions are not in general untrue. How
many nicer limitations, however, and modifications must they
undergo, if we are not to rest contented with this historical an-
tithesis and summary which no doubt are correct enough, as
far as they go but desire rather to form in idea and to set down
in words, a full and complete image of these two nations in
their whole intellectual life. So, too, as a general description
of the middle ages, it might be said, with tolerable truth, that
in them fancy was predominant ; while in modern times
reason has been gradually becoming more and more para-
mount. But how many particulars must be added in the
latter case, if the truth of life is not to be swallowed up in a
general notion. But in a still higher degree does this obser-
vation apply, when we come to speak not merely of nations
and eras, but of the mental differences of the two sexes.
Such mere outlines must be given and taken for nothing more
than what they really are, mere sketchy thoughts. However,
they may often lead us farther, giving rise occasionally to
useful applications, or at least serving, not seldom, to exclude
a false and delusive semblance of a thought. To attempt,
therefore, something of the kind, I would make the following
remark, in which most voices will, I think, concur. Of the
several faculties or aspects of human consciousness previously
described, soul appears to be most pre-eminent in the mental
constitution of women; so that the prophet who said that
women have no soul, proved himself thereby a false prophet.
For it is even this rich fulness of soul which manifests itself
in all their thoughts, and words, and deeds, that constitutes the
great charm of the social intercourse of civilised nations, as

42 MARRIAGE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE.

well as the winning attractiveness of their more familiar con-
versation, and in part also the harmonising influence which
they produce on the mind in the more intimate union of wedded
life. Nevertheless, I think we should altogether miss the truth,
if, from any love of antithesis, we should go on to append the
remark, that in like manner, mind (geist] generally predomi-
nates among men, and is commonly to be found in a higher
degree among them than among women. For, in the first
place, the measure both of natural capacity and also of
acquired culture, not only in themselves, but also in the
manifold spheres and modes of their application, are so ex-
ceedingly different in different individuals, that it is not
easy to form therefrom any general and characteristic esti-
mate of the whole sex. And just as it would be a most
false exaggeration to deny to man altogether the possession
of a soul with its rich fulness of feeling, since it is only of its
preponderance among the other sex that it is allowable to
speak, so can we with as little justice refuse absolutely to
attribute mind to woman, or at best ascribe it to her only in a
very limited degree. For even if the subtler abstractions of
scientific reasoning are very rare among, and little suited to
them, still sound reason and judgment are only the more
common. The understanding which women possess, is not so
much dry, observant, cool, and calculating, as it is vivid, and
intuitively penetrating. And it is exactly this vividness of
intellect that, when speaking of individuals, we call mind or
spirit.

Another line of thought will perhaps lead us more directly
and nearer to the end we have in view. The external influ-
ence of women on the whole human community is for the
most part (for here, too, there are great and memorable excep-
tions) confined to a narrow sphere of the immediate duties
of the affections, or to similar relations in the wider social
circle. So, too, is it inwardly as regards the consciousness.
All the faculties of woman and their several manifestations lie,
if I may so express myself, close together, and, as it were, in a
friendly circle around the loving soul, as their common centre.
With regard, then, to the comparison of the two sexes and their
mental differences, I would venture to observe, that on the one
side it seems to me that a certain harmonious fulness of the
consciousness is the preponderating character; and, on the

MARRIAGE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE. 43

other, its eccentric evolution. Not that I mean that in the
sex which is pre-eminently called to outward activity, the mind
loses its grand centre in the inner life, or, comet-like, delights
to wander in vast, irregular orbits, as is indeed commonly
enough asserted. My meaning is simply that the masculine
mind will ever dare, as indeed it ought, to move in wider
circles than the feminine. The extremes of the consciousness,
if the expression be allowable the farthest poles both of
reason and fancy are, so to speak, the property of the more
active sex, while the harmonious union and contact of both
in the soul belong to the more sensitive. All such general
and characteristic sketches, however, must always be most
imperfect. Still I believe it may be safely and truly said,
that, with highly favoured dispositions and noble natures
(and these must be always supposed and taken for the
foundation of such general remarks), the gain to be derived
from this intellectual community and influence, in which one
individual consciousness completes the other, must be sought
in the one sex in a greater development of mind and eleva-
tion of soul, and in the other, in a more harmonious adjust-
ment and softening of the mental powers, and in a far more
sensitive excitement of the soul's susceptibilities. But in this
most intimate of unions, when regarded as divinely blessed,
and when in reality it appears to be so, then on either side
both mind and soul are, as it were, twice combined and joined
together in closest association, and, if we may so say, even
married and wedded together. Consequently, while external
life derives from marriage its moral foundation and origin,
the internal life of man is, as it were, mentally renewed by
it, or fructified afresh and redoubled.

END OF LECTURE II.

LECTURE III.

OF THE SOUL'S SHARE IN KNOWLEDGE, AND OF REVE-
LATION.

IN tke first Lecture our attention was directed to the think-
ing soul as the centre of the whole human consciousness ;
while in the second, I attempted fully to set before you, and
to delineate, the loving soul as the true middle point of the
moral life. The object of our present disquisition will be to
ascertain the part which the soul takes in the knowledge to
which man is able to attain. The general element, indeed,
which the soul furnishes as its contribution to human know-
ledge, is not indeed very difficult to determine ; but when we
come to details, there is much that requires to be well weighed
and pondered.

Now, the soul furnishes the cognitive mind with lan-
guage for the expression of its cognitions; and it is even the
distinctive character of human knowledge, that it depends on
language, which not only forms an essential constituent of it,
but is also its indispensable organ. Language, however,
the discursive, but at the same time also the vividly figura-
tive language of man, is entirely the product of the soul,
which in its production first of all, and pre-eminently, mani-
fests its fruitful and creative energy. In this wonderful crea-
tion the two constituent faculties of the soul fancy and
reason play an equal and co-ordinate part. From the fancy
it derives the whole of its figurative and ornamental portion,
and also its melodious rhythm and animated tone. And
moreover, its inmost fundamental web and the primary
natural roots belong also to man's original deep feeling of
sympathy with outward nature, and therefore to fancy,
unless perhaps some would prefer to ascribe them at once to
the soul itself, as still more profoundly and intimately akin to
nature. To the reason, on the other hand, language owes its
logical order, and its grammatical forms and laws of construe-

LANGUAGE HOW PRODUCED. 45

tion. Which part is the more important, or more highly to
be esteemed, is a question whose solution will vary according
to the point of view which in any case may be adopted as
fundamental, or to the different relations under which the
whole shall be considered. Both elements, however, are
equally essential and indispensable. In all the instances
already considered of the reciprocal relation of reason and
fancy we found almost invariably a decided preponderance of
one or the other ; but neither there nor elsewhere will reason
and fancy be found combining in such harmonious propor-
tions, or working so thoroughly together, or contributing so
equally to the common product, as in the wonderful pro-
duction of language, and in language itself. And this is the
case, not only with language in general, but also with all
its species and noblest applications. Now this dependence
of the cognitive mind on its organ of language, discursive
indeed, but yet almost always figurative this close and
intimate connexion between man's knowledge and his speech
is even the characteristic mark of human intelligence. But
the fault of most of the mere speculative thinkers lies even
in this, that they abandon the standard of humanity, by seeking
to wrest, and to conquer an unhuman, if we may so say, i. e., a
wholly independent and absolute knowledge, which, however,
it is not in their power to attain to, and in pursuit of which
they lose the certainty which lies within their reach, and so
at last grasp nothing but an absolute not-knowing, or an
endless controversy. If, as we cannot but suppose, a com-
munication does take place among those spiritual beings,
who in intelligence are preferred to man, then must the
immediate speech of these spirits be very different from our
half-sensuous half-rational, half-earthly half-heavenly lan-
guao-e of nature and humanity. For, even as spiritual, it
cannot but be immediate never employing figure and those
grammatical forms which human language first analyses, to
form again out of them new and fresh compounds. According
to the two properties which constitute the essence of mind
fgeist), it can only be a communication, a transmission, an
awakening or immission of thought some wholly definite
thought by the will, or else the communicating, exciting, and
producing by the thought of some equally definite volition.
It may be that something of this, or at least something not

LANGUAGE THE ESSENCE OF REASON.

absolutely dissimilar, occurs in human operations. It is pos-
sible that this immediate language of mind, as a secret and
invisible principle of life as a rare and superior element is
contained also in human language, and, as it were, veiled in
the outer body, which, however, becomes visible only in the
effects of a luminous and lofty eloquence, in which is displayed
the magic force of language and of a ruling and commanding
thought. Taken on the whole, however, human speech is nS
such immediate and magically working language of mind or
spirit. It is rather a figurative language of nature, in which
its great permanent hieroglyphics are mirrored aain in
miniature, and in rapid succession. And it retains this
natural and figurative character even in the ordinary form
of rational dialogue, which must observe so many varieties
and details of grammar, of which superior intelligences have
no need for their immediate intercommunion, but in which
as in all other human things, many greater or less gram-
I matical oversights creep in and give rise to important conse-
quences in science and thought, and also in life itself. But
in the next place, language is intimately connected and co-
ordinate with tradition, whether sacred or profane, with all
the recorded fruits of human speculation and inquiry And
as the word is the root out of which the whole stem of man's
transmitted knowledge, or tradition, has grownup, with aU its
branches and offshoots ; so, too, in the eloquent speech, in the
elegant composition, and even in all lofty internal meditation
which form, as it were, the leaves, flowers, and fruits of this
goodly tree of living tradition it is again the word by which
the whole is carried on and ultimately perfected.

But now, in order to develope still more completely and
more accurately to ascertain the part which the soul, as the
creator of language, contributes to human cognition and
knowledge, it will be necessary to examine nicely the essence
of reason, and especially in relation to its collateral and
closely connected, but subordinate faculties. Above all, it
will be advisable to determine as accurately and carefully' as
possible, the difference between reason and understanding
*or otherwise its proper share in this common fruit and joint
product of human knowledge cannot be ascribed to each power
of mind and to each faculty of the soul, nor their proper places
and due limits in the whole be severally assigned.

REASON MEMORY AND CONSCIENCE. 47

The faculties, then, of the soul which stand in the same close
relationship to the reason that the senses and the instincts
or passions do to the fancy, are memory and conscience.
Now, memory may be considered either as a gift, according
to its greater or less power of comprehension and retention,
or as an art to strengthen and facilitate its operations by
artificial means of every kind, or as a problem to determine
how far the exercise of it constitutes an essential part of
man's intellectual culture and development. But it is not in
any of these points of view that we have here to consider
it, but simply in its essential conjunction with the reason
and rationality, which appear to be dependent on this
union.

In other words, we have to regard the memory principally
as the inward clue of recollection and of association in the
consciousness, in the ever-flowing stream of thought and inter-
change of ideas. We may, or, I might rather say, w r e must,
forget infinitely many things. But this connecting thread of
memory being once broken, or destroyed, or lost, the reason
invariably sniffers with it, and is injured, or its exercise limited,
or lastly, is rendered totally confused and extinct. "Whenever,
in the extreme decrepitude of old age, memory fails, reason
ceases in an equal degree to be active and energetic, and is
supplanted by more or less of a foolish doting. In sleep, no
doubt, consciousness is regularly interrupted, but still it is
immediately restored again on awaking. If the contrary
were to take place, if, as is the foundation of many an inge-
nious story among the poets, when suddenly awakened we
could not recall our former memory and our knowledge, then
should we be continually falling into mistakes about ourselves
and lose all identity of consciousness. Some such violent
interruption or rent in the inward memory of self-conscious-
ness is invariably to be found in madness, and is a leading
symptom of it. And here I would merely call upon you to
observe a further illustration of what has been already more
than once pointed out. The triple principle of body, soul, and
spirit is again repented and manifested even in this sad state
of mental alienation, and in all its different forms and species.
In true lunacy or monomania which is generally harmless
and quiet a radically false but fixed idea is often associated
and is not inconsistent with an extraordinary shrewdness on

48 MEMOBY ESSENTIAL TO KATIONAIJTY.

all other points. Nevertheless, this fixed erroneous idea,
being made the centre of all other thoughts and of the
whole consciousness, produces that confusion and that disor-
ganisation of the mind which characterises this form of a
disordered intellect. But in true madness, or frenzy, the
seat of the disease is in the soul, which, having broken loose
from all the ties and restraints of reason and rational habit,
appears to have fallen a prey to some hostile, wild, and
raging force of nature. In idiotcy, lastly, especially where it
is inborn and conjoined with the perfection of the external
organs of sense, we must assume the existence of some faulty
organisation, some defect in the brain, or whatever else is the
unknown but higher organ both of thought and life. The
source of the last is altogether physical and corporeal, whereas
moral causes often co-operate in the highest degree to
the production of the former two. The deaf and dumb, if
left wholly to themselves, would, in all probability, belong
always to the third class, since, with the loss of speech, they
are simultaneously deprived of a leading condition of ration-
ality. And, accordingly, the first object with those who
undertake the difficult task of training these unfortunate beings,
is to furnish them with another language by means of signs,
instead of the ordinary audible speech of which the accident
of birth has deprived them. This instance, therefore, is only
a further confirmation of what I have already advanced, that
the intellectual character is, in every respect, most intimately
dependent on the faculty of speech. A more minute exami-
nation of these matters belongs to physical science. Never-
theless, our passing remark on the triple character of this
psychological evil, or misfortune, will not, I hope, be found in-
appropriate here, as affording, even in this narrow and special
sphere of a disordered intellect, a further illustration of the
general principle of our theory of the human consciousness.

Now, the outer and especially the higher senses may, by
reason of the supremacy of the fancy to which they are sub-
ordinate, be termed, with propriety, so many applied faculties
of imagination. In the same way we might give the same
designation to the inclinations and impulses the good as well
as the evil if, perhaps, it would not be more accurate to name
them an imagination passed into life. In a similar way the
memory may be considered as an applied reason which in the

MEMORY -BEASON -CONSCIENCE. 49

application has become quite mechanical and habitual; for
unquestionably the logical arrangement is the chief quality in
memory. From this it derives both its value and scientific
utility On the other hand, there are certain acquired mental
aptitudes which, though originally they cannot be formed
without the voluntary exercise of memory, become at last a
completely unconscious and mechanical operation the faci-
lity for instance, of learning by heart, or the acquisition of
foreign languages, or catching up of musical tunes. In all
these the reason has become an instinct, just as the instinct oi
animals, their artistic impulse and skill, may be designated an
unconscious analogy of reason.

In this subordinate faculty of the memory, the reason
aoreeablv to its specific character, exhibits itself as an useful
and ministering agent. In conscience, on the contrary, as its
highest function, it assumes a somewhat negative character.
But in both relations, whether as a ministerial or negative
faculty of thought, the reason, in its place, is of the highest
value. If occasionally we have seemed to detract from and
to limit its importance, such remarks have been called forth
by the undue and overweening authority which the present
age would claim for the reason. This is the sole end and
meanm- o f our opposition, which is directed exclusively
against" that spurious reason which claims to be supreme,
and arrogates to itself a productive power; whereas, in truth,
it ought not to be the one, and can never be the other. Die
thought which distinguishes, divides, and analyses, and that
also which combines, infers, and concludes which, as such,
make up the faculty of reason may be so carried on in
indefinite and infinite process, as ultimately to get entirely
rid of its object-matter. It is this endless thinking, without
a correspondent object, that is the source of scientific error,
which, as in all cases it arises solely out of this vacuum in
thinking, can only lead to a thinking of nothing a cogita-
tion absolutely null and false. Far different is the case where
a memory, stored with the rich materials of intellectual ex-
perience, forms the useful basis of man's studies and pursuits,
or where, as is the case with the apperception of the con-
science, the object, even while it is less extensive and manifold,
is the more highly and more intensely important. Now, as
the reason generally is not only a combining and connecting,

50 MEMORY REASON CONSCIENCE.

but also a distinguishing faculty of thought, so likewise the
conscience is a similar power of drawing distinctions in the
thought and in the internal consciousness, though in a higher
and special degree, and also in a different form from that
which, in all other instances, is discursive reason. For it is
by a simple feeling and immediate perception that the con-
science, in obedience to the voice within man, draws between
right and wrong, or good and evil, the greatest of all dis-
tinctions. This voice of conscience, while it makes itself
heard among all nations, nevertheless, under the ever and
widely varying influence of ruling ideas of the age, and of
education, and of custom, speaks in different times and places,
in differing tones and dialects. But these differences extend
only to subordinate matters. The primary and essential point
remains unchanged and never to be mistaken ; the same
dominant tone and key-note sounds through all these vari-
ations the common tongue and language of human nature
and of an untaught and innate fear of God. This fact has led
many to regard the conscience as the principal source of all
higher and divine truth; with whom I can readily concur, so
long as they do not mean thereby, that it is the only source, to
the exclusion of every other. ,

Now it is surely significant that in German and all
languages furnish numerous instances of such significant
allusions the word and the name of reason* is derived from
that internal perception of the conscience which constitutes its
highest function. What, then, it may be asked, is perceived
by this wonderful perception, that before it the will inwardly
retires and withdraws even its earlier and most cherished
wishes? The warning voice it is called, in every age and
nation. It is, as it were, one who within us, warns and re-
monstrates. It is not, therefore, our own Me, but as it were
another, and, as a vague feeling would suggest, of a higher
and a different nature. And now by its light that earlier and
retiring will appears in like manner as another self a lower
false and seducing Ego an alien power which would hurry
away ourselves and our proper Me. But between the two
this higher warning voice on the one hand, and this con-
straining, compelling force on the other there stands a
power which is free to decide between them. And this, as
* Vernunft, from Vernehmen.

DISTINCTION BETWEEN KEASON AND UNDERSTANDING. 51

soon as the decomposing process is finished, which in the as
yet undecided will, or its mixed states, separates and dis-
tinguishes between the good voice and the evil inclination
remains to us as our own Ego and our proper self. This inward
voice, and the immediate perception of it, is an anchor on
which the vessel of man's existence rides safely on the stormy
sea of life, and the ebb and the flow of the will. In other
words, it is a divine focus, or a sacred stay of truth. But
further, it must be observed, that the understanding of this
inner perception, as I have just painted it, does not belong to
the reason, to which alone the perceiving can itself be ascribed.
The true intelligence thereof its higher interpretation, and
explanation, which adds to it, or recognises in it a reference
to\he divine must, even because it is an intellectual act, be
ascribed to the understanding.

The present, therefore, is the place for a close and accurate
investigation of the difference between reason and under-
standing a question of the highest importance for the whole
theory of the consciousness, and its true philosophical inter-
pretation, as well as absolutely for every branch of science.
For this purpose I shall foUow a line of thought somewhat
unusual, perhaps, but which on that account is even the more
likely to carry us quickly to the desired end, and to place the
distinction in a full and clear light. I lately employed
the somewhat hypothetical comparison between man and a
superior order of intelligences, as a means of illustrating the
faculty of the fancy as the peculiar property of the human
consciousness. And now I would go a step higher, and from
the acknowledged characteristics of the^ divine intelligence,
derive the means of determining the different functions of
the human consciousness, and of settling the relations they
stand in, not only to one another, but also to a superior intel-
lect. In this course, however, I shall take nothing for granted
but what is well known and generally intelligible. That God
is a Spirit, is the concurrent voice of all men, wherever a

belief in the one God is professed, or the idea of a Divine
Being is diffused. God is a Spirit, and therefore an omniscient
intellect and an almighty will are unanimously attributed
to Him. This axiom, with which a child even of the most
ordinary intelligence can associate some kind of meaning, is
at the same time the fundamental principle which is involved

52 FIGUKATXVE LANGUAGE AS APPLIED TO GOD.

in all that the deepest thinker can know of God. The same
faculties, therefore, that make up the essence and the two
functions of created spirits understanding and will -may,
without hesitation, be attributed to the uncreated Spirit ; and
although this attribution must be understood according to the
exalted standard of the infinite distance between the creature
and the Creator, still it is made properly and not merely by
way of figure.

But now, in Holy Writ, and in the language of pious adora-
tion and prayer, among other nations as well as the Jewish,
a multitude of properties, faculties, and senses are ascribed
to the Deity in perfectly anthropomorphic descriptions and
imagery. Thus mention is even made of His eye, His ear, His
guiding hand, His mighty arm, and the omnipotent breath of
His mouth. In so far as these are admitted to be mere images-
there can be no objection to them, and it is not easy to see
how they can lead to any abuse. And this is equally the-
case even with such expressions as it is plain can only be
applicable to the Deity in a figurative sense for instance,
when human passions are ascribed to Him since, if employed
properly and literally, they all involve more or less of imper-
fection. And in the same way, where no forgetfulness is,
possible or conceivable, it can only be in a figurative sense
that it is allowable to speak of memory. And with still less
propriety can the faculty of conscience, in its human sense,
be ascribed to God. His balance of justice His regulative
thought is something very different from our mere sense of
fight. To ascribe conscience to the Deity would be to con-
round the judge on the bench with the criminal at the bar.
Even the first man, as long as he was yet innocent, knew not
conscience. For the sense of guilt, and the faculty of per-
ceiving it, must at the very earliest have come simultaneously
with the transgression itself, if it was not, rather, consequent
upon it. In the application to the Deity of such figurative
language, great licence is of course allowable. The question,,
however, which concerns us in a philosophical point of view is
whether, in the same proper sense as understanding and will,
so also the other faculties which are so peculiarly distinctive of
man reason and fancy, or the soul can be attributed to the
Divine Being. Now it is at once evident that, far beyond all
other figurative expressions, it would be perfectly unsuitable

THE DITINE NATURE. 53

to ascribe fancy to God. We feel clearly enough that by so
doSTwe should be leaving the safe ground of truth for the
Serous domain of mythology. That rnner mine of in-
tellectual riches which man in his weak measure finds in the
facuUy of W, in the case of the Divine Being furnished
once aldfor all by His omnipotent will ; which of itself creates
and produces its object, and unlike created beings is not con-
fined to any limited data or to a choice between them .ere,
L the Almighty will itself is the fall fatherly heart em-
Sacmo. notShlng! and sustaining all creatures-or even the
S maternal wSmb of eternal generation, and requires no
neTLd special faculty for this end. In the next place, as to
S^Tsoul: the expression of the soul of God does indeed
occur in some of the less known Christian writers of the fust
centuries of the church, but it soon feU into disuse-from <,
, of its leading to a confusion of idea, and berng

the spirit of love, in which both understanding and will unite
and are one. And if this third property be added to
axiomatic definition of the Deity already alluded to then in the
proposition : God is a spirit of love, the double predicate m it
LLial import involves all that man m general, and even the
profoundest thinker, can properly know of God. All besides
is a mere expansion or elucidation of this primary and funda-
mental thought. Moreover, if it is not allowable to ascribe
ncv or a sovd to God, so neither can He be spoken of as
possessing reason as an essential faculty in the same proper
as understanding and will are attributed to Hun. God
is indeed theauthor of reason;and the sound reason, seven that
which adheres to the centre of truth, as He, in creating it,
designed and ordered. But from this it does not by any means
follow that He is himself the reason which He has created or
that He is even one with it. Were it so then the advocates of
absolute science, the rationalists, would be m the right; in
such a case, the knowledge of God were in ti-uth a science of
reason, inasmuch as like can only be known by like.

54 UNDERSTANDING AS COGNIZANT OF THE DIVINE.

But now, if it be not reason, but rather understanding,
that, with the co-operation of all the other faculties both of
soul and spirit, is the proper organ for acquiring a knowledge
of the divine, and the only means by which man can arrive
at a right apprehension thereof; then is the knowledge of
God simply and entirely a science of experience, although of
a high and peculiar kind, by reason of the finitencss and
frailty of man as compared with such an object. As the
fancy is the apprehension or seizing of an object, the reason
a combination or distinction, so the understanding is the
faculty which penetrates and, in its highest degree, clearly
sees through its object. We understand a phenomenon, a
sensation, an object, when we have discerned its inmost
meaning, its peculiar character and proper significance. And
the same is the case even when this object be a speech and
communication addressed to us a word or discourse given
us to extract its meaning. If we have discerned the design
which is involved in such a communication, its real meaning
and purpose, then may we be said to have understood it, even
though some minutiae in the expression may still remain un-
intelligible, which, as not belonging essentially to the whole,
we put aside and leave unconsidered. There are, therefore,
many steps and degrees in understanding very different
phases and species of it. A familiar instance will, perhaps, elu-
cidate this matter. We will suppose the case of an extremely
rare and remarkable, or perhaps hitherto wholly unknown,
plant, brought to our country from a foreign clime. The natu-
ralist, having examined its structure and organs, assigns it
to a particular class of the higher botanical genera, where
it either belongs to some lower species or forms an exception.
The chemist, again, when the plant is brought before his
notice, conjectures, from certain other characters, that it is
formed of such or such elementary parts ; while the physician,
on other grounds, concludes that in certain diseases it will
probably serve as a remedy, equally if not more efficacious
than other herbs or roots previously employed for that pur-
pose. Now, if the two last have judged correctly, if their
conjectures be confirmed by trial and experiment, then will all
the three have understood the plant, and each in his own de-
partment have learned and discerned its intrinsic character.
Again : how slowly, step by step and gradually, do men

SLOW PROGRESS OF ALL TRUE KNOWLEDGE. 55

attain to the understanding of some ancient, foreign, and
difficult language. It commences, perhaps, with the long and
difficult deciphering of a manuscript or inscription, with an
alphabet incomplete or 'imperfectly known, and after much
painful labour the final discovery of its true meaning is made
perhaps by some fortunate accident which all at once throws
a full light upon it. A remarkable instance in our own days,
will both elucidate the matter, and serve at the same time to
prove how a higher Providence regulates even the progress
of science. For more than a millennium and a half had the
hieroglyphics of an ancient race remained unintelligible to and
undeciphered by a posterity of aliens, when at last, amid the
recent commotions and tempests of the political world, a happy
accident brought the secret to light. Who can forget the
brilliant and dazzling expectations which hailed the departure
of the French expedition for Egypt? How w T as all Europe
electrified at the bold project of planting at the foot of the
Pyramids a colony of European art and civilisation. The
enterprise itself failed, and was soon forgotten amid still
more important events and greater revolutions ; and the
humble monument with its triple inscription, which was
carried away from Egypt, is all, if we may so speak, that
remains of it. But that has unquestionably founded a great
epoch in the peaceful empire of science.* For a whole genera-
tion the learned laboured to decipher it with but slow and very
imperfect success, when at last a happy coincidence presents
itself, and suddenly the key is found. And although of the
seven hundred secret symbols, scarcely more than one hundred
are as yet made out, still even these have opened a wide vista
into the spacious domain of the dark origines of man's history.
And this was effected at a time when man had just learnt to put
together a few characters of the great alphabet of nature, and
here and there to decipher a word or two of its hieroglyphical
language, while at the same time streams of historical know-
ledge began to flow down from the remotest antiquity of the
human race, confirming and setting in the clearest fight the
best of all that we had before possessed, and exciting a hope
that we might, perhaps, be also able to understand the obscure

* The Rosetta stone, which led to the hieroglyphical discoveries of Young
and of Champoliion. Trans.

56 RAPID GROWTH OF ERROR THE ABSOLUTE.

hieroglyphics of our own age, and the fearful war of minds
which is commencing in it.

Such is the course of things, or rather, the higher Pro-
vidence that rules therein ; and it was to this, chiefly, that I
wished to call your attention by this digression. Thus slow
and gradual, but permanent, are the progressive steps in the
growth and development of true human science, which is
founded on experience -the internal as well as external, the
higher as well as the lower and on tradition, language, and
revelation. But on the contrary, that false, or, as I termed it at
the outset t that unhuman and absolute knowledge, as it pre-
tends to embrace all at once, and by one step to place us in full
possession of the whole sum of human knowledge, so, ever
fluctuating between being and non-being, it soon dissolves into
thin air, and leaves nothing behind but a baseless void of absolute
non-knowing. Ill would it fare with the knowledge of God
and of divine things, if they were left to be discovered, and,
as it w r ere, first established by human reason. Even though,
in such a case, the intellectual edifice were never so well built
and compact, still as it had originally issued out of man's
thoughts, it would be ever shaking before the doubt whether
it were anything better than an idea, or had any reality out of
the human mind.

For this doubt is the foundation of all idealism, to which,
often recurring under differing forms of error, it does but give
a fresh creation and n ew shape. Even from this side, conse-
quently, it is apparent that no living certainty and complete
reality is attainable b y it. Easy in truth were it from this
position, to evolve the ideas of the illimitable, and the infinite,
and the absolute and of such developments there is no lack.
But they are at best but pure negations, which do not serve
in the least to explain that which is most necessary for us
to understand. Curious indee d should I be to see the process
by which, out of this pet m etaphysical idea of the absolute,
any one positive notion of God His patience, for example,
and long-suffering is to be deduced. Strange, too, must be
the way in which alone it could carry out the proof that the ab-
solute Deity, or as man prefers, it seems, to say, the Absolute^
cannot dispense with the possession of this attribute of patience,
on which, however, before all others, it is important for man to
insist. Moreover, this character of a bsoluteness is applied to

DIVINE JUSTICE AND MERCY LIMITED. 57

the Deity in a manner which is altogether false and erroneous.
That God, in the mode of His existence, is unlimited that
the First Cause is not dependent on, and cannot be qualified
by any other being, is self-evident, and is nothing but a mere
identical proposition. But this character does not admit of
being applied to His inner essence, or His essential attributes
in relation to man and the whole creation. Woe to all men,
nay, we might rather say, woe to all created beings, if God
were really absolute if, for instance, His justice, which,
however, is the first and principal of all His attributes, were
not manifoldly modified, limited, and conditioned by His
goodness, His mercy, and His patience. Before such a
justice of God, if it were at once to make such an uncon-
ditional manifestation of itself, the whole world in terror
would sink in dust and ashes. But it is not so : man does
hope he must believe ay, we may go on and add, man
does know, that the divine justice is not unconditional, but is
in an eminent degree limited by His fatherly love and good-
ness.

No doubt, too, it must not on the other hand be forgotten,
that the divine love and grace are also conditioned by the
attribute of justice, what, however, in a certain effeminate
theology of a recent day, seems to have been totally over-
looked. However, this grave error of a too sentimental view
of divine things is now pretty generally recognised as such,
and for the most part abandoned. Moreover, it does not
properly lie within the scope of our present disquisition.
Now, the position that the justice and the grace of God mutually
limit each other, involves nothing unintelligible, or, in this
sense, inconceivable, as, however, is the case with the base-
less phantom of the absolute, where the empty phrase becomes
only the more unintelligible the more frequently it is re-
peated. How much more correct in this respect, were the
definitions and distinctions of the great philosophers of
antiquity, especially the Pythagoreans. With them the
limitless and the indeterminate were even the imperfect and
the evil, and the former they regarded as the characteristic
marks of the latter, while the fixedly definite and positive,
which forms the very heart and core of personality, was with
them identical with the good. And unquestionably, God's
personality the fundamental notion, the proper and universal

58 POWER TO UNDERSTAND REVELATION GOD'S GIFT.

dogma of every religion that acknowledges the one true God
is the true centre around which the whole inquiry revolves.
For the question is, whether philosophy, while it allows this
idea to stand indeed externally, and apparently for even in
Germany one only has been found bold enough to deny it
expressly and without reserve intends all the while to put
it quietly aside, and secretly to entomb it by refusing to see in
it anything more than an illusion of the natural feelings.
The point at issue is whether, by so teaching, philosophy is
to come into direct collision with one of man's most universal
and deeply-rooted feelings, and to produce an eternal schism
an irreconcilable discord not only between science and faith,
but even between science and life. For to unsettle life, is
even the necessary result of rationalism.

But let us now turn from the " Absolute" of reason to the
personal God of the believers among all peoples and times.
If now, the knowledge of God be not a discovery of the
reason, whose proper office is to analyse and investigate ; if on
the contrary, we are only able to understand of Him so
much as is given and imparted to us, then the matter as-
sumes quite another aspect. If God has conferred a know-
ledge of Himself upon man if He has spoken to him, has
revealed Himself to him as is the common tradition of all
ancient nations, the more unanimously corroborated the
older they are then is the power to understand this divine
communication given together and at the same time with it,
even though we should be forced to allow that this intellec-
tual capacity be limited by human frailty and extremely
imperfect. To take our estimate of it as low as possible,
we will conceive it to be something like the degree of intelli-
gence with which a child eighteen months old understands its
mother. Much it does not understand at all, other things it
mistakes, or perhaps does not fully attend to, and its answers
too are not much to the purpose but something, never-
theless, it does understand this we see clearly enough. On
this point we should not be likely to be led astray, even though
the theorist should wish to raise a doubt on the matter, by
attempting to prove that the child could not properly under-
stand its mother, since for that purpose it would be necessary
for it to have previously learned thoroughly and methodically
the elements of grammar. We believe, however, what indeed

KNOWLEDGE OF GOD A SCIENCE OF EXPERIENCE. 59

we see, that man's power of understanding divine things is
really very imperfect. For the relation between the child
a year and a half old and its mother completely represents
that of man to God, with the more than half imperfect organs
that are given him for this purpose with his so manifoldly
limited mind or spirit, which is a spark of heavenly light,
indeed, but still only a spark a drop out of the ocean of
the infinite whole and, moreover, with his half-soul. For
half-soul we may and must call it in this respect, since with
the one half it is turned to the earth, and still wholly
fraternises with the sensible world, while with the other it
is directed to, and is percipient of the divine. But such a
childlike and humble docility will not satisfy the proud
reason, and so it is ever turning again to the other absolute
road of a false, imaginary, and unhuman knowledge. Funda-
mentally, however, those two words,* which alone man can be
certain of with respect to God, would, since God invariably
imparts to every creature its due measure, be quite enough,
if only man would always rightly apply and faithfully pre-
serve them.

Now, to this first hypothesis we might append the further
question : supposing that God has imparted a knowledge of
Himself to mankind has spoken to them, and revealed Him-
self to them is it not highly probable that He has ordained
some institution for the further propagation and diffusion of
revealed truth, and also for the maintenance as well of its
original integrity as also of the right interpretation of it ? But
I must content myself with merely advancing this question.
I cannot attempt to prosecute it in the present place, for its
further consideration would carry us out of the established
limits of philosophy into the domain of history, and it involves
moreover the positive articles of faith.

But the previous question, whether the knowledge of God,
which we either possess or are capable of possessing, be a
science of absolute reason, or rather an understanding of
given data, and consequently a science of experience, and
resting, ultimately, on revelation this certainly falls within
the scope of philosophical investigation. Indeed, it forms the
chiefest and most essential problem of philosophy, inasmuch

* " God is a loving Spirit," page 53. Trans.

f>0 REASON NOT PROPERLY ATTRIBUTABLE TO GOD.

as it is properly the very question of being and non-being -of
a true and human, or of an empty and imaginary science
that is here to be decided. On this account, a precise and
correct phraseology is of the utmost importance towards a
right solution of this leading topic of philosophical inquiry.
Now, it is a fact deserving of remark, and well calculated to
arrest our attention, that nowhere in Holy Writ, nowhere in
all antiquity, or in any of the great teachers and philosophers
of olden time, is there any mention made of God's reason
t)ut universally it is intelligence or understanding, an om-
niscient intelligence, that is ascribed to Him. The wrongful
interchange of the two w r ords was reserved exclusively for -our
modern times, and for the epoch of the absolute rule of rea-
son, and of the worse than Babylonish confusion of scientific
terms which has arisen out of it. The only exceptions from
the previous remark, which may be found in antiquity, are
confined to one or two of the Stoics. But when we reflect
how greatly their whole chapter on the Deity labours under the
evil influence of that doctrine of an inevitable necessity and
blind fate, which forms the reproach of the whole Stoical
theory, this apparent exception serves to confirm the general
rule, that a wrong use pf language invariably has its source
in a rationalistic basis of speculation, or perhaps is itself the
spring and occasion of that erroneous point of view. God is
unquestionably the author of reason. If therefore any one be
disposed to call the divine order of things (which, however,
is not the Deity himself), a divine reason, this is a mere matter
of indifference. Only in such a case the question to be agi-
tated would not involve the mere expression, but rather the
meaning which is associated with it. But for my part, I
should prefer to avoid a mode of speaking which might give
rise to great misconception. And this is the more desirable
the more needful it is at all times carefully to distinguish
between the true and sound reason and its contrary. God is
the author of the sound reason, i.e., of the reason which fol-
lows and is obedient to the divine order. But the other, the
rebellious reason, has for its source that spirit of negation
which everywhere opposes God, and has drawn so great a part
of creation after him in his fall. For, having lost his true
centre, and finding none in himself, that evil spirit, with
indescribable desire and raging passionateness, seeks to find

REVELATION FOUR-FOLD. 61

one in the disordered world of sense, and in its noblest
ornament even in the soul of man, the very jewel of crea-
tion. And this is even the origin of the rebellious reason.
And it is rebellious even because having wandered from its
centre in the loving soul, which again has its centre in God,
it has thrown off the obedience of love, that holy bond which
retains the soul in subjection to the divine order. How far
in the present day, amid the fermenting rationalistic medley
which constitutes the spirit of the age, that sound reason
which willingly follows and observes the divine order, or
that rebellious reason which is absolute in itself, has the
upper hand, and forms the predominant element, is a question
easy of solution. It is one which I am content to leave to
the decision of all who are in any degree acquainted with the
prevailing tone of science and of life.

The philosophy which I have here undertaken to develope,
setting out from the soul as the beginning and first subject of
its speculations, contemplates the mind or spirit as its highest
and supreme object. Accordingly, in its doctrine of the Deity,
directly opposing every rationalistic tendency, it conceives of
Him and represents Him as a living spirit, a personal God,
and not merely as an absolute reason, or a rational order. If,
therefore, for the sake of distinction, it requires some peculiar
and characteristic designation, it might, in contrast with those
errors of Materialism and Idealism which I have described
and condemned, be very aptly termed Spiritualism. But
our doctrine is not any such system of reason as the others
pretend to be. It is an inward experimental science of a
higher order. Such a designation, consequently, bespeaking
as it does a pretension of system, is not very appropriate, and
is, at all events, superfluous. It is best indicated by a simple
name, such as we have given it in calling it a philosophy of
life.

Moreover, the revelation by which God makes himself
known to man, does not admit of being limited exclusively to-
the written word. Nature itself is a book written on both
sides, both within and without, in every line of which the
finger of God is discernible. It is, as it were, a Holy Writ
in visible form and bodily shape a song of praise on the
Creator's omnipotence composed in living imagery. But
besides Scripture and nature those two great witnesses to

KEVELATION WKITTEIST AND TTNWEITTEX.

the greatness and majesty of Godthere is in the voice of
conscience nothing less than a divine revelation within man.
This is the first awakening call to the two other louder and
fuller proclamations of revealed truth. And, lastly, in uni-
versal history we have set before us a real and manifold appli-
cation and progressive development of revelation. Here the
luminous threads of a divine and higher guidance glimmer
through the remarkable events of history. For, not only in
the career of whole ages and nations, but also in the lives of
individuals, the ruling and benignant hand of Providence is
everywhere visible.

Fourfold, consequently, is the source of revelation, from
which man derives his knowledge of the Deity, learns his
will, and understands his operation and power conscience,
nature, Holy Writ, and universal history. The teaching of
the latter is often of that earnest and awful kind, to which we
may, in a large sense, apply the adage, "Who will not learn
must feel." How often does it show us some mighty edifice
of fortune, which, having no firm basis in the deep soil of
truth and the divine order, owed its rapid growth and false
splendour to some evil influence, falling suddenly in ruins, as
if stricken by the invisible breath of a superior power. On
such occasions the public feeling recognises the hand which
sets a limit to every temerity in the history of the world to
every extravagance of a false confidence and appoints it its
ultimate term. And the olden notion (which, with men of
the day, had become little more than an antiquated legend,)
of God's retributive justice, resumes its place among the
actuating sentiments of life, with new and intense signi-
ficance. The sublime truth, however, is only too soon forgot-
ten, and the temporary alarm subsides but too quickly into
the habitual calm of a false security that old and hereditary
feeling of human nature.

The volume of Holy Writ, as it is transmitted to us, and
was first commenced about three-and-thirty centuries ago,
does not exclude the possibility of an earlier sacred tradition
in the twenty-four centuries which preceded it. So far,
indeed, is the supposition of such an original revelation from
being inconsistent with Scripture, that, on the contrary, it
contains explicit allusions to the fact, that such a manifold
enlightenment was imparted to the first man, as well as to

HOLY WHIT ANTE-MOSAIC KEVELATION. 63

that patriarch who, after the destruction of the primeval
world of giants, was the second progenitor of mankind. But
as this divine knowledge, derived immediately from the primary
source of all illumination, flowed down in free and imconfmed
channels to succeeding generations, and to the different
nations which branched off from the parent stock, the original
sacred traditions were soon disfigured and overloaded with
fictions and fables. In these, however, a rich abundance
of icmarkable vestiges and precious germs of divine truth
were mixed up with Bacchanalian rites and immoral mys-
teries. And thus, amid a multitude of sensuous and stimulating
images, the pure and simple truth was buried, as in a second
chaos, under a mass of contradictory symbols. Hence arose
that Babylonish confusion of languages, emblems, and legends,
which is universally to be met with among ancient, and even
the most primitive nations. In the great work, therefore, of
purification, and of a restoration of true religion (which we
may call a second revelation, or at least, as a second stage
thereof.) a rigid exclusion of this heathenish admixture of
fable and immorality was the first and most essential requisite.
But those older revelations, imparted to the first man and
the second progenitor of mankind, are expressly laid down as
the groundwork of that evangel of the creation, which forms
the introduction to the whole volume of Scripture, and fur-
nishes us thereby with a key to understand the history and
religion of the primitive world or to speak absolutely, the
true Genesis of the existing world, its history and its science.
This double principle, expressly recognising on the one hand,
an original revelation and divine illumination of the first pro-
genitors of the human race, of which the olden and less cor-
rupted monuments of heathendom still retain many a trace,
and on the other, strictly rejecting the additions of a corrupt
and degenerated heathenism, with all its tissue of fables and
false godless mysteries, must be kept steadily in view in exam-
ining the earliest portions of the sacred Scriptures. For the
neglect, or imperfect consideration of it, has already led, and
is ever likely to give rise to many complicated doubts and
perverted views, which imperil not only the simple under-
standing of the whole body of revealed Scripture, but even the
right conception of revelation.

It would seem, then, that not only philosophical, but abso-

64 SOUL THE RECEPTIVE ORGAN OF REVELATION.

lutely every higher species of knowledge is an internal science
of experience. For the formal science of mathematics is not
a positive science for the cognition of a real object, so much
as an organon and aid for other sciences, which, however, as
such, is both excellent in itself, and admits of many useful
applications. We may therefore on this hypothesis consider
each of these four faculties of man, which I have called the
principal poles or leading branches of human consciousness,
as a peculiar sense for a particular domain of truth. For
all experience and all science thereof rests on some cognitive
sense as the organ of its immediate perceptions. Now the
reason, which, in its form of conscience, announces itself as
an internal sense of right and wrong, is, as the faculty for the
development and communication of thought, usually named
the common sense. It constitutes the bond of connexion
between men and their thoughts, which is dependent on and
conditioned by language and its organ, and may be called the
sense for all that is distinctively human. In this respect it
forms the foundation and first grade of all other senses for, and
immediate organs of, a higher knowledge. Fancy, again, being
itself but a reflection of life and of the living powers of the natu-
ral world, is the inward sense for nature, which, as will hereafter
be more fully shown, first lends and assures to natural science
its due import and true living significance. And inasmuch as
the perfect intellection of a single object results from the
totality alone the significance and spirit of the whole there-
fore the understanding is the sense for that mind (geist)
which manifests itself in the sensible world, whether this be
a human or natural, or the supreme Divine intelligence.

Now, if we may venture to consider the fourfold revelation
of God in conscience, in nature, in Holy Writ, and the
world's history, as so many living springs or fertilising streams
of a higher truth, we must suppose the existence of a good
soil to receive the water of life and the good seed of divine
knowledge. For without an organ of susceptibility for good
to receive the divine gift from above; no amount of revelation
would benefit man. Now the soul, so susceptible of good on
all sides, both from within and from without, is even this
organ for the reception of revelation. And this function of
the soul, together with its creation of language as the outer
form of human knowledge, constitutes its contribution to

DIALOGUE THE NATURAL FORM OF PHILOSOPHY. 65

science and especially to intemal science. And even with
the understanding, as the sense which discerns the meaning
and purport of revelation, the soul is co-operative since no-
thing divine can be understood merely in the idea, and of and
by itself alone, but in every case a feeling for it must have
preceded, or at least contributed towards its complete under-
standing. The soul, consequently, which is thus susceptible
of the divine, is ever in forming itself about, or co-operating
in the acquisition of a knowledge of the Godlike. And this,
the soul's love and pursuit of divine truth, when, unfolding
itself in thought, it comes forth in an investiture of words, is
even philosophy not indeed the dead sophistic of the schools,
but one which, as it is a philosophy of life, can be nothing
less than living. And the soul, thus ardently yearning for the
divine, and both receiving and faithfully maintaining the re-
vealed Word, is the common centre towards which all the four
springs of life and streams of truth converge. In free medi-
tation it reconciles and combines them.

On this account the oldest and most natural form of phi-
losophy was that of dialogue, which did not, however, exclude
the occasional introduction of a simple narrative, or the con-
tinuous explanation of higher and abstruser questions. Phi-
losophy, accordingly, might not inappropriately be defined as
a dialogue of the soul in its free meditation on divine things.
And this was the very form it actually possessed among the
earliest and noblest of the philosophers of antiquity first of
all really and orally, as with Pythagoras and Socrates, and
lastly in its written exposition, of which style Plato was the
great and consummate master. But it was only to the noblest
and best of all ranks, though without distinction of age or sex,
that these the greatest men of antiquity communicated their
treasures of philosophical wisdom. In this course Pythagoras
first set the example, which, on the whole, was followed also
by Socrates and Plato. For, in general, the latter confined
their philosophical teaching to a select circle, and imparted
it, as it were, under the seal of friendship, to such only as in
the social intercourse of life they admitted to close and familiar
intimacy. Occasional exceptions were perhaps furnished by
their disputes with the sophists, in the course of which they
were constrained to adopt, not only the weapons, but also the
method of their adversaries a licence of which Plato, per-

66 PHILOSOPHY IMPKOPERLY CONFINED TO A SCHOOL.

haps, has too often availed himself, even if he has not some-
times abused it. For about this time the sophists introduced
a practice as erroneous as their doctrine was false. Publish-
ing their pliilosophemes to the whole people, they treated it
and quarrelled about it in the market-place as a common
party matter. Such a procedure was in every sense per-
nicious, and one which must have brought even truth itself
into contempt. Lastly, Aristotle comprised in his manuals
the collective results of all earlier philosophical speculation,
and entrusted this treasury of mature knowledge and well-
sifted and newly arranged thoughts to the keeping of a
school. Now, we should be far from justified were we to
make this a reproach against this master of subtilty and pro-
fouiidest of thinkers ; for at this time all true intellectual life
had, together with public spirit, become extinct among the
Greeks, amidst the disorders of democracy, or under the press-
ure of the armed supremacy of Macedonia. Still it must ever
remain a matter of profound regret. For philosophy, as stand-
ing in the centre between the guiding spirit of the divine
education of man and the external force of civil right and
material power, ought to be the true mundane soul ( Weltseele)
which animates and directs the development of ages and of
the whole human race. Deeply, therefore, is it to be deplored
whenever science, and especially philosophy, are withdrawn
from this wide sphere of universal operation, and from human
life itself, to remain banished and cooped up in the narrow
limits of a school.

END OF LECTURE III.

LECTURE IV.

OF THE SOUL IN RELATION TO NATURE.

" WE know in part," exclaimed with burning zeal the
honest man of God in Holy Scripture, " We know in part
and we prophesy in part." How true the first member of
this sentence is even in the case of that knowledge of God
which alone deserves the name of knowledge, or repays the
trouble of its acquisition, the previous Lecture must in many
ways have served to convince us. The second member, which
will chiefly occupy our attention in the present discussion, is
in an eminent degree applicable to physical science. For
what, in fact, is all our knowledge of nature, considered as a
whole and in its inmost essence, but a mere speculation, con-
jecture, and guess upon guess? What is it but an endless
series of tentative experiments, by which we are continually
hoping to succeed in unveiling the secret of life, to seize the
wonderful Proteus, and to hold him fast in the chains of
science ? Or is it not, perhaps, one ever renewed attempt to
decipher more completely than hitherto the sibylline inscrip-
tions on the piled-up rows and layers of tombs, which as
nature grows older convert its great body into one vast cata-
comb, and so perchance to find therein the key to unlock and
bring to light the far greater nay, the greatest of all riddles
the riddle of death ? Now there are undoubtedly even in
nature itself, occasional indications of, scattered hints and
remote allusions to, a final crisis, when even in nature and in
this sensible and elementary world, life shall be entirely
separated from death, and when death itself shall be no
more. Gravely to be pondered and in nowise to be neg-
lected are these hints, although without the aid of a higher
illumination they must for ever remain unintelligible to man.
Thus considered, however, the universe itself appears replete
with dumb echoes and terrestrial resounds of divine revela-

i-2

68 NO PHYSICAL SYSTEM IN THE BIBLE.

tion. It is not therefore without reason and significance,
if in this beautiful hymn the ancient prophetess of nature
lends her concurrent testimony to the promises of the holy
seer of a last day of creation, which nature shall celebrate as
the great day of her renovation and towards which she yearns
with an indescribable longing which is nowhere so inimitably
depicted, so strongly and so vividly expressed, as in Holy Writ
itself. Holy Scripture could not and cannot contain a system
of science, whether as a philosophy of reason or a science of
nature. Nay in this form of a manual and methodical com-
pendium of divine knowledge, it could not inspire us with
confidence either as revelation or as science. Condescending
altogether to the wants of man both in form and language, it
consists of a collection of occasional and wholly practical
compositions derived immediately from and expressly de-
signed for life, in a certain sence it consists of nothing but
the registers and social statutes either of the prophetic people
or of the apostolical community. Accordingly its contents
are of a mixed nature : historical, legal, instructive, hortatory,
consolatory, and prophetical, together with a rich abundance
of minute and special allusions, while it enters everywhere
into, and with watchful love adapts itself to, individual wants
and local peculiarities. And the form of these writings, at once
so singular in its kind and in such marvellous wise, but yet
so eminently human is so far from being inconsistent with
the divine character, that the very condescension of the
Deity constitutes a new and additional but most charac-
teristic proof of genuine revelation. Only the first founda-
tion-stone and the key and comer-stone form an exception.
Embracing within their spacious limits the beginning o*
nature and the end of the world, they form, as it were, the
corner-rings and the bearing-staves of the ark of the covenant
of revelation. And whilst on the one side as well as on the
other, in the opening no less than in the closing book, which
contain almost as many mysteries as words, the seven-
branched candlestick of secret signification is set up, still all
else that is inclosed within the holy ark, receives there-
from sufficient light for its perfect elucidation. In all other
respects the style is that of a plain narrative couched in very
appropriate and simple words, and if the masters of criticism
m classical antiquity have quoted a few passages from the

NO PHYSICAL SYSTEM IN THE BIBLE. 69

beginning of Genesis as the most exalted instances of the
sublime, still it was in the very simplicity and extreme
plainness of the language that they recognised this character
of sublimity. From these two ends moreover from this first
root as well as from the last crown of the book, there pro-
ceed many threads and veins, which running through the
tissue bind it together still more closely into a living unity, on
which account, although consisting of so many and such divers
books, it is justly considered as one, being called simply the
" Book," (Bible). Consequently it would, as already said, be
foolish to look for a system of science in the divine book for
men. Nevertheless we do meet here and there with single
words about nature and her secrets hints occasionally dropped
and seemingly accidental expressions which giving a clear
and full information as to much that is hidden therein, fur-
nish science consequently with so many keys for unlocking
nature. These, indeed, are not scattered throughout in equal
measure, but here perhaps more thinly, and there again more
thickly. In all these passages, and especially those of the
Old Testament, which not only depict the external beauties
and visible glory of nature, but also touch upon its hidden
powers and inmost secrets of life, we may observe a kind
of intentional, I might perhaps say, cautious reserve and
heedful circumspection, amounting at times almost to an
indisposition to speak out fully and clearly, lest the abuse
or probable misconception of what should be said, might
give encouragement to the heathenish and wide-spread deifi-
cation of nature.

In the New Testament (if we may venture to speak of these
things in the same natural and human fashion that Scripture
itself employs) the Holy Spirit uses language far more pre-
cise and clear. On the whole, the relation in which Holy
Writ and divine revelation stand to nature itself and the
science thereof is a peculiar one. It is eminently tender and
wonderful, but not indeed intelligible at the first glance, or
broadly definable according to any rigorous and established
notion. It is one, however, capable of being made clearer
by means of a simile borrowed from Scripture itself. Those
guileless men whom the Redeemer chose as His instruments
for carrying out His great work of the redemption of the
world, were endued with miraculous powers, which it was and

70 KNOWLEDGE OP DIVINE THINGS ILLIMITABLE.

ffif w "'ow oTCfi S w 7!, not of their own Stren ^' but f

118. .NOW ol the first of these apostles it is narrated tint a
healing power and as it were an invisible stream of life pro

wlhoutT ' m ' T U S eD S C0nsci us <* <"
without his regarding it, which healed the sick who were

S*C! Y P t'r d Whhin the ra " e f his sha ^ "he
rewlatio > ^ manner thc fier y wain of divine

revelation as it passes on its way scatters in single words and

Zd e oVr7 a t b ;'ff ht ^ The "^t sgad <- of the

word of God as it falls is sufficient to kindle and throw a new

ight over the whole domain of nature, bv means of which

the true science thereof may be firmly established, its i

all

attent!on

Bethodwh, o e

Tn rl / ^ P hllos P hers of ^ason without exception
puisue. In different ways according to the special obiects thei
L7' th t e >l al l alike P-sumf toset ce P rtain abtlu e anl
impassable limits to human reason (which, however, by some
slight turn or other they soon dexterously contrive to trarfs!
gress) in order to bring within their system of absolute science
-d "h t b f bUt " deadsem Wanee-all that itwifl hold!
aade>en what it eaunot contain. Quite different, however is it
with the truth and with that living science which we take for

soul oT T ^i^T- For fr - ^ it appears that the
Jo 'man, however liable it may be to manifold error, is
nevertheless capable of receiving the divine communications.

of kno l'l" maU C / D P T eSS aS man y f these hi her branch es
knowledge, and can learn as much of divine things as it
is given to him to know, and since at the same time it is God
leZe fl '^primary source from which all man's know-

rip flows and his guide to tmth,-who shall determine the
measure and fix the limits-who shall dare to say how much
of know edge and of science God will vouchsafe to man>_
who sha ; l venture to prescribe the limits bevond which His
Jhnnmation cannot pass? This, it is evident, is illimitable
may go on to an extent, which at the begmnin<" man

' ha l K CH ? - 6d t0 bS P Ssible ' In a ' d ' ^ough
, and by his own unassisted reason, man is inca-

PHYSICAL SCIENCE IMPERFECT.

pable of knowing anything, yet through God, if ^e His
will he may attain to the knowledge of aU things. And I yet -it
I tr\,e, though in a very different sensefrom that intended by
ihese philosophers of reason, that man's knowledge is m
reality limited. No absolute limit, indeed is set to it. Yet
because it is a mixed knowledge, composed of outward t
tion and inward experience, and is founded on the perceptions
of the external and internal senses, therefore ,s it made up of
individual instances, extremely slow in its growth, and m n
respect perfect and complete, and scarcely ever free from
Llts and deficiencies. Consequently when considered in
rts totality and as pretending to be a whole, it is invariably
tapafecfc But this character of imperfection belongs in fact
to all real science, as derived from the experience of the
senses Seldom indeed is the first impression free from the
admixture of error; numberless repeated observations com-
parisons, essays, experiments, and corrections, which must
often be carried on through many centuries, not to say
mTy tens of centuries, are necessary before a pure and stable
result can be attained to. In this way aU truly human
Sedge is imperfect, and " in part;" and although on th
Sitrary? the false conceited wisdom may parade itself from
Seven- first as fully ripe and complete, yet in a very brief
space indeed will its imperfection and rottenness appear

And, indeed, the character of imperfection shows itself, as
in all other human things, so also in the science of nature^
From its birth among the earliest naturalists of Greece to r!
boasted maturity amongst ourselves, it counts an age ot two
millenniums and a half of unbroken cultivation. But now it
looking bevond the explanation of single isolated facts, we
consider rather our knowledge of nature in J^"^
tern and internal constitution, can we say that physica saence
s during the time, made more than, perhaps, two steps and
a half of progress? And this slow and toilsome advance wluch
m a certain "sense, never arrives at more than knowing m
part," is the law of every department of human science. Con-
Lquently it may be justly said of the development of man s
stLce, that wiih God a thousand years are as a day and one
day as a thousand years* All knowledge drawn from the

2 Peter iii. 8.

72 FANCY AS A FACULTY OF SUGGESTION.

senses and experience is bound by this condition. It may, no
doubt, apply immediately and principally to external expe-
rience, which is dependent 011 the lower and ordinary senses,
whether we reckon them according to the number of their
separate organs as five, or as three in compliance with a more
scientific classification. But it also holds equally good of
those which we pointed out and described in the last Lecture
as being the four superior scientific senses, the organs of a
knowledge founded on a higher and internal experience, the
sense, viz., of reason, the sense of understanding, the sense
for nature or fancy, and the proper sense for God, which lies
in the inmost free will of man. Not merely as the faculty of
suggestion (Ahndungsvermogen'}, is fancy to be regarded as
the higher and internal sense for nature, or because it is from
this side that the affinity of man and of man's soul with
nature is most distinctly revealed, but it also exhibits itself
as such in the scientific apprehension of natural phenomena.
That dynamical play of the inner life, that law r of a living
force which constitutes the essence of every phenomenon of
nature, is a something so fleeting and evanescent that it can
only be seized and fixed by the fancy alone, since, as is now
pretty generally allowed by all profound observers of nature,
in the abstract notion life eludes the grasp, and nothing
remains but a dead formula.

The apprehension of a living object in thought, so as to
seize and fix it in its mobile vitality and its fluctuating and
fleeting states, is an act of the imagination, which, however, is
naturally of a peculiar kind and entirely distinct from artistic
or poetical fancy. It is, in this respect, worthy of remark,
that all the most characteristic and felicitous terms which are
employed to designate the great discoveries in modern times
of the profouiider secrets of nature are, for the greater part,
boldly figurative and often even symbolical. Here therefore
also we have a manifestation of that affinity which subsists
between nature and the faculty of fancy, by which alone its
ever-stirring vitality is scientifically apprehended.

I formerly observed that, in the outer senses, as faculties of
the soul subordinate to the fancy, a higher intellectual
endowment, as a special gift of nature, is occasionally found
to exist, namely, the sense of art, or the eye for beautiful
forms, and the ear for musical sounds. But even the lower

PHYSIOLOGY OF MAN. 73

sense, the more purely organic feeling, is often evolved to
higher degrees of susceptibility, which, however, do not fall
within the sphere of the feeling for art, but form, as it were,
a peculiar and special sense of nature. To this class belong
those indescribable feelings of sympathy and inward attrac-
tion the many vivid presentiments of a strange foreboding
traces of which may be observed among many other animals
besides man, just as, in the case of musical tones and emo-
tions, a light note of remote affinity seems to bring the soul
of man in unison with a correspondent nature soul in the
higher members of the brute creation. Numberless are the
instances of such forebodings (among which we must reckon
also the significant vision or dream) recorded of all times,
countries, and spheres of life. No doubt, from their strange
nature, and from the manifold difficulties with which man's
mode of observing and narrating these phenomena perplexes
the consideration of them, it is anything but easy, in any
individual case, to arrive at a pure result, and to pass a final
and decisive sentence. Still, on the whole, the fact cannot
well be denied, as, indeed, it is not even attempted, by any un-
prejudiced and profound observer of nature in the present day.
But now, if such an immediate feeling of invisible light and life
does freely develope and clearly manifest itself as an indubita-
ble faculty and a perfectly distinct state of the consciousness,
then assuredly we have herein a new organ of perception and
a new natural sense. Though not, indeed, more infallible than,
any other of the senses, it may nevertheless be the source of
very remarkable phenomena, which, perhaps, above all others
require investigation, in order that their distinctive character
may be precisely and accurately determined. It is however
necessary to remember that the latter is not to be determined
by any side blow of caprice, any more than the electric phe-
nomena of nature and the atmosphere, when they are actually
lowering there, are to be got rid of by any such expedient.

It is only just and right, and not inconsistent with true-
human knowledge, if physical science should commence with
the study of man. Still, if we would contemplate man from
the side of nature, it seems the safer course to endeavour,
first of all, to obtain a clear and leading idea of the whole of
his constitution in this respect, rather than to lose ourselves
in the contemplation of the special phenomena of a particular

74 JETHER, OF THE NERVES THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

sphere. Now with regard to the whole of man's organisation,
the organic body as the third constituent of human existence,
I will merely remark that, just as the triple principle of body,
soul, and spirit is repeated in the special and narrower spheres
of the senses, the instincts, and the passions, and even in the
different forms in which a disordered intellect usually mani-
fests itself, so also it admits of a further application to the
organic body in general. That most wonderful organisation
the marvellous structure of bones and muscles, the outward
organic frame, is, as it were, the body in a narrower sense,
the pre-eminently material constituent of living bodies. The
soul of man here consequently the organic soul is in the
blood and in the five or six organs whose functions are first
of all to elaborate the blood and afterwards to provide for its
circulation or perhaps by maintaining a perpetual inter-
change of the breath and the external air, to keep the vital
flame constantly burning on the hearth of life within. A third
element and, indeed, the principal one of the three, though
only noticeable in its effects on the brain exists within the
higher senses and functions in short, in the whole nervous
tissue. But it lies not in the nervous filaments themselves :
anatomy cannot detect it, for it is not visible to the eye. . On
this account some have called it the aether of the nerves to
indicate its incorporeal nature incorporeal, i. e., relatively to,
and in comparison with, the other two constituents of man,
the blood- soul, and the external frame as being the spirit
of life in the organic body. Strictly and sharply enough does
Holy Writ distinguish this spiritual body (as it calls it) of
man from the body of the soul, or the organic blood-soul,
considering the former, as it were, the seed of the resurrection,
even because at the moment of death this ethereal body- of- light
leaves its terrestrial veil to be in due time re-united to it after
a more glorious fashion. And death, itself is even nothing
else than its total departure and painful emancipation from
the organic body, on which the features, one might almost
say, the physiognomy of corruption stamps itself, imme-
diately that the immortal Psyche, the invisible seed of light
and eternity, has put off the tabernacle of this body.

This internal, invisible bod v-of- light (JLiditkorper} is also
the organ and the centre of aH the higher and spiritual powers
of the human organisation. For it is easily conceivable that

MEDICINE A BASIS OF THE SCIENCE OF NATUKE. 75

a partial projection of this life of light which is latent in the
sound organic body should produce such phenomena, while its
complete projection, or rather total separation, would have
death for its result, or rather would itself be death. A truly
scientific view of nature can easily enter into or allow the
legitimacy of this idea. The true rule, however, and stand-
ard for the right decision of phenomena of this kind can only
be found in a higher region, even because they themselves
lie on the extreme limits of nature and life, and in part also
pass beyond them.

We therefore prefer to follow the more slow but sure course
of development pursued by physical science itself, as com-
menced nearly twenty-five centuries ago by the Greeks. On the
whole it began even there with the cognition of man of his
diseases and their cure. The naturalists indeed of the present
day are in general disposed to laugh at the ideas of nature
which were advanced by the first philosophers of Greece, and
to despise the hypotheses of water, or air, or fire, as being the
essence of all things, which nevertheless, as the first beginnings
of a clearer contemplation and of a higher view of nature
greatly recommend themselves by their extreme simplicity.
But however modern observers of nature may be ready to
hand these systems over to fancy as so many purely poetical
cosmogonies, yet, on the other hand, the present masters
of medicine, with greater gratitude and fuller acknowledg-
ment of his merits, reverence Hippocrates as the founder of
their art. For, indeed, as such and not properly as a science,
or at any rate as an art far more than as a science, was
medicine regarded by its founder and the great masters
who caine after him. They looked upon it as the art of the
diagnosis and treatment of disease, in which the unerring tact
of a practised and happy judgment is of primary importance,
and where the rapid and searching glance of genius into the
secret laboratories of life or into the hidden sources of disease
is, and ever will be, the principal and most essential point.
The mere historical acquaintance with the different forms of
diseases and their remedies, with botany, and the anatomy of
the human body, with the number and structure of its organs,
forms merely the materials, the external sphere of medical prac-
tice ; while the essential qualification is even this penetrating
glance which searches out the inmost secrets of the bodily
temperament But now those who have been most richly

76 INNATE IDEAS.

gifted with this peculiar gift have ever been the last to believe
themselves possessed of a perfect science. And yet, inas-
much as that physical knowledge which by attaining to a com-
plete understanding of life shall be able to comprehend and
explain the mystery of death would alone deserve the name of
the science of nature ; inasmuch also as the searching glance
of the true physician arrives the nearest to such a point,
penetrating, as it does, deep into the manifold fluctuation and
struggle between the two, and into the secrets of their con-
flict, this, therefore, is perhaps to be considered as the first
germ of life for a future science of nature, which, however as
yet undeveloped, has for more than twenty centuries been
slumbering on, hidden, as it were, in embryo, in the womb of
medical art and lore. The physical, geographical and astro-
nomical observations of this whole period of gestation, form it
is true a rich treasury of valuable materials, but they do not
give us that profound knowledge, of which alone the physician's
penetrating glance into life and its constitution furnishes the
first commencement and essay, however weak.

With respect to natural science in general, and the possibility
of our attaining to it, the case stands thus. If nature be a
living force if the life which reigns within it be in a certain
though still very remote degree akin to the life of man and
the human soul then is a knowledge of nature easily con-
ceivable, and right well possible (for nothing but the like, 01
at least the similar and cognate, can be known by the like)
even though this cognition may still be extremely defective,
and at best can never be more than partial. But if nature be
a dead stony mass, as many seem to suppose, then would it be
wholly inconceivable how this foreign mass of petrifaction
could penetrate into our inmost Ego ; then at least would there
seem to be good grounds for the idealistic doubt whether
ultimately this external world be any thing but a mere phanton,
having no existence save in our own thoughts the outward re-
flection of ourselves the pure creation of our own Me.

The question of innate ideas has been often mooted in phi-
losophy. As, however, the essential functions and different
acts of thought, together with its several notions, are, properly
speaking, nothing but the natural division of man's cogitative
faculty, it is not on their account necessary to suppose such a
preliminary intercalation of general ideas into the human mind.
And as little necessary is it, in order to explain the universal

AN INNATE IDEA OF DEATH. 77

belief in the existence of a Deity, to suppose that there is in
the minds of all men an implanted idea of God ; for this would
lead to the purely arbitrary hypothesis, of that which is so
difficult to conceive the pre-existence of the spirit or soul of
man. And as no created beings can have an idea of God, but
those to whom He vouchsafes to communicate it, and to
accord a knowledge of His existence, so can He bestow this
privilege the very instant He pleases, without the intervention
of any innate idea expressly for that end. And yet I am
disposed, and not, I think, without reason, to assume that
man, as at present constituted, does possess one, though only
one, species of inborn ideas : viz., an innate idea of death.
This, as a false root of life, and a true mental contagion, pro-
duces a dead cogitation, and is the origin of all dead and
dead-born notions. For this idea of death, whether here-
ditary or inoculated in the soul, is, as its peculiar but funda-
mental error, transferred by the mind of man to every object
with which it comes in contact. And thus, in man's dead
cogitation, the surrounding world and all nature appears to
him a similar lifeless and inert mass, so long as sitting be-
neath this shadow of spiritual death, his mind fgeistj has not
sufficient strength to work its way out of its dark prison-house
into the light. For not at all without higher aid, and even
with it only slowly and tardily, does man discover that all
that is really and naturally dead is within himself, or learn to
recognize it for what it truly is, a something eminently null
and naught. Another species of this false and dead concep-
tion of nature presents itself under the form of multiplicity.
In this -view nature is represented as forming something like
a vast sand-hill, where, apart from the pile they thus form
together and their aggregation in it, the several grains are
supposed to have no connection with each other ; while, how-
ever, they are so diligently counted, as if everything depended
on their right enumeration. But through the sieve of such an
atomistic, which would break up the universe into a number
of separate and absolute individualities, the sand will ever run,
however often and painsfully man may strive to reckon or to
measure the infinity of these grains of nature. Mathematical
calculation and measuring hold the same place in physical
science that is held in every living language by conjugating
and declining and other grammatical rules, which, in truth,

78 NATURE'S TEUE MATHEMATICS.

are but a species of mathematical formulas. In learning a
foreign and especially a dead language, these are indispensable
and necessary aids, which greatly promote and facilitate its ac-
quisition; so also mathematics furnish indispensable helps and
a most valuable organon for the cognition of nature. But with
them alone, man wiU never learn to understand even a word,
not to talk of a whole proposition, out of nature's strangely-
sounding and most difficult hieroglyphics.

Somewhat different is it, when man seeks to understand the
true living geometry in nature herself: i. e., attempts to discover
the place which the circle and the ellipse, (passing from these
up to the spheres in their sidereal orbits,) or which the triangle,
the square, the hexagon, and so forth, assume in the scale ofits
creations or when, in a similar spirit, he investigates and
ascertains the reaUy dominant rule in the arithmetic of life;
those numbers which the physician observes in the periodic
developments of life, and which, in the fluctuating states of
an abating and heightening malady, enable him, under certain
conditions, to predict the moment of its crisis. Of a still
higher kind is that spiritual, we might almost call it divine
chronology, which, in universal history, marks out definite
epochs of the mental development of the human race, and
traces therein the influence of certain grades of life, or' ages
of the world, and the alternating phases of disease in whole
communities, and those decisive moments and great critical
emergencies in which God Himself appears as the healing
Physician and Restorer of life, It was, in all probability, in
reference to such an arithmetic, or in some similar sense, "that
Pythagoras taught that numbers are, or contain, the essence
of things. For such an arithmetic of life and geometry of
nature do afford a positive cognition and a real knowledge.
As commonly understood, however, mathematics are nothing
more than a formal science in other words, they are simply a
scientific organon, rather than a science. But now, if nature

be not regarded as dead, but living, who can doubt that it

or, as we are now speaking of man's nearest neighbour that
the earth is akin to man r Was he not formed out of the
dust of the earth, and is he not therefore the son, nay. in truth,
the first-born of the earth : does he not receive from it food
and nourishment ? and when the irrevocable summons goes
forth from above, does he not give back again to its bosom the

MAN'S AFFINITY TO -THE EAETH. 79

earthly tabernacle of his flesh ? Do not chemists tell us that
the principal constituent of the purest wheat- corn has a great
affinity to the substance of man's blood ? and does not the
blood, moreover, derive one of its ingredients from iron the
principal among the metals of the earth ? And are not gold
and other metallic substances either wholesome medicines or
deadly poisons ? And is there not also an inexhaustible store
of both in the wonderful varieties of herbs and plants ? Do
not invigorating and healing springs burst from numberless
rocks and fissures of the earth ? Is not to speak only of the
heavenly bodies nearest to and immediately connected with
our globe is not the sun's heat so specifically different from
every other kind of warmth, the quickener of all that lives and
moves, and for man under a milder clime, as it were, a soft
renovating bath ? And is not the other and lesser light
earth's mighty satellite and companion, the moon the cause
of all those changes in the weather and atmosphere, which
from the earliest times have been acknowledged to be most
serviceable and highly beneficial to agriculture ? Is not the
great pulse of the ocean, in its ebb and flow, measured by it,
as well as many periods of the development of life ? And is
it not, when its operation is too powerful or violently exciting,
the cause of a peculiar disease among men ? As, therefore,
the musical unisons in the melodious songs of birds, both find
and wake a concordant echo in the heart of man, so too in a
larger scale, the blood-soul of man, with its living pulsation
and organic sensibility , is most nearly akin to and sympathises
with the earth and the whole earthly frame. And is not, in
all probability, this sympathetic influence between the earth
and man reciprocal ? Must not, for instance, the respiration of
nine hundred millions of human beings have affected the atmo-
sphere ? Has not the very air degenerated with the human race,
and like it become corrupt and deteriorated ? Are not cer-
tain pestilential diseases propagated by the air alone, being
carried in fixed telluric directions, without material contact or
pollution ? And if, in answer to the inference which we would
draw from these facts, any one should sit down to calculate
the number of cubic miles in the atmospheric belt, and argue
that the bveath and evaporation from ever so many myriads
of human beings would be insufficient to hu^e any effect
thereon, we might easily retort upon him the equally vast

80 MAGNETISM INVENTION OF THE COMPASS.

reckoning of the millions of seconds which make up a hundred
and more generations, and by which these respirations must
be counted. But, however this may be, it does appear that
the air must, in primitive times, have been far more pure and
balsamic, and more vital and more nutritive, than at present.
For before the flood men required neither flesh nor wine to
recruit their strength, and yet, in duration of life and bodily
vigour, and above all in energy of will and powers of mind,
they far surpassed the sons of a later age ; and it was even
by the misuse of these great gifts and endowments that they
brought down the divine vengeance on their sinful genera-
tion. And, lastly, if the earth were wholly without life, how
could it, at the creation of the animals of this planetary world,
have yielded obedience to the behest of the Creator, as it went
forth on the sixth day, " Let the earth bring forth the living
creature after its kind"? Highly important, moreover, as re-
gards the true estimate of the whole realm of nature as con-
templated by the Divine mind, and deeply significant, is the
wide interval which, in the Mosaic history of the creation,
separates the bringing forth of the beasts by the earth at the
command of the Almighty, from the making of man, whereof
it is written, " Let us make man in our own image."

Physical science having thus sluggishly advanced through
a definite period and number of centuries having lived
through almost two millenniums in little better than an
embryo state, made at last the few steps of progress that it
has as yet taken. By a more rapid march of time, it hastened
to suit itself to the riper age of man, and to come forth itself,
as it were, mature, although, in many respects, this is even
yet very far from being the case. The principal of these ad-
vances of physical science, is the invention of the compass.
For, in the first place, the phenomenon of magnetism pre-
sents a remarkable manifestation of the universal life of the
world, which eludes all mathematical calculations of magni-
tude, while the little piece of this wonderful iron balances
by its living agency the whole globe itself. And in the
second place, the results to which it has led have been no
less important and marvellous. The magnetic index pointed
the way to the discovery of the New World, and to a more
perfect acquaintance with the figure of the earth, and thus,
through an enlarged observation of geographical and astro-

LEGEND OF ATLANTIS MODERN ASTRONOMY. 81

nomical facts, opened out a grander and more extensive view
of the whole planetary system. Of the new world in the
other hemisphere, a trace unquestionably is to be found in
antiquity in the legend of the island of Atlantis. The gene-
ral description of this island, as equal in extent to both
Asia and Africa together, agrees remarkably with the size
of America. But the fable contains the additional circum-
stance, that having existed in the Western Ocean in very
ancient times, it was subsequently swallowed up by the
waves. From this circumstance I am led to infer, that the
legend did not, as is generally supposed, owe its origin to
Phoenician navigators, who, even if it be true that they did
succeed in sailing round Africa, most assuredly never ven-
tured so far westward. Like so much besides that is equally
great and grand, and indeed far grander, the main fact of the
legend seems to be derived from an original tradition from
the primeval times, when unquestionably man was far better
acquainted with his whole habitation of this earth than in the
days of the infant and imperfect science of Greece, or even of
the more advanced and enlightened antiquity. A vague tra-
ditionary notion of its existence lived on from generation to
generation. But afterwards, when even the Phoenician sailors,
however far they penetrated into the wide ocean, were unable
to give any precise information about, or adduce any proof of,
the fact, the hypothesis was advanced, and finally added to the
tradition, that the island had been swallowed up by the sea.

Modern astronomy, at its first rise, was extremely revolting
to man's feelings, which had become, as it were, habituated
to the olden theory of the world's shape. The system of
Ptolemy indeed, with its narrow egoistic conceit of making
man the centre of the sidereal universe, was as unsatisfactory
as it was absurd, and little was lost when it was exploded.
But, on the other hand, it was startling, and still has a stag-
gering effect on our minds, to be told, that when measured by
the mathematical standard of the vast distances and periodic
tunes of the planetary system, the earth, for which the Al-
mighty has done such incalculably great things, and on which
He has bestowed such high and precious gifts, is, as it were,
but a little and insignificant splinter in the vast regions of
infinite space. A true and profound science of nature, how-
ever, does not allow of the validity of mathematical magnitude

82 SEYEX THE TRADITIONARY NUMBER OF THE PLANETS.

as an exclusive standard of the value of things. Whether
m a greater or less sphere of existence, it sees and discovers
in far other properties the true centre of life. If, even in our
globe, the living magnetic pole does not coincide with the
true mathematical north pole, but lies a considerable distance
on one side of it, may it not, without prejudice to modern
astronomy, be also the case with the whole planetary system?
The first conceptions of nature are rarely, if ever, free from
mistakes, and oftentimes, together with great truths, contain
also great errors. And while the first fresh impression the living
intuition, ever recommends itself to the general feeling of man-
kind, and takes deep root therein ; the notions, on the other hand,
which new discoveries of nature introduce, not unfrequently do
violence to the prevalent views as to the shape and form of the
old world. Often, indeed, the former run directly counter to
what we might call the old family feelings of mankind, which,
transmitted through generations from father to son, have be-
come, as it were, a custom of life, a holy habit. Afterwards,
however, as the new scientific discovery is more perfectly
developed, it gradually conciliates the old hereditary and
customary feeling of nature. The two at last fall into friendly
relations with each other.

Now, in the article of the stars, the cherished creed of
nature, professed by all ancient peoples, insisted perhaps on
no one dogma so earnestly as that there are seven planets
That this deeply rooted and habitual feeling of men was not
uninfluenced by the general consideration of the number seven
is only natural to suppose. For not only does it comprise the
three dimensions of time, together with the four cardinal
points of space, but it is also found entering, iinder a variety
of combinations, into the life, the thought, and history of men.
And in the new astronomy, though the sun and moon have
been ejected from the number of the planets, yet the earth has
entered into the list, and the deficient member of the system
having been discovered, we have again seven planets, as in
the olden belief. For it is, to say the least, highly impro-
bable that any new planetary body wiU ever be discovered
beyond Uranus,* and as for the small bodies which are situate

* These words were uttered scarcely twenty years ago, and now beyond
Uranus another planet, whose vibrations have been Ions felt upon
paper, is added to the heavenly choir. On the other hand, if Sir Wm

PYTHAGOREAN SYSTEM OF ASTRONOMY.

between Mars and Jupiter, it is pretty generally acknowledged
that they are not properly to be counted as planets, from which
they are even distinguished by their very names by some
astronomers.

And as little ground is there to take exception or offence
at modern astronomy, even on that side of it where difficulties
were originally most felt and mooted. For Holy Writ was
neither written exclusively nor designed pre-eminently for
astronomers. In these matters, therefore, as in all others,
it speaks the ordinary language which men employ among
themselves in the business of daily life. ^

Now we know that in the pulse of the organic body its
renlar beating is occasionally interrupted by a hurried cir-
culation or a momentary stoppage. Is it not in the same
way possible that the pulsatory revolutions of the great
planetary world do not observe, like a piece of dead clock-
work, a mechanical uniformity, but are liable to many de-
viations and irregularities? If, then, a similar stoppage to
that which sometimes occurs in the pulse of man, be here
also supposable, as produced by a superior power and ex-
ternal influence, then in the case of such an extraordinary
interruption, it is a matter of indifference whether it be said
of this wonderful moment that the sun stood still, or (as seems
to be the fact), that the earth was held in check and rested in
its orbit. And, in like manner, for the changing phenomena
of the astronomical day, the common expressions are equally
true with the scientific, and equally significant. The sun's
rise, the morning dawn, is, for all men, a figure, or rather a
fact of pregnant meaning, while the setting sun fills all hearts
with a melancholy feeling of separation. Equally true, how-
ever, is it, and in a symbolical sense it conveys perhaps a still
more serious meaning, when we say in scientific language,
" The earth must go down before the sun can rise ; " or " When
the earth goes up, then is it night, and darkness diffuses itself
over all " Or if, perhaps, in the new and quickening spring,
instead of the old phraseology, " The sun has returned, has

Hamilton'* hopes are realized, will not the discovery of the centre around
which the solar system revolves, establish another point of resemblance
between modem astronomy and the Pythagorean system with its central
fire ; and also, as Schlegel subsequently implies, that the former has yet
further advances to make ^-Trans.

84 PYTHAGOREAN SYSTEM OF ASTRONOMY.

come near to us again," we were to say, " The earth, or at
least our side of it, is again brought nearer to the sun,"
would it not be as beautiful and significant a description?
And happy, indeed, are those periods of the world, wherein, to
speak in a figurative but moral sense, that earth-soul which
rules in the changes of time the so-called public opinion, has
declined towards, and approached more nearly to, its sun.

It is a remarkable, not to say wonderful, fact, that in ancient
times, the Pythagoreans held the same system of the universe
which modern astronomy teaches, though, perhaps, they were
not acquainted with the mathematic calculations of its dis-
tances. But still more surprising is it, that while they were
thus perfectly acquainted with the number of the planets, and
even arranged them in the same order that they are placed by
modern astronomers, they admitted into their system two
stars which we have not. One of these, as the sun of the
gods (Geister-sonne)* they placed high above the visible
sun. The latter, which they named the "counter-earth,"
(avTixfav) was placed directly opposite to the real earth. It
would seem, therefore, that they regarded these two bodies as
the invisible centres of the whole sidereal universe, and, as it
were, the choir-leaders or choragi of the apparently orderless
and scattered host of heaven. Are these two stars now ex-
tinct ? or is their light too pure and ethereal to penetrate our
dense and thickened atmosphere ? or, like so much besides, was
it little else than a still surviving tradition from the primitive
world? This, however, must ever remain conjectural. As for
the fact itself: that the Pythagoreans did so teach, and under-
stood by these names, not merely figurative symbols, but real
stars, has been placed beyond doubt by modern investigations
into the Pythagorean doctrines. At any rate, their knowledge
of these stars must have been acquired by some other means

* Or the central fire, according to Boeckh, around which the whole
planetary heavens revolve, and which is also the source of light, which
being collected hy the visible sun, is transmitted to the earth. By the
avTL^6(av or counter-earth, whose revolution is parallel and concentric
with that of the earth, Boeckh understands that half of the terrestrial
globe which, as turned away from the sun, is in darkness. See August.
Boeckh " de Platonico systemate coelestium globorum, et de vera indole
astronomise Philolaicse," orhis " Philolaus," pp. 114 136, and Ideler
" Ueber d. Verhaltniss d. Copernicus zum Alterthum," in the Museum d.
Alterthumswissenschaft. Bd. ii. St. ii. 405, &c. Trans.

RESULTS OP AIODEBN CHEMICAL ANALYSIS. 85

than the telescope of modern astronomy, with which, in fact,
they were not acquainted, and nothing but some new obser-
vation or phenomenon in the sidereal heavens can ever throw
light on this matter. And who shall say that even our pre-
sent astronomical science shall not advance still further, and
that it has not closed too soon, and been in all too great a
haste to sum up its doubtless most elaborate and complicated
calculations ?

Thus did the mind of man advance the first step towards
the maturity of physical science, by attaining to a more
comprehensive survey of the mundane system, and a more
accurate knowledge of his own habitation, of this earthly
planet. The next step in this sluggish progress was made by
the chemical discoveries of modern times, and especially of
the French chemists. In a merely negative point of view,
these have been important, as establishing the fact, that the
old elements, water, for instance, and air, which had long been
regarded as simple, are themselves decomposable into other
constituents and aeriform parts. And, indeed, that such great
powers of nature as these are, and must ever remain so
long as the present constitution of the world shall last,
could only subsist in the reciprocal dynamical relation of
several conflicting forces, a profounder glance at nature
would of itself have conjectured and presupposed. But in a
positive sense, this second step has carried us very far towards
the understanding of the hieroglyphics of nature. Those
primary elements of things discovered and numbered by that
chemical analysis which has subjected to its experiments
almost every form and species of matter, constitute, as it
were, the permanent material letters and consonants of the
natural world around us. On the other hand, the vowels of
human language are represented by the fundamental facts of the
magnetism of the earth, together with the phenomena of elec-
tricity, the decomposition of light, and the chemical chain of the
galvanic pile, in which the inner life of the terrestrial force, and
of the eternally moving atmosphere, as well as the soul whose
pulse beats therein, finds an utterance, like a voice out of the
lowest deep. And thus, by means of an alphabet of nature,
which, however, is still most imperfect, we may hope to make
a beginning, at least, and to decipher one or two entire words.
But modern chemistry has made a more important advance

NATURE A SYSTEM OF LIVING FORCES.

towards a right understanding of nature as a whole. By
analysing and decomposing all solid bodies, as well as water
itself, into different forms of a gaseous element, it has thereby
destroyed for ever, that appearance of rigidity and petrifac-
tion which the corporeal mass of visible and external nature
presents to our observation. Everywhere we now meet with
living elemental forces, hidden and shut up beneath this rigid
exterior. The proportion of aqueous particles in the air isso
great, that if suddenly condensed, they would suffice for more
than one flood. And a similar deluge of light would ensue, if
all the luminous sparks which are latent in the darkness were
simultaneously set free ; and the whole globe itself would end
in flame, were all the fiery elements that are at present dis-
persed throughout the world to be at once disengaged and
kindled. The investigation of the salutary bonds which hold
together these elementary forces in due equilibrium, controlling
one by the other, and confining each within its prescribed limits,
does not fall within the scope of our present inquiries, as
neither does the question, whether these bonds be not of a
higher kind than naturalists commonly suppose? More
immediately connected with, as also more important for our
general subject, is the result which chemical analysis has so
indubitably established, that in the natural world every object
consists of living forces, and that properly nothing is ri^id
and dead, but all replete with hidden life. This colossal
mountain range of petrified mummies which forms nature on
the wholethis pyramid of graves, piled one over the other,

is therefore, it is true, a historical monument of the past of

all the bygone ages of the world in the advancing develop-
ment of death; but nevertheless, there is therein a latent
vitality. Beneath the vast tombstone of the visible world
there slumbers a soul, not wholly alien, but more than half
akin to our own. This planetary and sensible world, and
the earth-soul imprisoned therein, is only apparently dead.
Nature does but sleep, and will, perhaps, ere long awake
again. Sleep generally is, if not the essence, yet, at least,
an essential signature and characteristic of nature. Everv
natural object partakes of it more or less. Not the animals
only, but the very plants sleep ; while in the vicissitudes of the
seasons, and of their influences on the productive surface of
the earth, and, in truth, on the whole planet, a perpetual

SLEEP AN ESSENTIAL LAW OF NATURE. 87

alternation is perceptible between an awakening of life and a
state of slumbering repose. Whatever consequently partakes
in, and requires the refreshment of sleep, belongs, even on
that account, to nature. Painters, indeed, have given us
pictures of sleeping angels or genii ; but the pure spirits
sleep not, and stand, in truth, in no need of such rest, and
their activity is not subject to this necessity of alternate
repose.

The comparison of a sentence in the Mosaic history of the
creation, with a passage in the Hindoo cosmogony, somewhat
similar in kind, but most different in the application, will
serve, perhaps, to place this fact in the clearest light. In the
former it is said, " God rested on the seventh day." Now, in
this expression there is nothing to startle us. In explaining it,
there is no need to have recourse to a figurative interpretation.
It does not allude to God's inmost nature (which admits not
of such alternation of states or need of rest), but simply to His
external operations. For in every case where an operation of
the Deity takes place, whether in history or nature, an alter-
nation between the first divine impulse, and a subsequent period
of repose, is not only conceivable but actually noticeable. For
the divine impulse or hand is, as it were, withdrawn, in order
that this first impulse of the Creator may fully expand itself,
and that the creature adopting it, may carry it out and deve-
lope his own energies in accordance therewith. But instead of
this correct statement, we have in the Hindoo cosmogony, that
" Brahma sleeps." While he thus slumbers the whole creation,
with its worlds and mundane developments, is said to collapse
into nought. Here, then, a single word hurries us from the
sure ground of truth and divine revelation into the shifting
domain of mythology. Of Him indeed, who is higher than
the angels and created spirits, it is no doubt assumed through-
out the New Testament that, while on earth, He slept like other
men. Once, too, it is expressly stated, that during a great
storm, while His disciples were filled with alarm, He was asleep
in the hinder part of the ship ; but that when He awoke the
winds ceased. But here also, the case is different. While
implying many a great object and instructive lesson beside, this
passage, like several others, seems designed to prove that our
Lord's body was no mere phantom ; but that He took upon Him
a real human form, and was, in truth, a man who stood in need

88 NATURE INTELLIGIBLE TO THE SPIRITUAL ONLY.

of sleep. And from this we may infer, that sleep is so indis-
pensable a condition of natural existence, that even God Him-
self, as soon as He condescended to enter its limits by taking
upon Him a human body, became subject to nature's essential
law of sleep.

The important part which sleep plays not only in nature,
but also in man, her first-born son, appears from the earliest
event that is recorded of his history, even in Paradise. God
caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and out of his opened
side took of his vital substance to invest it with a bodily veil
and shape, and to present it before him on his awaking as the
gentle helpmeet of his existence. Extremely significant also
is the difference in the accounts of man's and of woman's
material formation. Man is formed of the dust of the earth,
and therefore shortly after invested with the dominion of the
whole earthly globe as the deputy and vicegerent of Him from
whom cometh all lordship and authority. But woman is
taken and created out of the bosom or heart of man. Would
human wit have ever invented, or even conceived the possibility
of this great marvel of creative ommipotence.

This was in Paradise but with the loss of it man was de-
prived in a great manner of those higher powers of life and
those secrets of nature which he had previously possessed and
understood. For even in the body of his earthly tabernacle
which had fallen a prey to death, he had become deteriorated,
and his organic constitution, as is expressly intimated, fell con-
siderably lower in the scale of sensible existence, and sunk nearer
to the level of the brute creation. On this account the cherubic
sentinels, with the flaming sword, were placed at the gate of
Paradise, that man might not stretch forth his hand to seize

r'n the rights and privileges which he had formerly enjoyed,
now they would only have led to more mischievous abuse
and deeper corruption. But since then, many great days of
creation have come and gone. Again has the great relation
between God and man been restored, and that also between man
and the sensible world with the spirits and forces that rule
therein, has changed and become new. And now that the be-
ginning is made, and the foundation laid for the Redemption
of the world, no man, no one at least who will loyally join the
banner of the Redeemer, is forbidden, but every one has freely
offered to him the divine, flaming, two-edged sword of the Spirit

NATURE INTELLIGIBLE TO THE SPIRITUAL ONLY. 89

or of the Word, and of the thoughts of the heart united to
Him, enlightened by Him, and emanating from Him. This fact
of itself furnishes at once the answer to the question concerning
the secrets of nature, whether, since they are no longer to be
kept close from man, impure and wicked hands may drag them
to the light, or whether it be not better that they should
be touched by the holy and conscientious alone, and faithfully
guarded with a pious reserve and religious delicacy.

And here the very context suggests naturally the considera-
tion of the last of the three steps which, following the course
marked out for it by God, the human mind has at last made
in very modern times towards a true physical science, and a
right understanding of the most inmost secrets of nature. ^ It
consists in a closer observation and a commencing recognition
of a sacred thread of ensouled life of an internal soul-like
link which holds together the whole frame of nature. The
thing and force itself are as old as the world and every sphere
of existence aU the leaves of tradition and history are full
of its manifestations and effects. But the methodical obser-
vation and treatment of these phenomena (in which alone the
true scientific character consists) dates its commencement
within little more than half a century ago. To speak, there-
fore, agreeably to the measure of time in the slow development
of science, it is of yesterday or the day before. And it is
even on this account also that I have been constrained to count
this third and last advance towards a higher science of nature,
as nothing more than a half-step. For it is only a beginning
which as yet has gained no firm footing in the minds of men,
and, moreover, besides the right and direct road, it has
already opened many bye-paths of possible error. This only
direct road, that higher standard of correct judgment which
at the very commencement we alluded to as the guiding rule
in these matters, must be sought by philosophy in that divine
sword of the Spirit which pierces even to the marrow of life,
dividing soul and spirit, and which also is a discerner of spirits.
But if another standard and a higher tribunal is to be set up,
then I must leave it to others who perhaps know more about
the matter than I do, and are better qualified to decide upon
it. This spiritual warfare at any rate cannot be much longer
eluded or avoided. Oh that men would take therein Holy
Writ exclusively for their guide. For it indeed regards .the

PHYSICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE FALL.

whole of life and every important moment of it as a conflict
with invisible powers, as also it tacitly implies or expressly
intimates that the whole sensible world is to be looked
upon as nothing else than an almost transparent, and at all
events, a very perishable veil of the spiritual world. To the
leader of the rebel spirits the Bible ascribes so great an in-
fluence m creation, that it calls him the prince, nay, even the
god of this world-the ruler of its principalities and powers.
And in order that this might not be taken in a mere figura-
tive sense, and be understood only of a race of men morally
corrupt and depraved, these spiritual potentates are in other
places expressly called the elementary powers of nature-
powers of the air, which in this dark planetary world of
ours is compounded of light and darkness, and ever struo-.
glmg between life and death. The true key and explanL
S i - le may ' however > lie in the simple sentence

-Death came into the world by sin." As, then, by the death
o the first man, who was not created for, nor originally de-
signed for death, death has passed upon the whole human race -
so by the earlier fell of him, who had been the first and most
glorious of created spirits, death passed upon the universe
that eternal death whose fire is unquenchable. Hence it is
written: "Darkness was on the face of the deep, and the
earth as the mere grave of that eternal death" was without
iorm and void ;" but the spirit of God moved on the face of
3 waters and therein lay the first germ of life for the new
creation. W* here see the difference between all heathen
systems of natural philosophy and a divine knowledge of
nature . e one acquired in and by God, and also the key for
a right understanding of the latter.

^ If now the dynamic play of the living forces of -nature, which
is unquestionably a living entity, and has a life in itself
though not indeed of and from itself if this dynamical alter-
nation between life and death be regarded as a simple fact
and man is content to rest there, without seeking to explai^
it by a higher principle, then will he have ever the self-same
Une an all-producing, all-absorbing, ruminating monster
whether we express it poetically, as in mythology, or in the
scientific formularies of physiology. Quite different is it
bowever, if this great pyramid has been built upon the foun-
dation of eternal death. Then is the whole creature of this

EMANCIPATION OF NATURE FROM DEATH. 91

earthly planet and sensible world merely a commencing life
which, so long as the pyramid is still unfinished and incom-
plete, is, in parts, perpetually relapsing into death into
actual death, or at least into diseases and fractures of various
kinds, which are only so many principia or germs of death.
Then is nature itself nothing less than the ladder of resurrec-
tion, which, step by step, leads upwards, or rather is carried
from the abyss of eternal death up to the apex of light in the
heavenly illumination. For, understanding it in this sense, it
is impossible to think of nature without remembering at the
same time the divine hand which has built this pyramid, and
which, along this ladder, brings life out of death. This view,
moreover, accounts for the fact, that a state of slumber is
essential to nature and furnishes an explanation why that
perpetually-recurring collapse into sleep, which to us appears so
near akin to death, should be nature's proper character. And
just as the consuming fire of death appears in the more highly
organised beings to be somewhat subdued and restrained-
mitigated or exalted into the quickening warmth of life, so
also sleep is only the more than half enlightened brother of
death. And indeed as such, and the lovely messenger of hope
to immortal spirits, was he ever regarded and described by
the ancients ; but that which for them was little more than
a beautiful image of poetry, is for us the profoundest of
truths.

An exalted view and understanding of nature consists, then,
in its being contemplated not merely as a dynamical play of
reciprocal forces, but historically in its course of development,
as a commencing life, perpetually relapsing into death, ever
disposed to sleep, and only painfully raising itself, or rather
raised and lovingly guided through all the intermediate
grades into the light. But beneath the huge tombstone of
outward nature there sleeps a soul, not wholly alien, but half
akin to ourselves which is distracted between the troubled
and painful reminiscence of eternal death, out of which it
issued, and the flowers of light which are scattered here and
there on this dark earth, as so many lovely suggesters of a
heavenly hope. For this earthly nature, as Holy Writ testi-
fies,* is, indeed, subject to nullity, yet, without its will, and
* Romans viii. 20.

92 FINAL EMANCIPATION OF NATUEE FROM DEATH.

without its fault : and consequently in hope of Him who has so
subjected it, it looks forward in the expectation that it shall one
day be free, and have a part in the general resurrection and
consummate revelation of God's glory, before which both
nature and death shall stand amazed and for this last day of a
new creation it sighs anxiously, and yearns with the pro-
foundest longing.

END OF LECTURE IV.

LECTURE V.
OF THE SOUL OF MAN IN RELATION TO GOD.

A DIVINE science of nature one, *'. e., which is ever looking
to and has its root in God unlike the old heathen physio-
logies sees something more in nature than a mere endless
play of living forces and the alternations of dynamical action.
Contemplating it rather as a whole, and in the connexion of
its several parts, it traces it from the first foundation on which
it was originally raised, up to the final consummation which
the Almighty has designed it to attain. Now, to such a mode
of studying it, nature appears to be in its beginning, as it were,
a bridge thrown across the abyss of eternal death and eternal
nothingness. And in perfect agreement with this origin
or foundation, it exhibits itself at the outset as a house of
corruption, a character which, to a certain degree, it subse-
quently and long afterwards retains. After a while, however,
this house of corruption is transformed, by the omnipotence
of the good Creator, into a laboratory of new life, and finally
is raised into a ladder of resurrection, ascending, or rather is
made to conduct, step by step, to the highest pitch of earthly
glorification, in which nature too has a promise that she shall
partake. This was the subject of the preceding Lecture, and
it naturally enough suggests the further question, whether a
similar scale of gradual exaltation exists for the human soul,
which, even while it is in many respects akin to mother earth
and to nature generally, is, nevertheless, far more excellent,
and by its innate dignity claims to be regarded as the very
head and crown of this earthly creation. The inquiry then,
^whether the soul of man, gradually rising out of the depths of
this perishable existence and the bondage of corruption, up to
God, can approach nearer to, and finally be totally identified
with Him ; or at least, whether it is capable of being united in
a perfect and lasting harmony with the superior powers of a

INTRINSIC DISCORD OF THE MIND.

higher and a diviner region^this will form the theme of our
present disquisition. In discussing it, however, our atten-
tion will be directed principally to its psychological aspect
its relation, t. *., to the theory of consciousness. For the
moral examination of this subject, even if it be not allowable
to assume that it, at aU events, is weU known, belongs to
another department of inquiry.

Now, on this head, the following remark immediately and
naturally suggests itself to the reflecting mind. Unless the soul
be at unity with itself it cannot hope ever to be one with, or to
attain to an harmonic relation with that Being, who, as he is the
one source and principle of all and on whom all depends, is in
himself a pure harmony. But so far is this condition from
being fulfilled in the actual state of the human consciousness,
that the latter appears rather to consist of pure and endless
discord. Fourfold, I said, is man's consciousness; and I
called its four conflicting forces, viz., understanding and will,
reason and fancy, its four poles, or chief branches, or even
the four quarters of the internal world of thought. How
seldom, however, do the understanding and will agree together.
Does not each of them prefer to follow an independent course
of its own ? How seldom do men really and perseveringly
will and desire what they clearly see and acknowledge and
perfectly understand to be the best ! And how often, on the
other hand, do we understand little or nothing of that, which
yet in the inmost recesses of our hearts, we most desire and
wish, and most ardently and determinedly resolve upon!
Keason and fancy too, both in the inner thought and in out-
ward life also, are, on the whole, in hostile conflict with each
other. Reason would wish to suppress or at least to dispense
altogether with fancy, while fancy, caring, for the most part, but
little or nothing for the reason, goes its own way. The will,
moreover, unceasingly distracted, is never even at peace with
itself, while the reason, standing alone in the endless evolution
of its own thought, entangles itself at last in a labyrinth of
.irreconcileable contradictions. The understanding, again, has
so many grades and species, and divides itself among so many
spheres and functions, that in this respect we might be justi-
fied in saying: This one understanding understands not
the other, even though it be equally correct both in itself and
in its mode of operation. And thus, too, in the individual :

INTRINSIC DISCORD OF THE MIND. 95

his understanding, the sum, i. e., of all that he understands,
consists, for the most part, but of rags and fragments of
truth, which often enough do not match very well, and
seldom, if ever, admit of being made to blend harmoniously
together. And so, too, is it in all that belongs to, and is under
the influence of fancy. The subjective views, for instance, and
conceits of man the delusions of his senses, the rapidly
changing meteors and unsubstantial phantoms of human
passion, are things only too well known, self-evident, and
universally acknowledged.

So profound then, even in a psychological point of view, and
apart from the multiplied phases which the moral aspect pre-
sents, appears the discord which reigns in our whole mind as
at present constituted! Dissension seems to be interwoven
into its fundamental fabric. Instead, therefore, of saying the
human consciousness is fourfold, with equal if not with greater
correctness we might and ought to say, it is divided or rather
split into four or more pieces. It is common enough to speak
of facts of consciousness. And yet how seldom among philoso-
phers is anything more meant by this expression than the mere
thinking of thoughts, in the eternal repetition of the same
empty process in which the thinking Ego thinks itself, and by
means of which the Me is as it were seized in the very act,
and then, as the first beginning, the imaginary Creator and
Demiurge of the ideal world, this Me is hung out like a gilded
pennon from the top of the \vhole artificial system.* The only
fact of the consciousness that really deserves to be so named
is its internal dissension. And this discord not only reveals
itself in thought between the Me and Not Me, but pervades the
whole and all its branches, or parts and forms, its species and
spheres, in mind and soul, understanding and will, reason and
fancy, which everywhere manifests itself, and of which the
thousandfold material discords of man's outer life is only the
reflection its natural cons quence and further development.
From this fact of the manifold and ever- varying dissension of
the human consciousness an exposition of philosophy might
not inappropriately set out. in order from this point to seek the
solution of its peculiar problem and the rigth road for the attain-

* Schlegel is alluding to such principles as the " Cogito ergo sum" of
Des Cartes, and especially to the cognate axiom of Fichte : " Das ich setzt
sich. selbst." " The Me posits or affirms itself." Trans.

96 THIS DISCORD A CONSEQUENCE OF THE FALL.

ment of its end. For the problem of philosophy as contem-
plated from this side would consist in the restoration of that
original, natural, and true state of the consciousness in which
it was at unity and in harmony with itself. It is a leading
error of philosophy that it views the present state of the
human consciousness as even its right one, which requires
only to be raised to a higher power in order to be cleansed
from the taint of commonness of the ordinary way of thinking
which clings to it among the ignorant and unphilosophical,
and thereupon to be comprised in strangely artificial and
seemingly most .profound formulae. But by such an involu-
tion to a higher power the error is not got rid of, but rather
the evil itself is aggravated, since it is contained in the root
itself, and is to be found in the inmost structure of the con-
sciousness. Besides it cannot have been the original consti-
tution of man's mind to be thus a prey to manifold dissension
and split as it were into pieces and quartered. This discord
is undoubtedly in the true meaning of the word a fact, the
only one which every individual can without hesitation vouch
for on the immediate and independent testimony of his own
experience. For the cause of this well-authenticated fact we
have only to look to that event which revelation has made
known, of which each man must perceive the sad traces within
his own heart. It began with that eclipse of the soul which
preceded and commenced the present state of man, and was
occasioned by the intervention of a foreign body between it and
the sun which gave it light. But if the soul, the thinking as
well as the loving soul, be the centre of consciousness, then in
this great and general darkening of the centre, the entire sphere
in its whole essence and structure must have been altered.
And consequently in its philosophical aspect, and apart from
all special moral depravity in the independent actions, evil
habits and passions of individuals, the soul is no longer what
it was originally, as created and designed by the Almighty.

Thus, then, the whole human consciousness is filled with un-
mitigated discord and division, not merely in its mixed rational
and sensuous or terrestrial and spiritual nature, but thought
itself is at issue with life. And moreover while in the thought
the internal and the external, faith and science, are involved in
a hostile contrariety, disturbing and destroying each other, so
is it also in life with the finite and the infinite, the transitory

RESTORATION OF UNITY IN THE MIND. 97

and the imperishable. In such a state of things, therefore, and
from this point of view, the problem of philosophy, as already
remarked, cannot well be any other than the restoration of the
consciousness to its primary and true unity, so far as this is
humanly possible. Now that this true and permanent unity,
if it be at all attainable, must be looked for in God, is at all
events an allowable hypothesis. For it will not be disputed,
except by one who holds both this unity itself and its restitu-
tion to be absolutely impossible. But this is a point on which
much may be advanced on both sides, and which therefore,
since mere disputing can avail nothing either one way or the
other, can only be decided by the fact the issue of the attempt.
On this hypothesis then, even philosophy must in every case
take God for the basis of its speculations set out from Him,
and draw in every instance from this divine source. But then,
considered from this point of view and pursuing this route,
it is no idle speculation and simple contemplation of the
inner existence and thought alone no dead science but a
vital effort and an effectual working of the thought for the re-
storation of a corrupt and degraded consciousness to its natural
simplicity and original unity. And this is the way which we
have marked out for the course of our speculations, or rather
the end which we must strive, however imperfectly, yet at least
to the best of our abilities, to attain to. And accordingly each
of the four preceding Lectures, although in free sketchy out-
line, contains an attempt to put an end to and reconcile some
particular schism among those which are the most marked
and predominant in the consciousness, and which in essential
points most disturb the whole of life. How far in these four
introductory essays this problem has been satisfactorily or
completely solved and happily settled, is a question which
will be best and most fairly tested by the idea of philosophy,
as having its true end and aim in the restoration of this cor-
rupt consciousness to its sound state to its original unity
and full energy of life.

The discord between philosophy itself and life was the first
that I attempted to get rid of. But now, if in the place of
abstract thought and the dialectical reason, we are entitled to
look to the thinldng and loving soul for the true centre of
man's consciousness, then the imaginary partition- wall be-
tween science and life at once crumbles away. Our second

98 [RESTORATION- OF UNITY IN THE MIND.

Lecture was occupied with the discord which subsists between
the finite and the infinite the eternal and the perishable ;
and, because this involved a problem which can only be solved
by life and reality, I therefore confined myself to pointing out
the way in which we may hope to discover their unity and
equation. With this view, I attempted to establish a vivid con-
viction that there is a true enthusiasm wherein the illimitable
feeling manifests itself as actual, and that even the earthly
passion of love assumes, in the holy union of fidelity and
wedlock, the stamp of the indissoluble and eternal, and be-
comes the source of many divine blessings, and of many moral
ties, which are stronger, and furnish a firmer moral basis to
society, than any general maxims, or than any ethical theory
which is built upon such notional abstractions, far more than
upon the pregnant results of the experience of life. And
lastly, in pure longing, I pointed out an effort of man's con-
sciousness directing itself to an infinite, eternal, and divine
object. But, as this longing can only evince its reality by the
fruits it brings forth, I reserved, to a future opportunity, the
more precise determination of this question. The theme of
our third Lecture was the existence and the reconciliation of
that schism which, both in thought and life, divides the internal
and the external worlds. If all knowing be a mere process
of the reason, then must this discord between the inner and
the outer be for ever irreconcilable, and w r e should be utterly
at a loss to conceive how a foreign and alien body could ever
have found entrance from without into our Me, and become
an object of its cognition. But if every species of knowing
be positive, if, also, the cognition of the spiritual and divine
be nothing else than an internal and higher science of expe-
rience, then the idea of revelation furnishes at once the key
to explain, w T hile it establishes the possibility of a knowledge of
the divine. And this remark admits, also, of application to
nature itself, when we consider it in its totality and internal
constitution, and speak of a knowledge of these things of
the vital force which rules in it, or its animating soul ; for this,
Indeed, eludes our grasp, but yet speaks plainly to us to him,
at least, who is wise to understand nature's language. For if,
in attempting to understand nature, we isolate her, as it were,
and exclude all reference to Him who gave her being, and
has assigned, also, her limits and her end, if, in short, we

SECTS AND PARTIES IN SCIENCE AND LETTERS. 99

disturb the two poles of a right understanding of nature,
then, most assuredly, will the effort be fruitless, and all our
labour unprofitable. Man, however, has gone still further, and
by transferring the innate discord of his internal conscious-
ness to outward objects, has forcibly rent asunder God and
Nature, he has thus divorced the sensible world and its
Maker, and set them in hostile array against each other, and
thereby brought physical science in collision with the know-
ledge of divine things and with revelation. Our fourth Lecture,
therefore, was consecrated to an attempt to effect here, also, a
reconciliation, or, at least, to lay the first stone, and to mark
out the road by which alone we could hope to arrive at so
desirable a result : and this is a problem which is even the
more important the truer it is, that this discord is not
confined to science and the scientific domain, but extends,
also, to real life, where these discrepant views and modes oi
thinking are arrayed against each other in so many hostile
and conflicting parties. And although, as differing merely as
to the form and direction of thought, they do not come for-
ward in so distinct a shape, or under such characteristic names,,
as the parties in religion and politics, still this dissension is
not, therefore, less real and universal, or its effects and influ-
ence less noticeable. Of these parties the first, and by far
the most numerous, is the sect of the rationalists, who doubt
indiscriminately of all things, and test every matter by the
standard of their own scepticism. The second class is formed
of the exclusive worshippers of nature, and has many mem-
bers among scientific men ; while, lastly, the third con-
sists of those who derive, from the positive source of a divine
decision, the law of their thinking and the standard of their
judgment. Now, this last party, if it would only go a few
steps further, and draw still deeper from, this source, would
be able to assign its appropriate place and value to every
potencc and truth in the other species of thought and know-
ledge, and even thereby might qualify itself to dissolve and
reconcile the all-pervading discord. Hut inasmuch as they
do not adopt this conciliatory attitude towards natural, his-
torical, and even artistic knowledge, so far as they are true,
but, on the contrary, in a spirit of animosity, attempt to cir-
cumscribe and set negative limits to them, if not absolutely to
reject them as worthless and profane, then, when they least

H 2

100 MAN'S MIND ORIGINALLY SIMPLER.

wish it, they really sink into a party no less than the other
two. And thus, while they might occupy a far higher position,
they fall to the level of the rest, and contribute, on their part,
an element to the intellectual strife, and tend to promote
and perpetuate it. The three parties, then, which by their
ruling ideas divide life and the age, are the rational thinkers,
the worshippers of nature, and those who, in all controverted
questions, appeal absolutely to a higher and divine authority ;
for inasmuch as the sentence of the latter is only of a nega-
tive import, it is therefore insufficient to meet all the requi-
sitions of life.

Thus, then, have I led your consideration to four different
points, in order to seize and exhibit, in as many different
forms and spheres, this great fact of the dissension in man's
consciousness, as it exists at present. In a similar manner,
too, a fourfold attempt has been made to remedy its hereditary
disease, which has been inherent in it since the original darken-
ing of the soul at the Fall, and, by appeasing the discord which,
as it is all-pervading and universal, assumes manifold shapes
and forms, to make the first step of return and approxima-
tion towards the original harmonic unity. Having considered
the matter in these four special points of view, it will not, I
hope, appear premature if I now propose the question in a
more general point of view, which will embrace the whole
human consciousness itself, but, at the same time, limit our
consideration of it exclusively to its psychological aspect.

Now it is in nowise difficult to conceive of the human soul
as much simpler than it is, and apart from that division of it
into several faculties, which is at most, and properly, but an
accident of its existence. One of the first among the modern
philosophers of Germany, says somewhere of the soul, that
the supposition of its existence is superfluous, and that it is a
pure fiction.* But this statement was the result of his having
abandoned in his system the true centre of life and conscious-
ness ; whoever, on the contrary, adheres steadily thereto, will
never concur in a position which simply, as contradicting the
general feeling of human nature, requires no elaborate refuta-
tion. But as regards the two parts into which the soul is
divided, viz., Reason and Fancy these, at any rate, are no
fiction, but exist really and truly within the consciousness,
* Schelling.

MAN'S MIND ORIGINALLY SIMPLER. 101

where, as in life itself, they often stand confronting each other
in hostile array. This division cannot well be called super-
fluous, but yet it does not admit of being considered absolutely
necessary, and belonging to the soul's original essence. If all
thinking were a living cogitation if the thinking and the
loving soul had remained at unity in their true centre, then the
external methodical thought and the internal productive think-
ing, meditating, and invention, would not be separate and
divorced at least they would not come into hostile conflict
with each other, but would rather be harmoniously com-
bined in the living cogitation of the loving soul. The several
forms, too, of a higher love and a higher endeavour, aye, every
lawful earthly inclination, would be blended in this harmony
of the soul, and no longer stand out as a separate and isolated
faculty, occasionally conflicting with all the others. Even the
conscience would no longer appear as a special act or func-
tion of the judgment, of a distinct and peculiar kind, but would
be absorbed in the whole as a delicate internal sensibility and
the pulse of the moral life.

As for sensation and memoiy, they are in any case but
ministering faculties, which only appear distinct and inde-
pendent under the influence of the prevailing tendency to
separation and disunion, but on the supposition of a simpler
and more harmonious consciousness, would be counted merely
as bodily organs. If, then, the soul had not suffered an
eclipse if it had remained undisturbed in the clear light of
God then would man's consciousness also have been much
simpler than it now is, with all those several faculties which
we at present find and distinguish in it. In such a case, it
would consist only of understanding, soul, and will. For if,
according to the three directions of its activity, any one should
still be disposed to divide it into the thinking, the feeling, and
the loving soul, still this would not be founded on any intrinsic
strife or discord, but they would all combine harmoniously
together, and in this harmonious combination be at unity
among themselves. As for the distinction between under-
standing and will, that would still remain, since it is essential
to mind or spirit, and may, in a certain sense, be ascribed
even to the uncreated spirits. But in this garden of the soul
of inward illumination on this fruitful soil of harmonised
thought and feeling they would walk amicably together, and

102 THE ESSENCE OP MIND IN IKE P TO E SPtEns.

work in common, and would not, as hostUe beings, turn aside
.r .opposite dzrections, or as is mostly the case in actual life!

Thus nearly, or somewhat similarly, must we conceive of,
and attempt to represent to ourselves, the human mind i,
ongma state, before it was darkened, rent asunder, and eon!

but was as

And now as regards understanding and will, as a division of
powers essential to the mind or spirit, which, however, as such, is
)t necessarily inharmonious : the expression already touched
upon of another of our modern German philosophers, will serve
as a transition to and commencing point for my remarks
According to this memorable assertion with regard to the mind
(gent) and which will serve as an appropriate pendant to
that last quoted about the soul, the essence of mind or spirit
m general consists in the negation of the opposite * Now I
cannot stop at present to inquire what sense this would R ive
it applied to the uncreated spirit, and the Creator of all other
spiritual beings. But as concerns created spirits ; their essence
contrariwise, consists principally in an eternal affirmation!
But this, however, they have not of and from themselves, but it
is the affirmation of the one to which God has exclusively
desuned them But it is not of themselves, but of God and
lis energy, of whom these created spirits are, as it were but
a ray a spark of His light therefore in this ray, not 'only
sight and understanding, but also thought and deed will and
execution, are simultaneous and identical. And it is in this
respect that they are so totally different from men. Now this
SLf ^ ^Paf 1 ** 1 to them fi God, is nothing less than
the thought of their destination of the purpose of their being
--in a word, their mission, if we may speak after a human
tnon, and in the prevailing phraseology. And, indeed, in
ancient languages, the pure created intelligences have these
names from that mission which constitutes their essence for their
essence is even perfectly identical with this divine mission or
inborn eternal affirmation. To the fallen spirits, on the other
ttd, the maxim above quoted applies truly enough: their

Hegel.

FOUR SOURCES OF HUMAN ERROR. 103

essence consists, not in the divine affirmation, or the mission
which they have abandoned, but rather in the eternal, though
bootless, denial of their opposite, which is even nothing less
than the divine order. For to their ambitious intellect and
perverse wills, the latter, in all probability, appeared far too
loving, and therefore unintelligible ; while, to their censorious
judgment, it seemed deficient in rigour of consequence, and
not unconditional and absolute enough.

All that has hitherto been said, reduces itself to the follow-
ing result. As by the first obscuration and eclipse of the
human soul, the very body of man was deteriorated, and
having been originally created with a capacity of immortality,
fell a prey to death, and received the germs, or became liable
to many diseases, as roots of death which is not guilt itself,
but the natural result of guilt, so in his consciousness there
was then implanted, and has ever since been propagated, a
germ of intellectual death and manifold seeds of error, which,
however, are not a new sin, but merely the natural conse-
quences of the first sin and the original corruption of the soul.
In four different forms, according to the four cardinal points
and fundamental faculties of the human consciousness, does
this inborn error and fruitful germ of erroneous and false
thinking show and develope itself. We have already spoken
of this futile idea of the deadness of all external life, which has
taken such deep root in the centre of all human thought in
the dead abstract notion and the empty formula, and which
clinging as an original taint to the human mind as at present
constituted, renders it so difficult for all those who, not con-
tent with merely observing nature, wish really to understand
it in its living operation, and moreover, to imitate in thought
its dynamical law, and the inner pulse of its vital forces. For
in the abstract notion all this evaporates, and when confined
within such dead formularies, the true life of nature quickly
becomes extinct. This, therefore, is the primary source of
error the leading species of barren and futile thinking in the
abstract understanding. But now this dead and lifeless cogi-
tation of abstract ideas, with its processes of combining and
inferring, or of analysing and drawing distinctions, may be
carried on into infinity, as being that wherein the essence or
function of reason consists, and also as giving rise to inter-
minable disputes and contradictions. Consequently this form

104

POCK SOUKCES OF HUMAN EnBOB.

of the reason, which is ever pursuing dialectical disputations
or else sceptically renouncing its own authority, even because
it never allows itself to proceed in what alone is its legitima o
course, becomes thereby a second source of error and fake
thinking among men. And, indeed, this erroneous procedure
of the dialectical reason, which is incessantly working out or
analysing its abstract notions, is the effect of the present coii-

iust ce b P W I 11 ", mmd; S that no indiTidual c< '
justice be blamed on its account, nor can its perverted con

elusions and corrupting results be fairly imputed! uLrior
views and principles of an immoral character

In considering the imagination as a source of error we
have no need to select the instance of a fancy satanLuy
inflamed to passion, or satanically deluded, or even one of
a purely materialistic bias and leaning. For fancy even fn
is greatest exaltation and purest form? is at best but a subjec*
trve view and mode of cogitative apprehension, and conse-
quently as such is ever a fruitful parent of delusion How
very rarely an imagination is to be found which is not predomi-
nant y subjective, is shown precisely in the very highest grade
of its development_in the creations of imitative art Of
the exalted geniuses who in single ages and nations have
distinguished themselves from the great mass, and attained to
that rare emmence-the reputation of the tree artist :-out of
this short list of great names, how few can be selected of whose
productions it can be truly said and boasted :-Here iiT his
picture we have something more than a mere general view or
Ae peculiar iantasy of an individual ; here, life fnd nature stand
before us m their full truth and objective reality, and speak
to us in that umversalanguage, which is intelligible to men
of all countries and all times ! And the same remark applies
to the whole domain of scientific thought in general -I
especially to physical and historical science

inr i m ?v ner> in ^\ sphere of the wil1 ' h is not mere 'y

immoral volitions, which, as such, must ever be false and
The J.V fl exelusivel y the scums of erroneous thought,
iiie spring of those errors which we are at present consider

"ar "enM" 7 . orra f , the wm ;tseif ' <>* ^^

Be feca'vTo^- 7 s \ S bjeCt and Cnd be ' in themselves,
peikctly legitimate and unexceptionable. That this absolute
willingor to speak more humanly, and in ordinary Ian-

FOUR SOURCES OF HUMAN ERROR. 105

guage, self-will and obstinacy is a fundamental and hereditary
failing of the human character, as at present constituted,
which shows itself in the very youngest children, with the first
dawn of reason, and requires to be most watchfully checked, is
but too well known to every teacher and every mother. But not
in infancy only, but also in the most important and compre-
hensive relations of life nay, even in the history of the
W0 rld this same absolute willing proves the most pernicious
of all the sources of error and corruption in the soul and life
of man, even when its object is not unmitigatedly bad, or
when, perhaps, it may even deserve to be called great and
noble. It is through this absolute willing that the sove-
reign with unlimited authority, even though he be gifted
with a strong and comprehensive intellect, and possessed of
many estimable qualities and moral virtues, becomes, never-
theless, the oppressor of his people and the merciless tyrant.
Through it also, in states which are not monarchical, but
where the supreme authority is divided among several estates,
views and principles which, calmly considered and duly
limited by opposing principles, are true and beneficial, by
being advanced absolutely, and without qualification, are
converted into so many violent factions, which, distracting
the minds of men and inflaming their passions, produce a
wide- spread and fearful anarchy.

The dead abstract notions of the intellect, the dialectical
disputes of the reason, the purely subjective and one-sided
apprehension of objects by a deluded fancy, and the absolute
will, are the four sources of human error. Considered apart
from the aberrations of passion, special faults of character, and
prejudices of education, as well as the false notions and wrong
judgments to which the latter give rise these four are the
springs from which flows all the error of the soul which
makes itself the centre of the terrestrial reality, and which,
springing out of this soil, is nourished and propagated by it.
To what then are we to look to dispel these manifold delusions
but to a closer and more intimate union of the soul with
God as the source of life and truth ?

What, let us therefore ask, is the organ by which such closer
union with and immediate cognition of God is to be effected ?
Plainly not the understanding, even though as the cognitive
sense of a revelation of spirit, and of the spirit of revelation,

106 CONDESCENSION" OF THE DIVINE ESSENCE.

it carries us through the first steps towards a right
understanding of ourselves and the Creator. For so long as
we confine ourselves to the understanding, which, at most, is
but a preparatory and auxiliary faculty, we -shall only make an
approximation. It is only when the divine idea, passing
beyond the understanding the mere surface, as it were, of
our consciousnesspenetrates into the very centre of our
being, and strikes root there, that it is possible, with a view
to this end, to draw immediately from the primary source of
all life. Now, the organ which essentially co-operates in this
work is the will, which, in such co-operation however, divests
itself entirely of its absoluteness. On this, account I called
the will the sense for God, or the sense which is appropriated
to the perception of Deity.

But before I proceed in my attempt to define and elucidate
the nature of this reciprocal action, and show how it is
possible or generally conceivable, it will be necessary to
premise one essential remark. I have already attempted to
discover and to establish a special and characteristic mark
for every sphere of life, and its highest and lowest grades.
Thus, the proper and distinctive signature of nature, and all
that belongs to it, is a state of slumber or sleep ; the charac-
teristic property of man, which distinguishes him from all
other intellectual beings, is fancy; whSe the essential pro-
perty of the pure created spirits is the stamp of eternity
which is impressed on all their operations, by means of which
they perform, with untiring energies, their allotted duties,
without the alternation of repose or the necessity of sleep, and
by reason of which they remain for ever what they once begin
to be. Applying the same line of thought to a higher
region, I would now attempt to discover there some cha-
racteristic sign, by observing which man may perhaps be able
to find his true position. Proceeding then in this line of
thought, and preserving a due regard to the weakness of
the human capacity, I would observe as follows. The
characteristic not indeed of the divine essence, for that is
too great for man's powers of apprehension but of the
divine operations and His influence on the creation and all
created beings, consists in His incredible condescension to-
wards these His creatures, and especially towards man.
Incredible, however, it may, nay, must and ought to be called,

CONCURRENCE OF MATTS WILL IN FAITH. 107

inasmuch as it transcends every notion, nay, all belief, even
the most confiding and childlike, and the more it is contem-
plated, appears the more inconceivable and amazing. Only
it admits of question, whether the expression be sufficiently
simple and appropriate, and, consequently, well-chosen; for
the fact itself of this divine condescension is affirmed in every
line and word of revelation. And by revelation I mean, not
merely the written revelation, but every manifestation more
or less distinct of God, and His divine operations and provi-
dence history, nature, and life. Now on no one point are
the voices of all, who on such a matter can be regarded as
authorities, so perfectly concordant and unanimous, as on this
wonderful attribute of the Godhead, which, on the suppo-
sition that the belief in one living God is universal, may be
considered as placed beyond doubt or question.

In order to demonstrate how essential is the co-operation
of the will to that living intercommunion with God, which is
something more than a mere understanding, we advance the
following assumptions.^ Supposing that in the incredible
condescension of His love, God has made Himself known to a
man, just as in the first books of our Holy Scripture He is
described as conversing with Moses, and as familiarly as one
friend talks to another ; supposing also that He revealed to
him all the secret things of heaven and earth without reserve ;
that He at the same time laid open to him His will and hidden
counsels, and that not summarily and in a general way, but
definitely and in details ; expressly making known to him His
gracious purposes, both in what He at present requires of him
and designs for him hereafter ; that He has also pointed out
to man the means which will enable him to accomplish His
will, and moreover has added the highest possible promises
for his encouragement ; supposing all this, is it not evident
that it nevertheless could not help or profit man unless he
consented to receive it ? The whole divine communication
would be in vain if man obstinately continued in his old Ego-
ism, mixed and compounded of evil habits, fears, and sensual
desires, and, unable to tear himself away, still clung close to
the narrow limits of self and his own Me.

Now it is nothing but this intrinsic consent and concur-
rence in the will of God, this calm affirmation of it, that can
help man, who is now left to his own free determination even

108 SELF-DENIAL AS BRINGING TJS NEAR TO GOD.

as regards the Deity, and that can lead him to God. On this
account I called the \vill, rather than the understanding, man's
sense for the divine. But all that is here required is the
internal assent, and not the power of actual performance ; for
that varies even according to the standard of nature, or rather
of that which is imparted to him from above, since of himself
man has no capacity for that which is higher and more excel-
lent, nothing being man's own but his will. Now this internal
assent and submission of man's own will to the divine is
clearly inconceivable where it has not, to a certain degree,
withdrawn from the sensible world which surrounds him with
so many ties and allurements, and where it has not loosened
and set itself free from the narrow domain of self to which
his Ego so closely clings.

Here then naturally arises the question, how far a renuncia-
tion of the \vorld and self-sacrifice, on which even the Platonic
philosophy so greatly insisted, is necessary, if we would ad-
vance one degree or at least one step nearer to God, as the
supreme good and all-perfect Being, and what are its true and
proper limits ? In obedience to this idea of the renunciation
of the world as indispensable to communion with God, the
Hindoo fakir will sit for thirty years in one spot, with his
eyes fixed immutably in the same direction, so that he not
only surpasses all the limits of human nature, but also erases
and extinguishes all traces of it in himself. Or perhaps, in
spite of the simple principle and rule of sound reason, that
man, as he is not the author of his own being, has no right to
terminate it, he follows a false idea of self-sacrifice, and mounts
the flaming pile in order to be the sooner united to the Deity.
In the fundamental idea of these extravagances there is
doubtless a germ of beauty and of truth, though in the per-
verse application and gigantic scale of exaggeration that we
meet with it among the primeval nations of Asia, it is distorted
into monstrous falsehood. A simple illustration, taken from
the different ages of man's life, will perhaps serve to set in a
clear light the point on which everything turns in this matter
of the assent of the human to the "divine will, and to deter-
mine the sense and the degree in which man ought not to
give himself up entirely to the world, or to revolve closely
round the centre of self, "if he would yield a sincere and hearty
submission to a higher voice and that guiding hand which

SELF-DENIAL HOW PAR NECESSARY. 109

conducts the education of the whole human race, and watches
with equal care the development of individuals and of ages.
The child may and must play, for such exercise is wholesome
and even necessary for the free expansion of its bodily powers;
but at its mother's call, for to the child hers is the higher
voice, it ought to leave its play. Youth, again, ought to be
merry and enjoy the verdant spring ; but when honour and
duty summon to earnest action, then must he be ready to lay
aside all light-hearted amusement for sterner avocations ; or
to take another view of the youthful temperament, should its
jovousness touch too rudely, not to say overstep, the bounds of
morality, then at the first hint of warning it must abandon its
treacherous pleasures. The full-grown man, too, having to
make his way in the world and to fight with fortune in the hard
struggle of life, has little leisure for idle feelings and medi-
tations ; only he must not renounce all higher and nobler sen-
timents, nor dismiss from his mind the thought of the Godhead
and the divine (which indeed for its mere preservation requires
no outward ordinance or loss of time), as belonging to the boy,
and suitable only for the unripe years of youth. Or to regard
life under its passive aspect, let us think of the happy wife by
the side of a husband she loves, and living only in her chil-
dren, and possessing of worldly good as much as she wishes
or requires : suddenly, by one of those changes and chances
which prevail in this transitory life, she is bereaved of all the
partner of her joys and cares, the children of her bosom, and
perhaps, too, of her rank and consideration, while beneath the
repeated strokes of affliction her very health sinks. Who
would check her tears or blame her natural sorrow if she feels
and tells her woes ? No one : for holier eyes than man's look
upon her with compassion. One thing, however, may fairly
and reasonably be expected of her, that she do not give way
entirely to despair, nor murmur against Providence. More,
therefore, than man requires of man in the ordinary relations
of life, God requires not of the human will ; and on that alone
does He make any requisition, in respect to that free assent
and internal concurrence which alone can bind us in personal
union with the Godhead, and bring us near to Him; a consum-
mation which no mere intellectual apprehension of all possible
revelations, whether written on the pages of inspiration, or on
the open tablets of nature, or engraven on the imperishable
annals of history, is suihcient to bring about.

110

MAN S FAITH NOT SUFFICIENTLY CHILDLIKE.

So much and nothing more is required for this essential
concurrence of the human will with the divine, in the general
relations of life. But, in the case of any special vocation and
profession if, for instance, a man feels himself disposed to
become a minister of the revealed Word, an instrument and
messenger of the divine communications then, no doubt
higher and sterner requisitions must come into consideration'
io men of native courage, what vocation can be more uni-
versal than that of a soldier and defender of his country- but
does not it require, besides undaunted courage and contempt
of death, the patient and enduring fortitude which bears up
under countless hardships and privations ? What vocation
again can be simpler and more fully founded in nature, than
that of the softer sex to become a mother? but how many
sufferings, and fears, and dangers, compass it about, and how
infinite are the great and little anxieties to which a mothers
love that purest and truest of all earthly affections is ex-
posed? And it is even herein that human love most betrays
its weakness ; it may suffice for some one determinate direc-
tion, some transitory period of life, for some single effort of
magnanimity or self-sacrifice, but it rarely survives the changes
of time and fortune, and its faith and ardour too often are
extinguished amid the petty trials of every-day life, and its
numberless cares and anxieties.

^ And as with the love, so also is it with the faith of men
it enters not sufficiently into munutiae ; it is not personal
enough, nor sufficiently childlike and confiding; it is not
made to refer enough to ourselves. Most men, indeed, have
only too high an opinion of their own worth an over-ween-
ing confidence in their own powers; at least, the opposite
fault of extreme diffidence is a rare exception But yet
t is true, men generally take far too low an estimate of their
true vocation and proper destiny ; they believe not in its hio-h
dignity ; and as viewed in its place among the vast universe,
they hold it and themselves as comparatively insignificant,
iut this a total misconception. Every man is an individual
tity an inner world of his own, full of life a true micro-
cosm (as has been already said in a different sense) in the
eye of God and in the scheme of creation: every man has
a vocation of his own, and an appropriate destinv Could
men s eyes be but once opened to see it, how would they be

MAN'S LONGING AFTEK THE ETERNAL AND DIVIXE. Ill

amazed at the infinity which they have neglected, and might
have attained to, and which generally in the world remains
neglected and unattained. But of the many thousands whom
this remark concerns, how very few ever attain to a clear
cognition of their real destination ! And the reason of this
is simply the fact, that the faith of men is all too weak, and,
above all, that it is too vaguely general, too superficial, too
little searching or profound not sufficiently personal and
childlike.

A childlike faith, and a love that endureth unto the end,,
these are the true bonds to hold the soul of man in intimate
union with God. But it is in hope, such as is at present
found among men, that the chief defect lies ; for hope ought
to be strong and heroic, otherwise it is not that which the
name expresses. Few men, perhaps, are entirely devoid of
faith and love, only they are not sufficiently carried into the
details and trifles of life, as human wants require ; for it
is exactly to these that all that is divine in men's thoughts
and deeds ought to be directed. In hope, on the contrary,
the inner man must raise himself and ascend up to God : it
must therefore be strong and energetic, if it is to be effi-
cacious. On this account we might well expect it to be far
more rare, comparatively, than faith and love, considered
according to the human scale of reasoning; on the other
hand, probably, there are many men who, internally, are
almost totally destitute of hope.

The longing after the eternal and divine, which has been
already described, is the seeking of God ; but this calm in-
ward assent of the will, whenever, with a childlike faith and
enduring love and in steadfast hope, it is carried through and
maintained with unwavering fidelity throughout life, is the
actual finding of Him within us, and a constant adherence to
Him when once we have found Him. As the root and prin-
ciple of all that is best and noblest in man, this divine long-
ing cannot be too highly estimated, and nowhere is it so
inimitably described, and its excellence so fully acknowledged,
as in Holy Writ itself. A remarkable instance of it is the
fact that a prophet who was set apart and called by God
Himself to his office, and was for that purpose endued with
miraculous gifts, is expressly called in Holy Writ the man of

112 FAITH ALONE CAN RESTORE UNITY TO THE MIND.

longings. * And yet this longing is nothing but the source,
the first root, from which springs that triple flower in the
lovely symbol of faith, hope, and charity, which afterwards,
spreading over every grade and sphere of moral and intel-
lectual existence, expands into the richest and most manifold
fruits.

Now it is very possible in some serious and intellectual
work to feel a pleasure in this triple union of holy thoughts
and sentiments, as with any deeply significant picture in gene-
ral, without duly entering the while into its precise requisi-
tions and profound meaning. But from one particular end of
a philosophy of life, i. e., of a thorough knowledge of the
human consciousness, the psychological aspect of the subject
assumes a peculiar importance, and essentially demands our
attention. With this view, I venture to assert tha$|.the
human consciousness, which otherwise and in itself is entirely
a prey to discord, and split into irreconcilable contraries, is
by faith, hope, and love, redeemed from this dissension is
raised from its innate law, of an erring and dead thought, and
of an absolute will, which is no less dead and null, being
restored gradually to a perfect state of unison and harmony.
Under the influence of faith and by this term I understand,
not the cold and heartless repetition of a customary formulary,
but a living and personal faith in a living and personal God
and Saviour, under the influence of such a faith, the living
spirit of truth steps into that place of the consciousness
which before was usurped by the mere abstract thinking of a
degraded understanding. ^ And whenever, on the other hand,
a refined goodness and Idve have in patient endurance become
the soul of existence, there is no room for the stormy ob-
stinacy or passionate wildness of an absolute will. Even
in the will itself all is now life ; discord is banished from it,
and all the threatening elements of strife are for ever ap-
peased. And in that trusting confidence with which the
loving soul leans upon God in the strong god-like hope
which takes its stand upon the Eternal, the reason, with its
ordering, regulating, and methodical processes, and the fancy,

* Daniel ix. 23. In our authorised translation it stands " greatly
"beloved," but in the Hebrew it is as given in the margin, " a man of de-
sires ;" in the Septuagint, avrjp 7ri6vfJ.i(iW' Trans.

HOPE THE YITAL FLAME OF FAITH AND LOVE. 113

with its dreams of the infinite, are again completely recon-
ciled, and thereby the harmony of the human consciousness
restored. Fancy, I remarked 'formerly, is the characteristic
property of man, as distinguished by it from other spiritual
intelligences ; for reason, as a mere faculty of negation, affords
only a negative distinction of his nature as compared with
irrational creatures.^) But now, in a more comprehensive
view, and, at the tfame time, with profounder significance
and greater truth of description, AVC may say of man, in the
same sense and in the same relation, hope forms his charac-
teristic property and his inmost essence.

Here, then, in this holy hope, is longing, that marvellous
flower of the soul, expanded into its perfect and noblest fruit.
If, in judging of the three, man looks to the end to which he
is to attain, if, in thought, he places himself at this point
of view, then assuredly will love appear the highest and the
best ; for hope ceases when fulfilment comes in, and sight
enters into the place of faith, but love abideth for ever.*
As long, however, as man has not yet attained unto that
which is perfect, and is still in pursuit of it, hope must be
regarded as the greatest, for it is even the true vital flame of
faith, as well as of love, and of all higher existence.

This divine hope is even the fruit-bearing principle and the
fructification of the immortal soul by the Holy Spirit of
Eternal Truth the luminous centre and focus of grace, where
the dark and discordant soul is illuminated and restored to
unison with itself and with God.

* 1 Cor. xiii. 13.

KND OF LECTUBE V.

114

LECTURE VI.

OF THE WISDOM OF THE DIVINE ORDER OF THINGS IN
NATURE, AND OF THE RELATION OF NATURE TO THE
OTHER LIFE AND TO THE INVISIBLE WORLD.

THE highest and loftiest language would fail us were it our
purpose to speak of the inmost essence of the Godhead, since
He is that which no thought or conception can comprehend, and
which no words are sufficient completely to describe or ade-
quately to express. On the other hand, when we reflect on
God's work in creation, and of His superintending providence
which rules the course of this earthly world, our thoughts
cannot be simple enough nor, to judge by that principle of the
divine condescension which formed the nucleus of our remarks
in the last Lecture, too familiar or affectionate. In a general
way this is commonly enough admitted, but practically it is
neglected. Men do not clearly present to their minds all that
is involved in it, and the remote consequences to which it
leads. And so, in spite of their better convictions, they insen-
sibly adopt a high-sounding and solemn strain, when the tone
of a childlike reverence is alone the suitable and appropriate
style for expressing the relation between the benignant Crea-
tor and His creatures, and man especially, as simply and as
naturally as it is in reality.

I said as naturally, because it is implied in the veiy nature
of things that if God did originally create free beings like
men, He would give them all things needful, keep them con-
stantly in His regard, and everywhere lend them a helping and
directing hand. But from time to time He might, it is not
inconsistent to suppose, withdraw as it were His guidance ; for
otherwise they would cease to be free beings. In this respect
the divine Providence may be likened to a mother teaching her
child to walk. Having chosen a clear spot, free from all
things likely to hurt the infant in its fall, she places it firmly
on its feet. For a little while she holds and supports it, and

NATURE A LIVING REPRODUCTIVE POWER. 115

then cooing back a few steps, she waits for its love to sets its
little limbs in motion and to follow her. But how watchful is
her eye, how outstretched her arms to catch her babe the in-
stant "it begins to totter ! Such nearly, and equally simple, is
the relation of God to man ; and not to individuals only, but
also to the whole human race. For in the divine education and
higher guidance of mankind we may trace the same degrees
and natural gradation of developments as form the basis of
the education of individuals, and may also be observed in all
the processes of nature.

Now we take it for granted that God has willed the creation
not only of free and pure spirits, but also of the natural world ;
for that He has so willed is a fact that as it were stares us in
the face. If, then, along with the free spirits He has also created
a nature, i. e., a living reproductive po^yer capable of and de-
signed to develope and propagate itself, it is plain that we can-
not and ought not to think of such a nature as independent
and self-subsisting. For first of all it had not its beginning in
itself. Moreover, it would move as a blind force, and as such
manifest itself only in destruction and desolation, if its Maker
had not originally fixed and assigned to it the end towards
which all its efforts were ultimately to be directed. Nature
indeed is not free like man ; but still it is not a piece of dead
clock-work, which, when it is once wound up, works on me-
chanically till it has run itself down again. There is life in it.
And if a few abstract but superficial thinkers have failed to
discern or even ventured expressly to deny this truth, the
general feeling of mankind on the other hand bears witness to
it. Yes, man feels that there is life rustling in the tree, as with
its man} arms and branches, its leaves and flowers, it moves
backwards and forwards in the free air ; and that as compared
with the clock, with all its ingenious but dead mechanism, it is
even a living thing. And what the common feeling of man-
kind thus instinctively assumes is confirmed by the profounder
investigations of physical science. Thus we- know that even
plants sleep, and that they too, as much as animals, though
after a different sort, have a true impregnation and propaga-
tion. And is not nature on the whole a life-tree as it were,
whose leaves and flowers are perpetually expanding themselves
and seeking nourishment from the balsamic air of heaven,
while, as the sap rises from the deep-hidden root into the

116 GOD THE AUTHOR AND PRESERVER OP NATURES LAWS.

mighty stem, the branches stir and move, and invisible forces
sweep to and fro in its waving crown. Most shallow and super-
ficial in truth is that physical science which would consider the
system of nature, with all the marvels of beauty and majesty
wherewith its Maker has adorned it, as nothing more than a
piece of lifeless clock-work. In such a system the almighty
Creator must appear at best but a great mechanical artist who
has at his command infinite resources ; or, if we may be allowed
so absurd an expression, as the fittest to expose the absurdity of
those who would regard the divine work both in its whole and
in its parts as dead, an omnipotent clock-maker. If, however,
to meet the needs of men's limited capacity, we must, when
speaking of the Creator, employ such trifling and childish
similes, then of all human avocations and pursuits that of the
gardener wiU serve best to illustrate the divine operations in
nature. Almighty and omniscient, however, He has Himself
created the trees and flowers that He cultivates, has Himself
made the good soil in which they grow, and brings down from
heaven the balmy spring, the dews and rain, and the sunshine'
that quicken and mature them into life and beauty.

If, then, there be life in nature, as indeed observation
teaches, and the general feeling of man avouches, it must
also possess a vital development, which in its movements ob-
serves an uniform course and intrinsic law. In truth the
Creator has not reserved to Himself the beginning and the
end alone, and left the rest to follow its own course ; but in
the middle, and at every point also, of its progress, the
Omnipotent WiU can intervene at pleasure. If He pleases
He can instantaneously stop this vital development, and sud-
denly make the course of nature stand still ; or, in a moment,
give life and movement to what before stood motionless and
inanimate. Generally speaking, it is in the divine power to
suspend the laws of nature, to interfere directly with them
and as it were, to intercalate among them some higher and
immediate operation of His power, as an exception to their
uniform development. For as in the social frame of civil hie,
the author and giver of the laws may occasionally set them
aside, or, in their administration, allow certain special cases
of exception, even so is it, also, with nature's Lawgiver.

Now," this immediate operation, and occasional interference
of SuDreme Power with the order of nature, is exactly what

MIRACLES THE DELUGE.

117

constitutes the idea of miracle. The general possibility of
miracles is a principle which man's sound and unsophisticated
reason has never allowed him to deny. But, on the other
hand, it is evidently essential to their very idea that they
should be thought of simply as deviations from the usual
course of nature's operations ; if they were not exceptions
to the laws of nature, then were they no miracles. Such
miraculous exceptions, however, it may be observed, need not
invariably to be contrary to the course of nature, though above
nature, and far transcending its ordinary standard, they always
are. Exceptions, therefore, they are ; but such, at the same
time, as do not permanently disturb the natural course arid
flow of the vital development, which, on the whole, continues
unchanged. For it is only agreeable with Creative wisdom to
maintain the world so long as the present state of things sub-
sists, and the final consummation has not yet arrived, in tne
order originally prescribed to it by His omnipotence.

To this an objection might be made in the opposite sense.
Taken then in their principle, the laws of nature, no less than
those exceptions to them which are usually called miracles,
are one and the same ; they are alike from the Creator of all
-rand the laws themselves, therefore, are equally miraculous.
This remark is quite true ; but it only teaches us that we ought
not to be too ready to see a miracle in every extraordinary
event. But still, there will ever remain an essential difference
between an immediate operation of omnipotence and the Crea-
tor's original production of a living force, implanting in this
creature an inner law, and thereupon leaving to it the further
evolution of its powers in the course marked out for and
assigned to it.

Now, if such a creature, like this terrestrial nature, be ot a
mixed constitution, composed of a principle of destruction as
well as of a principle of productive development and pro-
gression, if its life be a constant struggle with death, then
it is manifest that only by the same hand which first formed
it, gave it laws and prescribed its order, can its wise and
divine economy be preserved, and the permanence of the
organic evolution of its whole system be secured, and the
outbursts of elementary dissolution, which are perpetually
menacing it, held in check and averted. If this restraint be
once relaxed, if the destructive energy of the wild element >

118 NATURE NO BLIND NECESSARY FORCE.

be once let loose, and free scope given to their fury and this
globe presents the manifest traces of one such catastrophe at
least then this too must be regarded as an exception, and
is only explicable by the higher principle of divine per-
mission. Viewed, however, as the retribution of divine jus-
tice on a guilty world, it forms an exception and a miracle of
a peculiar kind, and must be distinguished from those other
extraordinary operations properly called miracles, wherein,
with some saving or quickening purpose, the Almighty, as it
were, raises nature above herself, and takes her out of her
usual course.

In this way then we ought unquestionably to refer every-
thing in the world to its author and preserver, whether it be
conformable to the usual course and order of nature, or, as an
extraordinary phenomenon, bespeak a higher and more imme-
diate operation of divinity. But, at the same time, we must
never forget that nature itself is a living force endowed with
a capacity of self-development. Nature, indeed, is not free
in the same sense that man is, possessed and conscious of a
power of self-determination and choice ; but as all life contains
in itself the germ of a free movement and expansion, and while
it expands itself a hidden and slumbering consciousness begins
to stir and awake, so also in nature, an initiatory or preparatory
grade of it, if not fully out-spoken, is at least indicated. In
this respect it may be regarded as the vestibule of that tem-
ple of freedom which in man, the crowning work of this
earthly creation, and made after the divine image and like-
ness, stands forth in its full dimensions and proportions.
Considered from another point of view, the sensible world
may be looked upon as a veil thrown over the spiritual world
the light-flowing and almost transparent robe, and, as it
were, in all its parts the significant costume of the invisible
powers. But in no point of view can we rightly consider
nature as properly self- subsisting or independent of its Crea-
tor, and therefore in no case as isolated by itself and apart
from all reference to a superior being. Rather is it a living'
force, and one, too, doubly significant, both from within and
from without ; to w'hich property an allusion is contained in
the simile already employed, of a book written both on the
inside and the outside. These two ideas, then, of the free will
of man and of the living development of nature, must be taken

THEODICEE ITS PEKPLEXITIES. 119

as the basis, and serve as the fixed point of every attempt to
ascertain the divine order in nature. On this account we have
placed them in the foreground of the present Lecture, which
will, in the main, be consecrated to such an investigation.

If, now, this demonstration of a divine order in nature seem
to contain nothing less than a kind of Theodicee* (so far as
man can establish a justification of God's ways), I, for my
part, must confess that I would much rather have before my
eyes a Theodicee for the feelings, conceived in the very spirit
of love, than any purely rational theory. For such theories,
founded in general on far-fetched hypotheses, subtilly introduce
into nature numberless divine purposes and designs, of which,
however, we are able neither clearly to understand, much less
to prove that they were intended by the everlasting counsels^
or even that such vestiges of a divine purpose are really dis-
cernible in the universe. In this province of speculation we
must not be too rigorous in our determinations, and especially
we must guard against systematising. But, above all, we can-
not be too watchful against the fault which so many reasoners
fall into, of transferring into the realm of nature, or of God, that
logical necessary connexion which is a part of and connatural
with our rational constitution, and an indispensable aid to our
limited intellectual powers. Such a way of thinking would
inevitably lead us to that most mistaken notion of a blind
fate the phantom of destiny.

On the other hand, how many are the questioning feelings
and perplexities which arise in the human heart at the sight
of certain natural objects. And these even, because they are
far from amounting to doubts and objections, or at least
from assuming a definite expression or a scientific dignity,
seem, on that account, only the more loudly to demand aii

* Theodicee, or justification of the ways of God in the world. The
word originated with Leibnitz, who, in his " Essai de Theodicee sur ia
bonte de Dieu, la liberte de 1'homme et 1'origine du mal," published in
1710, maintained that the existence of moral evil has its origin in the free
will of the creature, while metaphysical evil is nothing but the limitation
which is involved in the essence of finite beings, and that out of this both
physical and moral evil naturally flow. But these finite beings are designed
to attain to the utmost felicity they are capable of enjoying, which each, as
a part, contributes to the perfection of the whole, which of the many worlds
that were possible, is the very best. On this account it has been called the
theory of Optimism. Trans.

120 THE SOUL OF ANIMALS.

answer. The mournful cry of some helpless and innocent
animal when killed by man or in a different category the
hissing of the venomous serpent; the loathsome mass of
maggots in the putrid corpse : all these are but so many
dumb exclamations which, as it were, do but keep back the
question : Are, then, these the productions of the all-perfect
being of the supreme intelligence ?

The sufferings of animals are indeed a theme for man to
reflect upon ; and I, for my part, cannot concur with him who
would regard this as a topic unworthy of his thoughts, and
expel from the human bosom all sympathy with the animal
creation. The consideration, however, of this subject, natu-
rally enough gives rise to the question as to the soul of
animals. Now, it certainly would do no discredit to phi-
losophy, if it should succeed in giving a satisfactory* answer
to this question, and enable us to follow a middle course ;
as remote from the exaggerated assumptions of ancient
nations with regard to animal existence, on the one hand, as
on the other, from the unfeeling conclusions of modern science,
which refuses to regard or to sympathise with any pains,
and absolutely is unable to conceive the sufferings of any
being which does not possess the character of rationality
exactly in the same manner and degree as man. As greatly
on the other side does the Hindoo theology err. Its dogma
of the metempsychosis not only ascribes an immortal soul to
animals, but it also further teaches that human souls are
imprisoned in animal bodies, as the penalty of a guilt incurred
in a previous state of existence. Beautiful, however, as is the
compassionate sympathy with the sufferings of the brute
creation, which this theory has occasioned, and confirmed by
the sanction of a religious duty, still the assumption on
which it is founded is wholly arbitrary, and the extension of
the immortality of the soul to these creatures of our globe, is
an unwarrantable exaggeration, and has no foundation in
observed phenomena. Moreover, the hypothesis of such a
migratory state of departed souls is inconsistent with every
notion of the divine government of the world ; inasmuch as
such a temporary punishment can produce no salutary effect,
either of purification or of preparation, and consequently
would be wholly motiveless and absurd.

Very questionable moreover does it seem, whether, with

CREATURES OF SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 121

propriety, an individual soul can be attributed to animals.
With those that are most closely domesticated with man,
there does undoubtedly arise, as it were, by a sort of mental
contagion, the appearance of individuality and difference of
character, just as the artistic structures of certain species
form a kind of analogy to human reason, and as the melo-
dious intonations and feelings of some others seemed to me
entitled, in a similar sense, to be termed reverberations of
fancy. In all those kinds, however, which remain undis-
turbed in their natural state, the whole species possesses the
same character, and have, consequently, the same common
soul.* The species itself is only an individual; and conse-
quently, the several species must be considered as so many
living forms of the general organic force of animated nature,
since an immortality of individual souls can, in the case of
animals, neither be assumed nor allowed to be assumable.

Among those perplexities, or, as I termed them, questioning
feelings about nature and its animating principle, I turn now
to the consideration of the last instance, that of the maggots
of putrefaction. Is 'not this one of the clearest possible
proofs that all nature is animated rf So much so, and so

* Does not this appearance of a common character among brutes of
the same species, arise rather from the imperfection of our observation ?
Is not every sheep an individual to the shepheru ? Trans.

f Schlegel appears to have believed in the theory of equivocal generation.
But microscopic research and experiments forbid us any longer to believe
that fermentative or putrefactive matter spontaneously gives birth to living
creatures. Such matters do but furnish the necessary circumstances for
hatching the germs or ova which are present in such immense numbers
in the atmosphere. The doctrine of equivocal or spontaneous generation
seems conclusively refuted by the experiment of Schulze, detailed in vo-
lume 23 of Jameson's Journal. " I filled a glass flask half-full with dis-
tilled water, in which 1 had mixed various vegetable and animal substances.
I then closed it with a good cork, through which I passed two glass tubes,
bent at right angles, the whole being air-tight. It was next placed in a
sand-bath and heated until the water boiled violently, and thus all parts
had reached a temperature of 212 Fahrenheit. While the watery vapour
was escaping by the glass tubes, I fastened at each end an apparatus
whfch chemists employ for collecting carbonic acid ; that to the left was
filled with sulphuric acid, and the other with a solution of potash. By
means of the boiling heat, everything living and all the germs in the
flask or in the tubes were destroyed, and all access was cut off by the
sulphuric acid on the one side, and by the potash on the other. I placed
this easily moved apparatus before my window, where it was exposed to the

SPONTANEOUS GENERATION.

eminently is this the case, that even in death and corruption
in foulness and disease, it stiU livingly operates and produces
Me the lowest grade, undoubtedly, of life or if any so
prefers to call it, a false lifebut still a life. Now, can such
morbid productions of nature, the worms, e. g., fentozoaj
which in certain diseases are engendered in the bowels be re'
garded as real creatures ? Nought are they but the dissolving
and crumbling matter of Life, which even in dissolution is still
living.* And this fact is not confined merely to organic
corruption and disease. Even the element the fresh water
from the spring is fall of life, and it is the more so the clearer
and the better it is and the purer from the microscopic animal-
cule, which swarm in it more and more the longer it stagnates
and becomes foul, until, at last, as frequently happens when it

action of light, and also, as I performed my experiments in the summer, to
that of heat. At the same time I placed near it an open vessel with the
same substances that had been introduced into the flask, and also after
having subjected them to a boiling temperature. In order now to
renew the air constantly within the flask, I sucked with my mouth, several
times a day, the open end of the apparatus filled with solution of
potash; by which process, the air entered my mouth from the flask,
through the caustic liquid, and the atmospheric "air from without entered
the flask through the sulphuric acid. The air was of course not altered
in its composition by passing through the sulphuric acid into the flask -
but if sufficient time was allowed for the passage, all the portions of
living matter, or of matter capable of becoming animated, were taken up by
the sulphuric acid and destroyed. From the 28th of May until the
early part of 'August, I continued uninterruptedly the renewal of the
air in the flask, without being able, by the aid of a microscope, to perceive
any living animal or vegetable substance, although, during the whole of
the time, I made my observations almost daily on the edge of the liquid ;
and when at last I separated the different parts of the apparatus, I could
not find in the whole liquid, the slightest trace of Infusoria, Conferva;, or
of Mould. But all the three presented themselves in a few days after I left
the flask open. And the open vessel too, which I placed near the appa-
ratus, contained on the following day, Vibriones and Monades, to which'
were soon added larger Polygastric Infusoria, and afterwards, Rotatoria "
Trans.

* Although, in the case of the entozoa, the induction is not very large
still, of some of them it is an established fact that they are generated
from ova, and it is therefore a fair presumption that such i is the general
law, and that these parasitical beings are, in every case, hatched from
ova, which are everywhere present, but remain undeveloped until they
meet with the necessary nutriment and heat for their development
Trans.

INFLUENCE OF THE EVIL SPIRITS ON NATUEE. 123

has been kept long 011 shipboard, with the growing foulness of
the water they increase in size, and swim about as worms of
\isible magnitude. Many other instances might be adduced
in proof of this origination of worms and vermin out of
corruption, and testifying to it as a general principle of
nature. And are not those swarms of locusts which in
Asiatic countries are a general plague of the lands over
which they sweep with their thick and dark migratory hordes,
a sickly proof that the atmosphere, that has engendered them,
is passing, or has already fallen into corruption beneath the
influence of some other contagious element ?

That the air and atmosphere of our globe is in the highest
decree full of life, I may, I think, take here for granted and
generally admitted. It is, however, of a mixed kind and
quality, combining the refreshing and balsamic breath of
spring with the parching simoons of the desert, and where
the healthy odours fluctuate in chaotic struggle with the
most deadly vapours. What else, in general, is the wide
spread and spreading pestilence, but a living propagation of
foulness, corruption, 'and death? Are not many poisons,
especially animal poisons, in a true sense, living forces ?

Now, "may we not give a further extension to this mode
of view, and apply the fact of a diseased propagation of
a false life, as in the worms of putrefaction, to other unsightly
productions of nature. May we not, for instance, consider
serpents and snakes as the entozoa or intestinal worms 01
the earth? That the evil spirits are not without some influ-
ence on our terrestrial habitation, and that in many places
their malignant influence is distinctly traceable is, at all
events, undeniable. And accordingly, some have supposed
the monkey tribe not to be an original creation of the Deity,
but a satanic device and malicious parody upon man, as the
envied favourite of God. That the " Prince of this world"
*which expression, in its latter half, is surely not to be under-
stood exclusively of man's fallen, race, but very evidently
and expressively alludes to the existing fabric of nature and
the corrupted world of sense that the Prince of this world
can exercise a certain degree of pernicious influence on the
productive energies of the natural system in its present
corrupt and vitiated condition, and that also, there is in nature
itself a power to produce evil, are facts which do not admit

124 DOCTRINE OF FINAL CAUSE.

of denial, and are noways inconsistent with revelation. Only
we must not suppose that this baneful influence is not con-
fined within certain limits. He to whom the Prince of this
world, no less than the world itself, is subject, has, in His
infinite wisdom, set a definite limit both of quantity and
duration to this pernicious influence, as in general He does to
every permission of evil.

At all events we must not for one moment suppose that in tho
book of nature we have a pure and imcorrupt text of God, and
such as it originally came from the hands of its Author. It is
of the highest consequence, for a due and right appreciation of
the divine economy in nature, that we give full consideration to
this fact. On this account it is important to keep in mind the
distinction implied in that expression already quoted from the
Mosaic history, " Let the earth bring forth." For according
to this it does not seem indispensably necessary to ascribe imme-
diately to the good and wise Creator everything that the earth
brought forth ; no, nor everything that is produced by a nature
now so imperfect so diseased, too, in many parts and visibly
constrained to submit to hostile and foreign influences.

Many writers who, with the best intentions, undertake the
task of indicating the divine wisdom in the existing order of
things, and of defending the ways of Providence against the
objections of human presumption and conceit, generally err
by taking too narrow a view of their subject, and rigorously
insisting on some one general principle, which, by means of
very hazardous assertions, they succeed in finding in the whole
and every part of the system of the universe. They leave out
of sight altogether that Mosaic distinction already alluded to,
which in appearance indeed is trifling enough, but yet in
reality most essentially important. Consequently, the good
work which they take in hand, instead of producing that
general concurrence and conviction that it otherwise might,
gives rise rather to fresh doubts and objections. The bestl
solution of all such doubts the most satisfactory answer to
all such or similar questions or questioning feelings lies in
. the final cause of the present constitution of things, considered
as a whole and in general, and judged of from a regard to its
triple character and triple destination. Now, according to this
triple principle, we have, as already shown, to regard the pre-
sent system of nature as being primarily a toinb-stone raised

THE PREADAMITE WORLD A PARADISE FOB ANGELS. 125

bv Almio-hty benevolence a bridge of safety thrown across
the gulf of eternal death a bridge, however, which we must
not think of as quite so simple, broad, and straight as a
bridge made by human hands, but an animated and ensouled
bridge of life, and multiform, with many arms and branches, am
presenting in some parts nothing more than a narrow footing,
where the first false step precipitates into the abyss beneath
But secondarily, according to this view, nature is grounded
on and devoted to progress ; a wonderful laboratory of mani-
fold, diversified, and universal reproduction; and lastly, a
glorious scale of resurrection, ascending up to the last and
highest summit of terrestrial transfiguration. Tsow this labo-
ratory lies in the hidden womb of nature, while in the noble
outward structure of its organic formations this gradational
scale manifests itself with a warning, a prognostication ot 1
heio-ht of excellence to which it eventually leads. But now,
if nature-as, judging from its original design, we may and
must assume were a Paradise for the blessed spirits of the
previous creation, for the first-born sons of light, then most as-
suredly has it not continued so, any more than the first man
has remained in the garden of Eden. No doubt, over a few
favoured spots of the existing globe, a rich fulness of ravishing
beauty still hovers, awakening in the heart, as it were, the
fleeting images of Paradisaical innocence dying strains ot a
primal harmony mournful reminiscences of the happy infancy
of creation. For the powers of darkness and hostile spirits
broke in upon the fair beauty of primeval nature, and laid it
waste and wild. The garden of the earth in which the first
man was placed, "to dress it and to keep it," is no doubt
called Paradise; and assuredly it was infinitely more beautilul,
more wonderful, purer, and fuller of life, than the loveliest
scenery which meets the eye in the fairest spots of the earth
and seems to be of an almost celestial beauty. But this is said
only of the immediate enclosure, the immediate habitation ot
our first parent; the spot chosen and blessed by kod--th.
o-arden watered and surrounded by the four streams. All the
rest of nature, the whole of the world beside, must have ceased
at that time to be a Paradise ; for, otherwise, whence could the
serpent have come? So that even according to the simple
sense of the expression, " that old serpent," he was already
there, in the midst of the natural world. And was it not

126 MYSTERIES IN TSTATUIIE.

probably a part of the destination of man at least, in its
natural .aspect that, setting out from this divine starting-
point of a Paradise prepared for and given to him, he was to
go forth and convert the rest of the world into a similar Eden ?

But this destination he did not, however, fulfil, and conse-
quently lost even this beginning and model of the first Para-
dise. The names of the four streams which watered it are
indeed still preserved in those regions of Asia, which even to
this day are the richest and most fruitful, and, according to
history, were the earliest inhabited. 'But the one source out
of which they all took their rise has disappeared, and no ves-
tige of it remains. With the loss of Paradise all is changed,
not only in man himself, but in the earth as his place of
abode.

The way of return out of this bewildered nature, or, if men
prefer so to speak, out of this sunk and degraded, not to say
unsound and sickly, state of the earthly and sensible world
(and this way of return is even the way of obedience to the
course of the divine order in nature), is indicated even by
these three grades of its inmost character, its tendency and
ultimate destination. And in these, and in the final cause of
the whole constitution of things, is contained its true key and
interpretation, as well as the answer to so many questions
about nature which engage not merely the curious intellect of
man, but also attract the sympathies of his soul, sweeping
across it either with dark doubts and fears or with bright inti-
mations of life and glorious anticipation.

I spoke deliberately when I said to many of these question-
ing feelings and perplexities of the human mind, and not all
of them. For to expect a satisfactory answer to them all in the
present state of science, or generally in this terrestrial life,
brief as it is, and limited on all sides and short-sighted, would
be agreeable neither with the course nor whole constitution
of human affairs. A thoroughly complete and perfectly sys-
tematic demonstration of the wisdom in the divine order of
nature, which should meet and explain every difficulty, would,
even on account of such a pretension, command little respect
and be of slight influence. Much is there in nature which is
to remain long hidden from man ; much too \vhich we shall
see first of all in the other world, when death shall have opened
our eyes and made us clear-sighted in one direction or another.

FIXAL CAUSE OF CREATION INTELLIGIBLE. 127

But the beginning and the end are even here and now placed
clearly and intelligibly before us, if only we are ready and
willing to walk by the light that is so graciously given us, and
here as elsewhere invariably to refer the first cause and the
final consummation to the Creator and to God. Without such a
reference, without thus as it were placing its two poles in God,
the right understanding of nature is absolutely impossible, and
every scientific attempt to attain it apart from and indepen-
dently of God, must simply as such prove vain and involve
itself in absurdities. Hence it is, however paradoxical it may
sound, that we can recognise more distinctly and better under-
stand the end of nature, its meaning and significance as a
whole, than we can the final cause of many a single object in
it, which, however, as contrasted with the whole, appears in-
considerable and trifling. For the clear perception that we
have of the final cause of nature conies immediately from the
divine illumination, which therefore we can, so far as it is
given to us, see and understand. But in the darker levels, in
Qie subterranean shaft of the obscure sensible world, the pro-
phetic candle of an antlike burrowing science, even though it
be originally kindled at that higher light, cannot reach to
every quarter, cannot illuminate every object in this mine of
darkness.

But this final cause of creation, such as it is given to us
clearly and intelligibly, will be rendered most clear by a com-
parison aiid contrast with the conceptions of the end of nature
which Iranian reason has put forth. If the proposition already
quoted from one of the latest of German philosophers, that
the essence of mind consists in the negation of the opposite,
be now applied (which was the application I then had in my
mind) to the Creator of the world and uncreated Intelligence,
then the following must be the meaning involved in it.
That which is the opposite of God or the Creator is nothing ;
and so far the proposition is quite true, since man cannot but
admit that the Almighty has created the world out of nothing,
For if, with some of the ancient philosophers, we were to
suppose a matter existing from all eternity, out of which God
did not so much create as form the world, then in this case
we should have two Gods, and both imperfect and finite, in-
stead of the one all-perfect and self-sufficient Being. But if,
on the other hand, the Deity be regarded as merely a not-

128 MAN'S FREEDOM.

nothing ; if the final cause of creation be simply the negation
of nought, then would such a view ascribe a sort of imaginary
reality to the nothing, and it would seem that the world was
created solely in order to get rid of the nothing, which comes
pretty much to the same as saying if we may allow ourselves
so Lessing-like a boldness of expression the Infinite made
the world out of ennui. Thus, in every case do the sceptical
views and empty negations of idealism lead to a contradictory
nothing.

But, in reality and truth, it was out of love that God made
the worlds ; and indeed out of a superabundant love. This we
may well venture to assert, and even to call it a fact ; and
that the divine love is also the final cause, as well as the be-
ginning of creation. A superabundance of love in God we
must, however, call the final cause ground of creation, inas-
much as He stood in no need of it ; no need of the love of the
creature, nor absolutely of the world itself, or created things.
For in His inmost essence, where one depth of eternal love
responds fully and eternally to the other, He was perfectly
sufficient for himself. And yet it is even so : there is in God
this superabundance of love, for He has created the worlds,
and it is the divine will to be loved by His creatures. For
this end and purpose has He created them ; and because He
would have their love, He has created them free, and given
both to the pure spirits and to men a free will. The whole
secret in the relation subsisting between the creature, and man
especially, and the Creator, lies even in this great fact, that He
has created them out of love, and requires in return the ser-
vice of their love. There is perhaps something awful in this
requisition, and in the relation thus found to subsist between
a weak and imperfect creature and the infinite and omnipotent
Being. But it is even so : we are really free, and are really
required by God to give him our love. But now a finite and
created being can only be free so far as God leaves him free :
and this is only conceivable in the light I have already set it
in by the simile of a fond mother teaching her babe to walk,
and in order to tempt it to make the first essay with its little
limbs, stepping back from it a few steps and leaving it a
moment to itself. No creature could be free did not God in
a similar way leave it to itself, and, after the first impulse of
creation, withhold from it His controlling energy. But if He

THE DIYINE NATURE NOT SUBJECT TO NECESSITY. 129

did not do so were He, on the contrary, to act upon His
creatures without reserve and with the whole infinite extent
of His might then the liberty of the latter, overwhelmed in
His omnipotence, must be destroyed, as being only possible
through the spontaneous limitation of the divine power, which
results from the superabundance of creative love.

Now we can, it is true, distinguish in the essence or energy
of God, between His intelligence and His will His omni
science and His omnipotence ; but they cannot be absolutely
separated from and opposed to each other, for in Him and in
His operations, they, as indeed all else in Him, are one.
It would therefore be nothing but a foolish and unmeaning
subtlety to demand, " Why, then, has the Omniscient created
rational beings, of whom He must assuredly have known
beforehand that they would fall and perish ?" For it is but
a logical illusion, when we transfer from the human to the
divine mind a form of thought fluctuating between the con-
ceivably possible and the apparently necessary. Man's free-
dom undoubtedly consists in the choice between one pos-
sibility and another, or in that indefinite possibility which
subsists half-way between one necessity and another. But
God's freedom is not as man's : in Him there is neither con-
tingent possibility nor unconditional necessity. All in Him is
truly actual, Irving, and positive. His freedom lies even in
the superabundance of His essence the fact, viz., that He is
not bound by any law of necessity to remain contented with
this His own internal fulness. For otherwise He were a Fate
rather than a free God, and to that conclusion the doctrine of
the Stoics consistently enough arrived at last. Extremely
difficult must it ever be, in such a system and with such a
conception of an intrinsically necessary God, and one bound
by this necessity, consistently to account for the creation of
the world, which, in appearance, is so irreconcilable with the
idea of the self-sufficiency of the divine Being. On this
account some of the similarly rationalising systems of ancient
times had recourse to the ingenious device of ascribing the
work of creation to a spirtual being of an inferior order, and
degrading this secondary deity far below the infinite perfections
of the supreme and nil-sufficient God. But by this expedient
men did but fall, as is, alas ! but too commonly the case, from
one error into another still greater and even more monstrous,

130 MOKAL EVIL A BESTTLT OF MANS FREEDOM.

It is, in short, nothing but a mere logical delusion and an
illegitimate transference from our limited faculty of thought
to the divine intelligence, which gives rise to these pernicious
doctrines of an absolute and unconditional predestination,
which fundamentally amount and bring us back to a blind and
heathenish fatalism.

Thus much, as connected with our subject, will be suffi-
cient on the difficult subject, both of the freedom of the
pure created spirits, and also of man's will, as regarded solely
from its philosophical aspect, and without any reference to
the moral theory, and solely in relation to the system of the
universe. Difficult, however, is this subject, merely on one
account. The logical illusion, from which springs all error,
strife, and confusion, and which we are too apt to transfer to
the divine mind, is so far innate in the very form of man's
finite intellect, than even when we have recognised it for what
it really is ; yet, so long as we confine ourselves to mere logical
reasoning, and are seduced by its seeming rigor of consequence,
we are ever ready to fall anew into this dangerous error 1
without even remarking it.

In the same way, now, that the existence of free beings
follows naturally from the love of God, as the final cause of
creation, so, on the other hand, the permission of moral evil is
a mere result of that freedom in and through which these cre-
ated beings have to run their appointed time. For this free-
dom, as considered with a reference to God and futurity, or
to the immortality of the soul, is nothing else than the time
of trial and the state of probation itself. But, perhaps it will
be asked, "Why, then, does not God, by one nod of retributive
justice, by one breath of His omnipotence, annihilate for ever,
as He so easily might, the whole company of evil and re-
bellious spirits, together with their leader, the Prince of this
world, and so purify the whole visible creation, and release
external nature from their desolating influence ?" To this
the answer is simple and at hand. Man is placed in this world
on his trial and. for a struggle with evil, and this warfare is
not yet ended. But by such an annihilation of evil, the living
development of nature would be precipitated in that course
which God originally designed it to advance through, and cut
short before the appointed time of final purification, when,
according to His promise, He will, as Holy Writ expresses it,

PHYSICAL EVIL A MEANS OF PURIFICATION. 131

create new heavens and a new earth, and make perfect the
whole creation.*

Man is free, but utterly unripe as yet; and thoroughly in-
complete also is nature, or the sensible world, and material
creation ; consequently, the immortality of the soul is the
corner-stone and key for understanding the whole. For the
mere beginning of creation is perfectly unintelligible so lono-
as we do not take into consideration the other extreme or end
its final completion and ultimate consummation. Just as
the half of human life on this side the grave cannot be under-
stood unless we contemplate at the same time with it its second
naif on the other side of the tomb, as its complement, and
as a necessary element towards the elucidation of the whole
As then the permission of evil finds a satisfactory ex-
planation in man's probationary state, and in God's love as
the final cause of the creation, so also the physical evils and
sufferings to which the free being is liable, are fully accounted
for on that principle. This is the key of the enigma of their
existence. None of the sufferings of the free being on
either side of the grave, are unprofitable and without a mo-
tive. They all serve, either in this preparatory state of earthly
existence, for probation, for discipline, or for confirmation or
else after it for the perfect healing of the soul, and its purifi-
cation from all the remaining dross and taints of earth f
Scarcely ever can the diseased matter be got rid of and
expelled from the organic body without a struggle and very
seldom without pain. Gold is purified by the fire, and pain
the fiery purification of the body. This belief is one which
ought least of all to have been called into question, inasmuch
is only consonant to the simple feelings of human nature.
For otherwise, how narrowly must the hopes of the future be
confined, if nothing that is unclean shall enter into heaven.

* Isaiah Ixv 17,

f In this and the following paragraph it is necessary to bear in mind
ischlegel, as a member of the Roman Catholic Church, held the doc-
trine of a purgatory, which the catechism of the Council of Trent describes
as a fire, " in which the souls of the pious are tortured for a certain time,
and expiated, that they may be qualified to enter that eternal country into
which nothing enters that is unclean." Purgatorius ignis, quo piorum
ammae ad definitum tempus cruciatse expiantur, ut eis in sternam patriam

ingressus patere possit, in quam nihil coinquinatum injjreditur " Cat

Cone. Trid., pars i. art. v. c. 5. Trans.

132 ETERNAL PUNISHMENTS.

the Holy of Holies the immediate presence of the pure and
holy God !

It is not, however, my intention to make this consolatory
and blessed hope of a loving and longing heart, the topic of
dispute, especially since it lies altogether beyond my present
limits. I will only allude to the words of the Saviour, " In
my Father's house are many mansions." By the " Father's
house" we must, it is clear, understand the future world.
On the other side therefore of the grave, as well as on this,
many divisions, many degrees, and many different states, and
also manifold transitions, are not merely conceivable and
possible, but must of necessity be assumed as actually existent,
even though we cannot be too cautious in avoiding all hasty
decisions as to what is going on in this hidden world. Only
we must ever remember that any absolute line of demarcation
which on one side has nothing but white, while all that lies
on the other is black, is very rarely the line of truth. And
this principle holds good, it is plain, in every relation and
every possible application. For such a trenchant line of sharp
and unmitigated contrast between black and white, is even
one of those intellectual deceptions connatural to man, which
disposes him too hastily to transfer to all without him the
limited form of his own finite intellect. All the pains, there-
fore, and all the sufferings of the creature, whether on this or
the other side of the grave, serve either to exercise and
strengthen, or to heal and purify, the yet imperfect being, with
the single exception of that bitterest of all agonies, the pain
of being left eternally to ourselves. But even here, although
there is no hope of a salutary effect, a species of converse
propriety seems to hold.

It is, we remarked, the problem of philosophy, leaving to
physics the whole development of life that lies intermediate
between the beginning and end, to explain the two extremes
of nature. As, therefore, we have examined one of these
extremes, and have discovered in the whole terrestrial crea-
tion a Paradise as the blessed state of the still innocent infancy
of nature, before the revolt of the rebellious spirits and the
fall of the first man, the present seems the- place for a few
words touching the opposite extreme the regions of outer
darkness. We can safely admit that the figurative represen-
tations, not merely of painters and poets, but occasionally

THE UNQUENCHABLE FIRE. 133

also of the preacher, are so horrible, and heaped together with
so little consistency, the dark colours laid on so thick, that
the whole assumes to the feelings an appearance of impro-
bability, and on this account makes, for the most part, no very
deep impression. But the spiritual significance of these suffer-
ings, and the sort of propriety and design which holds, even in
this unnatural state, on the utmost borders of creation, may,
perhaps, be made clear by a very simple illustration. Most
reluctantly, and with a heavy heart assuredly, would an
earthly parent resolve to turn out of his house and formally
to disinherit his first-born and beloved son, even though he
should have proved himself utterly worthless and hopelessly
depraved. But even if an earthly parent might be too hasty in
his anger, and actually be harsh and unjust, still we may
boldly assume that the love of our Heavenly Father in patience
and gentleness far transcends the truest parental love that
is to be found on earth. But when it actually comes to
this point of offended mercy and justice, then the disinherited,
cast out into the regions of darkness, joins the band of rob-
bers who in the night lurk about his father's house, seeking
where they may break into it. No other choice is left him
than to become a robber, and, whether he will or no, he must
obey the leader of the band. But better taught and as yet
softer of heart than the rest, he must go through many hard-
ships and sufferings ere he becomes quite like the others, as
hard-hearted as the "murderers from the beginning," who
the while look down upon him with scorn and contempt.

What I would say is this : many degrees, and undoubtedly
extreme degrees, of pain and torment, are necessary before
the man cast out from the presence of God can be Avholly
and completely transformed into an evil spirit. And this is
perhaps the proper meaning and essential character under
which we are to think of these endless torments of spiritual
death and ruin. If, moreover, this eternal death is often
described as an unquenchable fire, then unquestionably there
lies in this figure, even physically considered, a certain truth,
inasmuch as even in this world and in visible nature, fire,
when left to itself and to its true essential character, is the
proper element of destruction. In the sun's genial influence,
indeed, and in the blood of the living soul it is constrained

134 CHEATED SPIRITS WITHOUT FREEDOM.

and moderated into the wholesome warmth of life; but in
itself, and working in its elementary state, it is destructive and
opposed to all the other elements. To the light all that has
life turns instinctively, and in the air it breathes and pulsates,
and from water it draws a part at least of its nourishment. It
is only incidentally that the air and Avater become destructive,
but the fire is so in its proper nature. A perfectly organised
animal that lived in fire, would in a greater or less degree fill
every mind with horror and alarm, as having no part in and
wholly alien from that nature which is known to and friendly
to man. On this account, many even of the ancient philoso-
phers taught that the end of the present visible and the
external and sensible world, would be brought about by a
general conflagration.

The permission of evil is an immediate consequence of the
creation of free beings. But although it may be regarded as
a fact, that God has created free both the spirits and man, still
we must be on our guard how we introduce into this matter
any notion of necessity, and suppose that God must have made
them free, and could not have created any other. For man is
only too prone to transfer his own imaginary conceit of neces-
sity to the Deity himself, and to feign to see it in Him. This,
however, were a most grievous error ; and yet it is one into which
men almost inevitably fall when they adopt either a rigorously
systematic or purely logical yiew of the matter. Could not
God in his omnipotence have created powers and dominions
which, even though they were living energies and ensouled
principalities, should nevertheless be without the property of
self-determination and a true liberty, and which would conse-
quently require some other nature, but similar to themselves,
to rule and direct them ? In this sense we read of the spirits
of nature, ensouled elementary powers and living forces,
which are described as being seized and taken possession of
by the power of evil, but as hereafter to be set free by the
efficacy of redeeming love, and again subjected to and united
to God. Now, as connected with this subject, it is deserving
of consideration, that in all the declarations and allusions of
the Eternal Truth this present earthly nature is spoken of as
the battle-place of invisible powers, the debatable ground on
which the two armies of good and evil spirits and elements,

IMMORTAL SPIRITS WITH ANIMAL FORMS. 135

are posted in hostile array against each other, and perpetually
coming into collision.*

Could not God, had such been His pleasure, have created
other beings, and by the fiat of His almighty will have raised
them at once above all the dangers of liberty, and enduing
them with perfect holiness, and exempt from all liability to
fall, have drawn them to Himself in eternal love ?

I have hitherto, wherever it has been my object to give a
clearer and sharper characterisation of the human conscious-
ness by means of a comparison with the faculties of intellect
and will possessed by superior but created spirits, confined
myself to the idea of the pure spirits, genii or angels. But
if it should have been the divine pleasure to create other
spiritual beings with an organic body one, perhaps, not like
the human, but still of a very noble though animal form, endued
of course with an immortal soul and with a knowledge of God
who is there in such a case to set limits to the omnipotent
will ? Now if, as already supposed, they were created in per-
fect holiness, and exempt from the liability to fall, it is easily-
conceivable how in this respect they would be higher than frail
and imperfect man, and must be regarded as a part of the
spiritual world, rather than as belonging to the human race or
to the existing system of nature.

All these are not so much inappropriate and impertinent
conjectures and idle fancies, as calmly mooted questions for
explanation, which arise out of and are suggested by certain
traditions and points of revelation.

Lastly, if the Almighty had resolved to create a perfect
being, so far above and before all the other creatures of ^ His
will, as to stand next to Himself and be, as it were, the mirror
and reflection of His own infinite perfections and many a
word in Holy Writ seems to allude to something of the kind
then it is not difficult to see how the already quoted expres-
sion of a soul of God would receive a better sense. This
being, so superior to all other created spirits, must in any case
be regarded as a soul, and for the most part of a passive
essence, for otherwise it would stand too close and near to
Deity itself. And it is manifest, that even here the ever im-
measurable interval which separates the Creator from the most

* Eph. vi. 12 ; Col. ii. 15, &c.

136 THE NEUTRAL ANGELS.

perfect of creatures must be most carefully kept in view. And
at all events this expression must in no case be applied to the
second or third persons of the Godhead, nor be confounded
therewith, otherwise this designation would not only be false,
but altogether an abomination.

Revelation contains an inexhaustible mine of verities, and
I have only wished, by the way, to call attention to these as
yet unexplored treasures. But it is above all important, for
the philosophical point of view, steadily to insist upon and
enforce the truth, that in no respect can we form a notion
adequately grand and lofty, or rich and manifold enough, of
the Creation. The compactly closed and orderly arranged
system is almost always the death of truth. So also is that
line which, however, seems to be a connatural fault in the
very form of man's faculty of judgment that straight line
between black and white, for even if it be not radically wrong,
it yet leaves much on both sides unconsidered and ill under-
stood.

With this impression, I shall allow myself to notice an
opinion but little known, which, morever, if I had not met
with it in writers who, in this province of inquiry, are of the
highest authority, I should scarcely have ventured to adduce.
In this department of spiritual knowledge, a man would much
rather confine himself to the simple primary truth than call
attention to mere opinions. The opinion I allude to is to be
found in St. Jerome, i.e., in that very Father who, for theolo-
gical judgment, is acknowledged by all to be the first and the
greatest. It was held also by St. Francis de Sales, that holy
saint of spiritual love, and who, even on that account, is so
superior to the many hundreds of the schoolmen before him,
as also to so many ideologists after him. Lastly, it occurred
to Leibnitz, who of all philosophers was most possessed of a
true and fine intellectual tact to perceive and discover all the
most secret, delicate traits of a great system, even though most
remote in character from his own. But still, with this array
of great authorities, it remains nothing more than a wholly
problematical opinion, on which, as an article of positive faith,
nothing is or ever can be decided. Now this opinion is, that
in the revolt of the rebellious spirits, while those who re-
mained in their state of innocence and in their allegiance
rallied only the closer round their Creator, a considerable num-

DOCTRINE OF MAN'S PUB-EXISTENCE. 137

ber, fearful and undecided, vacillated between good and evil,
and as we might justly say, with the weakness of the human
character, remained neutral in the conflict, and thereby lost
their original place in the hierarchy of the heavenly host, with-
out, however, being counted among the utterly lost. As a
fourth authority for this opinion, I might adduce Dante. He
is indeed a poet, but still a theological poet, and deeply versed
in theology, who would never have arbitrarily devised or in-
vented, or even adopted such a notion, had he not found it
existing among others before him, and had he not been able
to adduce a good and valid authority for it. As a good Ghi-
belline, he was, moreover, no friend of neutral spirits, either
in this world or the other; and he passes the most severe
sentence upon those beings whom, as he says, heaven has cast
out, and hell would not receive.*

But what if we may propound the question with some-
thing more of philosophical indifference than the poet what,
according to the analogy of the divine economy and merciful
justice, as elsewhere displayed, are we to suppose the doom of
these undecided and wavering spirits ? In the first place, we
may well suppose that they would be submitted to a new pro-
bation : just as a general gives another opportunity to the
troops who in some evil moment have shown a want of spirit,
to retrieve their honour. Now if it be allowable to assume that
this, or some similar idea, or some tradition of the kind, had
an influence on and gave rise to the doctrine of the pre-
existence of men, which is so generally diffused among the

* Dell' Inferno, Canto III.

" quel cattivo coro

Degli angeli che non furon rebelli,
Ne fur fedeli a Dio, ma per se foro.
Cacciarli i Ciel, per non esser men belli ;
Ne lo profundo Inferno gli riceve,
Ch' alcuna gloria i rei avrebber d' elli."

Thus rendered by Carey :

" with that ill-band

Of angels mixed, who nor rebellious proved
Nor yet were true to God, but for themselves
Were only. From his bounds Heaven drove theto,
Not to impair his lustre ; nor the depth
Of Hell receives them, lest th' accursed tribe
Should glory thence with exultation vain." Trans.

138 MIGRATION OF THE SOTTL AMONG THE STARS.

Hindoos, and which was also held by the Platonists, and even
Christian Platonists, of the first centuries, we can then con-
ceive how this otherwise so arbitrary assumption and ground-
less hypothesis could have arisen. Groundless, however, it
may well be named, not only because no cause or explanation
of it is adduced, but as being agreeable neither to the nature
of the soul nor to the constitution of things ; so that, regarded
even in this light, it must be looked upon as a singular instance,
and consequently as an exception from the laws of nature and
as a miraculous intervention of divine power. But a mere
pre-existence of spirits would, however, be no true pre-exist-
enee in the sense of the Hindoo theology, or of the Platonists,
since, by its union with and by the accession of a soul, it
becomes a wholly different and quite a new being. Moreover,
in this hypothesis, as it is further worked out in the Hindoo
and Platonic systems, the whole character and true destination
of human life is entirely misunderstood, inasmuch as it is
represented as a place and period of punishment ; whereas,
rightly conceived, and even philosophically contemplated, it
appeai-s rather as a battle-place, and the time of discipline and
preparation for eternity.

It is the problem and vocation of philosophy not merely to
set forth the truth clearly and simply, but also, whenever it
can be done incidentally and easily, to account for and explain
great and remarkable errors, especially such as were prevalent
among the earliest nations and ages. Now among those errors
which are most remarkable in ancient history, this of the
Hindoos and Platonists holds in my eyes a very prominent
place. But philosophically to explain an error, means not to
reject it at once as absurd and undeserving of notice, but
requires rather that we should first of all really understand
it, i. e., that we should study it, and, to a certain degree, enter
into its spirit, and seek to discover its best significance, or in
other words, that interpretation which is nearest to the truth,
and then in conclusion accurately to determine the point where
error begins and truth is violated.

All this however may now be left to its own merits. In
touching upon it, my only object has been to call attention to
the wonderful variety of God's creative power, even in the
copious theme of the immortality of the soul. And in this view
it appeared to me not unprofitable to notice even the most

NATURE CONSIDERED RELATIVELY TO MAN. 139

discrepant theories on the subject, as being nevertheless well
calculated to throw a clear and steady light on the simple truth.
In the last age, since the Hindoo metempsychosis, as it is now
accurately and authentically known, appeared too serious and
sad a doctrine to meet with the welcome and concurrence
of the existent generation, a brighter and more fanciful theory
was propounded. In it this life has been astronomically
depicted in the brightest and most attractive colours as a walk
among the stars, continually ascending from one sidereal
existence to another. In the limited range of human know-
ledge, it is alike impossible to deny or to prove the possibility
of such a migration among the stars. But it is evidently a
wiser course, and one far more agreeable to the nature and
limits of man's powers of understanding, for him to confine
his views to his own immediate home the earth, investigating,
sifting, and divining its mysteries, than to lose himself in airy
dreams amid the whole starry universe. For, perhaps, that
which man is seeking so far off, he may find much closer to
his own doors than he suspects. For it is not improbable
that this planet of our earth contains in its interior many
subterranean courses and secret chambers of death, together
with the seeds of light which are to spring up into the future
resurrection.

But this may be reserved for consideration in another place.
Here I will only add, in conclusion, that opposite to that
gradational scale, already so often mentioned, which the vast
pyramid of nature forms in relation to God and its own living
development, stands another scale for man, adapted to his
needs and suited to his narrow position and limited intel-
ligence. In this scale, nature, i. e., in this sense, the nature
which most immediately surrounds and environs man, this
planet of our earth which bears and nourishes the human race,
is first of all man's habitation, teeming indeed with life, and
even itself a living thing, in which, however, he is ever meet-
ing here and there with something that tells him it is not his
proper home. In the second step of this view of nature, which
contemplates it principally in its relation to man and man's
wants, the natural world in its present form appears as the
battle-place and debatable ground of the still undecided, or
rather not as yet terminated, struggle between the good and
evil powers, and the fiercer the strife again begins to be, the

140 NATURE BEST DESCRIBED BY SYMBOLS.

more necessary is it not to overlook this aspect of the matter.
The third gradation in this view of nature, considered relatively
to the mind or spirit of man in his finite existence, is that
which teaches him to look upon it as the visible veil QJ. the
invisible world, covered all over and richly ornamented with
significant symbols and hieroglyphics. And even because
nature itself is even a symbolical being, therefore, when we
speak of its inmost life and its spirit, or its meaning as a
whole, i. e., when we attempt to study and to understand it, not
physically only, but even philosophically, we can only hope to
convey our meaning symbolically, by employing scientific
illustrations and living symbols

END OF LECTURE VI.

141

LECTURE VII.

OF THE DIVINE WISDOM AS MANIFESTED IN THE REALM
OF TRUTH, AND OF THE CONFLICT OF THE AGE WITH
ERROR.

GOD is a spirit of truth ; and in the realm of truth, therefore,
the divine order, and the law of wisdom which reigns therein,
shines forth with an especial clearness with a higher degree
of evidence or greater perspicuity than even in the region of
nature, which for us is for the most part half-dark, or at the
very best but a chiaro-oscuro a mixture of light and dark-
ness. But man, formed out of the dust of the earth, placed,
as it were, in the very centre of nature, as its first-born son
or its earthly lord, is in this respect himself a natural being.
Even in his susceptibility for higher and divine truth, man is
tied to and is dependent on a similar and collateral grade of
development in the life of nature, which can in no case bo
violently broken, nor a step in it arbitrarily overleaped, without
involving the most disastrous consequences as the penalty of so
unnatural a course. Even in education there reigns a similar
law of gradual development according to the natural progres-
sion of the different ages of life. With the boy of good and
natural abilities, who shows an aptness and willingness to
learn when knowledge is presented to his mind, and implanted
in a true and living form, the teacher's first care is to improve
this disposition, and to strengthen and to foster it, and by fur-
nishing it with the due measure and the right quality of intel-
lectual culture, gradually to develope its powers. At this age
the moral part of education will wisely confine itself to laying
a foundation of good habits, to the careful exclusion of all evil
communication and the deadly contagion of wicked example.
In the soft and yielding character of the child there can
scarcely be as yet any question about principles or sentiments.
But the case is very different with youth. If at this time of
life the moral character be not carefully formed simultaneously

142 GKADTJAiL DEVELOPMENT OP MANKIND.

with its scientific cultivation, then is the good season irrepar-
ably lost, and rarely, if ever, can the deficiency be after-
wards supplied. For when this stage of intellectual and moral
culture is once passed, when the mind has begun at last to
move with greater freedom and to mature itself, the young
man is at once admitted to the full light of science, or enters
into the busy course of active life, to be there brought to the
touchstone of experience.

And a similar series of gradation may be observed on a
larger scale in the historical succession and development of
the ages of the world. For such is, in every case, the gradual
expansion of man's consciousness, as he is at present consti-
tuted. His senses must be first excited and expanded ; then,
and then only, with any good result, can the soul be led to
the good and divine, which, however, not content to dismiss
them after the first look of wonder and amazement, it must
rather dwell upon with the full and deep feelings of admiration
and reverence ; until at last, being wholly filled with them, it
derives from their inspiration a new stimulus and excitement,
and thereby is for ever and permanently directed to the true
end and aim of existence. And now at last can the free spirit
apprehend aright the divine truth, and, in the spirit of this
knowledge, act with vital energy, conformably to that position
in God's great world which has been assigned and allotted to
him.

And this order cannot be transgressed with impunity. Xone
of its intermediate steps can be overleaped without involving
the most fearful consequences. If the senses be not first of
all excited and expanded, then will it be lost labour to attempt
to win and fortify the heart, or to turn the soul towards the
never-setting sun of divine truth. And accordingly, how
many attempts, both on a large and a small scale, at the
moral regeneration of mankind have totally failed even for
want of the first step of a forerunning light and previous illu-
mination, by which the observation should have been roused,
the senses stimulated, and the eye opened. But when, on the
contrary, the full light is imparted to or gained by the mind,
while the soul still remains enveloped in darkness and fast
wedded to its evil habits, without attaining to a higher exal-
tation, then, indeed, the result is equally grievous, though
different from that which follows from the mistake of over-

FIRST STEP OF REVELATION PREPARATORY. 143

leaping the first step. It has an effect ; it does not remain
without an influence. So long as the moral part of man is
wholly neglected, and is either left rude and barbarous or
suffered to become degenerate, then science works indeed, but
only as a destroying element. In so bad a soil the true know-
ledge is ever transformed into false, and the more profoundly
it is apprehended the more vividly and vigorously it is pur-
sued the more fatally, perniciously, and destructively does it
work. The examples and the proofs of the injurious conse-
quences of too rapid and premature development of scientific
enlightenment amidst a general prevalence of moral depravity,
and the subversion of those principles which are the founda-
tion of national existence and prosperity, might easily be found
at no great distance from our own age. And they admit also
of being demonstrated as clearly and convincingly by earlier
instances from the history of the Greeks and Romans. The
production of these proofs, however, would carry us beyond
our present limits, and the truth they would establish, is not,
moreover, the end to which our present disquisitions are
directed. The theme of this Lecture is the course observed
by eternal wisdom, or the divine order in the realm of truth.
My object is to call your attention to the care with which
Providence observes a gradual progression in its mental de-
velopment of the human race, lovingly suiting and adapting
itself to the weakness and finiteness of humanity, and to the
imperfection of earthly creatures, according to that principle
of divine condescension, so often mentioned already, which,
throughout the divine operations in the world, and His influ-
ence on man, is distinctly visible.

Thus, then, in the knowledge immediately imparted to man
by a higher providence we may discern a preliminary period
a previous illumination, in order to re-open the eye of man,
which heathenism had blinded to the truth, that it might be
able to see and discern God. This first step of revelation was
little more than a preparation for the future ; but the second
was, or has been, an illumination of the soul a vital renewal
of it a total conversion of it from the state of darkness to
the Everlasting Light and the Sun of Righteousness. But in
this living development of the highest life, which is even the
divine light of the Spirit, the third and last step (which indeed
commences in and is involved in the second, even as it also

144 MAN'S GENERAL SENSE TOE, TRUTH.

had its germ in the first) is the full enlightenment of the spirit
or mind. And accordingly this full revelation is in Scripture
itself, as being the close and completion of the whole, expressly
described, and named the last time.

Before attempting, however, to point out the divine order in
the education of the human race, by the gradual revelation of
truth, two general and preliminary remarks seem called for.
I observe then, first of all, that when we speak of sense, soul,
and spirit, as the successive terms in the growing capacity of
the human consciousness for a higher knowledge and heavenly
training, and for truth in general, but more especially for
divine truth, then the general sense of truth, which such an
hypothesis supposes, and which indeed is its essential founda-
tion, must be understood as comprising all those other par-
ticular species, branches, or departments which we have
already enumerated. I mean the common sense of sound
reason. For that susceptibility for the impressions of nature,
and the understanding, which, as I said before, constitute the
sense for the revelation of spirit, or the spirit of revelation-
whether written or historical are alike comprised in that
one and common sense for truth. Or perhaps we may rather
say, that by their joint operations they form it ; while, how-
ever, in its special application, now this now that constituent
preponderates or perhaps that this one and universal sense
for truth is called into action, and made to co-operate now in
this direction and now in that. Moreover, that internal con-
currence and assent of the will, which I have endeavoured to
show is the proper sense in man for God and for divine
things, belongs also, as an essential and element of its consti-
tution, to this general sense for truth. For that the opposite
fault of self-will and obstinacy, is in the highest degree a
hindrance of good, even in the acquisition of knowledge
and the recognition of truth, is found by experience in the
earliest essays of education. But not only in the elemen-
tary principles of learning, but even in the most highly
finished and elaborate systems of metaphysical ideas, con-
structed by the profoundest thinkers and philosphers, does
this spirit of negation and contradiction show itself, and
prove the greatest obstacle to truth and the most fruitful
source of error.

The second remark which we have to make before enter-

REVELATION GRADUAL. 145

ing upon the immediate subject of our Lecture, refers to the
natural progression of the living development of the human
consciousness. This gradation, we would observe, holds good,
and is applicable, not merely to the moral education of man,
but also to the intellectual improvement of man's capacity, as at
present constituted, for all higher and divine verities. But,
however true this may be, where the general sense for truth
is not from the first open and full of light, where the soul is
not already perfectly free and pure; yet on the other hand
there is nothing against on the contrary, everything favours
the supposition, that the earliest revelation imparted to man-
kind the illumination which was given to the first man, and
bestowed upon him as his heavenly inheritance on earth, was
a full and perfect enlightenment of his mind (geist). For his
senses were open and clear, his soul as yet incorrupt, pure,
and free. Both were directed to God, and being one with and
at unison with nature, were keenly alive to and deeply im-
pressed by every token of God's glory and majesty in creation.
It is quite an error to assume, or rather to fancy, that this state
of purity and innocence was a state of ignorance like that of
the child or of the wild man. The tree of life was given to
him entirely and without reserve, as also dominion over the
earth, whose first made living creatures the Lord subjected to
his dominion, bringing them before him to call and to name
them. The knowledge of death was indeed designedly with-
held from him, as also the existence of the evil spirits, even
because it was exactly therein that his trial and probation
were to consist. And so both are perfectly reconcilable : that
height of knowledge in the clearest light of nature, which the
sacred traditions of all primitive nations so positively and
unanimously assign to the first man, is in nowise inconsistent
with that ignorance of death which is no less expressly
ascribed to him. Moreover, had man but preserved and
Kept alive in his heart this feeling of God, he would imme-
diately have recognised his enemy, and even thereby have
triumphed over him, and become the redeemer of nature,
instead of requiring, now that he has foiled in that his high des-
tination, a Redeemer for his own fallen race. This first reve-
lation therefore was, we may well assume, in the beginning as
it will also be in the end, a full enlightenment of the spirit of
man, but which however was soon darkened by his dis-

14G THE JEWS THE PROPHETIC PEOPLE.

obedience and fall. This, too, is the shape which the matter
assumes in the legendary history of all the primeval nations
of antiquity, and these are the threads of light which in the
labyrinthine confusion of legends, symbols, and tongues of
earliest heathendom, carry us safely out of its mazes and back
to the clear starting-point of the pure and undefiled revelation
of God. It were not difficult to show how through the first two
millenniums and a half, or five-and-twenty centuries, a higher
providence and divine guidance was ever quietly carrying on
these luminous threads of original truth, and from time ^ to
time renewing them. But this history of the human mind
in the primeval world, however highly attractive, would take
ns out of our proper limits. Upon the eclipse of man's soul,
when spiritual darkness universally prevailed, the senses origi-
nally open to a higher light were closed against it. His
better perceptions were overwhelmed or buried beneath a
chaos of true and false or half-true images and symbols.
Then it was that the natural law of spiritual development
commenced in its full force. It followed the progression
already described. In the first term the numbed and deadened
sense had to be awakened and quickened again, and in its
second the soul renewed, purified, and converted, before either
could become susceptible of the Ml and perfect illumination of
the Spirit. To trace this natural law in the human conscious-
ness and in the divine education of mankind, and to ascertain
the progressive steps in the divine revelations, expressly given
and designed to effect that gradual development, is the object
of the present Lecture.

The first step or term thereof was the selection of a
single people to be the schoolmaster of the whole human race.*
When the heathenish mass of legends or myths and symbols
had reached the height of confusion, and the evil had become
otherwise incurable, one nation was chosen and set apart by
God as His instrument in opening the eyes of men to the abyss
of error in which the whole world was plunged, and to direct
their looks exclusively to the future. Many prophets were
sent to the chosen people, and it was at first guided and ruled
by none but prophets. And, perhaps, we cannot form a more
correct notion of the character and history of this people, so
peculiarly distinguished from all the other nations of the
* Gal. iii. 24.

REVELATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 147

ancient world, than by thinking of it absolutely and in its
destination as the prophetic people exclusively intended to
point to a distant future, and whose leading ideas and inmost
feelings were to be attached to, and to look far into, a remote
futurity. Three strokes or words, at most, comprise the highly
simple revelation of the first stage the first ray of light
at the beginning in which, however, lies contained the
hidden key and solution for the chaos of legends, and
all the enigmas of the primitive world and of primeval
history. But this brief and simple revelation was accom-
panied with a strict line of demarcation between the Gentiles
and the chosen people, who were separated from all the
heathen nations by customs and laws, while a long ray of
hope reached far into the distant future. This point of light
at the beginning was, however, but little considered and
ill-understood; the line of demarcation too was often trans-
gressed upon the slightest pretext and most ordinary tempta-
tions. And when at last it was more strictly kept, it was
observed, not in its spirit, but in the letter ; and, in consequence,
even that high and lofty hope which- irradiated it was totally
misunderstood, being interpreted, in a narrow spirit of national
exclusiveness, of a temporal Redeemer, and a political redemp-
tion from the yoke of the Roman oppressor. This delusion, and
the extreme ingratitude with which consequently the Light that
came into the world was, on the whole, received by those
to whom It was in the first place communicated, has been
often painted in the darkest colours of indignant censure by V
the stern pen of history. The stiffneckedness of the Jews has '
been a fruitful theme for virtuous indignation. But, for my
part, I hardly know whether, in this respect, a different and
more favourable sentence can be passed on the generations
winch have witnessed the subsequent steps of divine revelation
in its further development. Full time was allowed to the pro-
phetic people to develope itself; and, after the lapse of twenty-
five centuries, which make up the first age of the world, a
millennium and a half was allowed to this initiatory step 'of
revelation. And now, at length, after forty centuries of pre-
paration and hope, when the long, dark winter of the olden
olatry was over, the historical development of the human
race reached its culminating point, and with the vernal
solstice (Fruhlings-Solstitium) of this new manifestation

148 PIBST EIGHT CHBISTIAN CENTTTBIES.

commenced the second term in this series of reflation or of
thedivine education of the human race. Even from its very
first owning everything characterises this second term of
^velop P m"nt g as notlntended for a complete and final revelation
of spirit and knowledge. Promising, and reserving to the
futoe that final manifestation, it forms,, in this respec a
marked contrast to the highly-cultivated.science of the Greeks,
which, however, in spite of its high pretensions, did

continually more and more sensuous in its character.
edWe ob/ect of this second enlightenment of tlrcwhote

> ne'w but heaven-descended sentiment had to engage
with the opposing spirit of the old world. j. .,,,;* is

But men soon relapsed into their former discord; and rt is
now our painful task to point out the rise and growth of to

and to its close and conclusion. - of - QT1 u v thU

In the first three or four centuries of Christianity, this

spirit of opposition showed itself in two different forms. In

geone ?he newand simple faith was fi^st of all perverted

into a chaos of philosophical ^^^.^Sf^Si
ter * In the other, a secret and half infidelity hid itseJ
behind a ^l of woks,! against which the fai th must defend
itself behind an outwork of words also ; and in this period (
httor? a^ubde and refined logomachy first of aU attained
to a great and lasting importance for mankind ^"
pute, the simple foundation of the faith was in de ^ main-
Lined and defended, in its puriiy and mtegnty, agaii

* The Gnostics and the Manichees. Trans. -N^hi* Paul of

+ The Arians, with all the other rationalisuig sects of Noetus, Pi
Saraosata, Sabellius, and the like. Trans.

THE MIDDLE AGES. 149

hostile attacks; but the first-love lost much of its fresh-
ness and ardour. Consequently the new life, which sprang
up with the new faith, was unable to fulfil the hopes which at
its first rise men had reasonably entertained of it, and by re-
forming the corrupt civilisation of the old Roman world, to
renew it entirely in God. Accordingly an alien and purely
physical element had to be associated with it. The northern
nations were called in to infuse fresh energy into the worn-
out races of Europe.

In this work of physical regeneration three centuries were
again spent. But at the close of this first period, it was seen
on a sudden how little the olden spirit of dissension had been
really conquered, or even mollified. The faith, it was said,
may in all essential points be perfectly identical, but a division
may be and still subsists notwithstanding. But what does
that mean but that the God and Saviour of the world wor-
shipped by the East, is different from Him whom the West
acknowledges ? And thus the one God and the one faith was
in the life of man again divided into two ; and this singular
schism, without any adequate cause, still subsists to the pre-
sent day.* In the following great period a fresh life blossomed
in rich and manifold expansion out of that revelation of love
which, properly speaking, now first of all put forth its full vital
energies, giving a new shape to all the institutions of human
society, and impressing on art, as well as on moral and political
science, a new character, totally different from that which
they possessed among the most enlightened nations of anti-
quity. Viewed in its loving aspect, *. e., in its chivalry, there
is much in this period to attract and engage our enthusiasm
and sympathies, but for the fearful discord which broke out
within it, and set one half of the world in hostile array against
the other. The two powers which ought to work together
for one divine end the two swords of which the Lord had
said, " It is enough,' 'f the spiritual sword of the kingdom
of faith and truth and the civil sword of earthly justice, were
drawn and held in threatening attitude against each other, by
which, however, the minds of men were torn and distracted by

* The schism of the East and West of the Greek and Roman Churches
produced by the illegal interference of the Bishops of Rome in the
diocese of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Trans.

t Luke xxii. 38.

150 ERA OF THE RESTORATION OP LETTERS.

the inward struggle of conflicting duties in a far greater degree
than the external peace of society was disturbed. But it was
not merely in such a collision that the strife alone showed itself;
but it extended even to the confusion of the two domains, and
a forgetfulness of their proper duties and respective positions.

In the instance, it is true, of the mailed ecclesiastic, how-
ever, at first sight, the union in one person of such opposite
characters as the soldier and priest may startle the mind, the
gallant and noble bearing of the spiritual knight soon recon-
ciles us to the strange phenomenon. So, too, when he whose
vocation it was to hold the pastoral staff began also to sway
the sceptre of a civil prince, the eminent skill and judgment
with which the difficult task of discharging the double and
often conflicting duties of so mixed a sovereignty was accom-
plished, silence every murmur of a protest. But when he who
ought to carry the crozier of peace hoisted the pennon of war,
such a sight naturally gave great offence, and sadly perplexed
the minds of men.

Thus, then, passed seven centuries more, making, with the
eight already described, fifteen altogether that have elapsed
from that great centre of the world's historv, when the spi-
ritual sun reached its meridian altitude in" this earthly life.
These added to the fifteen which had previously passed from
the first shining of the light of revelation, make no less than
three millenniums. And to these again three centuries more
are to be added. Such is the extremely slow course of the divine
guidance of the world, as regulated by the inexhaustible
patience and long-suffering of God in the education of his
human creatures.

In this last period, however, the spirit of discord has
become still more general, and has broken out in all its violence,
gradually attacking and drawing into the dispute every insti-
tution of society and every department of life. In the won-
derful coincidence of many and great discoveries, simulta-
neously made in widely distinct and independent branches of
science, the spirit of man read the proclamation of his ma-
jority. Conscious of this intellectual ripeness, in the first
use of its new powers it assumed towards the faith an atti-
tude of estrangement and controversy, instead of calmly ad-
vancing along the assigned path towards perfection. Even at
the very commencement of this period, the hostile relation

ANTICHRISTIAN SPIRIT OF THIS ERA. 151

between the new science and the ancient faith is perceptible
enough. But it soon showed itself more distinctly, as the rup-
ture became wider and more general, till at last the discord
extended to the very faith itself, which was henceforth broken
lip into bitter and opposing parties. Still later, a newer and
deeper animosity divided the faith in general from the whole
civil and political life, from which in many places its religious
foundation was altogether removed. And now that life was
thus deprived of its higher and spiritual significance, the
strife became universal and complete. Involving science and
life into the discord, it set them also in deadly array against
each other for life thus unspiritualizcd could no longer re-
concile itself to the dreamy ideal of a science which at most
was but partially true, while life itself could not satisfy the re-
quisitions of science. And fearful was the outbreak in which
this last antagonism of principle openly displayed its animosity.

This fourfold schism, then, first, between science and
faith; secondly, in the faith itself ; thirdly, between life and
faith ; and lastly, between the new science (which usurped
the place of the faith' it had discarded) and life itself this
fourfold schism, with its several branches and ramifications,
extending to every department of human existence, lies now
before us, in the present age, as the still unsolved problem of life.

And who but God alone shall or is able to solve it ? As a
question of dispute, this problem and especially its inmost
root, the schism in the faith can be profitably discussed only
in the spirit of love and mutual forbearance between cognate
and kindred minds, who, while they think differently on a
few points, yet agree in most. Many works might be
adduced on both sides, composed in that conciliatory spirit
of approximation, which is most accordant with true phi-
losophy, whose first effort is in all cases directed to recon-
ciling and removing the deeply -rooted animosities of human
nature. To a complete decision, however, of the whole
matter in question, we shall never arrive on the road of dis-
putation. Even though the dispute were maintained with
the most valid reasoning, and were conducted with the most
dignified forbearance and mildness, the attempt would only
be lost labour. For there exists no supreme court of appeal
to whose sentence both sides would be ready to submit. On
the one side the reason, which advances with unlimited

152 THE FINAL MANIFESTATION OF TRUTH.

freedom in its investigations, and faith on the other, with its
assumed authority to decide in the last instance, would alike
refuse to acknowledge its adversary as a competent tribunal.

Thus deeply piercing into the very marrow of humanity,
and thus mortal is the conflict. Indeed a man can scarcely touch
upon it without being earned almost involuntarily into the
very midst of the strife, and very fortunate may he account
himself if he retires from it unscathed. And if it were only
from a mere human point of view of a scientific dispute that
I had to consider it, good reason should I have to be on my
guard lest on this matter my mind should be as it were
forcibly rent and divided into two halves. I have, however,
at present no anxiety of the kind. For my purpose is solely
and entirely to trace out the divine order in the revelation
progressively given to mankind, and following this luminous
thread to lead reflection up to the finishing close of God's
education of the human race, where, in the full shining of
the perfect day, there shall be no more controversy and no
more doubt. Viewing the matter in this light, I see but little
to attract my sympathies in the publicly conducted contro-
versy, however highly important and pre-eminent a place it
may hold in the history of the world. Far more attractive to
me are those isolated and retiring spirits on both sides who,
taking but little if any part in the prevailing dispute, have
their eyes directed rather to the future in watchful expectation
of that full and final illumination, with all its attendant pro-
mises among which we must reckon first and foremost, the
peace and joy of believing in the last revelation of divine mind.
Of these calmer spirits, however, some have actually fallen
and others have been on the very brink of falling into the
plausible error of regarding this third step of enlightenment
as an absolutely new revelation, whereas it is quite clear that
it will be nothing more than the simple completion of the
earlier steps. For a revelation which should give itself out as
perfectly new, apart from and independent of that saving
illumination of the soul which marks the second step, and
which we are already in possession of; which should disavow
this earlier divine revelation of the heart, of love and life in
faith, which is withheld from no one, and which every one
knows, would even by such an announcement proclaim its own
falsity. New heavens and a new earth are indeed expressly

INTERMEDIATE CONFLICT OF TRUTH AND ERROR. 153

promised among the blessings of this last age. Mention is
also made of a Gospel that shall be preached "unto all them
that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and
tongue, and people."* This Gospel, however, is nowhere
called a new one ; since in the old one there is enough for life,
if only it be duly observed, and also for knowledge, if only
it be rightly understood. But it is called the "everlasting"
Gospel; and by this term it is plain that nothing is to be
understood but this full light of divine knowledge now made
perfect in God, and which has become one with faith, and
consequently fully reconciled with life also. In this domain,
and in this spiritual sense, it is not necessary that the fair
morning-star of faith, which has guided us through the dark
night and lighted us to the day-spring, should become extinct
when the sun ascends the heavens in his full meridian splen-
dour. On the contrary, it shall burn the more brightly ; or
rather, to speak more correctly, for here no such contrast
finds a place, it is the morning-star itself that shall expand into
the full sun and illuminate the whole world with its light.

Waiting, therefore, for this manifestation, we must endure
with the more patience the existing discord so long as our
lot is placed amidst it, and show greater moderation towards
it, since we are subject to it in hope. Only let me not be
thought of as recommending a spurious impartiality, which
in truth, is little better than a culpable indifference to questions
the most important that can agitate our own generation and
all humanity or the indiscriminating contempt of an arro-
gated superiority, which is even still more offensive and
baneful to truth than the most vehement adoption of either of
the conflicting views, if associated with honesty of purpose
and conviction. As little, too, would I be thought to favour
the presumptuous decisions of individuals, which, adopting
a peculiar principle, or, as it is styled, a higher point of
-view, even though occasionally it does justice to each in
part, yet on the whole materially wrongs them both. In
the first ages of this intellectual disease, great names were
arrayed on either side. And that through all its variations
brilliant talents and scientific attainments maintained the con-
flict, while there was much that was false and wrong in both
parties, is equally unquestionable. But what avails the un-
* Rev. xiv. 6.

154 IRRELIGIOUS FEATURE OF THIS CONFLICT.

righteousness of man against the righteousness of the cause,
when, as we must, we regard the latter as the cause of God ?

The painful feature of the conflict is the fact that, in a
certain measure, God Himself has become the object of man's
rancour and animosity. In sacred lore and tradition, but
pre-eminently in revelation, God Himself became as it were a
child ; and in the childlike language of the heart, and in the
most confiding manner, gave Himself into the hands of men.
But now, even this marvellous child and the divine word is
near being torn asunder by the disputants, like the child in the
old story or parable. Two mothers, we are told, came and
stood before the king, disputing violently w r hose was the child
that had been overlaid, and whose was the living one. But
the true mother, for both had fallen asleep in the night,
was recognised by her prayer that the child might not be
divided in two by the sword of justice, but preferred that her
son should live, even though she must lose it by resigning it
to the other. "Whereupon the king ordered his officers in no
wise to slay the living child, but to give it to her who by her
love had proved herself its mother/*

But for us the great sentence which is to decide all contro-
versies, and can alone put an end to this discord, is not yet
pronounced. But, in truth, the more confirmed symptoms of
the deepening intellectual strife which mark the present gene-
ration, furnish one proof the more of the near approach of the
day of final decision. And then the perfect triumph of divine
revelation and the fiery baptism of the Spirit, which in those
last days shall be administered, shall bring with it the long
promised universal peace of the soul w r hen under a divine
leader the in-visible One now become visible all that hope
in Him, of all kindreds and families, shall be reunited in Him
in one love and one fellowship. An universal and perfect
peace like this, w r hich, according to revealed truth, is the last
that is to be imparted to the human race, and is even to
continue for ever, must, it is natural to suppose, be preceded
by a violent but closing conflict. And do we not in our own
age see such a one developing itself in a manner unparalleled
by all that have gone before in it ? To this conflict of our
age, then, I must now devote a few words, and consider pre-
eminently the relations subsisting between it and science.
* 1 Kings iii. 16.

ATHEISTIC TENDENCY OF MODERN SCIENCE. 155

In many and various ways, unquestionably, was the spirit
of man called upon in this beautiful era of the restoration of
science to consider itself ripe and mature ; its feelings, too,
answered to the call, and, in some respects, perhaps it was
even so. But let us examine the matter by the same law of
sound reason that we should judge of a corresponding case
in ordinary and social life. Let us suppose a youth to have
attained his legal majority, or, perhaps, by his father's will,
declared of age at a still earlier period. Is it right for him,
all at once, to forget the love wherewith his mother has nursed
and reared him ? Is it right in him, misinterpreting alto-
gether the motive of his father's dying wish, to cast off and
trample under foot all the wise and useful lessons with
which, according to the measure of his years, his mind was
stored at school, merely because he has remarked or expe-
rienced that there is much in life which was not touched
upon in his school learning ? If we saw this in private life,
should we not form a very bad opinion of such a youth who so
suddenly throws off all restraint, and take care that sooner or
later he should fall under another and a stricter oversight,
since he has all at once outgrown parental control. Why thfti
should we form a different judgment in the realm of science
and truth ? All eyes and universal expectation were directed
to this restoration of science. And these hopes were right in
so far as through the lapse of these last times which are has-
tening to a close, the course and trial of human nature are
even to lie therein. But if, as already pointed out, they fell
into a grave error, who, even while they kept within the
bounds of faith, looked upon the promised completion and
final triumph of the divine and eternal revelation in the
light of a new manifestation of truth, and almost as a new
religion ; far greater was the aberration of those who formed
the conception of, and hoped to attain to, an ever advancing
science altogether without God, or at least one which, pro-
ceeding side by side with Him, should never come into vital
contact with Him ! But men cannot thus pass along by the
side of Omnipotence, without coming into contact with Him
and every effort to rise into the higher regions of truth',
which is begun and intended to remain wholly without God,
will, sooner or later, be directed against Him. And every
branch of knowledge, and more especially the highest, if it

156 FALSEHOOD TO BE FOUGHT WITH ITS OWN WEAPONS.

be without God, is but a false light of the mind (geist), which
will only too soon beguile it into the olden darkness of the
soul. And so it came to pass then. For under this smooth
surface of a seeming moral mildness, the lurking poison sud-
denly broke out as it were by a fearful conspiracy of the
times, spreading its contagion far and wide, and corrupting
everything that came within its reach even as it had been
predicted of it in the second book of the future.*

For even out of the struggle of good against evil, the latter
suddenly arose again in a new and unexpected shape, coming
forth, as it were, out of the sea, and the moral world was
transformed into a sea of blood. And so indeed, in these pro-
phetic pages, it is predicted of the enigmas of the last days.
Now, throughout this great catastrophe of the world, so far
as it can be regarded as a peculiar and especial, but historical
warning from God, and a revelation of the divine will, we
may trace among the better disposed, the same gradation of
illumination, advancing through the ascending series of sense,
soul, and spirit, that we have already noticed, on a larger
scale, in the course of the history of mankind. The senses
of many individuals became, indeed, more and more open, the
more clearly they recognised, by its historical characters, the
fatal abyss to which the age of the world was drawing nigh.
The epoch of the restoration was moreover followed by a
general revolution in the sentiments, the moral principles,
and prevailing pursuits of men. The third step, however, of
a right and true knowledge which, from the position of a full
scientific enlightenment of the mind or spirit, should pene-
trate into the profoundest depths of truth, is still wanting, or
at any rate exists as yet only in a very imperfect degree.
This property is the defective point in the problem of the age,
and in all attempts hitherto made to solve it.

The false science, even that unhuman and godless science
which has been already described, can only be overcome and
conquered by the true. The mere method of negation
which generally, indeed, is seldom the right one is here too
insufficient for the purpose. And so, in fact, when clouds
of dust darken the air, or swarms of noxious insects fill
it, it may suffice if the goodman of the house shuts to his

* The Apocalypse or Revelations of St. John the Divine. Trans.

THIS METHOD PURSUED BY MOSES. 157

casement, as he may lawfully do, even because it is his own ;
but when the fearful thunder-storm is lowering in the
heavens, the closed window will but little ensure the safety
of his dwelling, unless he has more wisely provided against
the danger, by a good lightning-conductor. But what is
that? And how came man first to think of it? Why, by
studying the electrical phenomena, and arriving at a full
understanding of its nature, and so in obedience to its laws,
contriving a counteracting and diverting agent for the electric
current, and converting the natural action of the threatening
element into an instrument of protection; And just in the
same way will a true wisdom proceed in the domain of science
and truth. It is only by a good power of a like kind and similar
action to its own, that the supremacy of evil can be overcome.
Even, therefore, and to this purport was the earnest warning
uttered by the mouth of Truth Itself against those who,
although they sat in Moses' seat, neither went in themselves,
nor suffered others that were entering to go in.*

And what a different picture does Holy Writ set before us
in the noble example 'of Moses ! No doubt the preparation
for the work to which he was to be called, of leading success-
fully the people entrusted to him by God out of their Egyptian
darkness through the fearful Red Sea and all the wanderings
in the wilderness, to the borders of the promised land, was
even the forty years of solitude among the noble pastoral peo-
ple with whom he spent the long period of ^ his exile. But
still it is not without a deep significance that it is written that
the daughter of the Egyptian monarch, having adopted the
foundling of the waters, brought him up and educated him
as her own son. So too assuredly is it not without design
that it is said so emphatically of him, that he " was learned
in all the wisdom of the Egyptians."! In the first place,
we have good reason to rejoice at and to acknowledge the
comprehensive spirit and wide standard of judgment which
Holy Writ here sets up. For whereas it passes a severer
sentence of reprobation on the Egyptians than on any other
heathen nation or people, for their moral depravity, it yet
acknowledges that they possessed a scientific wisdom, which
amply rewarded the labour of its acquisition, while it proved
the very errors wherewith in their extreme corruption they
* Matt, xxiii. 13. t Acts vii. 22.

158 A STRUGGLE FOR, TRUTH THE CONFLICT OF THE AGE.

had overloaded it, to be only the more culpable and deserving
of punishment. Shallow and superficial sceptics may, indeed,
as many have already done, avail themselves of such an ad-
mission, and cry, " There ! it is plain enough, Moses bor-
rowed everything from Egypt and the hieroglyphics."

But this is not the case. No doubt both the ten first and
the twelve last letters of the Hebrew alphabet arc hierogly-
phics, as their very names indicate : but in its primary
natural roots, nevertheless, and above all, in its whole spirit,
; and structure, and tone, this language differs widely from the
hieroglyphical Egyptian. Certainly Moses did learn from
Egypt all that there was for him to learn. And this learning
enabled him the more easily to disperse the thick Egyptian
darkness, and the less cause, consequently, had he to fear the
false arts of the Egyptian magicians and serpent charmers.
He took from them aa that was available for his purpose, but
he made it quite new again, and gave it another nature by the
end to which he employed it. He despoiled them of their
"jewels of gold and jewels of silver," by a theft permissible in
the realm of science and truth. For it is lawful for man to
wrest from the evil power all that may be converted into a
means of honouring the things of God and His revealed truth,
and which thereby is better employed, spiritualised, and
invested with a higher and better significance. This is time
even of our own days, as it was then, and indeed always has
been.

Oh that the many great men who, in our own generation,
have deserved so well of mankind, by devoting themselves to the
noble work of re-establishing right sentiments and principles,
had, in this their good design, followed the great example set
them by this man so highly preferred of God. But, with one
or two exceptions, it is impossible to boast of them that, like
Moses, they were " learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians."
And hence" the fact is at once explicable why, with such ardent
and unbounded zeal, they should have effected comparatively
so little against the modern Egyptians, and the new Egyptian
darkness of our own days.

An intellectual conflict about truth, and indeed about
divine truth, is the struggle of our age. This fact is already
seen and admitted by a few, but ere long it will be still more
generally acknowledged. God is a spirit of truth ; and even on

FALSEHOOD THII'LING WITH OATHS. 159

this account is His adversary, the spirit of contradiction,
termed " a liar from the beginning ;" and, of all the powerful
instruments and wicked devices of that evil one, the He is the
first and chiefest. And this suggests to me to notice, in pass-
ing, a point in the moral systems of our day, notwithstanding
that it does not properly lie within our prescribed limits. In
most of oui' ethical treatises the question of falsehood and
untruth is but carelessly treated, and seldom discussed with
that prominence and gravity which its great importance
demands. Overt transgressions of the laws belong rather
to jurisprudence than to ethics, which properly treats of
and analyses the leading faults of human character as so
many diseases of the soul. Now, the worst among these
are usually denominated mortal, i. <?., likely to bring the
soul unto death ; but the lie, in the full import of the term
the intrinsic proper lie of the soul, as the predominant fault
in a character of untruth a whole life become, as it were,
one great lie, is far more than mortal, it is even death itself.
And it is even of this sin this secret revolt against and
wounding of the Spirit, even the divine Spirit of Eternal
Truththat is said in Holy Writ, that it shall be forgiven
neither in this world nor in the next.

On this point, then, I think that moral theoiy and teach-
ing can never be stern and rigorous enough in its precepts,
especially as regards individuals. It is not, indeed, a question
about words, but about their interpretation, and what is meant
by those who use them ; and in this respect there may be, and
often is, a false and over- scrupulous delicacy of conscience.
When, however, we remember how, in particular ages of
history, oaths have been played with, millions of oaths lavishly
preferred and shortly re-taken in quite a different and oppo-
site sense, and soon again abjured with as little difficulty ;
and when we consider the evil effects this trifling with the
most solemn of obligations must have had on the moral cha-
racter of a people, we cannot but see some excuse in this
monstrous fact for certain small communities of Christians \\lio
absolutely refuse to take an oath in any case. For when, in
the important point of truth and falsehood, a grave error has
been committed on one side, it is better to meet it on the
other by too great strictness. A rigorous severity can never
entail such fearful consequences in such a case, as the opposite

160 THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE A SPIRIT OF TJNTRTJTH.

fault of an over-indulgent laxity, or, what is even still more
false and erroneous, the regarding the matter as trifling and
indifferent. But the further prosecution of this topic would
lead me out of my proper province, and I have only touched
upon it in passing to that which lies more immediately before

If then there is nothing so dangerous to the character of an
individual, both inwardly and outwardly if there is nothing
that works so insiduously, conveying its secret poison to the
very lowest roots and extremities of the moral character, as
untruth and the spirit of lying, how much more fearful must
its malignant influence prove when it is become the umversa
and prevailing fault of an age which has not only wandered
far from the truth, but is even animated with a deadly hatred

It is to this spirit of lies, and the false splendour of his
colossal empire, and to the final conflict which truth will have
to wage with it on earth, that the most awful of the prophe-
cies already alluded to refer. And the application is easily
made, since a greater part of their warning denunciations
have in our age ,alimd-COjme to an actual fulfilment,
then this giant spirit of destruction and untruth was strong
enough even in his cradle to throttle two-quarters of the
world * what must it be now that the permitted interval of
rest has passed away without being profitably employed to the
cause of truth, and now that this same spirit of murder anc
lies with a far greater body, and endued with far more magical
powers, is let loose again to tread the earth for a while with
iron feet and to deceive the nations?

Those whose responsible position in public life, or compre-
hensive sphere of intellectual activity, enable them to take in
at one glance all the various elements of evil and the pern
cious principles and destructive tendencies which are so actively
at work in our days, will not, perhaps, be disposed to reg
these remarks as groundless or exaggerated ; others, per
may make a mock at them but they may go on in their
delusion for a while.

In conclusion, I have but three observations to add.

* Schlegel is apparently alluding to the triumph of Mahommedanism
in Asia and Africa, and the almost total extinction of Christianity in thos
quarters of the^jEorld. Trans.

A CALL FOR UNION AMONG THE FRIENDS OF TRUTH. 161

first regards the divine permission of evil, and is intended to
form a 'supplement to that Theodicee which I have attempted,
in the only way that such a justification of the divine ways is
permissible to man, by appealing, viz., to his feelings, rather
than by attempting to force his conviction by the rigour of
demonstration. The full justification of the ways of Provi-
dence is reserved for a future day, when all mouths shall be
stopped, whether that awful crisis be near at hand or yet
tarries for a while. If now, the human race be actually sick
and in a sickly state, as indeed cannot well be denied, then
must God's overruling providence in the affairs of the world
be judged of in the same light as, and be compared to, the wise
treatment of a skilful physician. For as the latter, in the case
of a patient whose death was to be apprehended from a total
prostration of his bodily powers and energy, might wish for
or even venture to superinduce a violent paroxysm, in the hope
that in it he might perhaps be able to throw off his fatal
lethargy ; even so, in God's government of the world, those
predetermined councils, which seem so singular, but never-
theless are so expressly foretold, may have a somewhat similar
design. In the times' of the last struggle the power of dark-
ness will probably work itself to death on the earth; and
while the remnant shall come out of the crisis and fiery trial
purer and healthier, the divine truth is to gain a complete
triumph over sin and death.

The second remark I have to make applies to ourselves and
all the well-disposed among our contemporaries, and refers to
the disunion which subsists in these evil times even among the
best of men. Were two nations threatened in common by a
formidable enemy, would they not, however widely they might
differ in or perhaps be estranged from each other by their re-
spective constitutions, languages, and customs, forget in the
moment of danger their characteristic differences, and laying
aside all previous feelings of jealousy or estrangement unite for
their mutual protection and safety ? My heart's wish, therefore,
is that all the truly pious and well-wishers of truth, on which-
ever of the two sides of the now divided faith they may stand,
would unite together without sacrificing those more intimate
differences which cannot at present be got rid of or reconciled,
and, making a righteous peace of mutual forbearance, join
together in a firm alliance against the common enemy of all

162 FINAL TRIUMPH OF TRUTH.

truth and all faith. For that the dearest interests of reli-
gion are in our generation exposed to a violent assault, and
menaced with great and immediate danger, will not be denied
by any lover of truth, even though his conception of the truth
may differ from mine.

Lastly, the third observation that I promised will not take
the form of the utterance of a wish, as rather of the expression
of the firmest conviction, that, however awful and severe this
final conflict may prove, the good cause will not eventually be
lost, but that the great battle will have a favourable issue in
the complete victory of divine revelation, and the celestial
wisdom in the government of this kingdom of truth will be
fully manifest both to men and angels.

EXD OF LECTTTBE TU.

163

LECTURE VIII.

OF THE DIVINE ORDER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD
AND THE RELATIONS OF STATES.

" THE history of the world is the world's tribunal," * says
one of our most famous poets. If by these words he meant to
convey an opinion that no other tribunal of judgment is to be
expected than that which is even now set up in the history of
the world, then such an opinion, implying that the human race
is to live for ever in its present state, and in this particular
terrestrial life, would be even as groundless as that of the
fanciful conceit, that the human race had existed from all
eternity, if, in sooth, any of the philosophical dreamers of an-
tiquity had ever fallen on such a fancy, or, in modern times,
any of the antipodes to the usual current mode of thinking
should ever stumble upon it. The poet himself, as dramatist
and artist, would but have taken it ill had any one laid before
him a great drama, composed of several acts and scenes, from
which, however, the beginning was torn off, and which, ever
going on, untied the existing perplexities only to fall again into
new and fresh complications; or like a poor journal ever refer-
ring to a continuation, had no true end, no conclusion or proper
termination. But unquestionably a better sense is also con-
tained in the poet's words. He may have merely meant to
say that the mind which rules the course of mundane affairs is
a mind that inflicts retribution on the world ; and that all the
great epochs and incidents of history have a retributive cha-
racter and vindicatory significance.! Such an interpretation
* " Die Weltgeschichte 1st das Weltgericht."

SCHILLER'S Ode to Resignation.

f The following passage forcibly expresses Schlegel's thoughts on this
point : " Les individus de 1'espece humaine s'echappent quelquefois aux
suites de leurs actions, qui dans la regie doivent etre regardees comme les
justes chatimens des infractions faites a la loi de Dieu. Les nations ne
sauraient s'y soustraire ; car leur existence se prolonge et se projette dans un
espace immense, ou les lois eternelles trouvent leur sanction et leur entier

164 AGES OF THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.

of the words, which indeed suits well with the author's serious
mind and character, would bring them in perfect unison with
mv own sentiments, and adequately express the truth wnii
forms the theme of our present consideration on the divine
order in the history of the human race.

The human race, then, as it had a beginning, so also wil
have an end ; it will not continue for ever in this present 1
but must eventually coine to a termination. But, to speak
according to the measure of a divine chronology, where a
thousaiidyears are but as one day; who can say who s:
dare offhand to decide whether six or seven of 1
davs of God are fixed for its duration ? Enough to know that
we stand on the borders of the fourth age, and on the passag<
from the third to the fourth. And not unimportant is it, on tb
other hand, for the clear understanding of the whole, to fc
a ri-ht conception of each of these its great divisions and
epochs. The first age is made up of the twenty-five centuries
of obscure primeval history. The second, which we calle
?he a-c of preparation, is formed by the fifteen hundred years
which we reckon from the end of the first up to the centre and
turning-point of the history of the world as known to us, and
from which modern history takes its commencement. Even
the oldest traditionary history of the Gentile nations of an-
tiquity we do not meet with any statements that can be r
upon or any tenable data beyond, if indeed so far back as, the
fifteenth century before the epoch of the commencemenl
modem history. The fifteen centimes which follow ita epoch
form the third age, in which this principle of a new life in tl
Sal. moraCand political world had to develope and corn-
Setelv to unfold itself. In the last Lecture I also reckoned m
this period the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centime:
of our era But if it seems to any more advisable to considei
tteTaa the introductory portion of the fourth and subsisting
. C'est la que la terrible Nemesis se deploie tout entiere,
crime sa bienfaisante reaction; c'est sur la lonue route

%$&s5ffsss^

de Politique, et de la Literature, torn. 11. Trans.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 165

age, there is nothing positively to condemn such a mode of
reckoning ; only, for my part, I cannot but regard it as less
correct arid more inaccurate than the one which I have pro-
posed. In one case as well as the other the same important
consideration will be involved. Reckoning from some point or
other within these last forty years, we have, it must be acknow-
ledged by all, entered upon a grand and decisive epoch in the
history of the world ; and our attention cannot be too often
or too strongly directed to the fact, that we stand at the cri-
tical point of transition from one great period to another.

Now one of the most characteristic signs, by which such
important moments of general revolution in the history of the
world are, for the most part, known and distinguished, is a
number of great events pressed closely together and following
each other in rapid succession ; or, in other words, the accele-
rated course of time. It is no new remark, that, in the poli-
tical history of our own. age, modern Europe has, in the short
space of two-and-twenty years, ran through all the epochs
of the old Roman world, from the first party struggles of the
republic, and its long wars with Carthage, that mistress of the
seas, up to the imperial rule of the Caesars, in the first reigns
mild and indulgent, but at the last so fearfully oppressive and
cruel ; and even up to the final immigration of the northern
nations. Such a simple remark is alone sufficient proof that
another law now rules in the history of the world a quicker
life pulsates in its arteries than beat in the calmer days of old.
Whether, however, this life be thoroughly sound, or, on the
contrary, sickly and feverish, that is quite another question.

But not only in the political world, but also in the intellec-
tual domain of science has the same accelerated course been
noticeable. Only, as compared with that of antiquity, the
course or direction pursued by modern science is altogether
different. We have travelled with equal celerity, but in quite
an opposite course to the ancients. Starting from the last
term, we have reversed the series of their mental progression.
First of all, in the last decades of the preceding century, the
Epicurean cast of thought, or one very nearly resembling it,
was the one chiefly predominant in the philosophical world.
And then together with, but subordinate to it, came scholastic
subtilties and hair-splitting distinctions similar to those of the
later Greek schools, not unaccompanied, perhaps, with the same

166 PUBLIC OPINION.

patient industry of research and extensive erudition, and exer-
cising altogether on the minds of men an influence no less wide,
nor less pernicious, than did the most brilliant of the sophists of
Greece. All the erroneous systems which it was possible for the
human mind to embrace, and which are grounded in its essential
qualities, or which could possibly originate in any (so to speak)
of its inborn misconceptions, which it took the Greeks several
centuries to evolve in slow succession, our age has rapidly and
almost simultaneously run through in as many decades. And in
this fact, if I do not greatly deceive myself, there is much ground
of consolation. It encourages me to hope that this inverse pro-
gression is leading us back again to the truth that in this
ascending line we are gradually coming nearer to the better
times of the first great philosophers of Greece of a Plato, a
Socrates, and a Pythagoras. It must be self-evident that in
this case, and still more so in that analogy of political history
which I have so recently noticed, as generally, in all such his-
torical parallels, nothing more is intended to be asserted than a
general resemblance, which, however, as such, is eminently
remarkable. It would not perhaps be difficult anxiously to
work out the general resemblance into points of detail, but
such an over-wrought assimilation could only lead to false
conclusions and results.

Now that the conflict which our age has to go through
is eminently intellectual is implied simply in the prevailing
notion of a public opinion and its influence. But, at the same
time, we must observe, that in the very notion of opinion, and in
the word itself, there is involved a certain character of extreme
vagueness and uncertainty. No doubt that which man can
properly be said to know is extremely limited and confined.
Of very much all that we can have is merely an opinion, and
with that must we be content to put up. Nay, inasmuch as all
scientific certainty admits not of being imparted to all men,
very much of that which we do properly and certainly know
is best and most beneficially set forth to others merely as an
opinion, in order that we may not seem to force their minds to
the admission of this higher certainty. And what is there
that the passions of a prejudiced or excited multitude cannot
be made to adopt as an opinion, which if presented to them as
a sober conviction of reason would never make an impression ?
So devoid are they generally of that intelligence and accurate

THE FACULTY OF JUDGMENT. 167

knowledge of men and things which are essential and neces-
sary to the formation of a right judgment. If, instead of
public opinion (which, unquestionably, is a great power, but
which, if it takes a wrong direction, is also a very dangerous
one), the appeal were to be made to a public conscience, this
would be, to my mind, far more impressive and serious. To
illustrate my meaning: the impression which the events
of 1793 made on the general feeling of all Europe, and the
universal movement of discontent which, among all European
nations, preceded the great political catastrophe of our own
days, are instances to which the old maxim, vox populi vox
Dei may, without hesitation, be applied. Such feelings are
founded on a true and higher judgment often on a correct
presentiment of evil and wrong even though as we must
admit that in their utterance more or less of passion and
exaggeration reveals itself, and that individual prejudices are
not unfrequently mixed up with them. But how seldom in
the ebbing and flooding tide, in the ever-changing course of
the stream of public opinion, flows there aught that truly
deserves to be called a public judgment. And yet public
opinion is even that on which, in this respect, and relatively to
the theme of our present Lecture, everything mainly and
principally turns.

In discussing the theory of consciousness a chasm remained,
or, rather, was intentionally left open, and the present seems
the appropriate place for filling it up and supplying it. The
power or rather the faculty of judgment has not, as yet, had
its place assigned it. The reason, with its immediate subor-
dinates, memory and conscience ; the fancy, with its subordi-
nates, the senses and inclinations, form six faculties of the
inner man, with which the understanding and will make
together eight. The ninth is the living, loving, feeling soul,
which, although it be the centre of the whole consciousness,
must nevertheless be counted as an independent and peculiar
faculty. As for the heart (Gemutli], (as some peculiarly
designate the collective sum of the tender, moral emotions of
the soul, and which, at any rate, must be carefully distin-
guished from the conscience and also from love), it is, how-
ever, a kind of application of the triple relation and function
of the soul rather than an independent faculty. But the
tenth faculty, which completes the whole cycle and theory

168 THE FACULTY OF JUDGMENT.

of the human consciousness, and which may be regarded as
its crown and perfection, is the judgment, or, in other words,
the judging mind (geisf}.

But now, if this term judgment be understood purely in a
logical sense, as that process of thought which forms combina-
tions and deductions, and by means of which we ascribe to a
subject A a predicate B, this would fall very far short of the
signification in which I here intend it to be taken. Moreover,
it would be, in truth, quite a superfluous task to separate this
cogitative relation, or this relative cogitation, from the other
logical functions of the understanding, and to make of it a
special and independent faculty. The judgment is something
higher than this mere coupling in the thought of some special
A with some general B. Understanding is the cognition of
spirit and of that which it has uttered ; and judgment is the
decision between two things understood, or the " discerning of
spirits." Of how great a multitude of intellectual relations
does a scientific or even an artistic judgment imply the coin-
cidence and concurrent action ! And yet these are merely
private judgments, which involve an assenting feeling in the
individual, but beyond that cannot pretend to any valid autho-
rity. In practical life the judicial function in the state alone
furnishes an adequate standard for estimating the high rank
which the faculty of judgment holds as the centre of the
human consciousness. For, in the deliberative sentence of the
judge, there is comprised both the mature art of the under-
standing, which has taken due cognizance of the matter and
impartially discerned between two objects equally well under-
stood, and also a determination of the will : for though the
actual carrying into effect that which properly and peculiarly
constitutes a willing belong not to, but is independent of,
the judge's office, still the conclusion of a positive judgment
implies the existence of the first determining motive of the
will. In this one act of judging, therefore, there is contained
both functions of the mind (geisf), understanding and willing;
and as the loving soul is the centre of the consciousness, so
the judging mind or spirit is the highest of all its operations.

In the Book of Truth there is a sentence which admits of
application here. " There is none good," it is there written,
" but one, . e., God." However harsh and severe this judgment
may sound at the first hearing, still, upon a little reflection, we

GOD THE SOURCE OF JUSTICE AND AUTHORITY. 169

shall see ample cause to admit its justice. Man is not wholly
and purely good ; at the very best he is not free from faults,
and more or less of imperfection cleaves to all that he does or
is. And even granting that a man might be found devoid of
all admixture of imperfection and quite faultless and thoroughly
good, still he was not so always and from the first. And
even if any should here urge that the angels who have con-
tinued such as they were originally created, were good from
the beginning, we must remember that at least they are not
good in and by themselves, but that, that they are good, comes
from God, who is the source of all goodness. Now just
in the same sense can we also say, Who judges rightly?
There is none that judges rightly, but one, . e., God. lie is
Himself the truth ; and, therefore, He alone has the standard
of truth in Himself, and all truth has its ground and prin-
ciple in Him alone. Every individual judgment and decision,
in all important matters, has its ground, either mediately
or immediately, in this divine basis, and its rectitude must
be estimated according to this standard. But this latter condi-
tion need not make us foolishly anxious ; for nothing impos-
sible is required of us by God. And this requisition, like every
other which He lays upon man, is modified by, and adjusted
to, the measure of human fmiteness. The conscientious judge,
w r ho, after a patient investigation of the cause as it is laid
before him, and after a careful weighing of all the possible
reasons and motives, nevertheless errs or is deceived by a rare
coincidence of circumstances, stands, nevertheless, exonerated,
even though he should have passed an unjust sentence, and
have had the misfortune to condemn the innocent. Although,
when he becomes aware of it, the thought must be painful
enough to his own feelings, yet who, in justice, can reproach him
merely because he was not omniscient? He who in thought,
in science, and in faith, adheres to this divine foundation, the
best and most certain that he can find or that is anywhere
offered to him, may rest calm and composed; he has done the
utmost that lies in his power. He alone, who makes a bad
use of what he has, and what has been given to him, like an un.
just steward, need fear to give an account of his stewardship.
This reference of all judicial sentences to, and their founda-
tion in a divine authority, is an idea which was not unknown
even to the republican states of antiquity, as is evident from

170 KIXGS AS YICEGEBENTS OF GOD.

the way they expressed themselves on the irrefragable sanctity
of the laws and the inviolability of the supreme judicial power,
and also in the maxims which they practically advanced on
this subject. They honoured herein a higher and a diviner
principle, of which, however, in theory they possessed no clear
and perfect knowledge, though in practical life they were
taught by a correct feeling of sound reason and the natural
conscience accurately enough to recognise and steadily and
distinctly to respect it. With us still more generally is it
become an admitted doctrine that all sovereignty and kingly
power is of God, and that all obedience to the laws and to the
supreme authority in the state rests ultimately on a divine
foundation and sanction. If very recently men were for a while
disposed to argue, that political institutions must be founded
on the reason and its unconditional liberty,- yet bitter expe-
rience quickly convinced them of their error, and it was soon
fully refuted by the convincing argument of actual fact. And
accordingly, theory has for the most part reverted to a right
principle, and recognised the divine authority as the true foun-
dation of political authority.

But the principle being thus generally recognised, it is, I
think, still necessary to distinguish with care and accurately to
define in what sense the supreme ruler of the state is the vice-
gerent of God. The indefinite titles which are assumed by
Eastern despots have always been alien to the habits of the
West. But it is not enough to avoid such exaggerated titles
of honour, if nevertheless the appeal to divine right be made
so very vaguely, and simply in general terms to God Himself.
In His absolute essence, God is wholly inconceivable; it is
only in His operations on man and nature, and in His rela-
tions to the ' human race, that we can at all think precisely of
Him. It is only as Creator of the world, as the Lawgiver of
nature, or as the Benefactor and Redeemer of mankind, and so
forth, that we can form a clear and distinct notion of the
Godhead.

Now, is the supreme ruler of the state God's deputy as
Creator of the world ? Who would venture to assert anything
of the kind ? It is true that the paternal rule of the earthly
parent, and the universal feeling among all peoples and nations
of the sanctity of a father's authority, rests on a resemblance
which is, however, only symbolical between his relation and

KINGS AS VICEGERENTS OP GOD. 171

that of our unseen Father which is in heaven. And it is no less
true also, that the reign of a truly paternal monarch over his
people may be regarded as a mere amplification of the father's
government of his family ; a good king is the father of his
people. But such remote, although most significant, analo-
gies furnish us with no precise notion of right ; and it is on
such alone that the whole question here turns. No doubt
when a people is governed well and wisely which is even the
same as to say, paternally governed it exhibits a wonderful
power of natural development ; productive industry flourishes,
population increases, and its physical and mental cultivation
advances rapidly. Unfavourable seasons may undoubtedly
check this tendency, and it will be entirely stopped as soon as
the subject refuses to follow with loving confidence the guiding
hand of the paternal monarch. Whenever they whose duty it
is' to obey seek to be supreme, then are the natural energies of
a great people transmuted into a fearful element of universal
desolation.

If now we inquire in the next place how far it is allowable
to compare the highest authority in the state to the Lawgiver
of nature, we shall find that even in this respect the difference
is so very great that analogy almost entirely fails us. Holy
unquestionably are the laws of every political community in
respect to the duty of obedience which they suppose and
require ; but this is not paid spontaneously and naturally, but
needs to be enforced and maintained by pains and penalties.
And not to speak of the stern laws of retributive justice, but
rather of those mild and equitable enactments designed for the
general benefit and the improvement of the whole community ;
these are still more subject to the imperfection and manifold
changes of human things. Suppose, for instance, a measure
promulgated in any country with the design of balancing in
some degree the agricultural and the manufacturing interests ;
however wisely designed, it is found within a few years to have
totally failed ; under it misery has but increased on both sides,
and the law must be repealed or modified. But it is not so
with the laws which God has implanted in the system of the
universe : they never fail of their intended effect.

Do we further ask in what, if in any respect, the earthly
sovereign is the deputy of God, as Redeemer, Emancipator,
and Liberator ? A notion of grace and mercy does, we must

172 KINGS AND PEIESTS AS VICEGERENTS OF GOD.

admit, attach itself to our idea of supreme authority; and
in this respect it presents a sort of analogy and resemblance
to the idea of the Godhead. Properly speaking, however,
the exercise of grace and mercy forms an exception to the
general rule of man's sovereignty, and belongs to him only
in his special function as administrator of justice. More-
over, the most paternal and beneficent of earthly rulers can
at most provide only for the physical happiness of his people.
He may alleviate or avert heavy calamities, or procure many
temporal blessings and advantages for his subjects ; but the
unhappy soul can be helped by One alone. The distinction I
have just made will become more apparent by means of a con-
trast. Wherever the clergy are not regarded merely as
teachers of the people, but, as is the case in the greater part
of Western and of Eastern Christendom, as priests speaking
with a divine authority, this their public vicegerency relates
primarily and immediately to the Redeemer ; its judicial func-
tions over the conscience ought to shun a visible publicity, and
to be left entirely to the conscience and guarded by its seal of
secrecy. And in this respe'ct lies the distinctive peculiarity of
the relation subsisting between the supreme autliority in the
state and God, which however refers pre-eminently to His
attribute of justice. And here it is no mere remote analogy
and weak resemblance, dependent on the principle of human
weakness and imperfection; but it is a true and real vice-
gerency, publicly admitted and recognised, and exercising
consequently a great public influence. And therefore it is
that among the divers elements or branches of the supreme
political authority (which, however, fundamentally and in its
essence is one and indivisible), a special sanctity is, as I have
already remarked, ascribed to its judicial functions. In a
word, the earthly head of the state is the dispenser of the
divine justice, the vicegerent of the Judge of the world ; he is
a divine functionary, and, so to say, the supreme judge in the
world's tribunal. And this is the point of view from which
all matters and questions connected with this subject may most
fully be answered and most correctly determined. But that
this exalted dignity of the earthly ruler may not be interpreted
too literally, I must here observe, that the divine Judge is one
who allows mercy to take the place of justice, not merely occa-
sionally and by way of exception, but always and invariably ;

HISTORY A PRELUDE OF THE FINAL JUDGMENT. 173

so long, at least, as it is in any way possible. , And here comes
in the application of the principle which we previously ad-
vanced : That God is in nowise absolute, but that on the
contrary His justice is in every case limited by His love and
grace ; while the latter again is restricted and modified by His
justice, and both indeed reciprocally by each other. Whoever
has formed in his heart the least vivid notion of God, will not
entertain the slightest doubt of this union of justice and of
mercy in the divine essence.

When, however, we speak of kings being the dispensers of
divine justice, we mean it in quite a different sense from that in
which, during the great immigration of the northern hordes of
Asia, the barbarian conqueror proclaimed himself the scourge
of God. By assuming this title he merely meant to terrify
his adversaries by the thought of having to encounter in him-
self a fearful and destructive power of evil, whom, in order to
chastise a degenerate world, the Almighty had permitted to do as
he pleased and to let loose his fury on the nations of the earth.
And phenomena of this kind are not confined to the period of
the great migration ; for the true notion of the representation
of the divine judge of the world by the supreme power in
the state combines together with the sternest severity of
justice, which in this respect is both wholesome and necessary,
the greatest clemency, for where is there, or can there be, a
clemency greater than the divine ? But most especially does
this idea imply that which is here pre-eminently requisite,
and insists w T ith a prominence proportionate to its great im-
portance on the strictest conscientiousness in the discharge of
the duties of this vicegerency. But the superior excellence
of this idea over many other explanations of a similar kind,
but labouring under the defect of extreme vagueness, consists
even in this, that it comprises and inseparably combines those
two important conditions, both that the supreme governor is
responsible to God alone, and, as following therefrom, that
he is unquestionably responsible to Him, and that it also
determines in what sense and in what way he is so.

Every great and remarkable event which marks an epoch
in the political history of nations and the world, may, perhaps,
be regarded as a dispensation of justice. If, then, such an
event, however partial and confined to a single people or
empire, or at most extending to an entire age, may be looked

174 HISTORY A PRELUDE OF THE FINAL JUDGMENT.

upon as a sign of judgment already commencing, or at least
of a retribution threatening but mercifully suspended, the
same mode of consideration may, with as good reason, be
applied to every resolution of the political world on the grave
questions of peace and war : for the power of making war
and peace is, at all events, the peculiar and characteristic pre-
rogative of the supreme authority in the state. Now, the
simplest standard, perhaps, of judging of the justice of either
is, if we may so speak, to ask, is the proclamation of war or
the treaty of peace so entirely founded on truth, so perfectly
correspondent to the righteous and judicial character of God,
that man need not fear to lay them before the Judge of the
whole world for His ratification ? If such be the case, then
most assuredly are they right and righteous, whatever be their
consequences, or whatever be the judgment that men may
pass upon them. But, otherwise, if the manifesto of war
contain nothing but shallow and specious pretexts painfully
raked together, or of fine colourable phrases which even the
eye of the world can see through, if a light touch of truth
be only thrown over it in the hope of concealing the con-
queror's lust of aggrandizement, or the equally destructive
principle of an old national feud or jealousy. if, in the pacifi-
cation, under ambiguous terms and cunningly-devised phrases,
the seeds of a future war be carefully sown, and thus the
worst disease of the political world be propagated and multi-
plied from generation to generation, then most assuredly the
guardian eye of Eternal Justice has not watched over its com-
pletion, and bestowed on it His blessing, but another and a
very different coadjutor has had his hand in the game the
spirit of untruth, viz., and of corruption, of strife and ruin,
whom no name so exactly describes as that of a " liar from the
beginning."

Now, as not only the annihilation of the race of giants in
the universal deluge, with which our sacred history opens, and
to which the ancient traditions of almost every people allude,
more or less directly, but also the partial overthrow of a single
nation, the tragical closing catastrophe of particular ages, is, as
it were, a prelude of the final judgment of all nations and peo-
ples of the earth at the end of time ; so, on*he other hand,
the original corruption of the primal lie is propagated as ail
hereditary evil from millennium, to millennium, and from cen-

HISTORY A REHEARSAL OF THE FIRST TEMPTATION. 1 75

tury to century. For even now, may many a fertile spot, the
seat of a nappy and united community in the midst of pros-
perous times, and of peace unbroken at home or abroad, be con-
sidered, if not a garden of innocence, still the blissful dwelling
of peace and quiet. But into these happy precincts the
evil spirit of untruth and discontent ever and anon steals,
to repeat over again in the history of the human race the
same scene of temptation which marked its commencement.
Upwards and downwards, and in a twofold direction, does the
lying spirit of strife ply his seductive arts. Now, on the one
side, he whispers in the ear of the rising generation, " That is
the true knowledge and the real science which men are most
anxious to withhold from you ; but seek first of all to be free,
shake off this unworthy spirit of slavish obedience, then shall
all that is noble and intellectually great be at once yours. In
this way, and thus only, was it attained by the great and
good in ancient times." But, on the other hand, he directs
himself to the individual invested with authority ; and if the
potentate be unrighteous, his ear is already more than half
open, and even if he be upright, still, as a man, he is not
always inaccessible to such whisperings. " Why," he in-
sidiously asks, ' ' dost thou draw back so fearfully before that
which the people call their rights ? These are nothing but
childish notions which the school-boy may do well to declaim
about, but practically they are worthless and unreal ; no one
means them seriously the whole world puts no faith in this
comedy. Rule your subjects with an iron hand, that is all
that they know how to respect nay, they even admire
the bold spirit that defies them, and they "will suppliantly
reverence thy greatness of mind and strength of character
if, betraying no infirmness of purpose, you boldly and sternly
encroach upon or disregard all their pretended rights and
privileges. If only your sovereignty be solidly established
from within, and well rounded from without, then, besides a
great name with posterity, you will also secure to yourself
the present enjoyment of very great and solid advanta^

In this wise, from the original source of the one lie, is the
inheritance of the old evil transmitted from generation to
generation in the political- world, in the two opposite forms
of popular anarchy, and the despotic lust of power and
aggrandizement. These two forms of evil are more closely

176 ABSOLUTE POWER.

allied than at the first look they appear to be in reality ; but
history, the great teacher of truth, gives its sure witness to
their affinity. Nothing is more common in great republics,
than for the discord of the citizens to be put an end to by
some victorious general, whom all parties, weary of their
dissensions, hail as the benefactor of the whole community.
But how seldom is the pacificator content with the glorious
title of the restorer of domestic peace, and does not go a step
further, and become the scheming tyrant and the aggressive
conqueror. The whole history of the world is, in short, little
more than the continuous struggle between the purifying fire
of the divine retribution and this spirit of political lying,
which is ever renewing itself in these twofold forms of anarchy
and despotism.

Moreover, while we acknowledge the divine authority
invested in the supreme ruler of the state, we must take heed
how we mix up with our conceptions on this head the notion,
60 highly dangerous and so pregnant with fatal errors, of the
absolute and unconditional, which, as we have already re-
marked, cannot be applied even to the Godhead without
giving rise to misconceptions. If, therefore, in any country
a party for now-a-days even justice is made a party matter
if anywhere a party of otherwise well-disposed men call them-
selves " absolutists," such a designation is of itself sufficient
to excite our apprehension, lest, with so absolute a way of
thinking, some spark of evil be slumbering beneath the ashes ;
inasmuch as one absolute, i. e., one unconditional element
of destruction invariably calls forth another.

Absolute, if this pernicious term must be used, the supreme
power of the legitimate sovereign of a state may indeed be
called in so far as he is responsible to God alone. For were
the supreme ruler responsible to man, then the only dif-
ference would be, that instead of one, the many to whom
he is answerable would be absolute. But in another sense,
it is impossible to call the supreme power, wherever lodged,
absolute or unlimited ; for it is limited in many ways. Its
exercise is checked and controlled by the treaties subsisting
between it and other powers by the laws which it finds
in existence from the times of his predecessors, and which
are still in force by the family laws of succession, and all
matters pertaining to or connected therewith. If he who is

TWO FORMS OF RELIGIOUS ERROR. 177

invested with the highest power in the state, is determined
to interfere with all these institutions, and violently to sub-
vert existing customs and compacts, then is there, in such a
case, no one really justified or entitled either to make objections
to his measures or to oppose them. By such arbitrary and
violent proceedings, however, he is himself undermining the
very foundation of his own power. And a regard to and
consideration of the possible consequences of such injustice
will in most instances furnish the necessary and salutary check.
Lastly, if we look a moment from the right itself to its actual
exercise and influence, how often and how greatly are the latter
limited by adverse circumstances and evil times. Nothing, in
short, is more at issue with and opposed to nature and to life,
than the very notion of unlimited power, and generally all that
is absolute or destructive.

, But there is yet another side on which the supreme poli-
tical power is essentially checked and controlled. It is bound
to consider and pay respect to the principles of religious
society, which rests no less than itself on a divine authority.
For the church, although very different in its nature, and
flowing from a wholly different origin from that of the state,
is, nevertheless, equally inviolable. If, however, the civil and
political ruler, not content with a coordinate jurisdiction and
the revision of ecclesiastical affairs with a joint authority
and influence, should attempt to make the religious polity also
entirely subject to his own arbitrary will, no one perhaps will
be able to oppose force to force, and probably no one would
be justified in so doing. But by such an attempt, as indeed
by every act of religious oppression, the supreme civil power
would most fatally undermine the very basis of its own autho-
rity. If, for instance, the ruler of a great nation places the
third estate in the painful alternative of making, what in any
case must be most pernicious, a choice between divine and
human authority or rather, to speak more correctly, between
two claims to its allegiance equally divine, he does but smooth
the road which must lead at last to his own ruin.

And here, too, in the spiritual community of the faith, in the
same way as in the political body, man's patrimony of original
evil branches out into two directions. In the one it turns
longingly back towards the past, and in the other it tends
restlessly forward into the indefinite future. Both of these

178 THE LAST JUDGMENT.

aberrations are wholly independent of the outer form as
well as of the subject-matter of belief. They are consequently
to be found in the old covenant, as the first grade of divine
revelation, no less than in the second. The first of these here-
ditary faults of man's nature is deadness, or in a somewhat
different phase lukewarmness manifesting itself outwardly
in a close and literal adherence to the old in its mere external
forms. In a word, it is spiritual death. For though in the
abundance of His love, God may have made a revelation of His
will to man, and even died to make an atonement for him, still
it is left to the free will of the individual to receive it or not ;
and its retention and observance is the trial of his goodness,
and consequently, in this point, as in others, his hereditary
and inborn spiritual death strongly manifests itself. The
second of these hereditary faults, or rather the same in a
different form, is the spirit of innovation, or a false sem-
blance of life, by which, in fact, this inner death is merely
propagated.

On both these faults and erroneous ways of thinking on
religious matters, Revelation expresses itself equally in the
tone of stern reprobation, though perhaps its language with
regard to the former is even still more severe. As regards the
spirit of innovation, all changes in this domain, which are
merely human, and not visibly and manifestly of a divine
spirit and origin, must simply on that account be opposed and
condemned. Now in both the parties into which the faith is un-
happily divided, there are many who are captivated and led away
by this spirit of change. For among those who were originally
seduced by it not a few are now animated with a sincere and
profound respect for whatever is old and sterling, M^hile of the
innovation-mongers of our days, many are to be found in the
ranks of those who originally strove to stem the tide of alter-
ation and change. Oh that all who are pervaded by this evil
spirit, and are ever casting their views forward into the future,
would only advance a little further still in their thoughts, so as
to take in the end and conclusion of all. In the knowledge of
the final judgment of the world (and what is this philosophy of
revelation but such a reminiscence of death and the end in
\vhich light philosophy was even in olden times explained not
indeed in a narrow-minded limitation to our ownselves, but in a
far wider sense, embracing in its universal sympathy the final

GOD'S TEMPORAL JUDGMENTS ON THE WORLD. 179

catastrophe of the whole human race), in the warnings and
allusions to this last day of account, so long and so often
given, men will find all the information that they seek, and
will no longer need any human innovations, since by this
key all that is old and eternal shall receive a trebly exalted
significance and a doubly new life.

But besides the political body and the religious community,
the world of letters forms a third society. Though numeri-
cally smaller, yet in its effects on the minds of men, whether
it moves freely and diffuses itself without the rigid restraints
of form, or is narrowly confined to the formalism of the school,
it is perhaps as great as either. Spiritual in its matter and in
its dissemination, it either renounces a divine sanction, and
stands under the protection and supervision of the state such,
at least, is the predominant relation in recent times or, as
was formerly the case, it grows and nourishes beneath the
shelter and through the fostering care of ecclesiastical in-
stitutions. Holding an intermediate place between the two
other bodies of human society, in its subject-matter more
akin to the one, but deriving from the other its external sup-
port, it is. also of a mixed nature and partakes of both. But
the inborn and original sin of science is exactly similar to that
which infects political life. Manifesting itself in a twofold
aberration, it either assumes, in the spirit of anarchy, an
hostile position towards all that exists from without and is
given to men from above, or perhaps comes forward in a pre-
dominant love of system or scientific sectarianism, \vhich not
unfrequently is as fanatical as the political party-spirit with
which, moreover, it is often very nearly and closely allied.

The nature of the divine order which rules the history of
the world, and its stern retributive law, must, in all essential
points, be now apparent from the preceding remarks. It is an
all-pervading alternation between the purifying fire of God's
punitive justice and the inheritance of the old evil, which
breaks out, now in anarchy now in despotism, at one time in
spiritual deadness and lukewarmness of faith, at another in the
pernicious lust of innovation and change. This purifying fire,
it must also be clear, while confining its immediate operation
to single nations or to marked and distinct epochs of history,
it gives them a new shape and form, invariably gains for itself
a wider extension, so as at last to embrace the whole world.

180 GOD'S TEMPORAL JUDGMENTS ON THE WOELD.

Moreover, every one must feel that in investigating the fiery
track of this judging spirit in its stern course through centuries,'
we must reverently follow at a respectful distance to learn from
it what it is and how it manifests itself, and take good heed
how we presume to confine it within any narrow law, or
reduce it to any precise and rigorous definition. We cannot
be too carefully on our guard against ascribing to Providence
in its guidance of mankind many and subtle designs, which
after all, perhaps, are nothing but the mere fancies and con-
ceits of man. In general, however, it may safely be said that
the subordinate views and higher ends which are visible in the
leading catastrophes of nations and empires, or even of entire
ages, have especial reference to that gradation in the divine
revelation which I explained to you in the previous Lecture
as having a regard to, and comprising the whole human race in,
its comprehensive design. By way of exemplification, and as
an instance of the right application of the ideas here advanced,
I will now, in conclusion, add a few words on those events and
catastrophes of universal history which, in this respect, seem
the most important.

The universal deluge, of which the whole surface of our
globe presents so many and so great traces and proofs, forms
a partition wall, sternly separating the earliest races of men
from the subsequent generations. Of the former it is only
probable that they were very different from the latter, not only
in their manner of life, but also in their physical and intel-
lectual powers and endowments, and likewise perhaps in the
nature and mode of their moral corruption and depravity.
My remarks, therefore, may well be confined to this side of
that great partition wall. The next great catastrophe, which
is both expressly given out as a divine retribution, (and as
such can be proved from profane history as much, though not
so universally, as the former,) is the so-called Babylonian con-
fusion of tongues and the dispersion of nations. This, and
that which is so inseparably connected with it, the confusion
of mythical ideas and legends, is rather hinted than fully and
clearly detailed. The time too is not given, though the locality
is expressly mentioned. It is the same one which, according
to all other historical statements, was the very spot of Western
Central Asia where that contagious malady of the lust of con-
quest first arose, or, if we may be allowed the expression,

THE GREEKS A SECOND CHOSEN PEOPLE OF GOD. 181

where this unhappy invention was first made. This disper-
sion of nations, however, was its natural punishment, since
ever\- unity which is either politically false or intellectually
untrue, must terminate in chaotic dissolution. This historical
fact is distinctly traceable in the world of the ancients among
the West Asiatic, South European, and North African nations
which dwell around the shores of the Mediterranean. Here
we can scarcely find our way out of the labyrinth of traces
of reciprocal relationship which abound, in their medley of cog-
nate languages and their chaos of legends, so remarkably
agreeing and yet frequently so inconsistent in their ideas
of nature, their far-reaching theogonies, and the divine
origination of their heroic families. These chaotic contra-
dictions, however, in which the poetry of heathendom indulged
without restraint, gradually undermined the old popular
belief, and led consequently at a later period to a very
favourable result.

For by this means the Greeks to whom our present
remarks apply especially and pre-eminently gained free
space for the unshackled development of a philosophy which,
though it may have run and wandered through many systems
of error, yet in so far as it was an honest and sincere search
after truth and certainty, served and deserves to be considered
as a preparation and introduction to a higher knowledge and
the adoption of revelation. For because of this intellectual
development (and the fact serves to prove that a pure sensi-
bility to the beautiful, and a clear and pregnant thought on
human life and on nature, is ever highly pleasing to God,)
the Greeks were chosen as the second people of the world, to
be the medium and the instruments of the further diffusion
of revelation in the course of the development of humanity.

In political life, the erroneous tendency of the Greek mind
was to the abuse of liberty and to anarchy. When this
evil had been carried to its wildest extreme, it was over-
taken by its natural penalty (which invariably follows close
upon its track), in the armed supremacy of Macedon (which,
however, was only a brief paroxysm), and the final subjuga-
tion of Greece to the Roman yoke. Among the Romans both
forms of political evil met together, and were closely con-
nected with each other. To escape from domestic anarchy,
they entered on a victorious career of foreign conquest and

182 THE MAHOMMEDAN EMPIRE CHINA.

aggrandizement ; and when intestine dissension had reached its
greatest height, a perfect despotism was established, both at
home and in the provinces.

We recently remarked that the whole of that mixture of
ideas, confusion of legends and traditions, and that continual
alternation between anarchy and despotism, which in the
olden times of heathendom ran through its whole course of
development, from the first dispersion of nations to the esta-
blishment of the Roman empire over the world, immediately
applies to and is only to be understood of the West Asiatic
and South European races. In the East of Asia, two great
nations or empires, which together make up a third, if not
the half, nearly, of the population of the whole earth, have
remained in a great measure free from and uninfluenced by it.
It would almost seem as if the Almighty, with some special
design, had kept and reserved them unto these last times.
For three if not four thousand years India has preserved un-
changed its institution of castes, and all its essential customs
and laws. The very fact that this ancient empire, so extensive,
so abundant in riches, and so singular in its nature, and with
a civilised population equal to that of the whole of Europe
put together, should be now conquered and held in subjection
by the sea-ruling isles of Britain, which the ancients named
the Cassiterides, or Tin Islands, and described as the ultimate
limits of the habitable world, is one of the most remarkable
signs of our days. That in such great historical events, and
such singular juxta-positions, there rules some grand and mys-
terious design of the Mind which regulates the course of
human affairs, we cannot but feel ; only we shall greatly err
if we precipitately determine its particular nature. The wiser
and the safer course is to look forward with attentive expecta-
tion to its further development. Already has this remark-
able approximation of the extreme East and West led to im-
portant consequences. The enlargement of our historical
information by the sources discovered in the East, has alone
been so considerable as to give greater coherence and con-
sistency to our knowledge of the earlier, and indeed, of the
very earliest times, and of the origin of mankind, and to have
afforded a growing testimony and a strong confirmation of
the truth of the sacred narrative.

The celestial empire too, with its monosyllabic language,

PRESENT STATE OF THE JEWS THE MIDDLE AGES. 183

remained until very recently within its walls separate from
and never mixing with the rest of the world. Although China
has been several times subjugated by northern conquerors, it
has nevertheless continued in all essential respects the same.
But now in these modern times of universal ferment and of
change throughout the political world, China too has been set
in movement, and has become so far a conquering power, that
she who in the earlier centuries of Christianity was only
known by name through fable, has become the immediate
neighbour of two great European powers.

The close of the ancient history of the Eastern world in its
westerly regions, is formed by the tragic overthrow of the
Jewish people and the fearful destruction of Jerusalem;
events which are properly described, as also they were long
previously announced, as a partial judgment on an individual
nation. And in this light and in similar colours they are more-
over depicted even by heathen writers. Few things in the
whole course of history furnish so singular and striking a
phenomenon, as this total dissolution of the Jewish nation.
The dispersion over all parts of the earth, for so many cen-
turies, of a people that has exercised so great and so decisive
an influence on the progress of ideas and the higher cultiva-
tion of the human mind, both naturally and scientifically,
makes a sad and melancholy impression on our minds. With
so much the more of reason, then, may we regard it as
a sign of the times, and one, too, full of good promise and of
bright and cheerful hope, if this long and cruelly oppressed
people seems suddenly to be aroused again or awakened from
its degradation, and in manifold ways evincing an intellectual,
moral, and social activity, begins to partake of a more liberal
development and culture. And on one account the fact
appears still more consolatory. Such a re-awakening of this
long ill-treated and degraded race, is in their oldest prophecies
fixed for the last decisive days of the world's history.

In the mediaeval period of modern history we meet with all
the elements of the Christian state. The idea of a pure mon-
archy also was here earned far higher towards perfection, and
much more manifoldly developed than in heathen antiquity.
But the civil and spiritual powers soon came into collision,
and in their mutual conflict were alike guilty of despotic
encroachments on each other. In this sad dissension the

184 PEACE OF WESTPHALIA.

whole state of things fell more and more into a new kind of
anarchy. And in the same way, in our own times, after a
great part of the Christian world had, in sentiment at least,
reverted to heathenism, then as a natural consequence of the
ruling tone of thought and opinion, there was a great relapse
into the double evil of a wild and fatal popular anarchy, and
of a still more destructive military despotism. And the
whole history of the old heathen world is nothing but one
continual alternation between these two evils.

In the Christian West, indeed, both now and in the middle
ages, the predominant tendency to error inclined towards
the side of anarchy. Among the Mahommedan nations,
on the contrary, from the very earliest days of their religion,
the despotic lust of conquest has been, as it were, an inborn
and homebred hereditary failing. It was indeed fed and
encouraged by their national creed. But here also the great-
est changes have taken place. The largest and most power-
ful of all the Mahommedan empires, that, viz., in India, is
entirely overthrown, and scarcely a vestige of it remains in
these times. By a natural revolution of things, the first irre-
sistible conquerors are now themselves conquered and brought
under the yoke of others. And so, too, on the other and
western side of their once wide rule, they who formerly
threatened the existence of civilised Europe are now depen-
dent upon, essentially mixed up with, and owe their political
existence to, European policy and the balance of power. This
total change of the relative position of the Mahommedan
states in general belongs undoubtedly to the characteristic
signs which so peculiarly mark and distinguish our own age.

In the three centuries of modern history which fill up the
interval between the middle ages and the revolutionary epoch
of our own days, the moral constitution of the monarchy has
been far more fully and clearly developed than in any previous
era. But the most striking event of this period of history is
furnished by the sad and melancholy phenomenon of the reli-
gious wars. These were the lamentable consequence of the
schism in the faith, not indeed by any indispensable and neces-
sary law, nor even as its natural, but still its perfectly explicable,
result. In those lands where, as in England and France, there
existed a weaker party of either side, which had either been
fully conquered or was kept under by oppressive civil disabili-

PEACE OF WESTPHALIA. 185

ties, this unhappy phenomenon assumed the most revolting
appearance. But the same state of things took a very different
turn in Germany. Here the religious disputes terminated in
a higher and a nobler result. In a long and fruitless struggle
of thirty years, which wasted and consumed the best energies
of ihe nation, the two contending parties were taught, that
with so nicely balanced strength, no decisive result either way
was to be expected. Coming at length to a wiser mind, they
acknowledged their respective rights, and by a peaceable com-
promise they agreed to live together in the same social com-
munity. This great and famous religious peace, which,
considered merely in the light of a treaty of general pacifi-
cation, is a master-piece of policy, without equal or parallel,
and serving for the basis for all subsequent treaties and ques-
tions of peace, is become for Germany a species of inborn
national necessity and, as it were, a second national character.
She finds in it a full and perfect compensation for many disad-
vantages she labours under as compared with other lands,
while she has acquired from it a great and important posi-
tion in the world of the future. Considered with regard to
the whole world, one cannot well avoid ascribing to this inde-
structible religious peace in Germany, of still higher impor-
tance, however little it is commonly understood or regarded
in this light. Indeed, we cannot but look upon it as the pre-
cursor with hopeful promises, of a far greater and completer
religious peace. A peace, I mean, which shall reconcile not
only all differences in the faith, but also that more universal
and more pervading dissension between faith and unbelief;
the quarrel between science and faith being first adjusted,
and unity restored thereby between them, and consequently
also to life. But to effect this object God, who wills nothing
but peace and unity, must take the upper hand and be
stronger than man, who loves and desires strife ; or at least,
without loving and seeking it, is still ever relapsing into it.

In such or some similar way a religious view of universal
history and of the divine order therein admits of being deve-
loped ; which, however, cannot be truly done with too much
of scientific rigour, or by violently introducing into its plans
any arbitrary and consequently false designs and purposes.

My prescribed limits compel me to confine myself to these
few hints, and in these I have wished principally to call atten-

186 UNIVERSAL CHRISTIAN PEACE.

tion to their reference to our own age, and to exhibit them in
the light in which they appear of universal interest and to
possess an eminent and remarkable destination. Comprised
then in one result, the following are the characteristic signs of
the present age : the two greatest heathen nations, which for
thousands of years stood by themselves apart from the rest of
the world, have lately come into the closest contact with
Europe ; the Mahommedan empires are everywhere falling
into decay, more rapidly than men had been led to expect their
fall; the Hebrew race is beginning to rise from its long
degradation ; in Christian states and communities there is here
and there visible a strong inclination to the old evil of anarchy;
and if the great human peace, which has now lasted twelve
years, appears in some points insecure or at least endan-
gered from within, it is only because it is devoid of a firm
foundation of the internal sentiment of men. What event,
then, could be more happy for our age, what better turn could
the present posture of affairs take, than by bringing about
such a triple divine peace as we have already sketched, to
give a new foundation and a firmer basis to the external
peace of society ? May not this, in God's good purpose, be
the theme which is to occupy the next era of the world ?

END 03? LECTURE VIII.

187

LECTURE IX.

Of the true Destination of Philosophy ; and of the apparent Schism but
essential Unity between a right Faith and highest Certainty, as the
centre of Light and Life in the Consciousness.

THE philosophy of life cannot be any mere science of reason,
and least of all an unconditional one. For such does but
lead us into a domain of dead abstractions alien to life, which
by the dialectical spirit of disputation connatural to the rea-
son, is soon converted into a labyrinthine maze of contradic-
tory opinions and notions, out of which the reason, with all
its logical means and appliances, cannot extricate itself. And
life, consequently, the inner spiritual life, that is, is dis-
turbed and destroyed by it. And it is even this disturbing
and destroying principle of the dialectical reason that most
requires to be got rid of and brought into subjection. In the
mere form, however, of abstract thought there is nothing in
and by itself opposed to the truth. There is nothing in it that
it is absolutely and invariably necessaiy to avoid, or that
never and in no case admits of application. It is no doubt
most certain, that every system of philosophy is on a wrong
track, which borrows its method exclusively from mathe-
matics, and copies it throughout from beginning to end.
Still, in the progressive development of philosophical ideas
certain points may occur there may be certain places in the
entire system where occasionally and by the way such for-
mulas and abstract equations may be profitably employed.
Such a case may happen in the present Lecture. But by thus
employing them only by way of illustration, and episodically in
passing, I hope to establish such an use of them, and to make
it evident that the perspicuity of the exposition does not
essentially suffer thereby.

Philosophy, as the universal science, embraces in its consi-
deration the whole man. As, therefore, it evidently involves
the occasion, so it is not unlikely that cases mav occur where

188 PHILOSOPHY FREE TO USE ANY FORM OR METHOD.

it can happily borrow, now from one now from another of
the sciences, its external form and peculiar formularies. It
can, in short, advantageously avail itself of all in turn. Only,
such an use to be profitable must be free. And this freedom
will best evince itself in the deliberate choice and the diversity
of the images. The method of free speculation, i. e., of phi-
losophy, must not resemble a coat of mail with its infinite
number of little uniform chains and rings. It ought not, as
is the case nearly with the mathematical method, to be
composed, by mechanical rule and measure, of simple pro-
positions scientifically linked together and then formed again
into higher logical concatenations. In short, the method of
philosophy cannot properly be uniform. The spirit must not
be made subservient to the method ; the essence must not be
sacrificed to the form.

Philosophical thought and knowledge, with that diversity
of illustration and variety in method which follows from its
universality, is in this respect somewhat in the same case with
poetry. Of all the imitative arts poetry alone embraces and
by its nature is intended to embrace the whole man. It is
therefore free to borrow its similes or colours and manifold
figurative expressions from every sphere of life and nature,
and to take them now from this now from that object, as
on each occasion appears most striking and appropriate.
Now, no one would think of prescribing unconditionally to
poetry, and compelling her to take all her similes and figures
either from flowers and plants, or from the animal world, or
exclusively from any one of the several pursuits of man,
from the sailor's life, for instance, or the shepherd's, or the
huntsman's,- or from any of his handicrafts or mechanical
arts. For although all such similes, and colours, and expres-
sions, appropriately introduced, are equally allowable in every
poetical composition, and none of them need be rejected, still
the exclusive use of any one class of them as a law would
hamper the free poetic spirit and extinguish the living fancy.
In the same way, philosophy is not confined to any one inva-
riable and immutable form. At one time it may come
forward in the guise of a moral, legislative, or a judicial dis-
cussion ; at another, as a description of natural history. Or,
perhaps, it may assume the method of an historical and
genealogical development and derivation of ideas as best fitted

THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE A SCIENCE OF MAN. 189

to exhibit the thoughts which it aims at illustrating in their
mutual coherence and connexion. On other occasions, per-
haps, it will take the shape of a scientific investigation of
nature, of an experiment in a higher physiology, in order
to test the existence of the invisible powers which it is its
purpose to establish. Or again, by the employment of an
algebraic equation or of a mathematical form (which, how-
ever, it regards as nothing more than a symbol and visible
hieroglyphic for a higher something that is invisible), it will
perhaps most conveniently attain to its loftier aim. Every
method and every scientific form is good ; or at least, when
rightly employed, is good. But no one ought to be exclusive.
No one must be carried out with painful uniformity, and
with wearying monotony be invariably followed throughout.

The philosophy of life, then, cannot be any mere absolute
philosophy of reason. And as little can or ought it to be
purely and absolutely a philosophy of nature ; not, at least,
an exclusive one, that is, exactly such and nothing more. Such
a philosophy of nature may indeed in its physiological aspect
possess unequalled scientific wealth, and be full of profound
and ingenious thoughts. But still the right principles and the
regulative ideas of human life can never be deduced from it
easily and without having recourse to forced constructions.
For even man is in his life something higher than nature ;
even he is something more than a mere physical being. Still
less possible, then, were it from such a philosophy of nature
to derive, establish, and to render clear and intelligible the
idea and being of God; the pervading reference to whom,
however, makes man what he is. The idea of God deduced
from such a source alone would, and indeed could only be,
some great final cause of the system of nature.

Neither the conclusions of sound reason, and least of all
those of the conscience, no, nor even dialectic itself (so far
as it is profitably employed by the knowledge of it being made
available for the detection of error), nor physical science, when
cultivated in a noble and lofty spirit, ought in any way to be
excluded from the borders or even the very domain of philo-
sophy. On the contrary, she may in her own peculiar way
adopt them all, and giving them a more extensive sense and
spirit, employ them for her own higher aims. In its primary
and most essential respects, the philosophy of life is a

190 DIFFERENCE OF PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE.

thoroughly human science. It is nothing less than the cog-
nition of man. Now even on this account, and because it is
only by means of his all-pervading relation to God that man
stands above nature and is something superior to a mere
physical being, and something higher too than a mere rational
machine, therefore is the philosophy of life actually and in
fact a true philosophy of God. The philosophy of life attains
this high dignity beyond a mere philosophy of reason or of
nature, simply on this account that the supreme life and
the ultimate source of all other degrees of life is even God.
Now this Supreme Life, which has its life in itself, is the sub-
ject of my present disquisitions. For it is even with the
correct and complete notion of this Supreme Life that the
Spirit of Truth first enters the human consciousness. And
then, in the inner world of man, which before was " without
form and void," that light begins to shine which never shall
become darkness, and of which even this Spirit of Truth has
said "that it was good." This divine but initiatory illumi-
nation is the first step in that progressive development of the
internal light and truth in human life and consciousness, and
which, as starting from this point and passing through its suc-
cessive stages of advancement, it will be our object to trace
in the last seven of the present Lectures. In the eight pre-
ceding disquisitions I have endeavoured, by advancing step by
step, to arrive at this last end of all. We have now reached
the culminating point ; and the Supreme Life, which, accord-
ing to what has been already said, is the primary source of all
other life, and which has its life in itself, is now, together with
the full and true notion of this life, to occupy our common
consideration. And then again, descending from this summit
of light and truth, for which in the meantime I entreat your
entire and closest attention, I propose with hasty step to
retrace our Avay through all the grades of man's spiritual
enlightenment, to carry back your regards and mine into all
the several spheres of life and consciousness.

But now, it has been said that the philosophy of life in
every case and instance invariably ascends to the highest
object of every sphere that it contemplates, and that that
supreme object is God. From this, further, it has been argued
that it is even and truly a philosophy of God. How then
does it differ from theology ?

FROM THEOLOGY. 191

At the very commencement of these Lectures I confessed
that philosophy in general, and especially a philosophy of life,
by reason of the common object which they both treat of,
could not avoid coming into frequent and close contact with
theology. But at the same time, I asserted that the former in
its whole essence is completely and materially different from
the latter, and requires to be carefully restricted within its own
limits. We must take heed lest it either violently encroach
upon the proper domain of theology, or- on the other hand,
become its servile handmaid at the sacrifice of its own
peculiar character and destination. The true relation of these
two kindred sciences, as occupied with a common subject
which is often entirely identical, ana tneir nevertheless so
strongly marked and distinct limits, may perhaps be most
clearly illustrated by a comparison with the mathematical
sciences.

Dogmatic theology, or the science of positive belief, resem-
bles pure mathematics. Its ideas and formularies cannot be
too strictly or too simply defined ; nor, where it admits of de-
monstration, can its proofs be carried out with too rigorous and
mathematical a precision. For in these matters it is impos-
sible to give the least room or influence to individual caprice
without hazarding the loss of all that is most essential in the
positive articles of faith. Philosophy, on the other hand, in
treating of such subjects or at least that part of it which is
occupied with these matters resembles rather mixed geo-
metry in its several applications, such as practical mensuration,
or the science of fortification and the art of war. For phi-
losophy is, if we may so speak, an applied theology. Adopt-
ing the universal ideas of the one living God and His over-
ruling Providence, and, what is so closely connected there-
with, of the soul's immortality and man's free will, it adapts
them, in many valuable practical applications, to the whole
and almost boundless field of historical knowledge and the
development of the human race, as well as to all physical and
experimental sciences, and even to the wide domain of scien-
tific disputes and merely human opinion, with its several
conflicting systems. In this course of practical application
philosophy needs not, in its expressions and formularies,
scrupulously to confine itself to the terminology of its sister
science, or to repeat its words with a careful exactness. On

1Q2 THE BEING OF GOD NOT A MATTER OF REASONING.

the contrary, its best and wisest course is to move with free-
dom, changing and varying its expressions at pleasure. For
inasmuch as it is not itself so rigorously tied up as theology
is to authority, so it cannot appeal to it with equal justice in
order to enforce assent to its own teaching. In the same way,
too, that in algebraic equations a mere hypothetical calcu-
lation is oftentimes introduced, which, moreover, afterwards
suggests many a valuable practical application, so also a
similar hypothetical use of the theological magnitudes or
axioms, if we may so speak, is quite open and allowable to
philosophy in the pursuit of its merely scientific ends. It is
only the most general articles of the faith that philosophy
makes use of. At least the minuter and sharply-defined
determinations of a positive creed are not immediately and
indispensably necessary for its object. Now an overruling
Providence, the soul's immortality, and the freedom of the
will, are articles of universal belief, which, although perhaps
not couched in express words and definite notions, yet still
as germs and vague feelings exist, however deeply they may
slumber, in every human breast that is as yet pure and uncon-
taminated by that captious scepticism which frets and corrodes
itself with its seeming perplexities. These philosophy may
safely take for granted. Nay, it is its duty so to do; and
where it does so in the right way, then will it never on that
account, meet with any considerable obstacle or opposition.
On the contrary, by pursuing this course it will the more
surely arouse and awaken these universal feelings from their
slumber in the human mind, and gradually shape and convert
them into fixed and stable points from which to carry on
the further progress and development of the principle of
faith.

And it is even herein that philosophy will most display its
art, or rather its intellectual power over the minds of men.
It is in this pre-eminently that lies its vocation. But if, on
the contrary, it makes this mission to consist rather in
demonstrating, in a strictly scientific form, the existence of a
Deity, with its natural train of those eternal verities the
immortality of the soul, and the freedom of the will, then at
the very first outset it will lose sight of its true aim and set
up a false one. For were such a demonstration possible,
still nothing essential would be gained by its actual attain-

THE BEING OF GOD NOT A MATTER OF REASONING. 193

merit. For, in such a case, the existence of God and God
Himself would naturally become dependent, in thought at
least, on that from and by means of which the proof was
established, and would consequently appear to us no longer as
the first cause of all, but rather a secondary and derivative
being. In such the primal essence would be made to depend
on our human knowledge and science of reasoning, so to
speak, the latter must, in the plenitude of its power, first
confer upon and guarantee to the former its existence. This
would, indeed, be a complete inversion of the true and natural
order of things, such as, alas, has but too often occurred and
manifested itself in actual experience.

These remarks, however, must be understood as applying to a
strict demonstration of this great verity, or at least to all attempts
of the kind. To point to this truth, to trace every indication
of it, to elucidate it, to confirm it by analogy or other corro-
borative evidences, is quite a different matter. All this is
perfectly alloAvable. But God does not allow his existence to
be proved. By force of reasoning such a belief is not to be
impressed on the mind of that man who is unwilling sponta-
neously to admit it. As life generally, so also this supreme
life must be learned and concluded from every man's own
experience ; it must be adopted with the vividness of a feeling.

Let us now, for a moment, revert to the old scholastic
forms and the designations usually given in the schools to
the several philosophical sciences, and compare with them the
division on which our present disquisitions are based. We
might, in this respect, say that the first five sections of our
treatise have been exclusively devoted to psychology; though
not indeed in the ordiriary narrow sense of the word, but in one
far more extensive, and embracing the whole universe. Accord-
ing to this wider extent and signification of psychology, we
have considered the soul relatively, first of all, to the whole
of philosophy and its several systems ; secondly, to moral life ;
and, lastly, to revelation, to nature, and to God Himself.
The three following Lectures were devoted to an examina-
tion of the divine order of things in the several spheres of
existence, and to the indications of a ruling Providence dis-
coverable therein. They constitute, therefore, a species of
theology; but one, however, empirically conceived and his-
torically worked out from observations in nature and ii)

194 NATUKAL THEOLOGY.

history, not only in the annals of the external world, but
also in the spiritual history of the progressive terms in the
development of truth. Such a theological essay exactly cor-
responds to that notion we so lately advanced, of an applied
or mixed science of theology as the peculiar sphere for this
part or branch of philosophy which concerns itself with the
doctrine of the supreme essence, and the right understanding
thereof.

Now if, in compliance with olden forms of division and a
scholastic phraseology, it be necessary to deliver a scheme
of ontology as the philosophical science and cognition of
really existent things, and also of their true and real essence,
it is clear that such is only conceivable and possible by means
of such an applied theology. For how can things be truly
real, and how can they as such be known in their inmost
essence, except so far as they have their existence and deter-
mination in God, and, in this respect, admit of being known
by us?

In any case, however, the name of natural theology, which
ever and anon we still hear applied to the philosophical
cognition of the Divine Being and His existence, ought care-
fully to be avoided. Such a designation is based on a
thorough misconception and total inversion of ideas. Every

r' im of theology that is not supernatural, or at least that
not profess to be so, but pretends to understand natu-
rally the idea of God, and regards the knowledge of the
divine essence as a branch of natural science, or derives the
idea simply from nature, is even on that account false.
Missing and entirely mistaking its proper object, it must,
in short, prove absolutely null and void. Properly, indeed,
this inquiry needs no peculiar word nor special division and
scientific designation. The name generally of philosophy, or
specially of a philosophy of God, is perfectly sufficient to
designate the investigation into science and faith, and their
reciprocal relation their abiding discord, or its harmonious
reconciliation and intrinsic concord. And this is properly
the point which is here in question; it forms the essential
part of the topic which we have at present to examine.

The internal schism in the faith itself I formerly excluded
from our inquiry, as not lying properly within the limits of
philosophy, and belonging to a higher tribunal. I at the same

MEANS OF RESTORATION TO UNITY. 195

time expressed my conviction that God alone could universally
and totally reconcile it. By this, however, I would not by
any means wish to be understood as asserting that works on
this subject, written with a thorough knowledge of historical
facts, and in a luminous and instructive style, cannot con-
tribute much to the refutation of error. Works of this nature
may, in their degree, tend to bring about a mutual approxi-
mation of sentiment. For they serve to elucidate and clear
up points which, even though they do not involve the essential
articles of positive belief, do nevertheless greatly and exten-
sively co-operate in keeping alive a mutual spiritual alienation
and estrangement of mind. The great merit of treatises of
this kind, when composed with high intellectual powers and
in that noble spirit which is at once just and desirous of
peace, must not in any case be denied or depreciated. Never-
theless, it is idle to pretend that the influence of such essays,
whether greater or less, is not confined to a limited sphere,
extending to a few individuals, or at most to classes.

To judge by the usual course of the divine order in the
realm of truth, a total conversion of the whole mind of the
age, or a re-awakening of entire nations, is only to be expected
from a higher and universal impulse imparted from above.
As a preparation, however, for that divine peace in an uni-
versal unity of faith, which so repeatedly anti so many ways
is promised most distinctly even to this life, nothing can be so
effective as to remove, if possible, or at least to reconcile, that
triple discord already described as dividing and distracting
the inner man. And this is a matter which, as lying within
the sphere of human consciousness and science, unquestionably
belongs to the domain of philosophical investigation. And it
is even the duty of philosophy, whenever it follows its prevail-
ing mediatory and atoning tendency, to attempt scientifically to
bring about the reconciliation of that strife, and undiscouraged
by repeated failures, still to labour to re-establish the perfect
and profound harmony of consciousness and of life.

Now the first dissension, that, viz., between science and
faith, whether actual or apparent, requires for its removal
before all things a mutual understanding and compromise.
The second dissension between faith in general, even a mere
philosophical and natural faith, and that unbelief which is so
general and prevalent in our ai*e, can only end with the per-

196 FAITH AND SCIENCE.

feet triumph of the truth. For only by the full light of divine
knowledge and truth by the triumphant exposition of this
true light, and by the magic power of such a display on the
minds of men shall doubt and infidelity be fully eradicated
and destroyed. The third dissension, between both faith and
science on the one hand, and life on the other, needs, for
the removal of all misunderstanding, something more than a
mere peace and compromise on the disputed points. For this
purpose there is required a thorough union of both carried out
into fruitful and practical application, by which the living
faith and the living science may evince themselves as such,
and manifest their true and wholesome influence on life, how-
ever at present estranged from and adverse to it.

The second and the third of these dissensions are reserved
for consideration in the two following Lectures ; but the first,
that, viz., which subsists between faith and science, is to form
the subject, and its reconciliation the problem, of our present
disquisition.

Now is this dissension necessarily and really grounded in
the thing itself, and in the nature of the thing ? Or rather,
does the blame of it lie with men, and in their defective
apprehension and form ? I have no hesitation in saying that
a living faith and a living science will never be at issue
together, at least on essential points. In three cases no doubt
a dissension, a reciprocal misunderstanding and endless con-
flict between both is perfectly conceivable. It is possible,
either when the faith is a mere matter of memory and of a few
acquired notions, rather than a deeply-rooted conviction of the
soul. Or, secondly, since all the faculties of the human mind
ought to co-operate in giving a full internal development and
an external shape to the truth thus divinely imparted, it may
spring up even when the soul receives it with a full love, but
is nevertheless principally, or at least too much, under the
dominion of a lively fancy, to the exclusion of a due admixture
of clearness of understanding, and the circumspection which
belongs to the distinguishing judgment. Or, thirdly, it may
arise, on the other side, when a conceited and presumptuous
science seeks to establish itself rather than truth, and places
more dependence on its own conclusions than on its announce-
ments.

What then is faith, taken in itself, but the reception into

FAITH AND SCIENCE. 197

the soul of the divine and divinely-communicated verities ?
And what is science, more than the apprehension thereof by
the mind (geist) ? Are there, then, two truths, of which, how-
ever, one or the other is not true ? Undoubtedly there exists,
along with the spirit of truth, another spirit that of contra-
diction and negation. But the latter is no spirit of truth, but
the spirit of untruth and delusion so often described, which
invariably triumphs whenever the mind of man, in its pursuit
of knowledge, seeks itself rather than the truth, and conse-
quently finds, perceives, and retains nothing but its own Me.
And this evil spirit the soul even meets half-way whenever it
is incapable of embracing and retaining the life and the spirit
of the holy faith, and when, consequently, these quickly flee
away, and nothing but the letter and the empty form remains
bchitid. But where the spirit of truth has once departed, error
in manifold shapes and forms finds one way or other an en-
trance into the soul. Is it not one and the same truth which,
on the one side, speaking from the one revelation, impresses
itself on the soul of man as the commanding voice of love
enjoining faith, and which, on the other, condescendingly
offers and presents itself to the mind or spirit of the
believer as a mystery, in order that he may, if he will, inves-
tigate it in order to discover and adopt the meaning and the
light that are veiled and enclosed within it ? Is there, then,
to be a party-feud and a civil war in the heart of man,
between soul and spirit, the two elements of his existence;
just as if it were some ill-organised state where, in opposition
to the supreme political power, some insubordinate body sets
itself up in authority, and presumes to give the law ? Ought,
forsooth, the soul in secret to be liberal, and, in half-unbelief,
to grant immunity to all manner of lusts and desires, while
the spirit is legitimist in sentiment and constitutional in
language? Or ought the soul to be honestly ultra and a
thorough legitimist in its established faith, while the mind, on
its part, by its liberal measures, is perpetually falling into
error ? So far is this from being allowable, that even these
names and these parties would soon cease and disappear
altogether, if, instead of party, the knowledge, and the might,
and the inspiration of life the supreme life, i. e., or God,
were once to take full possession of the minds of men, and
so animate them anew and ardently inspire them with

198 DISCERNMENT THE LINK BETWEEN FAITH AND SCIENCE.

the common spirit and ardour of the one faith and the one
science.

Now the intermediate link which unites science with faith
the mean function betM r een both which admits of demon-
stration within the limits of the consciousness and of philo-
sophy, is discernment (erkenneii). Of this there are two kinds :
the one distinguishes between right and wrong, and conse-
quently, as a separate function, directs itself outwardly in its
operation, and observes differences. By the other >ve see and
comprehend, or understand and discern, that two objects appa-
rently different, are properly and essentially one and the same.
It is with this intrinsic and inwardly-directed discernment, that
we are here concerned. For it is by this highest function of
thought, \vhich penetrates into the inmost essence of each of
two ideas, and by its sentence declaring their similarity, that
we perceive and discern that this science and that faith are
essentially identical. Discerning in this sense is something
different from knowing ; it is, as it were, a second knowing ;
or, if we may be allowed to express ourselves mathematically,
"knowing raised to a higher power." It is this that discovers
the essential unity of Science and Faith, and that must bring
about the restoration of concord between them, and reconcile
them with each other. If, however, this second and higher know-
ing, or this science of science, be referred and confined to one's
own Me or Self, as is too often done, such a course will only lead
us out of the common error of the ordinary self-delusion into
one still more profound, which will prove the more complex
and aggravated, the more scientifically it is evolved, and which
I have already depicted to you in its true colours.

Now this unity of science with faith can only be found and
discovered in their common object, in truth, consequently,
and i. e. in God, who is the sum of all truth. Mere negations
like that of the idea of the infinite, or the notion of the
immeasurable, which is applicable even to nature itself, or
that of the absolute or unconditional, of which many palpably
erroneous applications might easily be made no such pure
negations, nor even any mere enumeration of predicates and
properties devoid of intrinsic coherence, can furnish us with
an adequate conception of the Deity. But now if a cognition,
an understanding of life in general, be attainable (and no scep-
tical perplexities have yet been able to deter or seduce man's

THE TRINITY. 199

sound common sense from entertaining and acting upon such
a supposition), then it is clear that there is no reason for hold-
ing the notion of the supreme life in and by itself to be im-
possible or utterly unattainable by man.

Now this is the path which a profounder science and philo-
sophy has invariably marked out for itself in this respect ;
and in the three different powers, which however are at the
same time but one, in the trine energy of the one first cause
of all, has it ever sought and discovered this highest notion.
In this notion belonging to the supreme science, as advanced
by philosophy in very different ages of the world and among
widely-remote nations, there is a remarkable resemblance,
although in the subordinate statements, there is a greater or
less admixture of error. In the midst of many subordinate
aberrations, it has recognised the one great fact, that in
the Supreme Life, who has His life in Himself, and is the
prime source of all other life, there is at the same time a
creative intelligence and thought which from the beginning
issued therefrom as the Eternal Word self-subsistent and
ordering all things, and that the Light which proceeded
therefrom was itself also the first life. But now just as this
original Life which was from the beginning was not simply
Infinite, but even the source of all finite and infinite exist-
ence, and as this Life is an illumination which illuminates
Itself and all other things, so is this Light also a living
entity, and not merely spiritual and immaterial ; (for as such
even It might still be a part of nature,) but one thoroughly
supernatural and holy, and if man will have it so, an awful
light which repels all darkness from itself, and eternally reject-
ing, annihilates it.

Now this Life, this Word, and this Light, these three dif-
ferent powers in the same energy and in the one substance,
which even therefore is called the Supreme, is at once the
highest object of all science, and the centre and fundamental
source of all faith. And this science of the Highest, even
when regarded exclusively from this single aspect of knowing,
does not exhibit itself as entirely separate from and indepen-
dent of faith, but even as such is from the very first in contact
with it, and taken simply as knowing, involves in it a concur-
rence and co-operation of faith.

In very many and different, not to say infinitely various

200 THE TKIXITY.

ways, it may be shown, pointed out, and established, that
without this full and correct notion of the Supreme Being
every other species of existence and of knowledge must be
without coherence and proper significance. However, as has
been so often observed already, there is not involved in it
any strict necessity. It does not possess any rigour of logical
sequence, constraining the assent of one who in his heart is
otherwise disposed, and in his sentiments has otherwise deter-
mined. For so must it ever be : the final resolve of conviction
is left to the free assent, that quiet internal concurrence of
the will already mentioned which in general brings man into
actual communion with God, and opens and enlarges his
sense for the divine, since such assent is itself even that
sense, or at least the principle and commencement of it.

And this complement of the highest science, which is fur-
nished by the free intemal assent, is even of itself nothing less
than an act of faith. Consequently, the complete and correct
notion of the Supreme Essence is the mystical ring in which
science and faith are at the first beginning indissolubly con-
nected. Nothing but the perversity and shortsightedness of
men in regard both to science and faith, tears them asunder
again, and separating what in God is one and what He has
joined together, sets science and faith in hostile opposition,
mutually obstructing and destroying one another. Moreover,
this highest notion of the highest science is the scientific vertex
or the scientifically culminating expression of man's universal
belief in the one living God. For if this one God is necessarily
to be conceived of as endued with life, it will be sufficient for
me to appeal to the fact that physical science knows not, and
no one even can conceive or comprehend or think of a mode
of life in any sphere of existence, without implying a plu-
rality or at least a duality of co-operating forces. But if,
further, we are to think of it as a perfect life, then must there
be in it a third living energy or operation. Thus, therefore,
on this side also the highest notion of a science which has
attained to its end and to the summit of all existence and all
knowledge, is in perfect unison with the universal feeling of
truth and the natural and simple faith of man.

But now, if the highest science and a divine faith intrinsi-
cally and essentially be properly one, it will naturally turn
and depend on the preservation of the true ratio and correct

FAITH AND SCIENCE RECONCILABLE. 201

proportion between the two powers and elements of human
existence, whether or not in their further application and
actual life they are to continue at unity, without comjngjnto-
hostile collision and discord. The believing soul, like the mis-
tress of a family, ought to hold and retain the chief place in the
house ; the spirit that knows, or that aims at knowledge, as
the master, may pursue out of doors whatever avocations it
pleases, only it must be continually returning to the domestic
hearth, and there warm itself at the pure ascending flame of
devotion and pious meditation. And if in its wanderings it
should most love to stray in the rich and blooming garden of
nature, then of the rare aromatic woods and seeds it there
gathers, it may throw one or more into the fire, in order to add
some sweet ethereal incense to its warming and illuminating
flames.

Or leaving figure, to express myself in more precise and
exact terms, the believing part of the consciousness, observ-
ing its due proportion, ought not to refuse and reject the true
and Godlike science together with that which is Godless, per-
nicious, and false. So, too, the cognitive or scientific portion
ought to abstain from all hostile attacks on the other domain
and on positive faith, which in all probability it has not suffi-
ciently studied and still less perfectly understands. And thus,
also, when this cognitive part (as it ought, and as is essential
to its truth and correctness as science) carefully watches itself
and rigorously abstains from all arbitrary, presumptuous, and
egoistic opinions and ideas, suggestions or beginnings of ideas,
as involving the first disposition to false science and every
species of error, then there is no need for it to be held in
check by the other part, nor to be limited by it.

But in any case we must be ready to admit that the fault
lies in man, and on no account suppose that the dissension
has its ground in the thing itself. For the thing here is
nothing less than truth itself, which cannot be twofold, since
God Himself is this truth and the sum thereof. It is there-
fore important, on the one hand, by means of the old spirit,
to be ever giving new life and energy to faith, by carrying it
back continually to its own eternal foundations, in order
to avert the danger, which is ever threatening it, of spiri-
tual deadness and of the ascendancy of the letter that killeth.
And, on the other hand, we ought never to cease from or to

202 PATIENCE ESSENTIAL TO PURSUIT OF TRUTH.

become weary of refining more and more the higher philoso-
phical science from all the egoistic dross of arbitrary opinions
and fancied apodictic conclusions, labouring the while to com-
plete it according to the threefold dimensions (to hazard the
expression) of this so utterly immeasurable essence of ever-
lasting truth, by keeping incessantly in view the unfathomable
depth, the inaccessible height, the inexhaustible centre of
bliss of the one inconceivable and ineffable Being. For the
fault and the cause of the dissension must in no case be
ascribed to the thing itself, but invariably either to a dead,
imperfectly enlightened, and unintelligent faith, on the one
hand, or on the other, to the arbitrary assumptions or one-
sided conclusions of a science, which in this respect and
degree at least is false and erroneous.

But inasmuch as the fault and origin of the dissension has
partly its foundation in human imperfection and fmiteness, we
must rest content, even if we cannot all at once get rid of and
remove it. We must be satisfied if in this ceaseless struggle
with mail's hereditary and connatural fault of error, the progress
though slow is sure. It is enough if in this surely advancing
progression, each step, however short, brings us nearer to the
truth, and to the perfect cognition of the unity of the highest
science and divine faith. But this is a point on which even
individuals with the most perfect honesty of purpose and a
sincere love of truth, too often go wrong. Unable, perhaps, to
reconcile to their own minds some Conflicting claim of science
and of faith, and to see their way clear out of their perplexi-
ties, then to cut the knot of the problem to which they despair
of soon finding a satisfactory solution, they precipitately adopt
some partial and overhasty conclusion. But slow, extremely
slow, is the advance of man's mental enlightenment in the
realm of truth. And if the course of Providence, according
to the very gradual progression of divine order in this domain,
must be counted by millenniums, then in the life of individuals,
years and decades must be reckoned as days and hours. Even
though some grave doubt, distracting the inmost feelings, but
scarcely definable in express terms some oppressive problem
suggested by the peculiar mental temperament of the indivi-
dual, cannot be resolved in three hours, qr even three days,
still it may perhaps in three years; and if three years be
too little, then thirty years may probably suffice. While

PATIENCE ESSENTIAL TO PUKSUIT OF TRUTH. 203

in spite of this inward doubt we follow uninterruptedly our
vocation in outer life, many a silent change is effected in our
minds, and so at length with altered view r s and enlarged experi-
ence we attain to a calm and clear conviction on the points
which at an earlier period had appeared to us obscure, had held
us in suspense, and oppressed us with perplexing difficulties.

This is the only road that can be safely trod by those who
desire above all things to retain a divine faith, but at the
same tune not to renounce the pursuit of higher science.
And is not this the difficult position in the present day of
every well-disposed person who is in any way connected with
science, or whose pursuits in life require him to occupy him-
self with it ? But now in the case of physical science we are
all content to observe this law of tardy progress ; indeed we
think it quite natural, and hold it to be lie only correct method.
And it is only by following a similar course in the internal
investigations of philosophy that we shall ever arrive at a
stable position and the firm ground of eternal truth. By any
other method, we shall most assuredly lose ourselves among
the ever shifting systems which change with the fashions of
the day, or be carried away by the baseless hypotheses of this
or that sect or school, which, like the sterile blossoms in the
spring, fall fruitless to the ground.

In respect to this tardiness of progress, which most assuredly
is at least not inconsistent with true philosophy, I can appeal
to my own instance, which in such a case is, I hope, allow-
able. It is now nine-and- thirty years since I first read, with
indescribable avidity, the entire works of Plato in the original ;
and ever since, amid many other scientific studies, philosophical
research has been my principal and favourite avocation. In
this pursuit many and various have been the systems of science
of discord and of error that I have had to wander through.
Satisfied neither with the opinions of others nor with my own
views, I felt reluctant to come forward with a system of my
own. In the meanwhile my view of philosophy has been in a
state of inchoation and of tardy but progressive development.
Slowly and incompletely, little by little, incidentally and frag-
mentarily, at different epochs, has some of its principles come
to the light, or escaped me in my earlier literary works and
compositions, an explanation which I do not consider super-
fluous, even for those who are best acquainted with them*

204 HINDOO TRINITY.

But the more I held fast to the two poles of divine faith and
of supreme science, which as such is also divine, the firmer
footing did I gain in that point and that centre in the ever-
lasting Beginning, in which both are one and cease to be at
issue, but rather intimately cohering, do but lend fresh life,
strength, and elevation to each other. And now at length
I believe I have attained to that point when, fully persuaded
myself of this unity of science and faith as grounded in God, I
may safely indulge the wish to impart to others this important
truth, publicly to set it forth, and develope it to the whole
world. And it is to me no slight cause of congratulation that
I am to enter upon this task in the present place and in the
present manner.

Besides those points of correlation already pointed out,
between the highest science and faith, there is still another
way in which the former, in its all-embracing notion of the
triple life of the primal cause and force, is referred to faith,
and even to its positive articles and its divine authority. It
is obliged to appeal to this, in order to find and maintain its
guiding rule and correct standard for the further application
and development of this highest and fundamental notion, and
to keep it clear of all erroneous and extravagant excrescences.
The necessity of this will be best and most simply shown by
a few historical instances.

When we open any of the ancient writings of the Hindoos,
whether it be their scientific systems, their books of laws and
customs for practical life, or their merely mythological poems,
we find them, in every instance, based on the notion of a
divine trinity, and, in some cases, asserting it in express
words and phrases. But inasmuch as, forgetting to maintain
the unity together with the trinity, they abandoned the simple
truth and made thereout three distinct gods, the metaphysical
theory (which otherwise contains so many and distinct traces
of ancient truth) and the trinity of the Hindoos has become a
pure mythology, comprising as long a genealogy of gods as
any other. By the retention, however, of this fundamental
notion their mythology has acquired a theistic hue and colour-
ing, which forms a strong contrast between it and the better
known mythology of Greece, notwithstanding that in other
respects, and in its purely poetic portion, it exhibits many
and strong features of resemblance and affinity. Thus, in this

THE TRINITY OP THE P1ATONISTS. 205

wonderful chaos of distorted truth, of monstrous error, and
pure fiction, we meet with ten fabulous creations of men
instead of the single true one with which, only within the last
three centuries, the Hindoos have formed a more thorough and
permanently based acquaintance. Moreover, in life and in
practice there is exhibited a renunciation of the world, and a
mortification of the body, which, far surpassing the rigorous
self-denial of the early Christian solitaries in Egypt, is carried
to an intensity and an extreme which it is almost incredible
that human nature should be capable of. But co-existing
with all this, we meet with immoral practices and licentious
excesses sanctified by falsehood and superstition, similar to
those we have already become acquainted with in the more
sensual heathenism of antiquity, that, I mean, which pre-
vailed among the ancient races of this our western portion of
the globe. Into such a frightful abyss of error even the most
spiritual system of metaphysics inevitably falls, or at least
easily becomes associated with falsehood, whenever it is left
entirely to itself, and is devoid of a divine rule for its guidance,
and the simple standard of a higher and heaven-descended
authority.

In the history, too, of the development of the Grecian mind
we discover a similar doctrine advanced in one of its latest

rhs. The Neo-Platonists were very well acquainted with
doctrine and idea of a divine trinity ; as, indeed, it may
also be traced in the still earlier writings of Plato himself.
How far the expressions and formularies employed by the
former writers scientifically to convey this idea were perfect
and correct is a question which does not concern us at present
to inquire. Moreover, the determination of it would carry us
far beyond our proper limits, inasmuch as its exact solution
would require a nice and accurate classification of the several
writers and systems which belong to this school. It is, how-
ever, sufficient to remark that this profound metaphysical
school of the Neo-Platonists, which reckoned among its adher-
ents the Emperor Julian, stood in direct and hostile collision
with Christianity. To adapt to the purpose of their opposi-
tion the old Grecian mythology, a faith in which had sensibly
declined even among the masses, they attempted to mould it
according to their own views and notions, into such a theolo-
gical shape and direction as would make it more closely

206 THE TRINITY OF THE TALMUD.

resemble the Indian. By this means they believed it possible
to revive and reanimate the popular faith. But, even if their
ulterior view and their whole object and actuating motive
had not taken a direction so decidedly hostile to the truth,
still their enterprize, even as such, could not but miscarry.
No doubt the mythology of Greece, in its earliest times and
original shape, did contain, in some of its less prominent and
more hidden passages, esoterically interpreted, a few symboli-
cal doctrines and somewhat theistic ideas, as many a profound
examiner of it, in modern times, has recognised and demon-
strated. But, notwithstanding all these traces, which we
must regard as the remains of an older tradition of the primary
knowledge and full revelation belonging to primeval times, still,
in subsequent ages, the Grecian mythology had, on the whole,
assumed exclusively and pre-eminently a poetic development
and form, which even subordinated to itself that political ten-
dency which in so many of its details is so strong. It was,
therefore, nothing less than an absurd and inconsistent attempt
to try, so late in the day, to metamorphose this beautiful world
of fable into a factitious theory of metaphysics, and a colossal
system of mysticism, after the manner and fashion of the
Indian. Accordingly, like every other attempt that is funda-
mentally false and directly opposed to the spirit of the age, it
passed away at last, without leaving a trace of its influence.

This inclination to the poetic aberration of polytheism and
a deification of nature, so universally prevalent in the heathen
antiquity of the West, renders it easily conceivable why, in
the first and Jewish portion of written revelation, such great
stress is laid pre-eminently and primarily on the oneness of the
living God. All other expressions such as that of the eternal
creative Word of the life-giving Spirit of God are, as it were,
but allusions full of hidden meaning for the more clear-sighted
and profounder inquirers. How numerous, nevertheless, such
indications are ; how frequent the reference to three powers
or persons the time, energy, and property of the one Supreme
Being an allusion to which is contained even in the different
Hebrew names of the Godhead, is known and acknowledged,
even by those who would, if they could, deny it, both to
themselves and others.

The tradition of the Jews, which, lying without the strictly-
defined body of Scripture, yet proceeds concurrently with it,

GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN. 207

while it possesses of itself no authority, is, nevertheless, a
very useful though too much neglected source of illustration
for the sacred volume. Now in the Talmud the doctrine and
notion of the divine trinity is expressed quite fully and dis-
tinctly and without reserve ; although in the mode and man-
ner of conceiving it there is much that is both false and
objectionable.

In that second portion of revelation with which our present
era commences, together with the fulfilling and perfection of
the object of faith, this supreme science is brought prominently
and clearly forward. No doubt a certain caution and degree
of reserve on this doctrine of the Trinity are distinctly visible
in the earliest teaching and statements, so long as the preach-
ing of the new faith was confined within the Jewish nation,
on whose mind the idea of the oneness of God was still
deeply imprinted, even though, like every other principle of
their religion, it was ill understood and had long ceased to be
embraced with a living energy, being taken merely in the
dead letter. But ere long this thin veil was also removed
from the All Holy One, and the great mystery of faith set
forth as the introduction to the fourth and last Gospel.
From the latter I have accordingly borrowed that designa-
tion of this great mystery which is even the most appropriate
to science ; of the supreme life which is itself omnipotence, of
the eternal word which is omniscience, and of the uncreated
light which is the All Holy.

Certain great thinkers, who, however, in many respects
cannot be classed among proper Christians, have indeed recog-
nised and acknowledged the profound significance of this
opening of the Gospel. Only they adopted a spirit of hostile
analysis, which, as it attacked so many of the great works of
olden time, did not spare even this divine monument. They
lost themselves in all sorts of superfluous hypotheses as to the
source from which this or that passage was derived, and with
what object it was introduced. Much simpler were it, without
having recourse to any such artificial explanations, to receive
the divine truth in sincerity as it is offered to us. If we must
ascribe some special design for its composition, it will be suf-
ficient to suppose, that after the Evangel of Life and the new
era commencing therewith had been sufficiently set forth as
history in a triple narrative, it was requisite to add thereto this

208 GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN.

Evangel of the Beginning as the Gospel according to the
spirit of the highest science, insofar as this is fully identical
with the divine faith, and henceforward was always to con-
tinue one with it. It was quite in the natural order of things
that the word which was uttered at the beginning of the
material creation, and is the basis of the first revelation,
should also at the opening of the second revelation, and the
spiritual creation of a new era, be repeated (though in a
different and far higher sense) for the soul in the realm of
truth: "And God said: Let there be light, and there was
light."

END OF LECTURE IX.

209

LECTURE X.

OF THE TWOFOLD SPIRIT OF TRUTH AND ERROR IN
SCIENCE, OF THE CONFLICT OF FAITH WITH INFI-
DELITY.

IN the terrestrial creation, in the realm of nature, no sooner
did the behest go forth, " Let; there be light," than the accom-
plishment forthwith followed. Scarcely was this light and
life-creating word spoken, than it was succeeded spontaneously
and immediately, without let or hindrance, by the second word
in the joyful conclusion: "And there was light." Quite
otherwise, however, is it in the life and in the world of free-
created man, in the progression of his intellectual development,
in the history of his mind (geisf), in his now advancing, now
retrograding thought and knowledge. Here, indeed, the first
call to light and divine truth does not pass over even man's
stubborn and taciturn heart altogether unheeded and unan-
swered and without eliciting some faint response. But lasting
is the struggle between light and darkness, between knowledge
and ignorance, between faith and infidelity. Ever waver-
ing from side to side and fluctuating from one extreme to
another, the victory long remains undecided. And centuries
often, nay, thousands of years, pass away ere with perfect truth
that word of fulfilment and completion can be uttered, and we
can go on undoubtingly to say, *' And there was light." Even
when the true end is pursued along the direct road, the right
track is often lost amid the endless strife and controversy of
men, while a long train of useless discussions raises so thick a
cloud of dust as shuts it entirely out of sight, and so a new route
has to be sought and opened from quite an opposite quarter.

How deeply was the Gentile world sunk in wild and cruel
superstition, when the Great Prophetic spirit and the disperser
of that Egyptian darkness, which hung over it, repeated or
wrote down those first words of light for the spiritual no less
than the material creation ! Assuredly he had in view thereby

210 STRUGGLE BETWEEN LIGHT AND DARKNESS

a new genesis for his people a new life and a new beginning
of light. Then followed fifteen centuries of probation. And
what was this long period but one ceaseless though alternating
struggle between light and darkness ! At the end of it, in
spite of its great and noble gifts and superior knowledge,
the whole nation had fallen into the lowest depths of luxury
and corruption, on the one hand a prey to the wilder passions,
on the other spiritually dead and rotten. But the shadow of
its former self, it dragged on a miserable existence, oppressed
by a foreign yoke and torn by intestine sects and parties.
The one claiming to be the only legal sect (and as concerned
the letter of the law, and the outward ritual, it was so in fact),
and arrogant and obstinate, closely adhering to the dead letter,
was widely estranged and alienated from the spirit of love and
mildness. And thus the very name of Pharisee has become
odious and hateful, having passed into a proverb and a by-
word. Wholly mistaking the meaning of the revelation im-
parted to them, they misunderstood the future to which it re-
ferred, no less than the immediate fortunes of their nation and
their own condition. Consequently they went totally wrong in
the interpretation of the former, as well as of the problem of
the present which was laid before them. For they took it in the
narrow and perverted spirit of party. No doubt the Pharisees
reckoned among their members many truly pious, well-disposed,
and right-thinking individuals ; men, who in the beginning of
the new era of the world, as appears from the simple history
of those times, acknowledged the truth, and recognised the
hand of God pointing and leading onwards to the future.
These men mourned in silence over the revolting pride and
stiflheckedness of their contemporaries. But though endued
with great learning and talents, and burning zeal for right
and truth, they did not venture openly to oppose and to teach
differently from their brethren, even because in reality the
law, the dead and external law, was on their side.

But the other party was that of the Sadducees. Quite
different in principle, these were the innovators among the
Jews. Explaining away the theological creed of their nation,
they went so far in this direction as to throw into shade, and to
question, or rather absolutely to deny, the immortality of the
soul. In civil matters, and questions of law and policy, they
were the liberal free-thinkers of their day.

IN JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN DISPENSATIONS. 211

From amidst these two dark clouds, which, if they shone at
all, glimmered only with the deceptive halo of the false light
and hue of party, broke the new dawn and sun of Truth at first
unobserved, nor understood by any, so thickly had these mists
overspread the horizon. But this new genesis, and this full
illumination, was no longer destined exclusively for a single
people. Accordingly it gradually spread over the ten or twelve
great nations, who occupy two parts of the habitable globe,
and also possess and govern the greatest portion of the third
and the most ancient. And it is, in short, by means of that
intellectual superiority and civilisation which they owe to this
springing of a new era, and this first light, that the former
bear rule in the remotest regions of the earth.

Since the dawning of that day-spring eighteen centuries
have elapsed, and sadly torn and distracted is the present
aspect of Christianity. We should no doubt give a very dis-
torted picture of the state of Christendom were we anxiously
to trace its resemblance, through every minuter trait and
nicer shade, to the old world at its close and at the end of
those fifteen centuries of Jewish preparation. Such a minute
parallel would be false, whether we were to compare it to the
moral state and character of that nation, mentally blinded and
hurrying with hasty steps towards its ruin, or even to the old
heathen world of Rome, already condemned by anarchy and
infidelity. Still it is generally true. For it is undeniable
that man is perpetually relapsing into dissension and pa.rty
quarrels, even while the hand which sways the destinies of the
world, in ever recurring epochs of renovation, is continually
presenting to him anew both truth and life, health and peace.
And every one can answer for himself the question whether
this new proclamation of light and truth, this divine message
of peace and salvation, has yet reached its full accomplish-
ment. Has the Sun of Righteousness yet penetrated, and cast
its bright beams on all the relations of life, to the very inmost
joints of soul and spirit? Can it with perfect truth be said,
relatively to the whole human race, " And there is light"
that light at least which alone is good, even because it shall
remain for ever ? For those meteoric sparks which flash across
the universal night and darkness, from the systems of man's
wisdom, which crossing and recrosstng each other's path, are
soon again extinguished for ever ; or those clouds of public

212 A SIMILAR STRUGGLE IN INDIVIDUAL MINDS.

opinion, charged with electric fluid and with pestilence, which,
for the most part, is but the public outburst of some party
passion; these emit no lasting, no salutary, and therefore no
true light. Dark and gloomy too, perhaps, in its future pros-
pects, appears the long struggle between divine truth and
human discord, between light and darkness, between faith and
infidelity. But the more difficult and intricate the problem
is which forms the theme of our present disquisition, the more
diligently and the more conscientiously ought we to seek out
and dwell upon every bright and quiet spot. For such alone
can cheer us on our way along the rugged path that leads to the
blissful goal of internal and spiritual peace, which will essen-
tially contribute to give a solid basis to the public and social
tranquillity, and to ensure its permanence.

Slowly and gradually is it that the individual mind, dis-
tracted and vacillating between God and a divine faith on
the one hand, and a higher, or even the highest, science on
the other, advances in its progress towards the perfect truth.
Arriving step by step at fuller and better convictions, it at-
tains at last to a clear discernment that, properly and funda-
mentally, these two apparently conflicting objects are not dis-
tinct, but in their inmost essence are perfectly one. But for
the final attainment of this end, the most important condition
to be observed is that scientific patience to which I called your
attention in the last Lecture. The chief thing to be guarded
against is a precipitate and over-hasty decision. For by such
we should incur the great danger of sacrificing the sacred de-
posit of faith to science, or of foolishly rejecting the treasures
of true science, which as such is indispensable to the higher
life, and even necessary and useful for the confirmation of
faith itself. And why, in the pursuit of truth, that proper
spiritual theme and highly interesting matter of the otherwise
flat and insipid drama of life, should we feel indisposed to such
a scientific patience, as I called it? Why should we be unwilling
to recognise it as what it really is both salutary and indis-
pensable to human frailty, and as an intellectual virtue no less
necessary than even moral patience ? And the latter is even
the fundamental condition of every great or little business,
and almost every pursuit of life, if it is to attain to a happy
result, and is not to fail of its true end and aim.

For patience is, as it were, the indispensable portion which

CHOICE BETWEEN FAITH AND INFIDELITY. 213

their earthly existence brings to all men. Not only is it
needed by the invalid on the bed of sickness, in the long and
tedious observance of his physician's precise and rigid pre-
scriptions not only is it wanted by the teacher in his trouble-
some task of giving the first development to the intellectual
powers of the child ; not only is patience requisite for the
judge who has to settle the complicated quarrel of two liti-
gants, of whom each claims his sympathy, each desires to win
him to his own side and to bias his judgment, but it is also
indispensable to the warrior whom ambition hurries forward
in the pursuit of honour for himself and his country. For
numberless are the hardships and privations, and many too
are the miseries which the soldier must undergo before he can
gain the object of his hopes, the hard-fought battle and the
glorious victory. The statesman, too, with his wide sphere of
influence and authority, stands eminently in need of patience .
How watchful and comprehensive must be his vigilance, how
deliberate his precautions, lest the organic course of his admi-
nistration should come to a check or stop, in consequence of
his having neglected, or failed to provide for any single
member of the great body, or any regulating wheel in the
complicated machinery of the state.

But on the other hand, there are also moments in human
life where the final issue turns not so much on a steady and
uniform perseverance in continuous activity, as on a decided
resolution and firmness of purpose. Among these we may
place foremost, perhaps, in an intellectual relation, the dis-
sension between faith and infidelity, and the choice at the
point where the two branch off for ever.

It is not here my design to set up, to commend, and to
extol faith, nor to decry, to attack, and to make war upon
infidelity. For the former would take me beyond my pre-
sent limits ; the latter would lead me into a boundless field
of details, and require me to take an exhaustive survey, not
only of all actually existent, but also of all conceivable,
prejudices and delusions. My principal object is rather
to sketch a true and exact picture of both, comprising at
the same time all their historical manifestations, and explain-
ing their psychological causes, in order to exhibit them both
in their true light, so that man may choose for himself and
decide between them.

214 IDENTITY OF SUPERSTITION AND INFIDELITY.

Now the apparent or it may be real, but still only acciden-
tal schism between science and faith is, in the first place,
internal. It is often indeed profoundly hidden and concealed
in the inmost depths of the heart. It is therefore inwardly
only that it admits of being adjusted and finally reconciled.
When this task is once accomplished in the heart of an indi-
vidual, and the choice is at last made one way or the other,
then this decision manifests itself outwardly, either as the
triumph of truth in the unity of science and faith, or, as
infidelity and scepticism, shows itself in the form of a deter-
mined opposition to this unity or to faith itself. And the
latter is the form it also assumes in the intermediate case
when the schism between science and faith is declared to be
irreconcilable. Openly expressed, therefore, these two views
go far beyond the original dissension and pass into the second
schism and conflict between faith and infidelity. And although
this problem be itself an original and internal one, still it
reveals itself pre-eminently as a practical schism in actual life,
and it is as such also that it developes and manifests itself in
history.

But it is our object to make this comparison and parallel
between faith and infidelity, in the full practical meaning of
the words, useful and historically applicable to life. For this
purpose we must not regard infidelity as founded exclusively
on caprice, aversion, or obstinacy consequently on ignorance,
but consider it rather as enjoying every intellectual advantage,
and commanding all the resources of learning and science.
For a purely personal, and merely negative unbelief, without
any deep foundation, and without even an apparently scientific
confirmation, is neither very dangerous to the community, and
above all presents little if any interest to philosophy. But,
on the other hand, if faith is successfully to cope with such
an adversary, furnished with all the armour and expedients
of science, it must be able to stand the comparison with
it in this respect. It must, in short, be conceived and set
forth in its natural relation to true science, and taking its
proper place and position, must act in union and co-operation
with it.

I must here, however, premise a second preliminary remark.
I cannot bring myself to follow a very general opinion, and
look upon faith as a true and duly moderated medium between

IDENTITY OF SUPERSTITION AND INFIDELITY. 215

superstition and infidelity. On the contrary, I join supersti-
tion with infidelity, and cannot but class them together. If
by this term of superstition nothing is meant but some ex-
aggeration or other, some over- excitement of the moral and
religious feelings in individuals, then such a purely personal
case admits not of being raised to a general rule, nor elevated
into an universal principle. And in any case it docs not fall
within the range of philosophical speculation. For the care
of the spiritual health and healthy diet of the believing soul,
which draws both life and love from the deep sources of faith,
belongs to a wholly different province from that of philosophy.
But by this word and notion of superstition there is often
understood a very childish error, which does not duly separate
and distinguish the figurative language and figurative forms
of fancy from the substance of the true intrinsic meaning.
This error, which thus confounds the figurative expression with
reality, and takes it to be something real, may justly be called
childish, inasmuch as it is universally peculiar, almost natural,
to the intellect of children. Now in and by itself, and simply
understood, such an internal optical delusion results from
nothing but a psychological imperfection or a mere semblance
of intellectual nature. But when this error is carried out into
a system and applied on a large scale to the sum and essence
of faith, then, undoubtedly, it possesses a profounder origin
and significance. This species of superstition belongs to one
of those classes of error which I am about to describe. When,
for instance, an actual positive error is comprised in and under-
stood by this name, then it belongs to infidelity, which, in
general, is rather a false faith than any mere absence of belief.
Infidelity, in short, is an erroneous belief. And such also is
every species of superstition, and this designation of it by the
name of erroneous faith, if generally adopted, would be more
correct and accurate, or at least less liable to be misunderstood
than its ordinary title.

For, to adhere to the usual term, every species of infi-
delity is either a material deification of nature and a worship
of the sensible powers of life, or it is an abstract deification
of the absolute subjective Me, and the pure reason, with its
endless thinking and knowing. Even when it is conceived in
a purely sceptical light as an absolute not knowing, still even
in this case it is the understanding that is deified. Standing

216 THE SOUL THE PHINCIPLE OP FAITH.

apart from, and thinking itself superior to, the weak prejudices
of other men in its negation feeling and fancying itself to be
instinct with genius, it is regarded and set up as the high-
est object of existence, and thereby in a certain intellectual
sense is made an idol of. Even the evil power of perverted
genius for such we may well call it when it ventures to
contemn both law and right, and fancies itself to be raised
high above the voice of conscience and the moral duties of
docility and humbfemindeclness as belonging to ordinary
minds even such a perverted genius may be made the idol
of a man who has once turned his back on the simple truth
and on God, and has arrogantly set himself in opposition
to both. We may, in short, without hesitation, advance it as
an invariable principle and an unerring rule, that the man
who has lost or abandoned not to say rejected the idea and
belief in the one good and righteous God, has enshrined within
his breast and cherishes some more or less dangerous idol,
whether it be the subjective Me or some fearful passion, or,
it may be, some firm and well-finished system of deified reason
or nature.

The complete notion or ideal scheme of pure faith, in its
organic union, co-operation, and true relation with all higher
and with all natural or earthly science, must be conceived of
and sketched in agreement with the triple principle of the
human consciousness, according to which it is divided into
spirit, soul, and sense. At least it is in this way that it can
most easily be made clear, and being accurately apprehended
in its essential properties and nature, is kept distinct from
all foreign elements and adscititious matters. But infidelity,
and that doubt and absence of harmony from which it takes
its rise, as well as that error which results from it, have their
seat in the fourfold consciousness. These all owe their origin
to that disunion in which the mind was involved by the Fall,
and which manifests itself principally in the dissension which
subsists between Fancy and Reason, and eventually destroys
all harmony and co-operation between the Understanding and
the Will. For this twofold schism in the human consciousness
is the source of all philosophical error and of its various false
systems. And this scientific error again, so soon as it attains
to a practical utterance, and in a living form enters into or
interferes with life, becomes infidelity.

FAITH NOT A NEGATIVE LIMITATION OF REASON. 217

Originally, however, the consciousness was not thus rent by
dissension. Throughout in its triple principle of sense, soul,
and spirit, prevailed one living harmonious action. Now, in
this its natural state, the soul must be regarded as the prin-
ciple of faith. And this is a point especially to be borne in
mind. It is, however, too often forgotten. And consequently
the faith, or rather (for we are not speaking at present of the
subject-matter so much as of the mental act) the believing, is
in an external manner derived very incompletely and unsatis-
factorily from the divided and quadruple consciousness. For
generally the act of believing and its essence is made to con-
sist in a certain internal reserve on the part of both under-
standing and will, and a similar control of the fancy, and
even of the reason, as well as in the recognition of these limits
and of such limitation.

We must no doubt admit that there may be very much
which the human intellect cannot fathom nor see through.
This it would by no means be difficult to prove. And still more
easy were it to show that man's will cannot always give the
law, but must often submit to and recognise a higher and more
universal authority. And as regards the fancy, every one will
be ready not to say forward to make a somewhat similar ad-
mission. The faculty of imagination, sensuous and material
in its origin and in its operation, and always remaining in the
highest degree subjective, is liable to innumerable illusions, to
which we ascribe no value, or rather, which we carefully
endeavour to dispel from our minds, whenever we attempt to
penetrate into the inmost essence of the highest truth which
it is the object of faith to embrace. That, moreover, the
reason, no less than the fancy, has its peculiar one might
almost say its innate optical delusions, must be but too well
known to every one who has made the slightest progress in
the art of logic, and advanced beyond the mere elements of a
philosophical examination of this faculty.

All this, however, is only of a negative nature. The mere
recognition and acknowledgment of the fact that we can and
ought to restrain our reason and reserve our judgment when-
ever a higher act of faith comes into question or in other
words, that in such a case the absolute reason, with its logical
processes and laws of thought, is not alone qualified to decide,
but meets with limits which it is unable to surmount such

218 THE MIND THE PRINCIPLE OF SUPREME SCIENCE.

concessions do not lead to any positive result. They do but
establish the possibility of a faith which may transcend an- 1
is not confined within these bounds. While, however, they
lead to the inference that such a faith is thoroughly conceiv-
able, and that while it transcends the reason is nevertheless
rational, and capable of being brought into perfect unison
with the sound reason, they do not by any means establish at
once its reality. All this is rather the preparatory step to
believing, and not the true living faith itself.

A true living faith (and we are here speaking of the func-
tion of believing, rather than of the particular details of a
positive creed,) is nothing else than the reception into the
soul of the truth given unto us by God. And inasmuch as
the soul is in its origin loving, and indeed the very faculty of
love, a true living faith cannot be thought of or exist without
this accompaniment of love, which is even its distinctive
characteristic.

In the case, for instance, of a special form and positive rule
of faith, the incompetency of the reason and understanding to
pass a definitive judgment on such high and divine matters
may be acknowledged, and even the external will may sacri-
fice its own inclinations and submit to the requirements of a
positive law. But so long as all this remains, as it were,
external to man, so long as the soul within does not concur
therewith a fact which may be infallibly discerned by the
want or absence of love then in this case it is but a dead
faith, even though outwardly, and in the judgment of others,
it may pass as legitimate and orthodox. Then only is it a
true living faith when it is wholly received into the entire
soul, as manifested by its internal fruitfulness in spiritual
thought and moral action. For it is the soul that believes
that same thinking and loving soul which we have already
designated the centre of the collective consciousness of man
and of his moral life. In. this state, however, the soul has
undergone a change ; in this higher act of believing its cogi-
tation has become steady and uniform, and its love perfectly
pure and abidingly permanent in God.

But now, if in the triple consciousness the soul be the
principle of faith, then is the spirit or mind (geisf) that of
higher science, of free thought, of a full and complete dis-
cernment, and of the final and supreme act of distinguishing

IDOLATRY OF SCIENCE. 219

and deciding. And by this higher science I mean that which
has for its exclusive object the eternal truth, and Him who is
the sum and source of all immutable verities. But thirdly,
the sensuous faculty is the principle of all lower sensible,
terrestrial, and natural knowledge. And this comprises all
human history, and together therewith all language and art,
and every branch of learning that is occupied therewith. But
besides the physical sciences, mathematics also belong to this
department, for these are dependent on the sensuous condi-
tions of number, weight, and measure, and consequently on
time and space, and on those material properties which fill
space, gravity, viz., and solidity.

Now there is nothing, however hidden, nothing, however
profound, into which this sensuous principle of knowledge,
which investigates all that is earthly, natural or human, and
historical, may not attempt at least to penetrate. Only the
inquiring senses must not quit their true centre. In other
words, they ought not to make a hostile attack on the centre of
the consciousness, which is even the believing soul. They
must not by breaking through it, or passing by it, attempt vio-
lently and unduly to ascend to the highest. For in such a
case, attempting to create a supreme and highest object of
their own, raising it on their own soil, and drawing its mate-
rials from their own sources, they will produce nothing but
absolutely false and mere nature-gods, or else some historical
phantoms, or idols of national recollections and patriotic
enthusiasm, such as were enshrined in the heathen worship of
antiquity. For even, without material images and altars, such
an idolatry may be revived in a scientific form, similar to what
we have witnessed, or if we will look around us, may still
witness, with our own eyes. And as little can the free spirit
of supreme knowledge look down from its own height on this
centre of the soul, and pay no regard either to faith or love.
In the depths of sensuous observation, amid all the rich trea-
sures of physical and historical science, it cannot move as
sovereign without being first invested with the luminous gar-
ment of pure faith and love. Otherwise it does only hasten
from one error to another to fall from the first abyss into a
second and still deeper one.

The pure and living faith of a loving soul abiding per-
manently in God, is properly the centre of the human con-

220 IDENTITY OF SUPKEME SCIENCE AND FAITH.

sciousness, the natural passage of life for the senses as they
ascend into the heights, and for the mind or spirit as it
penetrates into the depths. It is the connecting mean which
not only reconciles and adjusts, joins and combines the two,
but also restores them to harmonious unity.

In the preceding Lecture I considered the notion of the
truth in which the supreme science and the divine faith
coincide, and are at unison in reference to their subject-matter
consequently, as the right notion of Him who is truth itself.
Viewing it thus from its objective side principally, I desig-
nated it the sum and source of all truth. We have now, in
the progress of our speculations, met again with this notion in
its subjective aspect. It is chiefly in regard to its form that
it is at present to engage our attention. We have, in short,
to answer the question how the consciousness must organically
be formed and fashioned, and divided, but still harmonized in
all its parts, so that in thought and knowledge, in faith, love,
and science, in investigating and in learning, it may be well-
grounded and find a stable resting-point, and be no longer
distracted by dissension and doubt.

Now the more the living faith becomes love the more does
it, through the immediate feeling and personal experience of
life, attain to the certainty of science. For whatever we ex-
perience in our own selves, or whatever our own life brings
us acquainted with, whatever we are immediately sensible of,
and feel that we also know and are certain of it, that at least
is a matter on which we are not likely to be led astray by the
seeming dialectical proofs of the opposite, or by all sceptical
attacks, or objections to the effect that such an immediate
sensation and knowledge of a higher object is impossible.
Although we are incapable of refuting them, we are never-
theless unmoved by the doubts which are raised even against
the possibility of our own life and existence. We let them
pass by and still live on in the world, until in some un-
looked for moment, and some unhoped for way, the true solu-
tion, and the answer to these cavils which call in question the
reality both of man's inner life and his personal experience,
spontaneously suggest themselves. And in the same way that
the highest science, so soon as it discerns and understands its
own nature, also becomes conscious of faith, and of its own
dependence on faith, and being supported, completed, and per-

FAITH THE SOTJI/S FIEMAMENT. 221

fected thereby, comes into immediate and living contact with
it ; so, on the other hand, the higher faith in the divine, the
more vivid and the more earnest it is in love, becomes a
more immediate conviction, and a science founded on the
personal experience of life.

Faith in the soul, as the centre of man's entire consciousness,
may be likened to the outspread canopy of the blue heavens,
according to that olden notion of it as a firmament, which
perhaps in its figurative investiture still contains much that
is strikingly true. According to this old but beautiful con-
ception, the firmament was a definite limit that divides the
heaven from the earth. Above it the free ether of light dif-
fiises itself and stretches into the wide regions of illimitable
space ; while in the lower sphere, enclosed by the firmament,
the wind of life (Lebenswind) now plays with refreshing
motion, now descends to the earth in quickening dews or
fertilising showers, or draws out of the ground and to the light
the hidden springs of life and mighty streams. Faith, there-
fore, is as it were the heavenly firmament in the consciousness
that divides the streams of spiritual life and of external and
internal science that are above it, from those that are under
it. If this boundary be taken away, or violently broken
through, the light and the darkness are no longer held apart,
but mingle together in one confused and orderless mass. The
true light grows darker and gradually becomes extinct ; while
the darkness begins to shine with a false glare and the
glimmering twilight of pernicious delusion. The old chaos
breaks in again upon the human mind, and it becomes anew
what it formerly was, " without form and void."

When, however, the triple consciousness preserves its
beautiful order and harmony, then the spirit as the heavenly
height above, the sensible nature as the deep below, and
the soul as the firmament between them, are indeed divided,
but not separated or hostilely opposed to each other. On the
contrary, the height as well as the deep, and the whole
circle of spiritual existence, are organically combined and
united together in this centre of faith in the soul. Now this
original constitution of the mind being preserved, the further
development and progress of knowledge and truth may be
regarded as the second step of internal creation, wherein the
light begins to shine more and more on the mind and on

222 THE SUBJECTIVE THE PRINCIPLE OF MYTHOLOGY.

science. The first clear insight, on the other hand, and
internal perception that the highest science and the divine
faith are not essentially distinct, but are fundamentally iden-
tical, must be considered as the earliest entrance of the
spirit of truth into the heart of man.

Such is the right notion of faith, and of a mind wherein
faith and science are organically united and harmoniously
concordant. But in order to afford freedom of choice between
faith and infidelity, it is necessaiy to contrast this living
image with the complete picture of a mind involved in doubt,
distraction, unbelief, and error. For all the motives that can
influence a decision must be furnished by a simple com-
parison of the two, which, indeed, if made honestly and
completely, furnishes of itself the solution of the problem.

Now I have already more than once called your attention
to the tendency to discord, and to the disposing causes to error
which subsist in the natural constitution of the human mind
with its four poles or members. In particular I directed
your notice to the fact that reason and fancy, such as they
now are in their present state of mutual alienation and of
hostile opposition to each other, cannot be regarded as
original faculties of the human consciousness. Originally
they were both in unison in the thinking and loving soul
so long as living and working in faith and truth, it %vas on
that account confirmed by the divine Spirit, and preserved
by union with Him. But when it had once lost this centre of
unity, and, its light being obscured, it had become a prey to
dissension, it immediately fell asunder into these two halves
or faculties of thought. On the one hand stood the reason
as a mere organ of reflection one, i. e., which, in lifeless
abstraction, thinks over the objects previously presented to
it, or as a mere directive faculty of thought, without any
originative powers of its own ; while, on the other, the fancy
presented itself with a blindly productive energy in thought
and invention, as a wild, but nevertheless living sense and
instinct of nature.

Reason and fancy, therefore those two faculties of half
truth, if it be allowable so to speak whenever, instead of
seeking to escape from dissension by reverting to a higher
centre of unity, they stand isolated, and attempt each by
itself to reign supreme, are the real source and actual seat of

MYTHOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC PANTHEISM. 223

all error. Now, one species of error to which man has been
most prone ever since his soul was rent asunder and lost its
unity, is the subjective shape which he gives to material
phenomena. For that fancy, even when most comprehensive,
purest and best, invariably remains more or less subjective,
is a fact which no man will either M r ish or attempt to deny,
any more than that the imagination takes its beginning from
the sensuous impressions of the material world. And this
subjectivity of the fancy may, I think, be taken for granted,
even without any reference to and without discussing the
question of the possibility of demoniacal influences.

Now this subjective shaping of material phenomena forms
the foundation of all mythology ; it is the general explanation
of all the facts of heathenism. It is of course implied in the
very principle of its explanation, that manifold and various
shapes or forms and developments are both conceivable and
possible. And in actual fact, it exhibits the greatest diversity,
from the rude objects of the grossest Fetischism up to the
exquisite creations of a refined and artistic mythology. In
its actual manifestations, however, and in its effects on practical
life, the latter still retains its affinity with the former ; at least,
it rests on the same foundation of a poetical religion some
view of the universe embodied in a real shape in short, the
deification of nature.

We have here taken the olden heathenism in a very simple
light, and quite generally as a materialism assuming a poetic
form and expression ; but one, at the same time, in which, as
soon as we pierce through its poetical investiture, we discern
many points of contact with Pantheism. When, however,
pursuing a searching historical inquiry into the heathen modes
of conception, we enter thoroughly and deeply into its details,
we meet therein with so many magical rites and usages, that
in spite of any previous inclination to the contrary, we feel
indisposed to deny the possibility of a demoniacally affected
imagination having in some degree influenced the character
of heathenism. And indeed, even in a philosophical point
of view, there does not exist any sufficient reason for such
a denial. This, however, as we formerly said, is a matter
which needs not to be taken into consideration at present.

It would be a great mistake to suppose that this error of
a heathenish deification of nature is confined to the ancient

224 IDOLATRY OF RATIONALISM.

world, or to those great and half- civilised primeval races of
the remotest East, which, however, remained, and still con-
tinue, as it were, a living monument of an earlier epoch in
the development of humanity. In the more intellectual ages
of the world, physical science, or the philosophy of nature,
may still be heathenish. It may be this, even while abstaining
rigorously from all symbolical language, it comes forward in
the highest elevation of the dynamical theory, and in pure scien-
tific formularies. This may be the case even when outwardly
it appears to be highly spiritual, or at least far removed from
all the ordinary features of materialism. And it is invariably
such whenever it recognises nothing higher or superior to the
infinite vital force and its dynamical play and law, and
consequently does but deify nature. Heathenish it must ever
remain so long as it does no more than this. This forms,
as it were, a relapse of science into heathenism, and here,
under a different form, fancy asserts her olden authority. For
this purpose she does but assume a geometrical shape, and
decking herself out with all the riches of science, and moving
with free dynamic action, speaks a thoroughly mathematical
language. The point of indifference, and the positive and
the negative pole of all existence, are now, so long as such
a philosophy recognises nothing beyond them, the new gods
which, in those scientific fictions, whereof our own age has
been profuse enough, may receive a shifting rank and honour
but still hold a similar position therein to that of Jupiter and
Venus, or Mars and Apollo, in the ancient mythologies.

When, however, in epochs pre-eminently devoted to science,
and possessed of a true or false scientific enlightenment, we
look to the whole age, and its general tone, this philosophical
error of an exclusive materialism, and of a scientific deification
of nature, does not appear to be the most universally pre-
valent. It occurs rather as an episode and an exception, and
in a certain limited degree, as an opposition to another error,
which, as it is received far more generally, so it exercises a
still more despotic authority over the minds of men. I mean
rationalism ; this is properly the new heathenism of scientific
times. Here in the infinity of dialectics, and the endless
dialectical disputes of an abstract and empty thinking, as well
as in the false semblance of a logical necessity which prevails
in these logical disputations, lies the source of the second

REASON AND FANCY ULTIMATE SOURCES OF ERROR. 225

leading error of philosophy. All erroneous systems, whether
of philosophy or religion, lie somewhere between these two
extremes of false thought. Every species of theoretical or
practical unbelief or erring faith, or even of a scientific super-
stition, either approximates on the one hand to naturalism,
whether under the garb of a poetical symbolism, or the
scientific form of a dynamical theory, or on the other, to the
absolutism of the reason, with its dead formularies. Every
religious and every philosophical error is either a subordinate
or a distorted species of one or the other or it may be a
mixture a mean compounded of both. Manifold, however, or
rather innumerable, are the several changes and combinations
into which these two elements of infidelity and an erring
faith, may and indeed actually do enter.

These then are the two principal elements out of which all
the other forms of error are produced. Reason, therefore,
and fancy must be looked upon as their true roots and sources
in the human consciousness. They spring either from the
scientific productive faculty of imagination, as the unpurified
sense of nature before the Spirit of God has moved on the
face of these waters of infinite life, or from the mere subjec-
tive reason, which in its pursuit of the absolute, thinks only
and knows only its own Me. It is on this soil also that
philosophical error first assumes a systematic shape and de-
velopment.

Our meaning will perhaps be made clear by an illustration
from the healing art. Confining ourselves to the simple facts,
we might say correctly enough, fever and gout, as two leading
forms of human disease, have their seats either in the organs
and circulation of the blood, or in the system of the bones and
muscles. Still it would not be inconsistent with such a state-
ment to believe that the primary occasion or cause of both
evils has a deeper and more hidden origin in some higher
organ of life within the human frame, and in some derange-
ment or disturbance of its functions. In their outward effects,
however, and manifestation, these two diseases respectively
seize upon these two spheres of bodily organisation, and there
spend themselves. And the same is true of those two in-
tellectual diseases, rationalism and the absolute system of
nature, as regards the reason and fancy. The latter are their
principal seats, they form the domain wherein all the false

226 UNDERSTANDING AND WILL CO-OPEBATING CAUSES

productions of erring systems are engendered and spring up,
or in other words, the spot where the paroxysm of their in-
ternal enmity and strife comes to a complete outbreak. Of
course we do not mean that these two diseases always present
themselves simply and purely. In the morbid state of the in-
tellect, as well as in the similar case of organic affection, there
are numerous complications of disease which require a care-
ful and accurate treatment. The first cause of all intellectual
disease, of scientific error, or systematic infidelity, or generally
of every species of a false faith, may lie still deeper, or must
be traced still higher to some more remote and hidden cause.
And in truth the primary origin of all human error is to be
found in the alienation of the mind or spirit from God and
His eternal light, and in its inevitable consequences the ob-
scuration of the soul, and the blinding, and the aberration
and disorder of the senses and especially of the higher
scientific sense for truth. And in order that the senses may
be gradually restored to their true state and order and re-
opened, and in order that the soul also illuminated anew, the
spirit must recover its true luminous centre in God. When
this is once done, the whole of man's cognitive faculty will
be restored to its original state.

But in the outward manifestations of consciousness, as it
is now entangled in and limited by the material, or sensible
world, or practical life, the absolute reason, and a fancy totally
merged in and engrossed by nature, form the two poles of
philosophical error. In all the systems hitherto so frequently
alluded to, these two are essentially the only sources of delu-
sion, although of course innumerable intermediate tints or
chemical combinations of both are possible. The under-
standing and the will that is, a faulty sophistical intellect,
and a faulty unconditional or absolute volition do no doubt
essentially co-operate in the formation and completion of both
these erroneous systems of science. There are besides certain
passionate and personal errors and prejudices of the under-
standing no less than of the will. These, however, in their
immediate effects are practical, and confined to actual life.
At least, taken by themselves and without the co-operation
of fancy and reason, they will never be able to create a scien-
tific system.

In order, however, more precisely to indicate the extent

IN THE FORMATION' AND DIFFUSION OF ERROR. 227

to which the understanding and will co-operate in the pro-
duction of philosophical error, it is necessary to repeat my
previous remarks, and also to add some more precise determi-
nations with respect to the form of aberration peculiar to,
and as it were inborn in each of these faculties. As con-
cerns the will, we placed its proneness to err in its uncon-
ditional or absolute volition, which manifests itself in life as
a destructive or disturbing force, where, however, its effects
are variable, being proportionate to the wider or narrower
sphere of action. In all alike, however, this principle of abso-
lute willing retains its true character. It shows itself, first
of all, in the obstinacy of the child, where it forms the
greatest obstacle that education has to contend against. Its
action is, no doubt, but very weak here; still this apparently
insignificant phenomenon serves to prove and for this purpose
we referred to it that the fault has its root, and is, as it
were, inborn in the very nature of man, and in the present
constitution of his mind. As for the second degree, since
the evil runs through all the various stages of human life, and
assumes manifold shapes, we are, therefore, at no loss for
examples. Whether we take our instance from the obstinacy
of the founder of a sect passionately adhering to and main-
taining the opinions he has once adopted, or that of the leader
of some dangerous political party; in either case, the conse-
quences of this pernicious principle will appear to be, in the
highest degree, extensive and awful. But lastly, it shows
itself in its full and most frightful energy in the reckless and
unsparing lust of conquest, and in the unsatiable thirst of
absolute dominion which stimulates the conquering despot.

The second of the two similes, however, as it is most imme-
diately connected with, so it throws most light upon the
problem before us, the explanation, viz., of intellectual error.
For science, too, has its sects, and even into the calm regions
of philosophy (for such it surely ought to be, as professing to
be the satisfaction of our inmost longing after a knowledge of
ourselves and of nature in truth and in God), the violent
spirit of party finds too often an entrance. In the spirit of
system, and in the prejudices of a view or opinion once
adopted, the absolute and resolved will, which originally is
rather a fault of character than an error of the understanding,
nevertheless co-operates essentially to the establishment of a

228 UNDERSTANDING AND WILL CO-OPERATING CAUSES

philosophical error, at least from its formal side. When,
however, as, under the influence of the spirit of system, is
easily, and indeed generally done by the founders of scientific
sects, the absolute is itself adopted as the immediate object,
then it is the pursuit of this idea of the unconditional that
carries each of these two general forms of error to the highest
pitch of extravagance. Applied to nature and any positive
view and particular system thereof, it gives to it a character
of exclusiveness and definiteness, by which, separated from
all that is higher and properly divine, and made to rest
entirely in itself, it is carried away to the pantheistic self-
sufficiency and deification of a false unity. Combined with
the egoistic or subjective reason, this pursuit of the absolute
and the idea thereof creates the idealistic delusion, or, at least,
readily gives rise to it, and this is the first step, or, at any
rate, the usual introduction, to scientific atheism.

As to the understanding, in one of the earliest of these
Lectures, we mentioned abstract thought as its peculiar
form of error. It is unquestionable that the understanding
may lose itself in mere abstract and dead thinking, so as amid
its mass of purely abstract conceptions to forget entirely all
truly pregnant and vital cogitation. Such an understanding,
there can be no doubt, must either be defective in its organi-
sation, or imperfectly and falsely developed ; and so it goes on
deceiving itself and propagating error among others. Cor-
rectly speaking, however, this abstract thinking does not
belong to the understanding so much as to the reason, which
is even the faculty of abstraction. And indeed, apart from
its great and manifold abuses, the latter, in its right place
and within its assigned limits, forms nothing less than a
natural requirement and an essential function of the human
mind. As for the understanding, it is based on intellection ;
consequently it supposes that in this intellectual act the object
is vividly seen through and thoroughly penetrated by the
mind. And this object may be either an external one, taken
from nature or actual life, or internal a mere thought or
conception, and the word or name designating it. In the
latter case, the mental act of .penetration is directed to ascer-
taining the true and original sense of an idea, or the import
of the notion, or of the term by which it is designated. An
understanding which has lost itself amongst abstract ideas.

IN THE FORMATION AND DIFFUSION OF ERROR. 229

must in such purely abstract thinking become eventually
entirely extinct. Wholly, however, without life and spirit,
the understanding, according to its peculiar character, can
never be ; it is therefore its total absence, or a very defective
condition of it, rather than its death, that is marked out and
indicated by such a state.

But if we wish to determine the particular fault or error
that is peculiar to any one faculty of the human conscious-
ness, it is evident that we must not seek for it in any defec-
tive state or imperfect development ; but on the contrary, in
the highest and fullest energy. But now an extremely inge-
nious, clear, and vivid intellect, may be combined with what
I have lately termed an evil genius the false power of genius.
In such a combination, we have the true state of a perverted
understanding, or of that aberration which is peculiar to it,
and for which the term of a sophistical intellect seems the
tersest and most appropriate designation. And this sophistical
understanding is ever the working organ and instrument for
the building and construction of all false systems, and to
which sooner or later the latter are all obliged to have
recourse.

With regard, then, to the co-operation of the sophistical
understanding in the formation of philosophical error, and its
share and influence on the spirit and the matter of any
system of untruth, it furnishes an opposition to the idealistic
confusion which the absolute will produces by its predominant
idea of the unconditional. Here we have rather a predomi-
nating tendency to a realistic view of the world, according to
the principle it adopts of the universal insignificance of all
things, not merely in reference to morals or practical life, and
in the domain of history, but also in nature and the whole
creation. And with this view is associated a sceptical con-
tempt for all who dare to think otherwise all ordinary minds
who cannot rise to the height where the consciousness of
knowing and believing nothing sits enthroned. This ten-
dency, therefore, and this error of the sophistical understand-
ing, is most immediately related to and associated with the
dialectical confusion of the reason with its endless disputations.
But as the absolute volition and pursuit of the unconditional
cannot well be thought of entirely apart from a certain per-
version of the intellectual powers, so the operation of the

230 PANTHEISM AND RATIONALISM ALIKE FATAL TO TRUTH.

sophistical understanding is impossible, without a certain
admixture of an evil will and an intentional determination to
oppose the truth.

But notwithstanding this intrinsic connexion between these
two intellectual faults, yet in their outward manifestation,
and in actual life, they often stand wide apart from each
other. The true notion of a sophistical intellect will perhaps
be best illustrated in a few words by recalling to your recol-
lection the most celebrated French writer of the eighteenth
century, who exercised so great an influence not only on the
.minds of his countrymen, but on the whole spirit of the age.*
If, again, it were necessary to employ instances in order to
give you a clear idea of the philosophical pursuit of the abso-
lute, examples enough might be found among the German
schools and philosophers of recent times. But to revert to
the sophistical intellect ; rarely has it been, and rarely will it
be, found manifesting itself in such fulness as it did in this
anti- Christian and worldly writer, who indeed worshipped
the age which worshipped him, but mocked and scoffed at all
besides.

Now as to these two opposite systems of error and unbelief
rationalism, viz., and a false idolatrous system of nature
in their inmost essence they are both equally false and per-
nicious. In this respect there is nothing to choose between
them ; they are alike utterly abominable. Even in the judg-
ment of theology, pantheism, as the one extreme of error on
the side of nature, can scarcely appear less false and abomi-
nable than atheism as the other idealistic extreme. Both must
be placed on the same line ; for the one no less than the other
is a full and perfect refusal to recognise the one Eternal Truth
and the Living God.

Looking, however, to their external manifestation and
effects a philosophy of nature which cloaks its thoroughly
heathenish sentiments beneath the bright and seductive attrac-
tion of beautiful and highly-finished form, may perhaps appear
more dangerous and more pernicious than rationalism, espe-
cially when in the comparison the latter appears under its
more moderate, pliant, and skilfully modified phases.

But it is not so much in and by themselves, and generally,

* Voltaire.

RATIONALISM MOKE TO BE PEAKED AT PRESENT. 231

that we have here to consider these two kinds of error. In
such a case the sentence we must pass upon them would be,
that they are equally fatal and pernicious. At present we
are rather concerned with them in their reference to our own
age, and to that struggle which it has to undergo with them.
In this respect I cannot hesitate decidedly to pronounce
rationalism the greater and the more dangerous error of the
two. For not only has it struck its root more deeply in the
spirit of the age, and is far more widely diffused, but it is far
more supple. Parasitically it engrafts itself on the truth and
its various systems, to prey upon them the more successfully.
It is ever ready to make concessions to and to capitulate with
its adversary, in order to triumph over it the more completely
in the end. And when it seems driven altogether from the
field, it still holds its ground beneath some new disguise. In
short, it is scarcely possible to determine the point, if indeed
it is ever reached, where it can be safely said that the evil is
completely and for ever eradicated. It is only life itself the
higher spiritual life, that is and the true philosophy which
traces and restores it in the mind's triple faculties of know-
ledge, that can extricate us from this dilemma of conflicting
errors, and provide the clue which shall guide us out of the
dialectical mazes of the reason. On the other hand, a false
philosophy of nature and such is every system that stands in
hostile opposition to religion, or attempts to usurp its place
which is conceived in a merely empirical spirit, will never
prove very dangerous. After a brief and limited influence, it
will soon fall into neglect and oblivion. When, however, it
is the result of a lofty and intellectual effort when a truly
great and comprehensive spirit moves within it then will it
soon become conscious of those limits, and feeling its own
false position, it will, ere long, find the passage to the divino
which is beyond and above it. But it is not easy for a philo-
sophy of nature to be or at least long to remain strictly and
absolutely confined to its own limits of svstem, even because
of the continual advance of this science of life. And as soon
as it recognises its true place as second and subordinate to a
divine philosophy, then does it immediately cease to be a
false faith. It is forthwith reconciled to the truth, or at least
is already far on the road towards a complete reconciliation
with it. This milder judgment, however, cannot in justice l>e

232 TRUTH NOT ESTABLISHED BY REFUTATION OF ERROR.

extended to that pantheistic science in which nature is as
decidedly and absolutely deified as in any of the old systems of
heathenism.

We have now completed our comparison of faith and
infidelity, and sketched the picture both of man's mind and
of his science, to and from which they respectively belong or
issue. We, therefore, leave it free to the judgment of every
thoughtful mind that reflects upon itself and the nature of
things, and loves and desires the truth, to choose and decide
between them. This comparison is ever the proper problem
of philosophy ; and even if the sketch and delineation of these
two states of the human consciousness be, from the limits to
which we are confined, not perfectly complete, still we may
regard this problem as satisfactorily solved. The struggle,
however, between belief and unbelief is still to go on in the
world and time, but the victory of truth is reserved to higher
powers and forces than man's.

As to the nature and conditions of that intellectual conflict
and its several moments, a few remarks must be added, on its
relation to, and bearings on philosophy. First of all, I
think the previous remarks must have tended to throw light
on a phenomenon which otherwise is remarkable and startling
enough. The good cause, even when advocated by men of
the best intentions and the purest zeal for truth, with the
greatest acuteness and a thorough knowledge of the truth and
its essential principles, nevertheless is but little successfid.
At the very best, it makes an extremely slow progress, while
evil error advances with the fearful rapidity of contagion. To
account for this singular fact it is not sufficient to appeal to
the persuasive rhetoric which the latter has at its command,
or to any superior power of intellect in its advocates. The
cause lies rather in the miasmas of spiritual pestilence which
are spread throughout, and are suspended in the moral
atmosphere.

We should err greatly were we to suppose that the cause
of truth, and of the refutation of error, could as easily be dis-
posed of as any civil process before a judicial tribunal. Here,
to carry the day, it is enough completely to refute the pre-
tensions of one's adversary, and to set forth one's own claim
in a clear and irrefragable chain of legal proof. But, in the
matter of philosophy and the higher truth, how little is gained

THE BIGHT METHOD OF PROPAGATING TRUTH. 233

by the refutation, be it never so complete, of one written
system of error, when, in the meanwhile, two or three more
spring up and call for refutation no less than the first. The
straight road, therefore, of a calm, simple, and, at the same
time, luminous and complete exposition of the highest system
of knowledge seems, to my mind, a far more appropriate
means for the establishment and diffusion of the truth than
the indirect course of refuting any false or erroneous system
that may reign in a particular age and throughout the whole
world. For, in the latter course, if the controversy be at all
searching and complete, it is necessary to enter into all its
tortuous windings, at the risk of being lost and entangled in
them. And even in the most favourable case, where the
refutation is complete, nothing is ultimately gained by it but
a mere negative the establishing the untruth of the refuted
system, together with the proofs of that negative.

It would be most erroneous to suppose that this controversy
is either entirely or in the main directed against books and
leaves, propositions and words. It looks rather to the soul
and spirit, and seeks to drive away, to remove, and banish
from them, and utterly to extirpate, all the deadly seeds of
error and falsehood, replacing them by truth in all its fulness
and energy, so as to win the minds and souls of men to its
beneficent rule.

This, however, is only possible by an individual process
and a personal interchange of ideas. For error and the resto-
ration of truth assume a thousand different shapes, according
to the different temperaments of individuals, or to the different
periods of life in each. If, therefore, it be the wish or duty
of philosophy to make this its principal aim, it is only in the
form of dialogue that it can successfully accomplish the task,
by suiting itself and closely conforming to the personal cha-
racter of individuals. In this sense, and on this account,
Plato, and the other disciples of Socrates, in their controversy
with the Sophists, invariably employed the dialogical style,
and chose this form for the exposition of their philosophical
views. But even the written dialogue cannot do more than
exhibit, as it were, a vertical section of the whole infinite
variety of individual views, convictions, and characters. And
what thereupon is to be done in order to set them free and

234 THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT.

emancipate them from error, and to win them, for, and to fill
them with, the truth?

The inner sense for the truth and the spiritual eye must be
opened, and the spirit of man must be led back and restored
to its lost centre. But the soul must be won and attracted,
totally converted and endued with new life. But is this pos-
sible without some higher and divine power? Can it be
accomplished by man's ordinary art of disputation, even
though it be perhaps sufficient for the ordinary transactions of
a civil tribunal; or by a logical train of proofs, or by the
skilful terms of a well managed dialogue, in the absence of
all profounder power to move and actuate the soul ?

And such a higher power and effectual word of truth does
-exist. In the language of Scripture it is called the Sword of
the Spirit, which pierces to the very marrow and divides
asunder the soul and the spirit. A deep meaning is involved
in this expression of the dividing asunder of soul and spirit,
and the very greatest of all the soul's pains is most appro-
priately indicated thereby. In death the immortal soul is
separated and departs from the body ; but soul and spirit still
continue together in indissoluble union. These words, then,
allude to some other and more violent separation. And it is
one, moreover, which is indispensable to the triumph of truth
in this struggle for life and death. For when error goes to
the inmost depths, and reaches to the very centre of life, both
spirit and soul grow and adhere together, and the delusion
cannot otherwise be dispelled than by the violent separation
of the two. And thus the light suddenly shines upon the
spirit to show it the abyss on whose brink it stands, while
the soul is simultaneously set free from all the chains which
bind it to its false life, and is thereby completely changed and
converted. In this way is the triumph of truth over error and
infidelity effected. Only we must remember that the Sword of
the Spirit, "which pierces even to the dividing asunder of
soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow," needs not
always to be properly a spoken or a written " word." In some
deeply moving catastrophe of a man's life it makes a distinct
and speaking manifestation of itself, working in him a total
change of his feelings and sentiments. But the Spirit's flaming
sword of judgment may be turned not only upon individuals,

THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT. 235

but also upon whole nations and ages, to divert them from
error and unbelief, and to lead them back to truth. Lastly,
it may also be directed towards the whole world and the whole
human race ; and to this interesting topic, which in so many
ways is brought so immediately home to the present era of
the world, we shall in the course of the following Lectures
have occasion to recur.

OF rECTUKE X.

236

LECTURE XI.

OF THE RELATION OF TRUTH AND SCIENCE TO LIFE,
AND OF MIND IN ITS APPLICATION TO REALITY.

THE union of profound knowledge with divine faith, and the
recognition and perception of their unity, is the mind's first
step within the domain of truth and of the consciousness of it ;
or rather the first step in that gradation by which the mind
and consciousness advance towards verity; and it is even the
fundamental principle of truth itself that constitutes this
beginning. The judgment which discriminates and decides
between a simple universal belief in God, and the connexion
of such a faith with all natural and sublimely true philosophy
on the one hand, and unbelief, false science, and the various
systems of error on the other, forms the second term or step
in the gradual progress of truth and the spirit of truth in the
human consciousness, whether of individuals, or of the whole
human race, or of any particular period of its development.
These two subjects have already occupied our attention in the
two preceding Lectures. The third point which the mind
must attain to as the spirit of truth is more fully expanded,
both in the consciousness and in science, is the profitable
application thereof to actual life, or its real manifestation, and
the practical carrying out of its principles. For it is by this
alone that the divine and fundamental principle of truth, and
that important faculty of judgment which separates and dis-
tinguishes truth and true science from ignorance and error,
are realised, and attain to their full end and perfection. The
consideration of this subject will form the subject of the pre-
sent and all the following Lectures.

Before, however, I enter upon this new topic, or attempt to
solve this third problem of the actual application of science
to life and of its profitable combination therewith, I would
wish to add here a few historical remarks on the subject-mat-

MENTAL STATE OF ANTEDILUVIAN WOKLD. 237

ter of our last discussions, which, while they serve to complete
and to illustrate it, will at the same time furnish a natural
and easy transition to our present speculations. The struggle
and the alternate triumph of belief and unbelief, as they gained
in turn the ascendancy over the minds of men and gave the
dominant tone to different ages, or rather the contest of truth
and true science with the different systems of error in the
several periods of the development of mankind and of the
history of the human intellect, is at all times a subject of the
highest interest for philosophical observation. In historical
applications like the present, it invariably proves pre-eminently
useful and instructive. I shall, however, confine myself to
a few examples, and select such as are most immediately con-
nected with our subject, or seem likely to lead to the most
important results.

From the whole history of the ancient world I shall adduce
but two illustrations : first of all, the twofold mental or spiritual
state of the primeval times ; and secondly, the highest reach of
thought and knowledge which Greece attained in her most
enlightened days, which are marked at once with the signs of
first maturity and of earliest decline. From both these in-
stances it will be my object to prove that truth invariably
prevails in the beginning, and that it is always and every-
where prior to and antecedent to error.

From the annals of modern history I shall in like manner
bring before you only a few particularly fruitful instances.
From such periods of the world's history I propose to show
that the problem of science, in its reference to life and its profit-
able application, admits not of any pure and complete solu-
tion ; or that often after an opening of promise it suddenly
takes a wrong direction, and so misses its true aim, and con-
sequently the problem of the age remains unsolved. This
examination of the actual relation subsisting between science
and life as it has been or still is historically exhibited in
this or that particular epoch, together with the difficulties
and the questions which it suggests, will serve as an intro-
duction to our entire theme. For this is nothing less than the
satisfactory exposition and correct theory of the application
of true science to life, and of their profitable combination.

First of all, let us cast our glance back to the infancy of
the human race. In these primeval times, we everywhere

238 HEATHENISM A CORRUPTION OF A PT7RER GENTILISM.

meet with legends and traditions of man's divine origin,
mixed up and interwoven with the fables and symbols of
heathenism. Now we are accustomed to regard heathenism,
or the religion of the Gentiles, as universally and without ex-
ception false and idolatrous, or at least absurd and fabulous.
But is this consistent with the natural course of things ? is
it not probable, or rather necessary, that in its beginning at
least this chaotic medley of symbols and legends must have
had for its foundation some very simple form of error, if we
must suppose that it was always and even from the very first
nothing but error ?

No doubt the heathenism of the first races, so far as we can
trace it, and the early legends and rites of the oldest times
that we are acquainted with them, appears to be already in-
volved in a perplexing confusion of strangest fancies. Nothing
better are they than a chaos of symbolical images of nature,
mingled and interwoven with some vague and shadowy
outlines of truly spiritual ideas and thoughtful notes of a
higher strain, and also with ambiguous and enigmatical legends
of historical tradition. The whole medley, moreover, differ-
ently developed according to the peculiar varieties of national
character or the hereditary feeling of tribe and family, assumes
a particular hue from the local colourings of these different
spheres of life ; or, moreover, as is not unfrequently the case,
is remoulded and cast into new combinations by the arbitrary
caprices of the poetic fancy. Who can hope to find the
simple clue of such a maze ? or who will give us the threads
of Ariadne to guide us out of its intricacies ?

It is true, generally speaking, that our historical knowledge
and research do not reach very far back. The Flood, to which
the traditions of all people remount, and which all telluric
sciences, whether geography, or natural history, or geology, or
whatever other name they may bear, directly or indirectly
confirm, forms an impassable gulf between the modern and
later family of man, and that first and gigantic race of the
antediluvian world. And yet careful criticism and historical
investigation are still able to distinguish in the chaotic con-
geries of different mythologies the several strata and epochs,
and can separate the primary rock of the earlier natural legend
from the later mythical formations. But even this primaiy rock
itself, amid the legends of primeval times this first, and oldest,

TTNWKITTEN BEVELATION TO ANTEDILUVIAN WOULD. 239

and simplest basis of heathenism, is itself but a fusion and
the debris of some earlier and precedent convulsion. But now
all legends, every mythology, and universal tradition, agree in
this one point. They concur in deriving the origin of man
from God, and assert that the first man, who, while he pro-
ceeded immediately from God, was also the first-born son of
earth, in which he was placed, because it was of a nature
nearest akin to his and ours. Now this same first man, as
proceeding and taking his beginning from God, could not well
be without some knowledge of Him. The concurrent tradition
of all nations leads us to the idea of man's possessing know-
ledge, and in truth an immediate and intuitive knowledge of
God in and out of nature, and indeed primarily and principally
from this source, and on the other hand also of his having an
immediate and intuitive knowledge of nature in God. And
this exactly is the old and true Gentilism of the holy patriarchs
of the primeval world, if by this term we understand the original
religion of nature, among the earliest families, and the pious
patriarchs of the human race, as it is described in the language
and after the analogy of Holy Writ,* and also in the ancient
traditions which have grown out of and attached themselves to
it. Now, according to the simple progression of truth, which is
also that of God, and of the knowledge of Him, this revelation
of nature was the first and earliest that was imparted to man
upon earth, and must be carefully distinguished from that later
or second revelation of God, which is both of a positive nature
and is contained in a written law, or written word and book of
the law. And in the written revelation this distinction is most
carefully observed throughout. The divine law, which although
not written on brazen tablets, unquestionably existed in these
primeval ages of a natural revelation, which was read and in-
tuitively understood in nature herself, or immediately in the
hearts and minds of men, was far simpler, and consequently
also easier and less burthensome, than the later law of the
second revelation, which was designed for the moral regene-
ration of a degenerate people, and for fitting them to be a
witness of the truth to other nations of the world still more

* In the book of Job we have a picture of this earlier and purer religion
of nature, as professed by this Idumaean Gentile, while, in his vindication
of himself, we read a testimony to the existence of the beginnings of
idolatry in the worship of the host of Heaven, xxxi. 5. Trans.

240 CONCEPTIONS OF ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD INADEQUATE.

degraded and benighted than themselves. And in the same
way this second revelation was less stringent and less exalted
in its scope than the last law of later times, promulgated in
the third age of the world to all nations and kindreds of the
earth. For the latter was not designed for the first happy
period of the infancy of mankind, but for his last difficult, but
decisive struggle, which is to end in the perfect triumph of
good, and in man's total emancipation from the hostile and
oppressive yoke of original evil. For the wise and omniscient
Father of all, has given to every age of man's history a peculiar
and appropriate law. For the infancy of the race, He pub-
lished an easy rule of life permitting the full expansion and
the blooming development of all his vital energies ; but one of
sterner preparation, of promise and of expectation, for his youth.
For his maturity, lastly, He has set forth a law of determined
struggle with evil, and of a predominant love of the invisible,
and even of perfection. And consequently a new application
of the same law, and a new strengthening for the same conflict,
is to be looked for in the last times of the final consummation.
But not only was the divine natural law, as promulgated to man
in the earli est ages, far different from that of later times, and the
subsequent stages of a further development of revealed know-
ledge. This immediate revelation, and intuitive knowledge of
nature, was likewise very dissimilar to the artificially elaborate
and complicated systems of physical science. For these have
principally to trace out and to revert to the original source of
life, and of the full truth of nature, although even on this right
road of return we are not always nearest to the end, even
when we seem to have made the greatest advance in that
direction. But as the first man recognised God in nature,
and not merely understood, but immediately perceived, and,
as it were, saw, that He was there, therefore nature also was,
in a certain measure, transparent to his eye in God. And
although his knowledge of nature was in the highest degree
simple, still did it even on that account penetrate more deeply
into its inmost secrets. It was rendered thereby more
thoroughly vital and endued with power. One might almost
call it a natural force within him, similar to and akin to those
without him. For generally in those early ages of the world,
man possessed many higher 'energies and living powers in and
over nature, which subsequently were entirely withdrawn from

ANTEDILUVIAN BACE GIGANTIC IN VIRTUES AND VICES. 241

him, or which in later times, as wonderful phenomena, formed
singular exceptions to man's ordinary endowments.

We are perhaps only too much disposed to imagine that
the ancient race before the Flood resembled in every particular
a later and even the present generation. Our conceptions of
it, as regards both its virtues and its vices, are in nowise
great and wonderful enough. In the first place, it is highly
probable that the atmosphere of the globe was at that period
totally different from what it is in the present day, and that
consequently both the food and manner of living in those days
were also dissimilar from our own. If any reliance is to be
placed on the best and oldest historical testimonies on these
points, we can scarcely doubt that the primeval race at least
the generations immediately preceding the Deluge were of
gigantic stature, and that their mental powers and faculties
were on a correspondent scale of magnitude. In perfect con-
formity with these other proportions, the Scripture also
assigns to those antediluvian races a duration of existence,
which, as compared with our own standard of the average life
of man, is equally gigantic. And so little of antecedent
improbability is there in this statement, that to get rid of it
commentators have been forced to have recourse to the most
farfetched and arbitrary, and, in fact, most untenable and
groundless hypotheses.

Now, it is manifest that such corporeal advantages and
length of life which the first patriarchs of the human race
enjoyed, must have been highly favourable to the develop-
ment of their intellectual gifts and immediate intuition, as
founded on a living natural faith, so long as they were rightly
used and directed towards God, as their proper object. And in
the same way their tendency to fearful corruption, under an
impious and sinful employment of their great mental endow-
ments, must be equally evident. At the same time we must
confess our inadequacy to form a conception of the height to
which they attained in either state which would be in any
way proportionate to the truth. It is, however, an invariable
principle of development, confirmed by the observation of
nature, and a careful induction of historical facts, that all that
is greatest and noblest, if it once begins to degenerate and
corrupt, reaches in its corruption and degeneracy the worst
and most fearful extremes. And so it appears to have been

242 STATE OF THE ANTEDILUVIAN 1 WORLD.

with this gigantic and gigantically endowed race of the ante-
diluvian world.

In modern times, a great German philosopher, who nou-
rished towards the close of the seventeenth century, and was
no less famous for his historical learning than for his mathe-
matical discoveries, made the memorable remark, that the
last sect in the whole development of Christian revelation,
and towards the close of modern history the last sect, and
also the most prevalent and most fearful, would be that
of atheism. This dictum, at the time at which it was
pronounced, which was somewhere about the transition
from the anxiety and oppression of the seventeenth century
to the enlightenment and self-complacency of the eighteenth,
must have appeared a perfect paradox. But now that its
fulfilment seems, both to our eyes and understanding, so close
at hand, we recognise with amazement, not to say with a
slight feeling of horror, its deep oracular truth.

Now, as the beginning and the end often bear a wonderful
resemblance to each other, it is not improbable that the first
sect was of the same kind and nature as it has been predicted
that the final heresy will be. A mere dead unbelief and purely
negative atheism, it is true, can as little have prevailed in
those times as a symbolically degraded and an immorally
materialising heathenism. For it was only after the higher
magical powers were withdrawn from man, that the fancy
became in this sense, and to such an extreme degree, sym-
bolical and figurative. Or, perhaps, we may more correctly
say, that of all high endowments now lost for ever, a purely
figurative fancy was all that remained ; whereupon, in oppo-
sition to it the other erroneous extreme of abstract thought,
gradually attained to a greater and an undue development.
And we may with good reason assume, that with this fearful
catastrophe the very consciousness of man was essentially
altered and changed. Of the wild and lawless state of the
generations before the Flood, we cannot, perhaps, form a juster
conception than by regarding it as an open rebellion and
organised revolt of man against his Maker and benefactor, a
complete and visible supremacy of the evil principle and the
wicked spirits on earth, and an intimate union between man
and the devil. It must have resembled the description which
we meet with in some old books of the future reign of anti-

RISE AND DECLINE OF GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY. 243

christ. Such a state of things may justly be denominated
atheism. But however this may be, and whatever conception
we may form, and whatever historical shape we may give to
particulars in this domain, (where, after all, we cannot get
beyond conjecture and presumptions, or, it may be, hypo-
thetical history, based on probabilities,) one general point is
incontestable. Truly noble, in those primeval times of a pure
natural faith, must have been the intellectual powers and de-
velopment of the first ancestors of the world and these great
progenitors of the human race, and fearful, in the same degree,
must have been the fall and corruption which followed the
abuse of those high privileges. For man's mental powers, still
subsisting in the plenitude of their productive energy, and his
lordship over nature being undisturbed, his corruption must
have generated the wildest and most monstrous excesses.
Consequently, amidst the universal reign of evil and wicked-
ness, the only course that remained Avas the total destruction
of the existing generation, and the complete renovation, or
rather, a new commencement, of mankind.

But the corruption of later times, though, in truth, on a less
scale, has likewise been very great. Rapid, too, has been the
passage from good to evil. Moreover, it is self-evident that
in the primeval ages of a vivid natural faith, and of a life
according to nature, that separation between life and nature
that exists in these later times could not well have taken
place ; nay, at such a period it is totally inconceivable. On
the contrary, science and life must have been in perfect
unison. And this is true, not only of the virtuous knowledge
in the first happy epoch of the world's golden age, but also of
the wicked ideas and the demoniac efforts of error in the
succeeding periods of gigantic bewilderment and arrogant
enmity to God. It is by reason of this unity between life and
knowledge that this instance belongs to that gradation in the
mutual relations of the two in the different ages of the
world.

Quite otherwise, however, was it in this respect with
Grecian philosophy. In the most enlightened days of clas-
sical antiquity we behold it either coming forward in direct
opposition to life, especially in its public aspect of politics
and religion, or else as absolutely esoteric, retiring altogether
and estranged from active duties. Now, in adducing the

244 IONIAN SCHOOLS NOT MATERIALISTIC.

history of Grecian philosophy as my second instance, and as
an eminently important moment in the history of the intellec-
tual development of the ancient world, my object is to show
that in the same way that, according to all grounds of analogy,
a simpler natural faith, as the simple religion of the first patri-
archs of the human race, preceded the later form of heathen-
ism into which the worship of the Gentiles so wildly and so
fearfully degenerated, so also in the philosophy of Greece, its
later systems and sects, which were so thoroughly false and
pernicious, were preceded by at least a comparatively better
and higher view by a purer theory of science and of truth.

For though the oldest philosophers of the Ionian school
held water, or air, or fire, to be the ground and principle
of all things, and built on such hypotheses their whole theory
of nature, nevertheless, we should, in all probability, greatly
err, were we, on that account, to charge them with or to
suspect them of materialism. They understood these ele-
ments, not in the ordinary, but in a spiritual and living sense,
as the elements of universal life, and, at the same time, did
not fail to acknowledge a higher spirit operating in and above
nature, and God's all-disposing intelligence. Of Heraclitus,
who made fire the essential ground and first principle of all
things, we know, with historical certainty, that, notwithstand-
ing, his philosophy and view of the universe was in the highest
degree ideal and spiritual. And the same is true also of
Anaxagoras, the teacher of Socrates. Much, too, that would
do great credit to the general spirit of thought and science
of that period, might be adduced from the venerable founder
of the valuable art of medicine, and also from his school, were
the present the appropriate place. The simple fact, too, that
Socrates proceeded from out of this Ionian school, would alone
dispose me to form a favourable opinion of it in its earliest
state ; and it is greatly to be regretted that our information
concerning the oldest of these great thinkers is so scanty, and
its details so uncertain and so little to be depended on, that
it is impossible to form any settled and definite judgment on
the matter.

When, however, we proceed to examine the religious
spirit and value of Grecian philosophy in general, or any of
its special branches, schools, and epochs, we must adopt as
the fundamental rule of our judgment, the universal dogmas

BELIGIOUS TENDENCY OF PYTHAGOREANS AND PLATO. 245

of man's pure and uncorrupted feelings or judgment. Taking
for our standard the natural belief in a living and personal
God, and in an everlasting and all-ruling spirit, in the im-
mortality of the soul, and in the freedom of the will, together
with the immutable principles and ideas of justice, honour,
morality, and virtue ; we must, in this case, carefully exclude
all the special doctrines of a positive faith. We must not
look for or require, in so early an age, that which the further
development of later periods brought to light. Far be it from
us to wonder at, or to urge it as a reproach against Pythagoras
or Plato, if among their doctrines we meet with ideas,
which, strictly understood, are not perfectly consistent with
Christianity. Rather is it a matter for surprise and con-
gratulation, that they knew and were aware of, had antici-
pated and taught, so much that a later date first placed in
a fuller light and made the common property of all men.
This at least was the opinion and conclusion on this subject
entertained in the first century by the greatest and best in-
formed of the fathers of Christian doctrine and science.

This highly religious tendency and perception which we
recognise in Pythagoras, for instance, or in Plato this
anticipation by science of the ideas of Christianity, of prin-
ciples which, with this exception, belong to the Christian era
of the world's history, could not have been without God.
We must, in short, recognise therein a higher providence.
We may accordingly justly regard Grecian philosophy, in its
better spirit and elements, as forming on its part a preparation
for the Gospel, and a scientific introduction to Christianity, of
a special and peculiar kind.

Now, among those whose observations and sciences and
endeavours were throughout directed Godward, the Pytha-
goreans stand highest and foremost. We have already
alluded to the fact, that in physical science they were ac-
quainted with the best and the most important of all that our
history of discoveries, within the last three centuries, is so
proud of. Here and there, perhaps, their knowledge even out-
ran our own, and in all probability they were not without
some insight into those mysteries of creation, about which
our philosophy of nature has within the last half century
excited so much wonder and admiration. It is also probable,
we observed, that by their theory of numbers we are not

246 THEIR NOBLE POLITICAL VIEWS.

to understand the ordinaiy formulae of mathematics, nor the
usual arbitrary play with them in which science so often
indulges, but rather the development of the intrinsic and
divine law of nature and of life according to its everlasting
structure and immutable foundations, or according to the
vicissitudes of its critical times and seasons. But here it may
be asked : whence had they all this ? how, without the tele-
scope, and with, at best, a very defective system of mathe-
matics, and an imperfect art of calculation, did they attain to
a knowledge of the true astronomical system of the universe ?
To start the hypothesis, that they learnt and borrowed it all
from the Egyptians, would only be to remove the question a
step further back, and not really to answer it. But even if
we were to admit the fact, such an assumption would, only,
as regards the essential question with respect to the Pytha-
goreans, and the origin of their science, increase their merits
and their glory. For in the same way as we observed on an
earlier occasion, with reference to Moses and the Hebrews, it
must have been by the exercise of a rare wisdom, that while
they selected all that was best and most valuable in Egyptian
science, they rejected so much that was pernicious, and laid
aside so much that was likely to lead them astray, and even
the impious magical superstitions that were to be found there.
. In much later times, and even down to our own days, the
name of the Pythagorean school and science has been forced
to serve as a cloak for every noxious farrago of mysticism, as
also that of the Neo-Platonists has been made the symbol of
every visionary extravagance. But even if (what, however, I
greatly doubt,) an historical connexion can be shown to sub-
sist between the so-called Pythagoreans of later times and
the earlier and genuine school, nothing further would follow
from such a fact, than a confirmation of my general position.
It would but furnish an additional proof that all that is greatest,
noblest, and most beautiful, when it once begins to degenerate
and corrupt, invariably reaches a proportionate depth of cor-
ruption and degeneracy, and assumes the worst and wildest
aspect of deformity.

As concerns the influence of this school on life, and its
political aims and tendencies, which were unquestionably
part of the general design of the Pythagorean doctrine : all
this must be judged of in 'conformity with Greek notions and

THE SOPHISTS ARISTOTLE. 247

habits, and with reference to the unsettled and disordered
state of the several Grecian communities. This being granted,
it will appear that a simple but lofty object was the basis of
their fraternity. By forming an enlightened aristocracy of
highly cultivated minds, of men of scientific attainments, and
of pure and noble morals, they hoped to establish a new and
better polity, such as might check the reigning anarchy and
revolutionary spirit of democracy, which distracted all the
republics, whether smaller or greater, into which Greece was
at that time divided. But the evil had become too great, and
its power was irresistible. The whole enterprise failed, and
its failure entailed the dissolution of the Pythagorean society.

Many similar views and political designs, which Plato
subsequently engrafted on his own philosophy, in like manner
remained nothing more than ideas, and led to no practical
result. A far more considerable influence on life and its
relations was exercised by the Sophists. Considered in a
political point of view, they were truly and properly per-
nicious demagogues, and in the fullest sense of the term, the
flatterers of the populace. Not only did they undermine the
outward national worship, with its poetical and hereditary
associations, but also overthrew the inward religion of good
principles and of moral sentiments. In short, they practically
taught a true moral atheism, and succeeded in making it the
prevailing and ruling principle in the conduct of life.

At this stage of Grecian philosophy, we witness, for the
first time, a remarkable phenomenon. The tine and good
science which directs itself to the Godlike and divine, is
unable to attain to any lasting or pervading influence on the
lives of men. On the other hand, we see a false and evil
sophistic gradually gaining a complete ascendancy amidst the
general demoralization of society, and the growing anarchy
of the political community, which, thoroughly corrupt and
degenerate, only rose out of one revolution to fall imme-
diately into another. Or rather this false sophistic, and this
moral and political anarchy, were perfectly one together, so
far at least as two destructive principles can ever be or be
brought in unison.

The complete alienation which now existed between the
better science and life, and especially public life, is most
distinctly manifested in the case of the greatest among the

248 THE STOICS AND EPICUREAI

Grecian philosophers of later times in Aristotle, and the
position he occupied in his own age and nation. This acute
thinker, with the utmost care and diligence, collected together
all the most eminent results of the science, and the most re-
markable thoughts of earlier times. Examining and analysing
them with great critical acumen, and with a comprehensive
survey, he formed them into a new whole, and arranged them
into a system of his own, completer and fuller than had ever
before been attempted or accomplished.

We cannot perhaps estimate too highly or admire too much
this great master of human subtlety, whether for his intellec-
tual powers, and extent of learning, or even as a writer.
Still we must not forget that in his system were contained the
germ and evident tendency to the two chief forms of philo-
sophical error naturalism on the one side, and rationalism
on the other. And so we find that in the later times of the
following centuries, each of these false systems, according as
the occasion favoured the one or the other, was drawn out
from the Aristotelian doctrine, to receive a further and a
distincter development. In his doctrine on the Godhead, he
can least of all stand a severe and rigorous criticism. And
in many points, as, for instance, in his notion of the absolute
self-sufficiency of the reason, he approximates but too closely
to the idealistic view which we have already designated as
the transition to scientific atheism.

It was only in a very remote and distant age that Aristotle
attained to a very great importance and authority. In his
own day he did but form a very inconsiderable school, which
exercised far less influence on public life than two other sects,
in whose history the development of Grecian philosophy finds
its close.

The system of the Stoics, with its stern and consequently
impracticable theory of morals, its doctrine of absolute neces-
sity and blind fatalism, announces itself at once as identical
with an austere rationalism. At the same time, under the
teaching of the Epicureans, a soft and effeminate naturalism
became almost universally prevalent. And while, in another
.and newer form, it gradually assumed the place of the old
mythical heathenism, which daily fell more and more into
neglect and disrepute, it still retained the old heathen sen-
timent, and a careless and undisturbed indifference in inactive

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 249

bliss and self enjoyment, as it was even ascribed and imputed
to the gods, was introduced into life, and extolled as the true
wisdom. Thus, then, while on the one hand the foundation
was laid for that insensibility with which the wide-spreading
and growing corruption and the approach of the general ruin
were contemplated, so, on the other hand, the apathy of the
Stoics was not exactly the right kind of sentiment to furnish
a check or counteractive to this sybaritic indifference.

As concerns the relations of public life, the social community,
and the state, the Stoical doctrine appears no doubt in a worthier
and a better light. On this account it numbered among its
adherents almost all the great statesmen that lived from the
last times of the Republic down to the later centuries of the
Empire. Considered, however, in themselves, and scientifically
regarded, both systems must be looked upon simply as the
last chemical decomposing process, or the initiatory putrify-
ing state of all higher science and philosophical reflection
among the Greeks. On the whole, then, we conclude that
Grecian science and philosophy have exercised no influence at
all on life, or at least, either a very inadequate, or such as has
proved radically baneful and pernicious.

But now, in the very centre of man's history in the tran-
sition-point between the ancient and the modern world
science and life were again at unison, as at the beginning.
And this was effected by the appearance of a new science in
another form. For most assuredly we shall not err in giving
this name to a new living and spiritual power, which, totally
changing and giving an entirely new direction to the arbitrary
views, sentiments, and principles of public and private life,
and also to the modes of thinking prevalent in the age and in
the world, was strong enough to triumph not only over hea-
thenism itself, but also over the science and philosophy of its
most enlightened nations. Now this new mode of thinking,
which came forward in the full certainty of the most undoubt-
ing faith and the highest internal illumination, had, so far as
it is right and allowable to call it a science, a very different
form and scope from all that has previously and usually been
so called. For it issued out of the very depths of life, and
received from love a divine love, that is its first diffusion
and establishment. Consequently, it was a thoroughly living
science, or, as being perfectly clear and certain in itself, a new

250 THE GNOSTICS AND AEIANS.

scientific life, which moreover, proceeding from this its first
starting-point, was able to penetrate into all the other forms
of public life and of the anterior systems of science, and by
adopting or remodelling them, give to itself therein a further
and more universal development.

But here also the divine impulse from above encountered
the usual partial or entire resistance from below. Accord-
ingly, this new living wisdom, which in its essence is one with
life, and which therefore the more it is developed only unfolds
this unity the more universally and the more immutably, was
not at the first universally adopted, or did not become every-
where predominant. Moreover, even where it was received and
its authority acknowledged, its reception was often little more
than external. It was not admitted as a living principle
into all the depths of the soul, or impressed on all the habits
and tendencies of the mind (geist). And even where, in some
degree at least, it was adopted in the inner man with full and
sincere love, it was often nothing more than an undeveloped
germ of the future and of a higher life. Isolated by itself, and
standing apart, it remained shut up within the inmost bosom,
without at the same time penetrating, reanimating, and giving
a new life and shape to all the other life-elements of the con-
sciousness and the productions of human science.

Thus then it was only too possible for error to find its
entrance even here also. And it is remarkable that both its
principal forms, such as in varying shapes the history of phi-
losophy is constantly presenting to us in the different epochs of
its progress, here again most distinctly present themselves
with all the features of their intellectual physiognomy plainly
marked, and with the still more obvious contrast of their in-
trinsic diversity. A philosophy of nature more or less vision-
ary and fanciful was the common basis of the various Gnostic
sects. With their long series of imaginary emanations from
the Deity, resembling in no slight degree the old heathen
genealogies of the gods, they would, had they triumphed,
have converted Christianity into a similar mythology, though
of a more philosophical character. In the Arians, on the
contrary, and other kindred sects before and after them,
we recognise rather the spirit of rationalism, which, dwell-
ing on some point of life or theory with a show of rigour
and accuracy, while apparently it disputes only about words,

THE MIDDLE AGES ARISTOTELIAN SCHOOLMEN. 251

is in fact undermining the foundation of the most essential
ideas.

All these parties, however, as they originated, so they also
disappeared, within the first five or eight centuries of our era.
It was therefore impossible for their pernicious influence to
gain a deep hold of life. At least it was neither universal nor
permanent. Yet by them the ardour of a first love was cooled.
And sad indeed has been the loss as regards the fulness of
living energy, and even in respect of profounder wisdom.

The history of the middle ages again presents a rare and
singular phenomenon. One great mind and writer of anti-
quity, whose influence in his own day was far from extensive,
became at this date, in a most remarkable manner, the problem
and centre of scientific inquiry. For several centuries the
human mind was laboriously engaged in disputing about the
philosophy of Aristotle. And although men did not understand
it not at least its deeper meaning, for they lacked the first and
most essential qualifications, and also the requisite means for
such a purpose this apparently aimless disputation and this
unsolved problem was nevertheless not without great and
manifold influence on their own and the following ages. It
has had a permanent effect on the whole frame of man's life
and being.

Of the two wholly different aspects which, as we have
already so often remarked, the philosophy of Aristotle pre-
sents, it was probably not its fruits of rationalism (for at this
period such were generally regarded as forbidden) that
throughout the great part of the then civilised world excited
so incredible a fondness for this all-absorbing and all-under-
standing system. Its attraction lay rather in some great and
mysterious knowledge of nature. And the desire for these
intellectual treasures was not a little heightened by the fact,
that in general they were inaccessible.

In the little intercourse subsisting, at this period, between
distant nations and lands, and the almost total separation of
the Ease from the West, it was only through the Arabic ver-
sions or Latin translations moulded again upon these that
any knowledge of this philosophy could be drawn. This must
have led, it is obvious, to a wide deviation from the true
sense and critical spirit of the author. Its original aim must
have been generally missed. For, however highly we may

252 THE DISPUTATIONS OF THE SCHOOLMEN.

be disposed to estimate the intellectual merits of the Arabians,
as writers of their native history, or in poetry, or in any other
science, they are notoriously deficient in the true critical
spirit. Their total and universal want in this respect is
especially evident when they are compared with the Greeks,
among whom this critical acuteness, whether false or true,
sprang up and reached its greatest height.

Strange, no doubt, and singular is it at first sight, to view
this old master of philosophical thought and science, who, on
the whole, is so perfectly heathen, suddenly received among
the mediaeval theologians, and taking, as it were, his seat and
giving his voice among them. Still, if men of great mental
powers and authority sought to make themselves masters of
the whole matter both of the much disputed works of this
writer, this Aristotle, so strangely disguised in his new motley
dress of Arabic Latin, and also of the voluminous labours
bestowed upon him ; we must look upon this procedure as
analogous to that of the thoughtful physician, who, in the
midst of a wide-spread pestilence and inevitable contagion,
prefers to inoculate it himself, in order the more safely to
treat and to cure it. In short, as the case really stands, we
must look on these illustrious men in two distinct lights.
On the one hand we must see in them the Church's venerable
teachers, and the sagacious and discriminating theologians of
the day ; on the other, the scholastic interpreters of Aris-
totle, who had now become a necessary evil for the Christian
middle ages.

This, however, and whatever else was the matter and object
of such subtle disputes, was too soon forgotten. In these
scholastic contests, after the fashion of the day, the com-
batants, horse and man, were armed cap-a-pie, encased and
disguised in logical coats of mail, composed of countless rings
of thought and chains of ideas. With this heavy panoply,
the great object was to heave their antagonist out of the
saddle. Often they recoiled from the shock without advan-
tage on either side so equally matched were they in their
good lances and the weight of their armour and often they
swerved from the charge. Mostly, however, both of the phi-
losophical knights found themselves at the end of the strife
at their old station in the lists, or driven back perhaps to
their original entry. This scholastic philosophy, in the form

THE RESTORATION OF LETTERS. 253

it now took, of a highly elaborate art of logical tournay in
the philosophical schools, was undoubtedly an abiding evil in
the age that immediately followed, and furnished an impor-
tant element to the party disputes of later, and to the ration-
alism of these latest times.

The overthrow of the Grecian empire and the discovery
of the new world, suddenly and at once introduced into
Western Europe vast and varied treasures of historical,
physical, and philosophical knowledge. In this brilliant
epoch of the fifteenth century, a new world of thought was
as it were laid open. A new era of science would have been
founded and a veritable reformation of the whole Chris-
tian life must have ensued, had not the moral corruption and
the political disorders of the period been gross beyond de-
scription. But for all this, how much is there to admire in
the Platonic writers of the fifteenth century, among whom
Germany, after Italy, produced the most famous and the
greatest number ? When we take up even now any one of
their works, and contemplate therein their comprehensive
liberal pursuit of science, their mild, antique spirit, their
noble form and their quick recognition of the beautiful, we
cannot turn from them without regret to that new state of
barbarism into which during the sixteenth and part also of
the seventeenth century, science was plunged by the rampant
spirit of party and controversy.

At last, however, peace and quiet returned again to Chris-
tian lands and states, and slowly, and by degrees, to the minds
also of men. And now was it, in the eighteenth century,
and especially towards the middle of it, that out of this
apparent and superficial peace, a new science, or a new light,
or at least a new diffusion of it, seemed ready to arise. Simply
regarded in a scientific point of view, this philosophical en-
deavour of the eighteenth century, and the most memorable
of the systems to which it gave rise, occupied our attention in
the very opening of these Lectures. Here the immediate
object of our consideration is not this new science itself,
whether true or false, but rather the influence on the age,
and on life in general, of this modern mode of thinking, as
generally diffused and prevalent.

Much, undoubtedly, has been discovered or newly learnt in
the natural sciences and in the domain of history ; many too

254 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

have been the bold ventures, at least, and novel essays in
philosophy. This new wisdom, moreover, was taught and
disseminated far more universally than ever before had been
the case ; while even the agreeable feeling produced by the
moderation of the intellectual spirit now prevalent, greatly
promoted its wide and rapid diffusion. But at a later period
this enlightenment, so rapidly and so widely diffused, which,
moreover was taken only in a negative sense, was soon recog-
nised to be unsatisfactory and superficial, while also the
theory of popular liberty and independence which was grafted
thereon, and claimed, or at least wished to be rational,
bore the bitterest and worst of fruits.

In short, to speak most leniently of it, the whole was
nothing less than the undigested scheme of an immature and
imperfect knowledge, brought into the world before its time.
Accordingly, its rash and precipitate course in the last age,
whose history is unparalleled in the annals of the whole
world, together with the fearful catastrophe which it has
brought about, opened the eyes of men to the fearful abyss
to which such a precipitate abuse of science had hurried them.
And in consequence, thinking men of the highest endowments
and the richest intellectual gifts among different nations, have
in many ways nobly devoted themselves to the work of restora-
tion in sentiment, in thought, and in science.

But on the one hand, the first elements of the former
destructive principle appear to be still existing, even though
it be in less obvious and more pliable and disguised forms.
On the other hand again, the corrected mode of thinking,
and the better tone of sentiment and science, is for the most
part confined merely to a more chastened outward form.
Scarcely anywhere as yet is it carried far enough back, up to
the profoundest sources of spiritual life, up to the primal
origin and veritable foundation of the divine and of the eter-
nally good.

And yet this is exactly the problem of our age, and herein
alone shall we find the solution of the great enigma of the
times. For from this hasty review of the whole course of
the intellectual development of humanity, from its beginning
to its close, the result, for the sake of and with a view to
which alone I ventured so cursorily and in such faint outline
to sketch all the leading epochs of the histoiy of philosophy,

KE FLECTION AND A13STKACTIOX. 255

mi; a t at least be evident. As in the beginning, and in the centre
thereof, science and life lovingly co-operated together and
were fully in unison ; and as in the intermediate epochs and
intervals among the Greeks in civilised antiquity, and in the
middle ages among ourselves, they became more and more
estranged, so at the end will they be at one again. And
already, even in our own days, everything is tending to bring
about such a consummation. But who shall say whether it
shall be in a good or an evil sense ? Ere long life shall either,
under the influence of the true and good and divine know-
ledge, be again restored, permanently regulated, and receive
a new shape and fresh vigour, or, by a false and delusive
science, be completely destroyed, and involved in eternal
ruin.

Having, in this hasty review, considered, under its histo-
rical aspect, the problem of the relation of science the true
and divine, as well as the false and delusive to both private
and public life, it now remains for us to examine and to
answer this same question from the side of theory. Regarded
from this point of view, it would appear that whenever science
fails to exercise an influence on life, or when they withdraw
and are estranged one from the other, the fact may be always
accounted for and explained by accidental causes and purely
local influences, such as have their origin in the several periods
of the world's history, or flow from certain imperfections on
one side or the other. For, considered in itself, science in
general is nothing but this unity of thought and life, and con-
sequently its living operation and influence are involved in
the very idea of a higher science, provided only it be true
and properly regulated. Either, therefore, science is life ele-
vated into a thought, and consequently transformed into a
thinking, or else it is a thought carried into reality, that has
passed and been transmuted into life, and therein fully attested
and certified by life itself consequently a thinking become
life.

Now, according to this view, that science consists in the
mutual approximation to, and the final attainment of, a perfect
unity between thought and life, there are three degrees of it,
according to that triple gradation and threefold principle
which exists in the human consciousness. The first of these
then is reflection. And this, understood in a somewhat pro-

256 CONSISTENCY THE CRITERION OF TRUTH.

founder acceptation than ordinarily, is an internal feeling,
hearing, or seeing of one's own thinking. Consequently it is
a perception similar to that of the senses, by means of which
the unseen thought is in some degree projected and intro-
duced into external reality. But this act of reflection is
nothing more than a passive state of the soul in its internal
observation of itself. So long as it remains confined to this
narrow sphere, it perpetually revolves in the same orbit, and,
properly speaking, produces no ulterior results of a know-
ledge fruitful and applicable to actual and outward life.

The second degree or moment of science is abstraction, by
virtue of which, from the complete sum of all the criteria and
characteristics of an object, or rather of a thought, some one
is prominently set forth as the most essential, and for the sake
of communication designated by a name. For all communi-
cation and language is based on this faculty of abstraction,
which is itself an arbitrary act of the free-will. But although
by this naming, generalisation, and communication, the in-
ternal thought is advanced a step further into the exter-
nal world arid the living reality among and with others, still
the reality of the thought is by no means satisfactorily estab-
lished thereby. For this very liberty in the choice of name,
of combination, and of general classification, opens a wide
field for caprice. This is evident enough from the countless
multitude of terminologies, so needlessly invented and so
rapidly thrown into oblivion, which form so many remote and
mutually unintelligible philosophical dialects, in the ever re-
peated attempt to build methodically the Babel tower of phi-
losophical system. For these designations of abstract thoughts,
even when they are most felicitous, fail to win the concurrence
of others, and do but open a door to endless dialectical dispu-
tation.

Thus, then, neither reflection, which is eternally revolving
within the narrow orbit of our inward self, nor empty abstrac-
tion, though it strays at pleasure over the spacious realm of
the possible, can lead us to the desired end of perfect cer-
tainty or veritable science. It is alone the practical carrying
out into real life of a speculative thought, that can bring it to
the conclusion and perfection of certainty, and to a complete
and true science. Now I should prefer to designate this its
highest grade by the notion and name of consequence. But

THEORY OF INTELLECTUAL INTUITION. 257

by this term, I must be understood as meaning not merely a
correct logical enchainment of ideas, but pre-eminently a faith-
fully worked out consequence or consistency of sentiment and
life, i. e., a perseverance in good. At the same time, it must
ever be remembered, that the evil principle, although it often
makes a boast of possessing this quality, does so only in ap-
pearance, and never in this true sense. On the contrary,
torn to pieces by conflicting passions in its inmost being, it
is really in the highest degree inconsequent, as acting in direct
opposition to its beginning and origin, which like all other
created beings, it took and received from God.

Truly consequent or consistent a man cannot be except in
the truth, *. e., in Him out of whom all truth, and from whom
all existence is derived and flows in other words, in God.
Science, therefore, is an applied thinking, t. e., one that has
passed into life and thereby become real and certain ; and it
is only on the road of practice, by its actual carrying out or
real manifestation, that it can attain to its highest degree, and
that the truth of an idea or speculative thought can be satis-
factorily attested.

The ideas, according to the original sense of the term, are
even the self-existing thoughts of a higher life, as distinct
both from the simple facts of the consciousness in the domain
of reflection, and from the arbitrary forms of thought set up
by empty abstraction. And though even here as elsewhere,
a false, sickly, or a null and illusory life, may be substituted
for that which is true, still this applies only to the form of
the living idea, as contrasted with the sensuous semblance or
the dead notion. For, that an idea is truly divine, can only
be proved by this quality of consequence ; by its divine
influence and effect on life.

On the other hand, many philosophical thinkers have some-
what erroneously indicated the intrinsic certainty of philo-
sophical thought by the name and under the form of an intel-
lectual intuition, and thereby given occasion to manifold mis-
conceptions. But if in all the fulness of the conception already
advanced of the eternal truth, and of Him who is its sum
and source, we were really able to be sentient of and to feel
the divine life to hear and audibly to perceive the eternal
Word and actually to see the holy Light, such a spiritual in-
tuition of God's glory and majesty would be far more

268 LOGIC OF THE GREEKS AND HINDOOS.

appropriate for the future than for the present world. And
even though we may and can admit it to be conceivable, as
given from above, still a communication of it would be impos-
sible, and consequently could not be available for the ordinary
purpose of giving a philosophical foundation to any human
system. Under this form, then, of a so-called intellectual
intuition, if it be really such, and not rather a mere form of
abstract thought under another and an assumed name, specu-
lative science would consequently assume the character of a
questionable vision, and a possible mental delusion. For a
foil internal satisfaction and certainty so far at least as these
are attainable by man even in the case that they are the
sign and the proof that this intuition, or perception of the
divine light, actually took place, can only be furnished by that
quality of consequence already described as belonging to
every thought and cognition which is founded in God. And
to this character of consequence or consistency, the condi-
tion of agreement with every other idea or revelation already
acknowledged to be divine, belongs naturally as the irrefra-
gable law of judgment and of life.

That full and correct conception of eternal truth which has
been developed by us in the ninth Lecture as the living idea
of the Supreme Being, is unquestionably the fundamental
speculative notion and the internal spiritual basis on which
every other higher science, that has any pretensions to the
qualities of permanence and consequence which belong to
right-thinking and to immutable truth, is subsequently raised,
or in other words, it is the source from which it abidingly
flows. In the three subsequent Lectures, however, the sub-
ject has been mostly scientific, speculative, and metaphysical,
though throughout accompanied with historical illustrations
drawn from the development of the human mind. And here,
accordingly, a reference to the science or discipline of logic
is everywhere supposed.

Now, in the form in which this science or discipline has
come down to us from the Greeks, there is much that is
rather an accident than a part of its essence, and whose
presence must be accounted for by some special and local ne-
cessity. With no people before or since has rhetoric enjoyed
BO commanding an influence as with the Greeks, and with
also has the sophistic art produced such great and such

UTILITY OF A HIGHER LOGIC. 259

pernicious effects. Accordingly, they found it necessary to
devote to the analysis of all its arts, delusions, and tortuous
windings, and also to the development of the dialectical
means for their detection and refutation, a disproportionate
degree of attention, which is neither necessary for us nor
practically useful.

The Hindoos likewise have from the most ancient times
possessed a scientific system of logic. Indeed it has even been
said, that Aristotle having received from Alexander the Great
some of their logical treatises, borrowed from them his own
system, or at least moulded it after them. But from the
reasons just adduced, I am disposed to think that, in all pro-
bability, the Hindoo logic was much simpler than the Grecian,
where the simple end of truth, and the great desideratum of
a correct standard thereof, was lost sight of amid an over
minute analysis, and the mazes of an endless subdivision of
notions.

In the routine of our school education logic might, per-
haps, be made a highly profitable study if only it were com-
bined with and made to bear upon the history of the gradual
development of human thought, and especially the theory of
language. And then, since thought and speech are so inti-
mately allied to and dependent on each other, it would be
advisable to go a step further, and extend our logical studies
to the theory of imagination, symbolical language and its fun-
damental rules.

In a scientific education, too, a logic of the memory (if we
may be allowed the expression) would in all probability be
highly useful. For an established law and disposition of our
thoughts would greatly facilitate the exercise of memory, and
as furnishing rules for the practice, or generally as an exer-
cise of that faculty, would form an excellent basis for scientific
education. For the conduct of life, indeed, there is nothing
so important or so desirable as a right logic of the conscience,
which should detect all the internal delusions of egoism and
the still more subtle sophistry of selfishness in every point
where the question lies between the righteous truth and a
latent falsehood. And this is intimately connected with, or
at least leads directly to, the notion of the sound reason
which requires before all things a conscientious susceptibility
of the truth.

260 SCIENCE AT ONE WITH LIFE.

But a logic applicable to this higher science must be under-
stood in a far more comprehensive sense than is ordinarily
done. And this is even what we have here attempted to
furnish. Logic in general is conversant about three objects :
the notion, the judgment, and the conclusion. But it ought
also to possess a general fundamental rule and regulative
standard of truth, so far as this is attainable. But inasmuch
as in this domain the eternal is simply one, so also for this
higher science one notion properly is sufficient ; as also one
judgment which comprises all others, and one conclusion
which completes the whole, is sufficient. The act of under-
standing has been explained to be the completion of the
notion ; and the full and complete apprehension of the eternal
truth, or of Him who is the sum of all verities, was the subject-
matter of our ninth treatise. The act of discerning was
explained to be the completion of the judgment; and this
perfect judgment, which decides and distinguishes between
truth and error, was the theme of our tenth disquisition.
Science, however, is the perfection of all thinking, and in its
actual operation, as applied to life, and in itself carried to a
conclusion, is one with it. Now this was the end to which
the present discussion and development was intended to lead ;
while the further prosecution of it and its reference to the
several spheres and domains of existence must be reserved
to the following discourses.

END OF LECTUBE XI.

261

LECTURE XII.

OF THE SYMBOLICAL NATURE AND CONSTITUTION OP
LIFE WITH REFERENCE TO ART AND THE MORAL
RELATIONS OF MAN.

How difficult it generally is for man to express his internal
conceptions, to bring out the indwelling idea and to realise its
perfect external manifestation, is shown, for example, among
other instances, by the fine arts, or the art of the beautiful.
For this reason, the theory of the latter, the so-called aesthe-
tics (which, however, might far more correctly be termed
symbolism), forms the natural pendant and accompaniment to
logic, if the latter, instead of being limited, as is usual, to the
mere art of distinguishing the different kinds of notions, is
understood in a far higher sense, and referred to eternal and
consequently divine truth, and to its intrinsic and equally
divine standard. For when the question no longer involves a
purely material or simply subjective verity, but that which is
more exalted and heavenly, then beauty (that, namely, about
which art is conversant, and which far surpassing all that is
merely human, pretends and really ought to be divine and
supernatural) forms the other and symbolical aspect of one
and the same eternal truth. And indeed it is neither sepa-
rable from it nor opposed to it, so long as art maintains its
high standing and employs the sensual charm which it requires
for the lively expression of vitality, and its outward mani-
festation, only as a symbol and for the sake of that higher
significance which she herself lends to it, and does not seek
nor admire it for its own sake, nor sees therein the fulfilment
of its own true end and aim.

But by far the greater number of the productions of art are
only repetitions or copies of some previous realisation. And
I use this term, not in its usual depreciatory sense, but rather
in one that is applicable to what are truly artistic productions
but still only successful formations at second-hand. Extremely

262 ALL ART SYMBOLICAL SCULPTURE.

rare, indeed, are the original expressions or impressions of an
indwelling, unborrowed idea. And even among these very
many are nothing more than the first faint outline and com-
mencement, which only at a subsequent epoch of art, and
after long and repeated essays, attains to complete perfection
and a really successful and veritable outward exhibition of the
indwelling idea. For we must ever consider as an idea that
inward object which art in its external manifestations strives
to realise, and which in its creations ought to stand out, as
it were, bodily before us.

Even in music (as the expression of the emotions of the
soul in their flow and change, and in the struggle with inhar-
monious discords, till at last they finally dissolve in harmony)
it is not so much the immediate feeling for this would be no
more artistic than the mere cry of passion as rather the idea
of it that the artist has in his mind, and that forms the sub-
ject of his representations. The musician strives to represent
the whole idea, the beautiful and the marvellous in the whole
progress of its development. Following the inmost life-pulse
in its alternate rising and falling, he labours to give its un-
expected transitions up to their sudden harmony or its repe-
titions of still increasing pitch up to a full and soothing close,
or (if this is designedly to be left unattained) up to the abrupt
and painful breaking off or gradual dying away and cessation
of the plaintive note or the tone of ardent longing.

And the same is the case with sculpture. But here we
would premise the remark, that the principle with which we
set out, of the triple nature and division of man's being, is
confirmed by the existence of a corresponding order and
diversity in the fine arts. Among the arts, accordingly, whose
object is the manifestation of the beautiful, music is pre-
eminently the art for the soul, while sculpture is for the most
part corporeal.

Now, in sculpture it is not any actual figure or the body
itself that the artist has in view. It is the general idea
thereof that constitutes the subject-matter of his representa-
tions. He seeks to portray its most perfect structure, its full
organic development, its exquisite correctness of symmetry
and sublime beauty of form. And to all this even the expres-
sion of character and passion is in a certain degree subordinate.
And exactly because the external medium which it employs,

SCULPTURE. 263

because the material mass on which its internal conceptions
are to be stomped, or rather out of which they are to be
worked, is the inanimate stone and cold marble, therefore
does true sculpture aim at a higher excellence than the uni-
formity and death-like repose which characterise the Egyptian
statues of the gods. It seeks rather to triumph by copying
with the most marvellous truth and fidelity the living frame
in its most rapid movements, and life in its most violent strug-
gles, and by seizing its fleeting graces to fix them for ever in
its own imperishable creations.

In truth, the imitation of actual reality, however difficult
and in itself worthy of admiration it may be, does not consti-
tute the aim or object, or generally the principle of sculpture,
any more than of any other art. A remarkable proof of this
is afforded by the fact that colour, with all its charms, is
excluded from the plastic art and its embodied manifestations
as too meretricious and too closely allied to reality. For by
such an expedient, not less than by the use of ingenious
mechanism to give motion to the limbs, the artistic ideal, or
the images of the gods, would have degenerated into the
puppets of children.

Reality, therefore, with its actual shapes and the delusive
imitation and servile copying of them, is in nowise the proper
or immediate object of the plastic art. Even beauty of form
is not always, not at least solely and exclusively its aim ; it is
only so accidentally and relatively, as a condition of the ex-
pression of character, of external states, and of the total sig-
nificance. Always and universally it is a thought, the idea of
aome subject or form as the inner sense and significance
thereof, that constitutes the essence of a work of art, and with
which art in general is concerned. In other words, art is
symbolical. And this may be predicated with equal truth of
every higher art, as well as of sculpture, whatever may be the
medium of its, manifestations, whether a statue, or tone as in
music, or words as in poetry. It is exactly this that consti-
tutes the difference between high art and eveiy other which,
however closely allied to it in appearaitce, has some ulterior
and practical object, and which therefore cannot be sym-
bolical.

Of this kind, for instance, is the difference between rhetoric
(which most assuredly is an art, or at least was exclusively

264 MUSIC AND PAINTING.

treated as such by the Greeks,) and poetry. And it is of the
utmost importance to keep this distinction constantly in view.
For exactly in the same degree that it is neglected is the
proper character and true excellency of the higher art of the
beautiful lost sight of. And a right estimate of the other arts
which have an ulterior and practical object would also be
endangered. An orator who with the greatest command of
practical and imaginative language is nevertheless devoid of
convincing logical power to sway the minds of men by his
arguments, and to bend them irresistibly to his purpose, would
exercise but little influence ; while no heavier censure can be
passed on one who sets up for a poet, than to affirm of him,
that he possesses and understands nothing but the rhetoric of
passion, without though such further qualification is evidently
superfluous true poetry.

Of the fine arts, therefore, which, employing a material me-
dium for their representations, possess an ideal and symbolical
significance, music is the art of the soul, and sculpture is that
of corporeal form, and of the manifestation of the true idea of
organic beauty. But among the three sister arts, painting is
the true spiritual one. As the light, with its ceaseless variety
of tints and hues, is the most spiritual element of nature, and
as the eye is the most spiritual of man's senses, so painting, as
concerned about these, is the most spiritual of the arts, and
the one with which the symbolical spirit readily associates
itself. Painting directs itself wholly to the eye, whereas
sculpture appeals indeed to the eye, but only as the necessary
medium for satisfying the corporeal sense and feeling.

But painting in its manifestations does not confine itself to
abstract beauty (if we may so say) or the perfect structure and
symmetry of form. It embraces all the eye can reach in the
visible phenomena of the world, with all its wonderful play of
light and shade and magical splendour of colouring, where not
only the whole, but the several parts in a w/>rd, all that in
many and various ways is charming to the senses, attractive to
the eye with ever new wonders, and all that to the mind or spirit
is full of deep spiritual and symbolical significance. And for
this reason the wonderful art of painting is even the most ap-
propriate, shall I say to exhibit, or rather to suggest, the high
mysteries of divine love in religion and revelation. No wonder
then, if in modern Christendom, music and painting, the art or

ARCHITECTURE ALLIED TO SCULPTURE. 265

symbolism of soul and spirit, have been chiefly cultivated,
and attained their highest development and perfection, whereas
the art of the perfect development of organic form and cor-
poreal and sensual beauty, reached its height of excellence in
the sculpture of classical antiquity, which in the same way and
degree will never again be parallelled, or at least w T ill never be
surpassed.

It appears sufficient if we assume that there are only three
symbolical arts for the higher manifestation of the beautiful.
For architecture, although in various ways bound and modi-
fied by the conditions of some ulterior design, is nevertheless
in its principal features closely related to sculpture, and stands
on the same line with it. For beauty of structure, correct-
ness of proportion and grace of symmetry, which form the fun-
damental laws of the plastic art, constitute also the ideal of
architecture. Accordingly, among the Greeks and Romans,
where the latter attained to its highest and richest cultivation,
its principles, relations, and forms approximate to those of
organic figure, to which they are not indeed outwardly in their
structure, but in a certain degree and according to their internal
constitution, similar and correspondent, or at least related.

Egyptian architecture, with its predominantly mathematical
character, and the tree-like Gothic aspiring to heaven, with
its slender shafts and floral decorations, form the two ex-
tremes of this organic character which belongs to architec-
ture, and which constitutes it one and the same art with
sculpture. For the structures of the former environ and sur-
round the creations of the latter. And it is only consistent
that that which supplies the legitimate sphere and the natural
medium for the other properly exhibitive art of sculpture and
its statues of the gods, should even possess or acquire a simi-
larity of character with it. As to the Egyptian and Gothic
architectures, the remark readily suggests itself that the sym-
bolical character displays itself predominantly in them : purity
of form, however, is the prevalent feature of the antique (or
Grecian), but even here in its proportions the symbolical
principle may be traced, although it is more recondite, not to
say concealed.

Even poetry is no fourth art alongside of the other three.
It does not stand on the same line with and form as it were the
complement of their number. It is rather the universal sym-

266 POETRY EMBRACES THE THREE.

bolical art which comprises and combines in different mediums
all those other exhibitive arts of the beautiful. In its rhythm
and other metrical aids it possesses all the charms of a music
in words ; in its figurative diction it maintains an endless
succession of shifting pictures in the vivid colouring of diver-
sified illustration ; while in its entire structure (which must be
neither purely historical, nor logical, or even rhetorical) it
strives to attain, by a beautiful organic development and dis-
position of its parts, to an arrangement of the whole both
architecturally great and correct.

Poetry owes in every instance its first creative beginning to
some great and singular ray of light from symbolical tradition,
which, at the same time, illuminates the noble and memo-
rable past, and points forwards to the dark and mystical future.
For it would be difficult to produce one among the great epic
poems of antiquity that does not contain this poetico-prophetic
element, and does not touch upon the profound mysteries of
both worlds. The next and middle step is occupied by the
poetry of sentiment and feeling that music of the soul or
poesy of song in which the calm deep longings and the wild
tearing passions of the moment, once plunged and glorified in
that immortal element, become eternal. But the height of
perfection in the organic development of poetry is marked by
the drama. This third and highest form of poetical art has
for its subject-matter the whole struggle of human life, which
in its vivid representations it aims to realise, and, as it were,
to bring bodily before our eyes.

There exists an obvious analogy between the several con-
stituents, as well as the different species or kinds of poetry and
the three material arts of the beautiful. As the latter are sym-
bolical throughout in the subject no less than in the manner
and design of their manifestations, so also, but in a far higher
degree, is poetry, as the art which embraces all the three in
its own sphere. And this was the end to which I wished to
arrive, inasmuch as the symbolical significance of the whole
of life is the very point which at present claims our attention.
For it bears intimately on the conclusion which I attempted
to establish in my last Lecture. It was there my endeavour
to prove that the supreme science, which is essentially identical
with a divine faith, may be actually applied to life, be really
brought in unison with it, and become transformed into a

EDUCATION SYMBOLICAL. 267

living and real existence. But this can only be accomplish d
by a symbolical process, or in other words, the symbolical
signification of life is either itself the basis, or else an indis-
pensable condition of, and inevitable transition-point towards,
such an union and its accomplishment.

But in the arts which portray the beautiful, this symbolical
significance and property is most distinctly prominent : here
it is most easily understood and most universally recognised.
On this account I have chosen this subject, as forming the
natural transition and connecting link between the previous
and the following Lectures. No doubt the sesthetical portion
of man's constitution and life is in itself sufficiently remark-
able and attractive, and rich and important enough in its
effects and consequences, to vindicate for itself such an episode,
and to claim for it a place in philosophical speculation. For
it shows that that fundamental law of psychological science
and triple principle of division of the human consciousness
into spirit, soul, and sense, admits also of application in this
domain also, and may serve to confirm the whole theory and
way of thinking. The further prosecution, however, of this
elementary view or sketch of art would carry me beyond my
present limits. For the aim of that philosophy of which I
am attempting to give an exposition is directed to life itself
as well the inner life of the individual as the public life (and
.n the present place also its symbolical relation or signification)
which is so inseparably and intimately connected with the
investigation into the divine foundation of life and the divine
direction which ought to be imparted to it.

It can easily be shown that education as well as art is
essentially symbolical. Such, indeed, must be the character
of the education, whether public or private, of the whole
rising generation, unless it is to degenerate into an ordinary
mechanical system. And it is even in this quality principally
that we are disposed to place the distinction between an
unspiritual education, which even though in the sternness of
its morality it may defy censure, yet eventually proves barren
and mortal, and one more solid and more conformable to human
nature, which, less pretending in the outset, is even the more
lasting in its effects.

The ready susceptibility of the youthful mind for every-
thing symbolical that lies within its reach, and its vivid per-

268 MAN'S VERY NATURE SYMBOLICAL.

ception of its meaning, might be clearly enough shown by
instancing some of the ordinary amusements of boyhood and
youth. How commonly, in these years, are the various occu-
pations, pursuits and circumstances of real and to them still
future life, childishly perhaps, but still ingeniously imitated, or
rather anticipated ! And how lasting an influence does this
frequently make on their little society! What various but
lasting traces does it often leave on their minds, more perhaps
than many hours of study, especially if in the latter the usual
system of overloading the young mind defeats its own end.
Play, indeed, must not become the mere pastime of idleness ;
for it is only by its alternation with labour and the sternness
of discipline that it continues to be a recreation and a plea-
sure.

And indeed the earnestness, the labour, and the sterner
part in this whole business and matter of education, as mixed
and composed of two opposite elements, of the serious and
the sportive, is highly capable of receiving so spiritual a
reference and vital a significance. And if all education be
nothing else than a preparation for the future, and the state
of this preparation, then it must be self-evident that too many
or enough of such vivid references and spiritual allusions to a
future life, either generally or to any particular phase of it
that may chiefly be had in view, cannot be introduced into
education and its serious and sportive elements and pursuits.
For it is only by this method that the susceptibilities of
youth and the youthful fancy can be vividly excited and
thoroughly impressed with the fundamental design and signi-
ficance of the whole of life, a result which no mere dry defini-
tion of the future state, or generally of any " destination of
man" on the dusty road of logic, will ever attain to.

It is nowise singular if this symbolical property and dispo-
sition of human nature announces itself as distinctly in the
earliest development and in the most perfect of the produc-
tions of artistic genius, whether we take into consideration
the whole existing state of mankind, or his original and
essential constitution relatively to the world and to God. We
have already remarked, on more than one occasion, that man,
as soon as he was deprived of those higher faculties which he
had abused to his ruin, fell thereby more entirely than would
seeni originally to have been the case, under the dominion of

SYMBOLISM OF RELIGION. 269

figurative fancy, and that consequently his whole nature and
consciousness became greatly changed from what it was at
the beginning. If man did at the very first possess the faculty
and the power to communicate his thoughts to others inwardly
by a mere operation of his will, and without having recourse
to the external medium of words, he no longer enjoys this pri-
vilege ; and if any wonderful phenomena in any way resem-
bling thereto be now found, they only form so many remarkable
exceptions, instead of making the rule of human life and con-
sciousness as they now are. As at present constituted, man
feels that his state is pre-eminently symbolical: he sees in
symbolism a necessary requirement for his earthly pursuits
a substitute for those immediate powers of cognition which he
has lost. And all this is true, independently of any use he
may freely choose to make of symbols for the higher purposes
of spiritual life.

Man, at the beginning, was placed on this earth as its first-
born son, in the midst of the telluric universe, or in other
words, in the centre of a planetary world akin to and similar
to his own. Now whatever may be the case, or whatever it
may be allowable to think of any other of the starry spheres
though in the invisible world of spirits all perhaps is more
immediately full of and instinct with essence, and is not
veiled in material emblems, this is not the case with this
earth. Terrestrial nature, in all its organic productions and
warring elements of life, is throughout symbolical. Man,
therefore, viewed from this position of his earthly habitation,
is surrounded by a symbolical world of sensuous emblems.
And if we can, or rather, if we will, believe the grand intima-
tion with which revelation opens, the first and highest desti-
nation of man is even symbolical to be the Divine image.

If, now, all the natural wants and properties of man are
symbolical, if such be his present state in the midst of cre-
ation his whole position in the mundane system, and his
high and heavenly destination, can we, or rather ought we, to
wonder if even religion presents itself for the most part clothed
in a symbolical garb ? For this is the case, not merely with that
which was the wild upgrowth of a poetical and purely imagi-
native heathenism, but also the old, original and pure religion
of nature as the first love devoting itself for sacrifice the
second revelation of God. And so we find it to have been in

270 HELIGIOUS ORIGIN OP ART.

the old world, or as it is otherwise called, the old covenant.
Here the first twilight of faith was yet studded with all the
starry splendour of the whole symbolical creation, as it were
with the brilliant diadem of nature's most glorious images.
And even the new era of the ascending and brightening dawn
still bears on its front the glittering morning star of art.

But now, if still retaining the same figure, or rather
borrowing from it a contrast, we proceed to designate art in
and by itself, we may justly compare it to the moon, which
illumines with its vague but marvellous half-light the domain
of night and the dark realms of creative fancy. Even here
it is but a borrowed splendour from the true sun, a reflexion
from another and a higher luminary, that lights up the dark-
less. And while all the wonderful starry types of the spiritual
world, which retire in the full day, come out in this magical
twilight, so also deceptive phantoms, airy forms of gigantic
magnitude, may mingle with the hovering and misty troop of
shadows to which the earthborn vapours alone give birth and
shape. And yet, notwithstanding this earthly intermixture,
the art of the beautiful, whenever it retains its true nature, is
in its essence directed to the divine. Consequently it not
only lends an external charm to religion, but in its origin, in
all times and peoples, it was intimately related to it, and bound
to it by the strictest ties of affinity and association. And
this is not the less true, even though to the eye of a severe
criticism most of its productions, in the ages of its decline,
may appear utterly remote from its first source and aim, and
perfectly vain, worthless and sensual.

The divine origin of art is easily proved by its history
everywhere, and indeed is so manifest that it cannot well be
doubted. High art, indeed, cannot and never will surrender
its claim to a divine power and sanctity : it must insist upon
the recognition of this its high sanction. If we could conceive
an age or country where religion should entirely cease and be
forgotten where not only all positive faith and revelation,
but even the universal belief in a Divinity above them, should
die away and perish among men the light of all higher and
heaven directed thoughts and aims should become extinct
that echo of eternity and of eternal love which the inmost
feelings of the human soul spontaneously gives back, should
be hushed for ever then and there at the selfsame moment
would all high art be withdrawn and disappear.

BELIGION IX ITS ESSENCE SYMBOLICAL. 271

In our own age the state of things is the direct contrary to
that which we have been supposing. While from the universal
prevalence of freethinking in politics a natural consequence
of the reign of religious scepticism the whole of life, and
especially public life, has ceased to be regarded and under-
stood in its symbolical character and dignity; while the
little of religious sentiment that still survives is more or
less distracted and secularised by sectarian controversy, and
scarcely one inviolable sanctuary is left for a simple and
undoubting faith to shelter in art and the beautiful are for a
certain portion of the educated classes the only fresh oasis of
divinity amid the surrounding desert of worldliness. It is the
last treasure left to them, and indeed prized by them as such,
and regarded as the true palladium of a higher intrinsic life ;
but this, in its isolated state and by itself, it never can bo.

In this respect the present age may be likened to a noble
house, fallen from its primitive wealth and magnificence into
decay and ruin. Its revenues dissipated by misfortunes, mis-
management and extravagance; its mansion and domains
mortgaged or encumbered with debt, nothing remains to it
but the family jewels. These time-honoured heirlooms of
better days are all that it still retains of its former opulence.
And even in these many a false stone has been introduced
among the old genuine diamonds ; much spurious metal has
been substituted for the sterling gold of antiquity. Appa-
rently, however, the whole are still preserved as the last relic
of a former splendour, and of a wealth which once seemed
inexhaustible. In the same way the present generation
supports its inner and higher life on the mere external trea-
sures of art, while the great capital of ancient faith, to which
among other excellent fruits that ornament of beauty owed
its existence, has by the great majority been long squandered
on the " spirit of the age.' 1

But the symbolical dress that religion everywhere assumes
constitutes but one-half of its external form. The other
consists in the vital and intrinsic union of all the members
and professors of the common fakh. Religion cannot by any
means be isolated and solitary. It is impossible to think of it
as existing only for the individual. In a word, there is no
such thing as religion in a proper sense without a community.
Two or three must at least be united in a common faith ; that

272 COMMUNION THE HIGHEST SYMBOL OF FAITH.

its power and efficacy may be visible among them. And this
association is one vital throughout ; an inmost bond binding
souls together by a spiritual attraction, and, as it were, en-
chainment of the several members.

As the electrical shock traverses instantaneously the entire
chain of the connected links, and the spark which enters at
one extremity flashes the next moment at the other ; as a
single loadstone will by contact convert any number of
needles into magnets and elevate them into a new and higher
relation to the whole globe ; so is it also in religion. A living
communication from the first origin runs through the whole
community. As in the voltaic pile, composed of alternate
layers of two different metals, one chemical element of the
telluric energy or of the vital principle of the air or atmosphere
is emitted or set free on one side and the other on the oppo-
site ; so is it here also in the spiritual chain of faith and in its
living reciprocal action of the different members of this soul-
chain between those who are active ministers and con-
ductors, or instruments by which it works, and the others, who
in a somewhat passive relation only imbibe the invisible
life. By the one the divine blessing of sanctification and
holiness is set in action and brought to light developed and
confirmed; while by the others grace is received as the
effectual power and gift of salvation.

One remark, however, seems particularly called for in this
place. It appears from what has been already said that even
revelation and the true religion itself invariably puts on and
is invested with that symbolical garb which is so consonant
and agreeable to the state and nature of humanity. This
being the case, it becomes extremely difficult to form a general
standard by which we may unfalteringly determine what
symbols are not essential, as only serving for the external garb
of religion and an intelligible vehicle of its communications.
For this, it is evident, must be governed by the diversity of
individual wants and peculiarities, and must consequently
assume a variable and personal character. If, however, a
symbol proceeds immediately from God, then it must neces-
sarily be essential. It is not only a type, but an actual sub-
stance. To suppose otherwise woidd be even almost parallel
to presuming to regard the eternal Logos, who is the source
of light and life, of all knowledge and of all being, as a word
merely, without innate energy and substance.

CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT AN ALTAK. 273

Most natural, therefore, is it (that is to say, most consistent
with the nature of the thing, which however in itself is super-
natural, incomprehensible, and surpasses all conception), that
the highest symbol of the faith, that which forms the prin-
ciple of communion and the living centre of unity of all Chris-
tendom, should have such a character as to be at once a
symbol and also the veritable reality of the thing itself. For
inasmuch as on the altar of this religion of divine love, since
the one oblation has long ago been perfected, no other fire
shall again be kindled but the flame of prayer and of a will
directed to and in unison with God, therefore, the act by
means of which that communion of souls which constitutes
the essence of all religion, is maintained and earned on,
consists simply in this, that the essential substance of the
divine power and of God's love to man is given and received
as the wonderful seal of union with Him.*

As to the altar itself, how rich or how simple its ornaments
ought to be, is a question which I have already remarked,
does not easily admit of any general solution. If, however,
we should attempt to think of Christianity without an altar,
or desire and attempt to establish such a scheme what indeed
among the vast variety of human conceits and religious
theories has only occurred to a very limited number, and
never has and never will exercise any lasting and decided
influence a Christianity thus divested of symbols and mys-
teries would be degraded into a mere philosophical view and
opinion or at the very best, a school of the kind, anything
in short rather than religion. Even the study of the Bible,
if in spite of so sad a state of things it should still survive,
would sink into a mere matter of erudition, on a level with
any other favourite pursuit of antiquarian lore and research.
And if, on the other hand, rising perhaps somewhat higher
than a mere philosophical opinion or the favourite pursuits of
erudition, a religious community, having no altar at all, should
pretend to rest entirely on prayer and spiritual teaching or
preaching; such a scheme must presuppose an immediate
inspiration, communicable to all and continuous throughout

* This statement does not necessarily imply the Romish doctrine of
transubstamiation. It is fully met in an unobjectionable sense by the
Catholic tenet of the real presence. Trans.

274 THE SYMBOLICAL EQUATION OF LIFE.

time. But such an hypothesis invariably proves the easy and
natural transition to the most frightful fanaticism, of whose
pernicious and evil effects those only who are acquainted with
the domestic history of Mohammedanism, among whose
modern and ancient sects this idea is rampant, can form a
clear and adequate conception.

In religion, therefore, and that entire union of the inner
man and soul with God which it demands, or at least hopes and
desires to bring about as essential and necessary, and which
the higher philosophy of antiquity, no less than revealed reli-
gion, strove after and longed to attain, there lies a something
inconceivably sublime and beautiful. Nay, we might almost
call it an impossible result, similar in some degree to that
which is involved in the higher and more intricate of alge-
braic equations for which there is no solution, or which, at
least, appear to have none till it is actually discovered. Now
this finite, changeable, and in all respects incomplete and in
no one point satisfactorily, or at least not perfectly defined (a)
of our own individual self, with which we are wont to com-
mence the whole of our thought and life, is to be brought into
communion with, or in other words, to be equalled to the
wholly incomprehensible (#) of the incommunicable Godhead.
How is this possible ? By what means is it to be accom-
plished ?

Properly, indeed, our Ego is no such (a), and cannot be
defined as such in the wonderful algebraic equation of our
inmost life and highest pursuit. For nowhere does man feel
himself to be a first ; all things prove him to be secondary
and derivative, wherever it may be that he is to take or seek
his beginning. And not only does the alphabet of our life
carry us beyond itself and towards its end in this incompre-
hensible (#), but it is also defective at its commencement, and
wants a beginning and the first (a), which ought to form its
very opening. And even the (t) (could this satisfy us) is
nowhere distinctly and clearly to be found such as it is in and
by itself, or such even as it was originally. It is invariably
mixed up and involved with something else equally unknown.
We have, therefore, in this equation of our life, to do with
two wholly unknown magnitudes, with the incomprehensible
(x], and with the (y). For by the latter sign we will at
present designate that which everywhere meets and opposes

HIEROGLYPHICS ILLUSTRATE SYMBOLISM OF LIFE. 275

us. For the fact of such an inborn and connatural obstacle
every one will admit, even though he may refuse to explain it
by the evil principle and may be unwilling to receive the
explanation which revelation gives of it.

How now is this our (i) to be earned back to its original
(a) ? How is it to be set free from this evil (y), and brought
into union with the highest (#) ? The answer and solution to
this apparently insoluble equation can only be obtained by one
method. In attempting it, we must keep steadily in view the
principle so recently advanced, that the essence of religion
consists in the effectual communication of a higher and living
power, which emanating from the first and original point
traverses the whole spiritual chain to its furthest link. But,
in order to illustrate completely this principle, and the idea
which arises from it, of a satisfactory solution of this problem,
I will indulge myself in a brief but episodical explanation of
the Egyptian hieroglyphics, as furnishing the most suitable
example for my purpose. For inasmuch as the symbolical
nature and constitution of the human, and indeed of all mortal
existence, was the main subject which opened and has occu-
pied oui' present consideration, it may be regarded as the
natural complement and key-stone to the whole discussion, if
in addition to what has preceded, we go on briefly to examine
how and in what sense the oldest writing and ear lie t method
employed by men for the communication of their ideas was
symbolical.

Of the languages of Western Asia, at least, and of the
alphabets derived therefrom, the Hebrew, viz., the Phoenician,
and the Greek, it may without hesitation be asserted that they
were derived from hieroglyphics, and are without exception
of hieroglyphicul origin. This cannot be asserted as de-
cidedly of the Indian alphabet, which differs so totally from
all those previously mentioned. Still I shall not allow myself,
simply on this account, to come over hastily to any conclu-
sion as to the comparative antiquity of the Hindoo and the
Egyptian modes of writing.

Now. according to all that we know of the hieroglyphical
mode of indicating objects, it rests on a very simple principle.
The discovery which was in so remarkable a manner reserved
to our own age, is not indeed complete, and leaves much still
to be explained. The fundamental principle, nevertheless, is

276 HIEROGLYPHICS.

well established. From this it appears that the hieroglyphic
system of Egypt, although entirely symbolical, contains, not-
withstanding, the germ of alphabetical writing. As the prin-
ciple of hieroglyphical writing is equally applicable to modern
languages as to the Egyptian, a German word will serve us as
well for an example, and for the purposes of our illustration,
as any other. Preliminarily, however, it is necessary to
observe, that in this mode of notation the leading characters
and essential elements of the radical sound are alone indi-
cated ; such vowels and consonants as are quiescent or servile
are omitted, and being without any special signs are left to be
mentally supplied.

To take, then, a German word for our example. The word
Leben (life) would be signified by its three principal charac-
ters. Now, the first letter would be indicated by Licht (a
flaming light), because this word also begins with L, Baum (a
tree) would stand for B, while N would be represented by any
kind of Nass (fluid), by a rapid waterfall, for instance, or by
a waving line, as a type of its moving and undulating surface.
A light, then, a tree, and an undulating surface, will by means
of the initial letters of our German terms for them (Zicht,
jBaum, JVass), stand for the word Leben, i. e., life.

Now, from this example, which I have purposely chosen, it
will appear that this hieroglyphical mode of notation and
writing, while it was fundamentally alphabetical, had never-
theless at the same time a symbolical significance. For a
light, or light-giving flame, the tree with its growth, as well
as the flowing stream with its waves or ripples, aptly express
and typify the intrinsic character of life, with its several
characteristics and elements. And it is even this addition of
symbolical colouring and signification which in the otherwise
equivocal, and consequently inconvenient, representation of
objects by an hieroglyphical alphabet, constitutes the peculiar
difficulty !| but at the same time the mental attraction of this
kind of writing.

This mode of hieroglyphical representation is not, however,
the most difficult to be understood. Another, so far as it has
as yet been found out and as progress has been made towards
deciphering it, appears to be far more abstruse and enig-
matical. For to understand or to interpret the latter in any
degree, it is almost indispensable to know beforehand what is

THE INCARNATION THE PRINCIPLE OF NEW LIFE. 277

the object indicated or intended. In this mode of hiero-
glyphical notation the image of an object is made to stand for
any other whose name begins with the same letter, as the word
does that designates the former. Thus, to employ the same
instance as before, the picture of a flaming light would by
itself stand for the word and idea of life. This is, if we may
so say, a bold play with algebraic equations, between enigma-
tical emblems, which are at most but imperfectly indicated,
and which nothing but the intelligence of one well versed in
the system can ever hope to comprehend. Any other, even
with the greatest pains, will scarcely be able to decipher it
with any degree of certainty. And this leads me back again
to our former and still unsolved equation, involving the riddle
of human life, and which this simile of the hieroglyphics was
intended to help us to solve.

The hieroglyphical mode of writing is, according to the ex-
planation we have given of it, a symbolical representation by
means of the initial letters of words. In it and through it
even that which is most ordinary and common assumes a
mystical character, and passes into this wonderful, imaginative,
and emblematical sphere. Now the solution of this general
problem lies even in this : that this (x) this incomprehensible
(x) as the eternal Logos of the incommensurable Godhead,
became also (a), (that is to say, took on Him a human life and
nature,) and is even now fully and really such. For thus the
beginning and the initial letter of the whole alphabet of human
existence, which was so long wanting, although from the very-
first it was implied in and was the foundation of the (6), was
given anew to it by God. And now this (&), and every other
of the following letters, can attach themselves in due order and
connexion, be united with it and even be equated to it, and
being thus equalised, inasmuch as x =a, it also becomes capable
of apprehending the otherwise unattainable (x). And at the
same time it can be entirely set free, at once and for ever,
from the restlessly opposing and destructive ( y) ; since this
(y), as opposed to the (x), is merely a negative quantity, and
as such vanishes.

But however we may attempt by means of this or any other
scientific or figurative illustrations to apprehend or to express
the ineffable, the fact, and above all, a living faith in that
great verity, that the divine (x) has become a human (a)

278 THE REGAL, SACERDOTAL, AND PARENTAL POWERS.

that the eternal Logos actually and really took upon Him the
nature of man, and still retains it, is the point from which a
new and higher life commences. It is the ring which holds
together the whole human family ; the first link in the chain
of spiritual life, to which all must be referred and from which
all is to proceed.

Thus, then, beginning with the emblematical representations
of the fine arts, and developing the idea through several other
spheres of its manifestation, I have carried the symbolical
significance of human life up to the highest hieroglyphic of all
existence. And as in the three previous Lectures I have con-
sidered the eternal Word, simply and principally in a scientific
point of view, as the fundamental law of truth, it now remains
for me to exhibit it as the word which shall solve all difficul-
ties in the problem of human existence, and shall prove an
unerring guide in the conflict of life and in all its most impor-
tant relations and perplexities. And to this subject the three
last and concluding Lectures will be devoted. And in these
we shall consider all this in its reference to the external and
public life of man in society and the state. For not only does
it hold true of the higher pursuits and inmost being of indivi-
duals, but it has also an universal application. For this highest
of all hieroglyphics, which is the beginning of a new life, forms
also the foundation of the state in its sacred character.

And because the application of Christian truth and of the
fundamental idea of Christianity is in general so greatly mis-
taken, I have thought it necessary to remount somewhat
higher in my investigations, to draw from a deeper source,
and to connect them with a higher principle, in order to arrive
more steadily and more certainly at the result which I had in
view. And this result may be thus summed up : The Chris-
tian state is nothing less than symbolical, and even thereby
historically sanctified whereas the mere polity of nature or
that of reason, which, however artistical and consummate in
its constitution, remains all the while false and unsanctified,
is either purely dynamical or else absolute.

In human life and society there are three species of power,
which possess a symbolical significance and a sacred character
as resting on a divine foundation. And these are parental
authority, the spiritual or priestly power, and the kingly or
whatever may be the supreme authority in the state. The

SANCTITY OF PARENTAL AUTHORITY. 279

affectionate care and anxiety of an earthly parent possesses
but a faint analogy to the goodness and providence of the
omniscient and eternal Father of all, and is scarcely more than
a type of it. Moreover, the parental authority and a father's
rights over his children, founded on his relation as the loving
and affectionate author of their being, admits not of being
set forth and comprised in any exact and positive formularies.
And even if the social community occasionally steps in to de-
termine by legislation the limits, and in certain points gives its
sanction to the domestic rights and authority of a father, as
founded on love and feeling, this is only done, nevertheless,
with a view to guard against and to remedy the possible abuse
of so natural a right and relation. When, however, as was the
principle of the old Roman law, power over the life and death
of his offspring is conceded to the father, we feel at once that
this is an undue extension of the paternal authority, and that
the provinces of the three different powers are not kept duly
distinct and separate. A parent who should avail himself of
such a privilege, would but prove himself devoid of the ordi-
nary feelings of nature. On the other hand, by a natural sen-
timent, common to the savage and barbarian, as well as to
the most refined and civilised nations, respect for and rever-
ence of parents is held to be something more than an ordi-
nary and conventional duty and obligation. It is universally
regarded in the light of a duty in every sense sacred and holy.
And the divine moral law of the Old Testament completely
agrees with the universal feeling of man's nature in this
ascription to it of holiness. But, on the other hand, the rights
of the Christian limit the parent's authority on the side of the
spiritual domain, wherever it would trench upon the freedom
of belief and liberty of conscience. Special circumstances*
again, such as the dotage of old age, mental weakness, faults
of character, or offences against society, may, in certain cases,
tend greatly to limit and control, or otherwise modify, the
parental dignity and authority. But still, in the very worst
case, the most respectful behaviour and the tenderest delicacy,
on all points connected with this relationship, remains for ever
an immutable law of duty to the child, which, as it is deeply
founded in the moral sense of man, makes itself heard through-
out the whole habitable world. The mutual tie of parental love
and filial duty has, it is plain, its foundations deep in nature

280 SANCTITY OF PRIESTLY AND KINGLY AUTHOKITY.

itself, and out of it proceeds the sanctity of the very notion
of domestic life, and of all its relations, as well as of the
peculiar authority of a father and a parent.

As for the spiritual and priestly power : wherever religion
recognises the priest in his true character i. e., not simply as
the preacher and promulgator, but also as the living channel
for dispensing and communicating the divine grace, he is, in
so far as his office is concerned, and in the discharge of his
sacerdotal functions, a vicegerent of God not so much, per-
haps, of the everlasting Father, the Creator and Lawgiver of
nature, as of the Son who came down into the world to ransom
and redeem the human race. The priestly or spiritual power,
therefore, has a divine foundation on which it ultimately rests.
But inasmuch as that bond of communion which unites our
souls with God must be sought and attained by faith and in
the spirit of faith, so this authority, however holy in itself, is
nevertheless, by its very nature, confined to the province of
spirituals.

The judicial function also, where it is recognised as dog-
matic, is at least subordinate to that other character whose
office it is to carry out the work of redemption, to dispense
the divine grace, and to bless. For an arbitrary judicial
power, where internal caprice is the rule of judgment, and
where the execution of its decrees depends on the individual,
does not in strict truth deserve this appellation. With as
much reason might the anointed head of the state claim by
virtue of this consecration and anointing to exercise the func-
tions of the spiritual office.

Further, we may observe, all these sacred offices possess a
certain analogy and affinity one with the other. This fact,
however, does not in any way militate against the essential
and necessary duty of preserving a precise and accurate
separation of their several functions. The privacy of home,
the family circle, and the relations of domestic life, are by the
laws of most nations regarded as a sanctuary which the
external power of the state ought not lightly and without grave
Necessity to violate or profane. On the other hand, in ordi-
nary language paternal titles are ascribed to the other two
powers. But as regards spiritual personages, this is a mere
mark of respect ; while as applied to the head of the state, it
serves to indicate a special character of goodness and clemency

THE JUDICIAL THE HIGHEST FUNCTION OF KINGS. 281

in the government. It is not by any means applicable
generally to the functions of government as marking its spe-
cific nature and essence. For it may not be, nay, perhaps,
we should rather say it cannot in ail cases be simply and
purely paternal.

Strict impartiality, for instance, is a primary requisition in
the judge, but is it possible, nay, would it properly be just, to
require this in every case of a father ? The judicial character,
however, is the predominant element of political government,
and the supreme judicial function is its essential aspect,
with which all the other distinctive characteristics or exclusive
prerogatives of sovereign power are most intimately con-
nected. And on this account, while the paternal authority
rests primarily on that tie of souls which consists in the reci-
procal affection of parents and children, and while the priestly
power is limited to the sacerdotal and spiritual domain, the
supreme judicial and sovereign power in the state, which is
responsible to God alone, as the highest and paramount of
these three sacred and venerated powers, embraces the com-
plete whole, if I may so say, the bodily reality of man's public
life. And in this sphere of historical reality it will be my
endeavour to trace the further development of these three
ideas as they manifest themselves in the busy conflict of life
and the age. And to this subject I purpose to devote the
three following Lectures.

In concluding our present disquisition I will only add one
remark. All these three powers, as founded on nature, on
divine revelation, and on historical rights, are alike holy and
sacred. The good, that is to say, the prudent and affectionate
father, the pious priest, and the righteous king, are each and
all, though in different ways and degrees, and with different
powers and rights, visible and acting vicegerents on earth of
the invisible God. The last, in truth, is not merely the
representative but the unlimited dispenser of divine justice.
And this divine foundation of these powers, which claim and
present an inviolable character of sanctity, forms the practical
part of that symbolical signification of life which in its highest
phase has formed the theme of the present Lecture.

END OF LECTUKE XII.

282

LECTURE XIII.

Of the Spirit of Truth and Life in its application to Politics, or of
the Christian Constitution of the State and the Christian Idea of
Jurisprudence.

THE Asiatic custom of deifying their earthly rulers by ad-
dressing them as King of Kings, Lord or Spanner (Um-
spanncr} of Creation, the Effulgence of the Deity, and the
like, have ever been and very naturally most repugnant to the
moral sense of Christian Europe. The Christian notion and
axiom, that all power is of God, is founded on a very definite
idea and well-considered principle. And this principle is
nothing less than this, that the supreme head of the state has
to dispense the divine justice. And while this constitutes the
peculiar dignity of his office, he is in the exercise of this his
highest function and authority, responsible to God alone.
If, however, we should anywhere meet, either in the present
times or the history of the past, with a state in which, by the
principle of its constitution, the nominal possessor of supreme
authority and the executive is responsible to another body,
then is the latter in fact the sovereign power, and not the
former, which really is subordinate to the other. The Spar-
tan constitution will serve to illustrate my meaning. Here,
to judge by that strict definition of the sovereign authority
and its peculiar character and distinctive criteria, it evidently
lay in the Ephori rather than in the possessors of supreme
executive power, who were called kings and whose office was
hereditary. The very fact that two kings reigned conjointly
is of itself subversive of the very notion of sovereign power.
But still more fatally was this undermined by their responsi-
bility in certain cases to the censorship of the other Spartan
magistracy. To the other ancient republics, whose constitu-
tion was based naturally enough on a very artificial division of
powers, and the maintenance of a certain antagonism and

ALL PREROGATIVES OF SUPilEME TOWER JUDICIAL. 283

accurate balance between them, our notion of a supreme and
sovereign political authority is scarcely applicable. It is found
far more fully expressed in a special character of inviolable
sanctity and dignity attaching to certain judicial functions
and magistracies, such as that of the Areopagus in Athena
and of the censorship at Rome in the days of the Republic,
than to the transitory tenure of the executive power, over
which those judicial authorities possessed and exercised in
certain cases a control.

The proper and de facto, or personal division of power, is
essentially a republican principle. In notion, however, or in
idea, it is perfectly legitimate to make a distinction between
the several functions and elements of the whole sovereign
authority. Now, in such a case, the judicial power the
supreme judicial power we would emphatically say is pre-
eminently the characteristic sign and specific distinction of
sovereignty, from which all its other prerogatives and pro-
perties are originally derived or flow from it as its necessary
and natural consequences. The noble prerogative of pardon
and mercy, for instance, is as it were the natural attribute of
the supreme judicial power.

With respect to legislation, however, and the legislative
authority ; an important co-ordinate power may, according to
the existing constitution of a particular state, be vested in the
other correlative members of the body politic. The preliminary
deliberation, the first sketch or the initiation of a law, may not
perhaps proceed in every case from the supreme head of the
community. In other states, again, the law must emanate
from the free choice and individual will of the monarch, or at
least the introduction of it, since he cannot of himself alone
make and carry out the whole. This is a point, consequently,
on which it is extremely difficult to draw the boundary line,
which must in no case be transgressed or deviated from in
so far, that is, and so long as there is no question about any-
thing more than a simple co-operation or co-ordinate delibe-
ration upon the proposed laws. But still in every case the
final sanction, by which a law becomes properly the law, or
by which it is annulled or repealed, must be reserved to the
royal prerogative, otherwise the monarch ceases at once to
be supreme.

Even the prerogative of proclaiming war and of concluding

284 THROXE AND SCEPTRE JUDICIAL SYMBOLS.

peace is, if perhaps we may be allowed so to say, a judicial
function on a large scale, and applied to the external relations
of states. It is in short nothing less than a judicial act. And
in this light it will appear to every one who docs not regard
it as a mere act of arbitrary caprice. This, however, it never
ought to be. For it is, as it were, a verdict on the existing
relations of right and wrong between two neighbouring states.
But inasmuch as both parties, in point of right and law, are
in so far equal, that they refuse to recognise in common any
higher judge, an absolute state of violence necessarily ensues, a
struggle of power follows, until at last, in the change of circum-
stances, the relations of justice are restored by mutual consent.
The party that first proclaims war becomes, in this process of
trial by battle, the judge of its own cause. And if by the
fearful issue of the combat it is taught to see its own injustice,
then must it either make due concessions, or at very best,
by calling in the mediation of a third and neutral state, it
must constitute it the judge by whose decision it is ready and
willing to abide.

The usual insignia of the kingly dignity, the sceptre and the
throne, are only the signs of judicial power, as it were, pro-
moted one degree higher, and can be historically traced up to
the judge's bench and staff. The crown alone remains as the
peculiar and exclusive symbol of the highest earthly dignity.
And rightly is it called a splendid burthen. For while it
exalts him who is called to wear it above all earthly depen-
dence and responsibility, and exempts him from all the ordi-
nary relations of human life, the heavy weight of this splendid
ornament reminds the wearer of the grave reckoning and the
strict account he will have to render to God, as the Supreme
Judge of all who is the source and sum of all justice and
righteousness. For this serious and solemn responsibility is
received from God, together with and at the same time with
the crown.

Quite different in signification was the symbolical ensign
of the old emperors in the middle ages a sword pointing to
the four winds or cardinal points of heaven. It alluded to
the peculiar idea and the peculiar constitution of that dignity.
For in this respect it was not simply a distinction of power,
of rank, or of title, between the imperial and the kingly digni-
ties. It involved a total and essential difference between the

KINGS AS "WELL AS PRIESTS GOD'S VICEGERENTS. 285

ideas and objects of these sacred and anointed potentates-
between the elective emperor and the hereditary king, duke,
or prince, although it was from, these alone that the former
could be duly and regularly elected. For the emperor was
looked upon as armed with the sword of all Christendom to
be the defender of the whole system of European states.
Accordingly, as the representative of the union of several
states, he bore this ensign of his imperial office.

To this ancient idea of a Christian empire we shall again
have occasion to revert in the further examination of the idea
of a political state and its Christian community. We shall
meet with it once more in that section of our inquiry which
will be occupied with the ruling principle of right and polity
in a system of states as a body, and also in the mutual rela-
tions of its several members. In this section we shall also
show that this principle must be either absolute, that is, one
where one or more of the several members of the union exer-
cises a superior and preponderating influence, or one artifi-
cially constituted and dynamical, i. e., a system of the so-called
balance of power. And here will naturally arise the question
whether, for such a confederacy of moral and civilised socie-
ties and nations, a less imperfect and higher, but common
principle of Christian justice might not be found and esta-
blished ? For any system of mutual confederation, whether
absolute or founded on the artificial relations of the strength
of its respective members, is in any case defective and imper-
fect, whatever may be the ground of union, whether founded
on the internal constitution of the states, or derived from
the physical consideration of their geographical position and
neighbourhood.

According, then, to that divine principle and Christian
foundation of the state which I have attempted to derive from
the symbolical signification of life and the symbolical destiny
of man in his relation to God, the highest authority of the
state the king, or generally the monarch, as well as the
spiritual functionary, or the priest are the vicegerents of a
highest and divine power, whom they represent on earth. The
only difference between them is, that the latter has chiefly to
represent and to set forth God as teaching men, but at the
same time as warning and commanding them in this revelation
of His will, and as promising and as livingly dispensing to them

286 REPRESENTATIVE GOVEUXMENTS.

His grace, while the former is the representative of the Omni-
potent Lawgiver and Judge, who governs the world with justice,
and will by no means clear the guilty. According, therefore,
to the true Christian notion of these two powers, both of
them the civil no less than the spiritual possess a represen-
tative character, which, however, deviates very widely from
the ordinary notion of the representation and a representative
constitution, or rather forms a decided contrast to them.

And what contrast can in fact be more decided than that
which such a representative power and dignity as belongs to
the ministering of the divine grace to the soul and spirit, or
the dispensing of divine justice to the whole earthly life,
forms with that thing of horrible memory,* which has been
called a representation of the people, or the systems which
have been similarly designated? But even if it could be
satisfactorily proved that a people, like the invisible essence
of the Deity, could be represented, it is open to very grave
doubt whether this is really possible in the method usually
adopted. According to the principle of this kind of popular
representation, where the whole adult population are en-
titled individually to vote, the election becomes as it were a
lottery, and even the political winners thus determined, or the
ballotted members, become so many influential units in one
branch of the legislative body and for a limited period. In
respect, however, to the principles and sentiments, the pre-
dominant character and spirit of a people, those who are thus
chosen are the representatives not so much of the whole nation
as of the reigning passion of the moment, or the spirit of the
times in its restless agitation. For when thus resolved into
its constituent atoms and numbered off in succession, a nation
is reduced to an elementary mass. But like all that is thus
elementary, when thus decomposed, and fermenting in its pro-
cess of dissolution, it assumes a destructive tendency and turn.
At least it ceases to form an organic whole, an individual. It
is only when a state or nation historically lives on, further
developes and vitally maintains itself in its organic members,
". e., in its several estates or essential corporations, that it
can be said to form a living whole, and to be as it were one
great individual.

* Schlegel is apparently referring to the Constituent Assembly of the
French Revolution. Trans.

GEEAT WEN A NATION'S TRUE REPRESENTATIVES. 287

It is only in this sense that there can be true representatives
of a people, who, if the expression is allowable, are its true
historical men. It is in them that the spirit and character,
the general leaning tendency, the peculiar style of feeling,
sentiment, and thought of a nation, in any definite period or
periods, finds its most decided and loudest expression. Rarely,
however, is this attained in a system of elective deputies or
representatives, which is liable to many passing and accidental
influences, and indeed in and by itself has no connexion with
it. Scipio and Cato would be representatives of the Roman
character and spirit, even if they had never been invested
with public authority and had lived their whole lives in exile.
And in the same manner purely intellectual natures may
often stand for such historical characters and representatives.
Horace and Tacitus most assuredly occupy the same relation
to their respective ages as the two former did to theirs, and
this in truth quite independently of any subordinate rank or
political dignity and influence which either the one or the
other possessed in peace or war. Cicero, indeed, would have
been all this in an equal degree, and perhaps still more so, if,
keeping entirely aloof from the civil contentions of his day,
for which he was little suited, he had devoted himself to the
acquisition of a purely intellectual and literary influence.

However, it is not every famous author or every brilliant
political speaker that can in this sense be justly regarded as
historical characters. Besides that energy of talent which
creates an epoch, and which is indeed the primary and essen-
tial condition, certain other properties of character are re-
quired, certain sentiments and principles vividly carried out
and realised in life and action. But this is a combination
which is rarely found. A peculiar sphere of practical influence
does not form an immediate, nor indeed, a necessary qualifi-
cation of such a character. Still it is evident that a writer
who truly merits such an appellation must be something more
than a mere man of letters or an artist. The effects he pro-
duces on the minds of men must be both truly national and
historical. Such alone are truly and properly the historical
representatives of a people the men of their nation.

As for those other elective representatives already men-
tioned, it is only when they belong to a particular estate and
corporation, and represent it, that they can promote the per-

288 THE CHRISTIAN STATE AX HEREDITARY MONARCHY.

manent interests of this organically constituted whole. For it
is out of such organic members that the national existence
gains its true, i. e., its historical development. But this is
impossible whenever they are chosen by the individual votes
of the entire population. Such a splitting of the whole poli-
tical body, as it were, into its constituent atoms, is either in
itself an elementary decomposition or must eventually lead to
it. Even a republican constitution, if it be well and wisely
ordered, will be based principally on corporations or organic
division of estates, rather than on any principle of numerical
majority and equality, which, taken as a general element, inva-
riably proves, as history testifies, sooner or later, a positive
source of anarchy.

Not only would it be an exaggeration, but even a gross
error, were we to regard the republican polity as excluded
from the Christian principle, that all sovereignty is of God, or
as irreconcilable with it and even as directly contradicting its
spirit. On the contrary, the duty of obedience and the actual
dependence on the existing and de facto head of the state, is
not less binding on all who through the accident of birth or
their own free choice and voluntary obligation belong to such
a community, than on the subjects of an hereditary monarchy.
The utmost that can be safely asserted, is that the Christian
state principle inclines rather to the latter form of polity, with-
out, however, formally rejecting or unconditionally excluding
the former. Historical experience has shown this, and the
whole of modern history will furnish abundant testimony to
its truth. When the responsibility of the supreme political
authority is in an endless circle shifted from point to point of
a mere human sphere, then the sacred character of the divine
foundation of the state exhibits itself with least distinctness.
It is more immediately manifest in an hereditary monarchy,
where by a single point, as the first link which holds together
the whole community, this responsibility is attached imme-
diately to God and the divine justice, before whose tribunal
it has alone to answer. And this more immediate mani-
festation forms the ground of that preponderating tendency
and preference of the monarchical constitution by the Chris-
tian principle.

But in another respect also is it easier to give a religious
meaning to political life in an hereditary monarchy, and to

REPUBLICS TEBr LIABLE TO ADVERSE CHANGES. 289

discharge its duties and to maintain it in a religious spirit,
than in a republic. Since all that is human is subject to
change, fluctuation, and imperfection, it would be something
wonderful if the case were different with political matters,
and if the state were to form a singular exception from the
general rule. Such an expectation would indeed be strange,
and contrary to the nature of things, as well as to reason and
common sense. For, to take an instance from that people
whom God so specially and immediately led and directed ; after
a wise Solomon has long and peacefully occupied the throne,
with prosperity at home and splendour and renown abroad,
the reins of government may fall into the weak hands of a
minor, when, even without any personal culpability, all hostile
elements come to an outbreak, and lead to the most fearful
political consequences. And even Solomon, with a wisdom
which in many respects was more than human, was not secure
from all mistakes and errors. For inasmuch as after receiving
this illumination from above, this wisdom lent to him from God,
he still remained a free agent, he might, as he actually did,
pervert it to an evil use. Like everything else that is good,
it was liable to abuse by man. Generally it does not lie in the
nature of things that in long succession and change of times one
reign should be equally mild and paternal as another, equally
prosperous and splendid, and equally wise and successful.

This, indeed, is a matter which does not depend invariably
and exclusively on the personal qualities of the sovereign. It
is governed much more by the peculiar circumstances of the
age, and the general relations of the political world. We
should err greatly if we. were to suppose, or feel inclined to
assert, that this change, from happy and prosperous to adverse
or less fortunate times, is less frequent in republican states, or
that the latter are entirely exempted from such fluctuations.
History furnishes numerous instances to refute so absurd an
idea. On the contrary, such changes are far more generally
the rule in republican states, and their ruin advances with a
more rapid and certain progress. For the growth of a re-
public in external power and influence, and the consequent
multiplication of its relations with foreign powers, is invaria-
bly accompanied with great internal agitation, leading to sud-
den and violent changes. The greatest and most important
difference, however, lies in this, that in an hereditary monarchy

290 DISADVANTAGES OF A EEPUBLICAN POLITY.

the change from a distinguished to an unfortunate and less
prosperous reign is distinct, and has an assignable cause,
which, by a natural and just sentiment, is received as a divine
visitation, and wherever any sense of religion still survives and
prevails in men's views of life, will be patiently endured as such.
Accordingly, besides its mere legal sense, the maxim that all
authority is of God now assumes the further significance of a
divine dispensation. And it is clearly manifest that this
Christian maxim and principle was intended to convey this
second meaning, and that it embraces such a religious view
and estimate of political matters and events.

Now it is true that the Providence of God extends to all
events and circumstances of the world. Every permission,
therefore, of evil, whether in a greater or less degree, every
misfortune and calamity that happens to us, must, from this
point of view, be regarded either as a well-merited punishment
or as a severe trial, as a wholesome pang and conflict or as a
painful transition to a higher degree of perfection. This, at
least, will be our feeling, in proportion as we entertain and
faithfully follow a religious view and estimate of our own life
and fortunes, as well as of all mundane events, in a firm and
unshaken faith in the Divine Omnipotence and Wisdom.
Even for the preservation and health of his physical life, man
stands in need of pain and privation, but still more so for his
moral improvement.

Now, notwithstanding that this principle of a divine pro-
vidence is equally applicable in every case, still, even the
religious estimate, not to say a simply human mode of judging
of political events and relations, is in republics subject to the
following important and essential modification. In such a
constitution, all hangs, or is made dependent, on the choice or
the caprice of men, or, if such terms be preferred, their merit
and intelligence. Consequently, the entire blame of every
error or miscarriage in government, whether real or imaginary,
and however great or little, is forthwith ascribed to its human,
administrators. But an injury at the hands of man invariably
provokes bitterness, revenge, and opposition. On the con-
trary, a misfortune which overtakes us from God, and which,
as being unable to impute the blame of it to any human indi-
vidual, we feel and recognise to be a divine visitation, awakens
in us wholesome and salutary reflection. Thus it is founded

HEREDITARY MONARCHY THE TRUE CHRISTIAN POLITY. 291

on the very nature of things, and on a right and sound state
of human feeling, that a change from a year of plenty to one
of want and barrenness, should be borne with patience and
resignation. But if, on the other hand, a general scarcity and
dearth, or any similar affliction and disproportion between
the supply and demand of the necessaries of life, should occur
among a trading or manufacturing population, of which the
source should really or apparently lie in some erroneous
measure or selfish policy of those on whom the administration
of the state devolved, all minds would immediately be in a
state of excitement and uproar. And, in fact, the words of
the pious king in Holy Writ : " Let us fall now into the hands
of the Lord, for His mercies are great : and let me not fall
into the hand of man,"* are quite in unison with the general
feelings of human nature.

Accordingly, throughout the sacred history of the old world,
and in all times where religious sentiment is not quite dead,
such calamities and even an unfortunate, not to say a wicked
reign, are looked upon as the deserved visitation of God's
wrath, and as a time of heavy trial. And the chastisement of
Heaven will be borne, by all right-thinking persons, not out
of fear of man, but as is fitting, in reverent submission to the
divine will, with manly patience and resignation. On the other
hand, innumerable instances of a contrary course might be
produced from republican times and histories. How often, in
such states, has a false step in government, trifling, indeed, in
itself, but still, in feet and in truth, a blunder, in one party,
been the occasion of an opposition and resistance of another,
and of a general feeling of discontent and a violent reaction,
which have proved a hundred times more fatal and pernicious
than the first occasion of popular murmurs. How often has
a merely human oversight, trivial enough in itself, and running
counter to public opinion in some little trifle, led to the most
fearful catastrophes, amidst which the first exciting cause is
lost sight of and entirely forgotten, and finally all is involved
in one general ruin.

In this respect, and in this degree, it may safely be affirmed
that the Christian principle of the state is more favourable to
an hereditary monarchy than to a republican constitution. But

* 2 Sam. zxiv. 14.
U2

292 CHRISTIANITY THE TRUE GUARDIAN OF LIBERTY.

at this point the proposition must be left purposely indeter-
minate. For a rigorous exclusion of all republican states, as
if, properly, they could never be right and legitimate, would
most assuredly not be accordant with the Christian principle
of a state and the fundamental religious conception of all
political relations and events. On the contrary, it would,
undoubtedly, go directly counter to all proper feelings and
ideas on the subject. For the Christian principle of justice
respects all that has an historical existence, and leaves even
the imperfect in the undisturbed possession of its rights. In
this respect it is entirely opposed to the revolutionary spirit.
For the latter, in its inmost essence, is anti-historical ; its first
step being the refusal to recognise the value and the claims
of all that comes down from, and has been established by, the
past. And, moreover, the Christian idea of justice, with all its
strict rigour, involves a principle of equity. For, in truth,
every Christian sentiment embraces the whole of life, and its
several relations, with a loving mildness, and pays a due re-
gard to all really existant though subordinate circumstances.
And it is this exactly that constitutes the very notion of
equity. Lastly, the doctrine of Christianity, and the idea of
human life which it gives rise to, is highly favourable to true
liberty. But, then, it is liberty, in a large and exalted sense
of the term, in which, first and before all, a spiritual and
moral freedom is meant as necessary to be firmly established
within men before the external liberty in social and political
life can be hoped for. For most true is the sublime declara-
tion, " If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed."*
To every one for whom this sentiment possesses a meaning
and significance it would be superfluous to add, what, in-
deed, is so palpably evident, that the Son makes no one free
except in the way that He Himself was, viz., by obedience
a perfect obedience which brings the whole man, with all its
passions and affections, as a free-will offering to the Father.

The predominant tendency of modern Christendom to a
monarchical constitution, as most accordant with the Christian
principle of the state, is abundantly evinced in history. The
fact is so generally admitted, that it is almost a work of super-
erogation to adduce instances of it. Not only within the
memory of living men, but also two centuries ago, a great
* John viii. 36.

ENGLAND, FRANCE, HOLLAND, POLAND. 293

Christian monarchy, fanatically possessed and inflamed with
the idea of absolute liberty and equality, lapsed for a while into
a republic. But in both cases this passing fever of fanaticism
soon worked itself out by its very violence, and the foreign
and diseased matter was thrown off by the political body. It
was out of this crisis, however, that the much lauded constitu-
tion of England arose, with its dynamical theory of the division
and nicely adjusted balance of power, which has reached at
present so great a height of practical excellence. Moreover, it
is almost superfluous to notice the fact how a second-rate mari-
time power, which in its very origin was entirely republican,
gradually approximated to, and has at last entirely adopted a
monarchical polity.* Another state, monarchical indeed, but
which, from the fact that its sovereigns were elective, deserves
rather to be called a republic, and in some respects was really
so, amidst the anarchy of party and the feuds which arose out
of the elections, soon lost its ancient greatness and splendour,
and even its existence as an independent nation. In short, in
the whole of Christian Europe, but a few small and uninfluen-
tial communities have retained a republican form. As for the
republics which have sprung up out of the colonial states in
the new world, the very oldest of them are of too recent an
origin to allow us to pass upon them any judgment which
could be justly and truly called historical. On the other hand,
however, the modern Christian era furnishes one remarkable
phenomenon of a republican state on a large scale, and of a
wholly peculiar kind. And we may adduce this instance as a
proof that such a constitution is by no means excluded from
the spirit of a Christian polity or its legitimate and historical
principle.

I am alluding to the ancient German, or the Christian
Roman Empire of the middle ages, during a period of many
centuries, and in the time of its vigour and splendour, when it
led, not to say formed, the great political world, f As an
elective empire, but still monarchical in the unity of the

* In this and the following sentence Schlegel is alluding to Holland
and Poland. Trans.

f The Kaiser was in theory the temporal lord of the whole earth ;
according to the words of the Sachsen- Spiegel, " Zwei swert liess Got in
ertriche zu beschirmene dy Cristenheit, dem Pabste das geistliche, deu
Keiser das werltliche." "Two swords has God left to the world to protect

294 THE GERMAN EMPIRE.

whole, it possessed so far a republican tendency and shape.
And this it preserved even long afterwards, when, by a long
succession of emperors of the same house, the imperial crown
had in fact become almost the hereditary right of a single
family. For the solemn sanction of an election was still indis-
pensable, and this gave rise to more than one exception or
interruption to the otherwise historically confirmed law of
succession. Moreover, this great system or confederation of
states embraced many smaller and principally republican
states ; at least in its members were comprised every possible
form of political constitution. The four great dukedoms, who
in the imperial diet were the original representatives, together
with the other hereditary powers which subsequently attained
to the electoral dignity, formed as it were the monarchical
element in the whole body, retaining, however, at the same
time, its national and popular character. Alongside of these the
spiritual princes, as entirely dependent on choice and election
for their dignities, formed an aristocracy, not only of birth,
but of science and the intellectual culture of the age in
short, an aristocracy of merit. Lastly, the trading and manu-
facturing free towns, with their imperial privileges and char-
ters, formed among the other members of the Empire, a true
democratical element, in the highest and noblest sense of the

Christianity ; (having given) to the Pope the spiritual, and the temporal
to the Emperor." The claim of the Empire to universal dominion was
indicated by the sword pointing to the four points of the heavens, while as
the " Holy Empire" it was its duty to exterminate not only the Heathens
and the Moslems, but also the false Christians, as the members of the
Greek Church were regarded by the "West. In the mediaeval constitution of
the Empire, a symbolical character prevails throughout. Seven were its
shields : of these the first was borne by the Emperor ; the second by the
spiritual Electors ; the third by the temporal Princes ; the fourth and
fifth by the Counts and Knights of the Empire ; the sixth by their vassals ;
and the seventh by the free burghers and peasants. Seven, also, was the
original number of the Hereditary Electors of the Empire. Three spiritual
Princes, the Archbishops of Mayence, Cologne, and Treves, as chancellors
respectively of the Empire, of Burgundy, and of Italy. Four temporal
Electors : the Prince Palatine of the Rhine, who as grand-carver carried
the imperial apple at the coronation ; the Duke of Saxony Wittemberg,
who as marshal carried the sword ; the Margrave of Brandenburg, who as
grand-chamberlain bore the sceptre ; and the King of Bohemia, who as
cupbearer presented the cup. The election of the Emperor was held at
Frankfort- on-the-Maine; the coronation at Aix ; and the new Emperor
held his first diet at Nuremberg. Trans.

MIXED MONARCHY DESPOTISM. 295

term. For we must not understand thereby any mere univer-
sal equality, leading to the usual popular anarchy, but cor-
porations, with well-defined rights, of the burgher classes, as
they attained to historical importance and influence. The
very name of the Hanse Towns is sufficient to remind us of
the vast and important part which the latter played, even in
the declining times of the Empire.

Thus free and republican in its spirit was the old Christian
monarchy of the German Kaisers. It had no doubt to undergo
many convulsions from domestic faction, and finally sunk be-
neath them. Still this political constitution of the middle
ages, in their best days, must for ever remain a remarkable
and singular phenomenon. Its full and deep significance and
grandeur are little recognised, and still less perfectly under-
stood, by the modern science of politics. Peculiarly Christian
in principle, in its kingly administration as vigorous and suc-
cessful as any other state in the most brilliant eras of the his-
tory of the world, while in the internal development of its
republican members and constituents it was more rich and
varied, and in truth much freer than even the most lauded
among the mixed constitutions of modern times. For his-
torical experience, that great teacher of political science,
distinctly proves that in those dynamical states, which are
based on the principle of the division and nicely adjusted
balance of power, the ministry and the opposition usurp be-
tween them all the functions of authority, while the sacred
cypher of an hereditary monarch is nothing more than a mere
shadow, beneath which they can sit at ease to carry on their
endless disputes.

The Christian view, then, of the world and of the state, as
we have already remarked, does not exclude or reject any
form of political existence. On the contrary, it recognises
whatever possesses an historical cause and foundation, and
allows it to stand in its proper place and in its true and
original significance and rights. Accordingly, it admits the
validity as such even of the dynamical form of polity, even
though it feels it impossible to agree with pprtial and enthu-
siastic admirers in considering it as perfect. Nay, it does not
reject even an alsolute despotism, notwithstanding that it sees
clearly enough all its imperfections and great inferiority. It is
only by a complete view of history that their existence can be

296 DESPOTISM THE NATURAL ISSUE OF ANARCHY.

explained and understood. 'And in this they will appear
either as a necessary evil in its mildest form i. e., as the less
pernicious and dangerous, under existing circumstances, or as
a remedy for some more fearful disorder, by which alone the
social frame can be restored to a more healthy condition.

The usual transition and natural issue of popular anarchy,
when it has lasted long enough to exhaust its own fearful
violence, is a perpetual dictatorship or despotism in some
shape or other, but devoid of a higher and divine sanction.
This form of government, or (since strictly speaking it is not
a form) this political condition, must be carefully distin-
guished from a long- established, legitimate, and hereditary
monarchy, with which its whole character has nothing in
common. No doubt when the revolutionary evil has reached
its greatest height, and when a successful and prudent usurper,
like the much lauded Augustus in ancient Rome, without
being personally answerable for the overthrow of the previous
constitution, appears pre-eminently in the character of medi-
ator between parties and a general pacificator, the world is
ready to accord to him its applause. Gradually his authority
is more and more widely acknowledged. Although at first he
is recognised conditionally only and relatively, nevertheless,
if he remains faithful to his better tendencies, and continues
to the last to confer important benefits on his people, he may
often give a permanent and historical foundation to his
dynasty. But if, on the contrary, under his usurped power,
revolution, phenix-like, only renews itself out of its own
ashes, and the old anarchy from below revives in another
form from above, as a merely military despotism, which in its
restless and annihilating lust of conquest honours nothing, but
throws the whole world into confusion, then is the second
evil worse than the first, which it promised to remedy. By
such a course it loses its only moral foundation, inasmuch as
it was to the better promise it held out that it owed its tem-
porary and conditional recognition. Such an instance has
been brought closely enough before our eyes in the history
of very recent times, to enable us at once intuitively to un-
derstand its whole character. More slowly and in a more
organised method, and consequently with more lasting and
historical results, did such transitions shape themselves in the
ancient world, and especially in the Roman constitution. The

RESULTS OF ANCIENT HISTOHY. 297

ancient development therefore of this phenomenon, and its
special form, is highly instructive and pre-eminently calculated
to throw a clear light on our whole theory.

Modern history at no period presents to us such a vast
system of republican states as we meet with in the annals of
antiquity, which exhibit this under the most various forms, as
the predominant constitution of the whole civilised world, not
only in its infant, but in its maturest and most flourishing
development. Not only the Grecian communities, Carthage,
Rome, and the Italian municipalities, but also all the inde-
pendent nations of central and northern Europe, possessed a
more or less perfect form of republican polity. This portion,
therefore, of ancient history furnishes to political science a
phenomenon which in the highest degree demands its atten-
tion. However greatly its freedom of inquiry and high intel-
lectual culture, its splendid examples of patriotism and its
noble characters and heroic deeds, may prepossess us in its
favour, on the whole we are forced to confess that experience
has decided against such a system. This great teacher shows
it to us as utterly impracticable, and ill adapted to promote
the real progress of human development, inasmuch as with
whatever of brightest promise it may begin, it invariably ter-
minates in barbarism and disorder. In all of these states we
trace early enough the same evil tendency to political licence
and anarchy, which, developing itself with ceaseless rapidity,
soon paves the way to the indeterminate condition of absolute
power. Almost all the great thinkers and political writers
of antiquity, without exception, set themselves to oppose the
democratic element of their national constitutions, and fore-
saw and predicted the ruin of their country from this source,
without being able in any way to prevent it. It will be
enough to mention Plato in Athens, and in a different manner
and degree, Cicero in Rome, who was himself drawn into the
vortex of political strife. The remedy and counterpoise for
the evils of this democratical spirit was sought by the poli-
tical thinkers and philosophers of those times, in a doubtlessly
noble but still very imperfect form of an aristocracy a remedy
which is as little consonant to our feelings, as it is unlikely to
satisfy our scientific convictions. A just and clear idea of
an hereditary and well-regulated monarchy was at that date
almost entirely unknown, since in its essential features, in

298 RESULTS OF ANCIENT HISTORY.

its tine and perfect character, it is entirely of a Christian
origin. In the ancient world, at most, a few and faint out-
lines of it are occasionally to be discovered.

The internal and external dissensions of the republics of
Greece, and the consequent loss of their independence and
subjugation by the Macedonian monarchy, or the half Asiatic
half Grecian powers which sprang out of it, affords a sufficient
confirmation of the law that the republican constitution, in
the times of moral degeneracy, invariably terminates in popu-
lar anarchy and ruin. The same transition in the Roman
polity presents us with interesting considerations of a higher
but different kind. For in this instance the change was
effected with clear ideas, definite views, and well-digested
principles. After a long and unparalleled succession of
bloody civil wars, and an equally fearful series of foreign
conquest and aggression, which were almost indispensable
as an outlet for the wild and ambitious passions of men, the
catastrophe which forecasting minds had long foreseen at
last came about. And instead of continuing a hopeless resist-
ance, it was now the first object of the wise and prudent to
convert the new military power into an instrument of peace,
and by investing the modern but absolute authority with all
the old and hallowed forms of dignity, to bring it as near as
possible to the character of an hereditary monarchy. It is to
the tendency to improvement which forms the germ of these
ideas that we must look for the apology, while in the course
of history at this period there lies whatever there can be of
reason and justification for such absolute despotism as pre-
vailed at this era in the political world. In itself; however,
it cannot be too often repeated, it is altogether formless and
full of imperfection. A true family succession and hereditary
dynasty, however, was scarcely possible, so long as there
existed no limit to caprice in adoption or divorce ; and when
all the relations of marriage and the family were undermined
by the universal corruption in morals, which the better
emperors sought in vain to check and restrain.

By the ascription to the imperial dignity of priestly offices
and titles belonging to the popular religion, it was indeed
attempted to give to it a more sacred character and sanction.
This, however, secured to the emperor no real accession of
power. Such was the state of decay and weakness in which

THE KOMAN LAW. 299

religion, no less than morals, was sunk. The heathenism of
those days consisted in nothing but some poetical legends, ex-
ternal rites, and ceremonial pomp, which occasionally found a
philosophical interpretation, but without a proper, intrinsic
substance and coherence and an organised priesthood all
which are to be still found in the ancient religion of the
Hindoos. And it was only a natural addition to the other
numerous inconsistencies it only rendered the whole drama
the more revolting, if, after an inhuman reign, and after being
at last put out of the way in a very human, and, at the same
time, very tmhuman way, the hated tyrant was in conclusion
placed among the national gods. And if under Aurelius and
the Antonines better days appeared, still they were but brief
and transitory, since they did not, and in truth could not,
possess any historical confirmation and moral basis like that
of the hereditary monarchy of Christian times and states.

In jurisprudence, not only as a science, but in its prac-
tical administration, the Romans have in all ages, and even
modern times, been justly famous. One reason, perhaps, of
this was the fact, that all who still retained the least sense of
right and justice, withdrawing from the dangers of political
life and honours, retired to the still inviolate domain of law,
and devoted themselves to the development of the old juris-
tic principles. But when the whole social frame and the
very principle of civil existence has become in its inmost
essence unrighteous, and based on injustice, a few just laws
about property, and robbery, and fraud, and murder, and the
like (offences which, generally speaking, are for the most part
essential^ the same in all times and places,) can profit little.
Equally unavailing, too, are the shrewdest and most sagacious
of juridical treatises on such topics. To extol the Roman
Empire on this ground would be tantamount to praising one
of the worst and most pernicious systems of philosophical error,
or excusing it because it does not violate, or rather, because
it necessarily observes, the ordinary rules of logic which,
however, does not by any means lessen or remove the error,
but, on the contrary, aggravates it ; since by rendering it so
much the more specious, it does but gain for it a more ready
acceptance among men.

In the later epoch of the Christian renovation of the Roman
Empire in the German, the better elements of the old Roman

300 GERMAN CUSTOMARY LAW.

jurisprudence were rich in valuable and beneficial results.
Still the Christian principle of the state accords better with
the old Teutonic laws than with the civil code, inasmuch as
by the old German usages a greater regard is paid and a higher
influence allowed to the rights of equity. No doubt but the
Roman jurisprudence has most acutely defined and developed
this beautiful notion ; but it is chiefly as an exception from,
strict right that it recognises it at all. For such was the
Roman law from its commencement ; and it was regarded and
established as the proper province of equity to moderate and
to soften its original sternness and severity. But according
to Christian law, equity and strict right ought to be in every
instance intimately associated and blended together, as is
indeed implied in the very idea of Christian sentiment and
feeling.

Herein lies consequently the great and essential distinction
between Roman and Christian law. And this is the principle
on which a thorough and systematic development of Christian
jurisprudence must proceed, and in such a spirit alone can it
be consistently carried out. A second distinctive mark of
Christian law and of its very conception consists in this, that
beyond all others it is founded on historical rights. No doubt
in its simple and natural character the Germanic custom
invariably tends towards an historical legislation, both for the
burgher and for the private individual, and is so far perfectly
reconcilable with the Christian principle of right and justice.
But in the full and extensive signification of the term, as it
embraces the state, and all such powers of the civilised world
as are brought by geographical contact into political relations
with each other, it is only the Christian principle of right
that can be truly said to be historical. For none but the
Christian view of the world really embraces in its plans and
consideration the whole of mankind.

Had man not fallen from the very first into dissension and
discontent with himself and his fellows, with nature and with
God, society would have stood in no need of a constraining
force, or of the state to constrain it. For what else is the state
but an armed neutrality for the preservation of peace, a sword
of justice against wrong, whether from individuals or com-
munities, a fortress and a bulwark against unjust attacks and
the violence of war ? And whence but from that only perfect

THE CHRISTIAN JURISPRUDENCE. 301

system the system of Christian truth and the first opening
of revelation can we derive the explanation of that which is
but the propagation of the old evil and the primal curse?
Does it not furnish, in the first wrong and the first fratricide,
the historical derivation and origin of the state, accounting for
it as the divinely appointed protection against man's inborn
tendency to injustice ? And if in any other history or tradi-
tion a tolerably clear and definite allusion to such ideas
exists, it was without doubt originally derived from the same
source.

It is, however, as in my last Lecture I have already endea-
voured to show, in the second and new divine commencement
of the human race, that we are to look for the true sanction
and foundation of the state. For it is in this renovation of
mankind that their true intrinsic and higher peace was first
proclaimed and offered to him. Not, however, perfect peace,
for that is to be the fruit and reward of having " fought a good
fight."* Still it is in the meantime a sure and everlasting
basis of future peace, and an ever-growing germ of tranquillity
eyen in the present. Viewed in this light, then, every human
peace which is not merely specious and pretended, but honestly
intended, and in so far Christian, however imperfect and par-
tial, forms, nevertheless, a step in the great scale of progres-
sion an approximation and a preparation to that universal
and all-embracing peace of God which is higher than all
reason, and all the disputes which arise out of or about it.

If injustice and wrong should ever disappear totally from the
earth if the peace of God were actually established thereon,
then would the end of law be attained, and all institutions for
its accomplishment would become superfluous. Law presup-
poses a condition of struggle, and is intended to endure as
long as it lasts. It is itself nothing less than a struggle against
wrong. The Christian view, accordingly, and theory of law,
is far higher. In a scientific point of view, too, it alone is
satisfactory on this account,, that it recognises a higher prin-
ciple as the source of right, or as right itself, and that it alone
contains in itself the historical key for the whole, and embraces
at once the beginning and the end. But now the Christian
idea of right is thus historical, not merely because it furnishes
a complete explanation of the first beginning of wrong, and
gives an historical derivation of the divine sanction of the
* 2 Tim. iv. 7.

302 COMPAKISON OF HOMAN WITH MAHOMMEDAN EMPIBE.

state ; but also in this sense, that in obedience to the principle
of equity, as extended to the wider relations of political life,
and to the law of toleration founded on this feeling, it respects
even the imperfect and inferior degrees of right, whenever, at
least, they are the unavoidable results of a previous course of
things, and possess an historical foundation, and are established
as less evil, and at least as comparatively good. And this
explains, what is otherwise incomprehensible, how the Christian
sense of right could reconcile itself to the absolute form or
rather formlessness of the later Roman world, and being gra-
dually associated and fused therewith, led to its complete
renovation in the exalted phenomenon of a Christian empire.

This peace-loving and tolerant recognition of imperfect
political constitutions and forms of state, is only applicable,
however, where the absolute and the pernicious had its founda-
tion in some historical occasion, and where, by a natural course
of development, the evil has followed as the result of some pre-
vious defective condition of the political body. It has no place
where the evil is radical and of spontaneous growth, as in the
empire of Mahommet, and of his immediate successors. For
a fanatical lust of conquest was introduced in the first germ
of this dynasty, and indeed formed its foundation and its ani-
mating and vital principle. The brilliant success and per-
sonal talents of the first caliphs may indeed win our admiration
and chain our imagination, but still in the very worst times of
the old Roman world absolute power never presented itself in
so unmitigated a form as it does in this empire of deadly
fanaticism. This is the calm judgment of history. In the
former case the evil sprung chiefly from the personal caprice
of individual tyrants ; in the latter, the pervading principle
was despotism, which, on the whole, remained unchanged in
the most famous and greatest characters. For such immuta-
bility is an essential principle of despotism whenever the spiri-
tual and the temporal power are held by the same hand, and
are united in one common centre and sovereign.

In another point of view also, that, viz., of the moral esti-
mate, the historical comparison between the old Roman and
the Mahommedan empires turns out to the disadvantage of the
latter. In the later times of the Roman Empire, the family
relations, and the sacred ties of married life, were no doubt
greatly disturbed and perverted by the prevailing tone of im-
morality. But among the Mahominedans they were entirely

SPREAD OF CHRISTIAN IDEAS AMONG MAHOMMEDANS. 303

overthrown by a false religion. Even in this respect, there-
fore, it is evident that there could be no place in the latter for
that moral foundation of a long established family unity, such
as a civilised state like the Christian monarchy requires. It is
nothing strange, consequently, if in the times of the Arabian
dynasty, the Mahommedan state stood in more decided opposi-
tion, and proved less reconcilable to the Christian polity than
ever heathenism did in the days of ancient Rome. But not-
withstanding this, we find, on the other side, the Christian
principle of peace extending itself even to the historical phe-
nomena and political relations of the Mahommedan world.
For the most part (and in a greater degree with the advance
of time) these events have been judged in that mild spirit of
historical justice, which, in its complete and comprehensive
estimate, allows a due consideration to every motive and
circumstance.

Moreover, a high principle of toleration has extended to
them the benefit of the international laws of Christian states
a policy which only requires to be rightly understood to
be pronounced in noways deserving of blame or reprobation.
For the evil can only be radically extirpated by the complete
triumph of Christian truth over the false foundation and lead-
ing idea of this fanatical delusion.

But however improbable it may seem, regarded merely in
an historical light, that the Mahommedan races will ever adopt
Christian sentiments, morals, and principles, still in the great
course of mundane things, or in other words, in the counsels
of Providence, nothing, however it may contradict human
expectations, can rightly be held to be impossible. And,
indeed, recent times furnish many speaking indications of a
growing tendency to such an approximation. Many signs might
be pointed out, which, while they bear witness to a widening
and deepening feeling of its desirableness, encourage us to en-
tertain higher and better hopes. To promote, and indeed to
co-operate in bringing about so great and divine a consumma-
tion, so long as it can be done without violating higher duties
and principles, does not appear to go in any degree beyond the
sphere of a truly Christian and pacific policy, or to interfere
with the relations which it is right to observe in regard to non-
Christian states. On the contrary, the worst violation thereof,
and one that most surely menaces danger and mischief, is for
a Christian state, in direct opposition to its natural principle

304 COLLISION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE.

and vocation, to be seized and actuated by a fanatical lust of
conquest similar to that which animated the Saracens. Such a
subversion and confusion of all moral ideas, and of political
life, was publicly manifested, for the first time in the Christian
world, during the French Revolution. Breaking out with
furious violence, in the brief period of its duration it developed
itself with fearful rapidity. How many, or rather how few
steps it would have required, had its reign been longer, to
convert it into a military despotism, thoroughly heathenish,
such as the Revolution indeed was from beginning to end ; into
a despotism which, like that of the caliphate already men-
tioned, should unite in the same person all spiritual, as well
as temporal authority, we need not here further investigate.
The dreadful possibility of such a contingency has been brought
only too closely home to our fears.

The essence of despotism, as I said before, lies in the union
in one person of the civil and spiritual powers or in a most
anomalous state, which is by a rare and faulty combination at
once spiritual and temporal. And since the distinction be-
tween the two powers is involved in the very notion of a
Christian state, it is of the highest importance that the state
should carefully observe and respect the boundaries between
the two domains. It is extremely difficult to establish any
general standard for all the cases of collision between the two
that either have actually occurred or are conceivably possible.
For it is evident that this contingency must be modified in an
infinite number of ways, by existing treaties, the local circum-
stances and political constitution of the different states. The
chief point is the general spirit and feeling. The question
turns principally on good will and honest intentions ; but pre-
eminently on a right conception of both powers, as alike pos-
sessing in their respective spheres a higher sanction, a divine
foundation, and a sacred character. This must be recognised
in every case and time, and all circumstances belonging to
either sphere must be treated accordingly.

Many and serious cases of such collision between the church
and the state have occurred and are perpetually recurring.
Many and grave errors have been committed on both sides.
But for the most part they have been unfairly judged, or
rather misjudged, through ignorance both of the times and
of the actual circumstances of the case. The day is not long
gone by when in this respect it was the habitual rule to sub-

ENGLISH REFORMATION. 305

jcct certain of the early Popes especially to an unqualified
vituperation and censure. And it must be told, to the praise
of German impartiality, that Protestant writers were the first,
by their historical researches, to do justice to and to form a fair
estimate of these, in their day, truly great and eminent cha-
racters. Still we do not by any means pretend to deny that
both in these and later times grave blame rests with many
of the Popes individually. On neither side, however, and at no
time, were the limits which divide the two powers overstepped
so far as they were by Henry VIII. of England, that absolute
monarch in temporals, and who wished also to be equally
supreme in spirituals. The most despotic sovereign that ever
sat on the throne of England, by founding [the independence
of] the Anglican Church,* became undesignedly and uncon-
sciously the true author of that much lauded constitution of
England, which, essentially resting on this foundation, fur-
nishes the only instance of a dynamical polity, as the only
remedy of an otherwise incurable tendency to division and
anarchy, attaining to a highly perfect shape and development.
As for the schism in the faith, which in these latter has in
so many Christian countries made the problem of religion
only the more difficult, and its relation to the state more
delicate and liable to aggression, it has in England, through
this royal reformer, assumed so complicated a shape, that,
unsolved as yet, it appears to many, judging of it in a merely
human light, totally and for ever incapable of solution.

We must reserve to the succeeding Lecture the enumeration
of all the results which flow from these premises, and this first
outline of a truly Christian justice, which as such involves the
principle of equity, and is even truly historical.

* The words in the bracket are not in the original. As a loyal priest
of a true branch of that Church which is built on the foundation of th
Apostles, the Translator could not help to give currency to such a mis-
representation of it. Henry VIII. can stand on his own merits, or rather
demerits. It seems, however, to be what Schlegel would call an historical
retribution, that the universal supremacy claimed by the Bishops of Rome,
as it was confirmed by a Phocas, should be first shaken by a Henry VIII.
Trans.

END OF LECTURE XIII.

306

LECTURE XIV.

Of the Division of Ranks, and of the reciprocal Relations of States accord-
ing to the Christian Idea : Of Science as a Power, of its Constitution,
and of the right Regulation of it.

WHENEVER philosophy, setting up any conceit of its own as
a principle, intrudes either into the domain of religion or of
politics, such an intrusion is in every case an aggression.
And if the aggressive idea, once formed and entertained, is
nevertheless externally and in appearance held in check and
restrained if from ulterior considerations, and for the sake of
some remote object, science accommodates itself to the esta-
blished system of law or religion then is the case only so
much the worse. The deep and pervading hostility of senti-
ment is but concealed beneath the external servility of lan-
guage ; and the rankling wound has but skinned over the
surface. The influence of evil is far from being checked and
destroyed ; or, to say the least, that of good is nipped in the
bud, not being allowed fully to expand itself. And at the
same time, the dignity of science, which can only be maintained
by its independence, is fatally and irretrievably endangered.

Under this conviction, I strongly protested, at the very
opening of these Lectures, against all such intermeddling of
philosophy with matters foreign to it ; and I trust that for my
part I have hitherto duly observed the spirit of that protest.
But now, the end which philosophy strives to attain to is a
right estimate and full understanding of its own nature, and
that of man, both in the internal properties of his mind and in
his external existence relatively to God and nature, and also
to the world and society. In pursuit of this object, having
once found and acknowledged the centre of the inner life,
such as it is given to us, and setting out therefrom, philosophy
can and may, with perpect propriety, submit to investigation
the highest ideas of life, and judge them after its own method
and from its own peculiar position. But still it will do this

KEVIEW. 307

in the hope rather of explaining what actually exists than of
establishing any self-devised ideal of its own, or of setting up
impracticable laws for a merely conceivable state of things
under the most arbitrary assumption for a wholly visionary
world.

Consistently, then, with this notion of philosophy and under
this limitation, I have not, I think, deviated in the latter Lec-
tures from the law I originally laid down. Inasmuch, how-
ever, as the exposition of a philosophy of life must necessarily
be vivid, and consequently requires to be interspersed with
historical views and examples, I must request you, looking
principally to the ideas which form the essential foundation of
these discourses, to judge the latter by the pervading tenour
and connexion of the thoughts, rather than by the several allu-
sions and instances which I have introduced for the mere pur-
pose of illustration. All that is merely personal in the inter-
pretation passed upon those events will, I trust, be looked upon
as the private opinions, indeed, but still the unprejudiced con-
clusions of an individual.

In the course of these Lectures I attempted first of all to
establish a firm foundation for the human soul, considered
both in its own proper nature and with regard to its most
essential relations in life to nature and to God. In the next
place, by investigating the order of the divine dispensations
in nature, and in the realms of truth and histoiy, it was my
endeavour to obtain for it a wider and more solid basis.
Lastly, I occupied myself with tracing the course which the
Spirit of Eternal Truth pursues in science and in life, and the
shapes which in its progress towards perfection it successively
assumes. Accordingly, I have pointed out to you, first of all,
how this Spirit of Eternal Truth is ever one and the same in
the highest science and in divine faith ; then, how victoriously
it comes forth out of the conflict between faith and infidelity ;
and, in conclusion, I showed you that, far from being confined
to the narrow region of science, it may and rightly ought to
enter with an earnest influence into life itself. How the latter
duty is actually fulfilled we endeavoured to show, by consider-
ing the symbolical signification of life, and, as derived there-
from, its higher sanction and divine foundation, especially in
public life and the state. And herein the idea of a universal
Christian and truly historical justice found a closer applica-

308 THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION.

tion and wider development. And this formed the subject of
our last disquisition.

I there sought to elucidate this idea solely and entirely from
history. For this purpose I endeavoured, by means of his-
torical instances, to set in a clear, discriminating light the
opposite and divergent notions of an absolute and of a dyna-
mical or limited monarchy, so far at least as regards the
essential features and characteristic constitution of each. As
instances of the former, I pointed to the old Roman world and
the empire of the Caliphs, while the latter was elucidated by
the English constitution, in which, as yet, it has attained to
its highest and most perfect development. This is no doubt a
master-piece of political wisdom, wherein an intractable spirit
of opposition being adopted, as it were, into the very consti-
tution, is thereby rendered legitimate and its evil tendency
is held in check. Still the principle of it cannot rightly be
viewed in any other light than the wise procedure of the
physician who, in the case of an inevitable epidemic, resolves
to inoculate the disease in order to be able to control it the
better, and by watching more closely its crisis, to regulate its
course and issue.

In its true historical place, therefore, this constitution finds
its satisfactory explanation and justification ; or rather deserves
our highest praise, the fullest acknowledgement of its merits,
and even our admiration. But inasmuch as every feature of
it is thoroughly historical and national, and since the slightest
local diversity in the character of a people or nation might
with diiferent relations and circumstances give rise to wants
and difficulties little expected or dreamed of, we must be cau-
tious how we seek to introduce it elsewhere. In the arts it is
ever a sorry business to imitate great works of original genius.
By such a course little but manner is multiplied. So it is
rarely a felicitous idea to suppose that a constitution, though
copied from never so lauded a model, must be suitable to all
nations alike, and must prove an universal and unfailing source
of political felicity a tree of liberty, which we may transplant
at pleasure, or, as it were, a constitutional bill of exchange,
which once endorsed we may put in circulation.

But if the true Gordian knot in that master-piece of polity,
the English constitution, remains still an unsolved problem,
since tJW war of religious opinion, which seems at every

CHURCH AND STATE. 309

moment to be threatening an outbreak, is as yet, with con-
summate skill and prudence, kept under and restrained within
its recognised limits, we may see in this fact a further confir-
mation and justification of the encomiums we recently passed
upon the religious peace which has become for us in Germany
as it were a second nature, and which, in the place of such a
constitution, is to us the guarantee of mental freedom and
the pledge of a higher unity than one simply political. It is
not a mere dead letter, but it is a living power enshrined in
the minds of men. And if occasionally some rash expression
in a great and influential writer, or any grievous act on the
part of a powerful and leading political character, may seem
to menace violence to this religious peace, the general feeling
soon pronounces itself against such indiscretion, and the
single note of discord is quicklv brought in unison with the
general harmony, or else dies away without producing any
deep or widely prejudicial consequences. Not, indeed, that
the existing diiferences in religious opinion are a thing desir-
able ; we mean anything but that by our encomiums on the
religious peace. What we really mean is, that in the present
state of things such a peace is of the very highest value, and
one whose great blessing can only be appreciated fully by
those who enjoy it. And nothing but a comparison with other
civilised nations in this respect can enable us to understand
and to form a full estimate of its value. And if every ordi-
nary treaty of peace between states, whenever it is settled on
true and lasting foundations and sincerity of purpose, has an
influence on the inward development of mind or spirit in the
course of history, and affords, as it were, a calm presage of a
higher and a more universal peace of God, how can we look
upon this peculiar and internal peace between men's minds in
any other light than as a token of a richer and fuller future,
and as a symbol of ultimate perfection and unity ?

In our notice of the schism in the faith we made allusion
to the possibility of a collision between the two highest and
most sacred powers, the civil and the spiritual, according
to the distinction involved in the very idea of the Christian
life. In order, therefore, to avoid every possible misconcep-
tion, it seems to be necessary, or, at least, not a superfluous
task, to add one brief remark, en the extreme case when, in
such an unfortunate collision, right and justice are openly

310 HOW THE CHURCH MUST RESIST AGGRESSION.

violated and set at defiance. If the civil power be the party
attacked and unduly interfered with in its legitimate province,
it has a perfect right to defend itself, as indeed, in our days,
it is quite able and knows well how to do. The only thing
that apparently remains to be desired is, that in the exercise
of this right it should observe, as indeed becomes the stronger
side, the greatest moderation. But if, on the contrary, the
aggression proceeds from this side, and the spiritual power is
attacked, then it ought to bear in mind that its legitimate
opposition to the civil power ought to assume a material cha-
racter. Its resistance must never be public and open violence,
nor either directly or indirectly, by means of what we may
well call machinations, for such a proceeding would undermine
the sacred foundations of public confidence, and shake the
whole edifice of moral order and society. In the case of such
an aggression religion would deprive herself of her duly ac-
quired position in the state. But this, so long as the latter
remains Christian, religion itself never can and never will do,
as neither will those whose duty it is to guide and to minister
it in a truly reverent and pious spirit.

The only opposition, therefore, that the spiritual power can
rightly and justly make to the aggression of the state must be
of a passive nature. It is not necessary to lay down any
elaborate and rigorous distinctions for such an emergency ; for
such definitions rarely meet the complicated variety and special
character of every possible or even every actual case. A few
historical examples, which readily present themselves, will
serve briefly and perspicuously to illustrate the view of duty
which we wish to enforce. In the unfortunate case of a
great and public collision between the Church and the State,
the model of a just and legitimate resistance on the part of the
spiritual power has been furnished by the conduct of that
venerable old man,* whom half of Europe regarded as invested
with the highest priestly and apostolical dignity. With calm
fortitude, even in bonds, he refused to yield to the military
despot, and won the personal esteem and admiration likewise of
that other half of Europe which denied his spiritual authority.
Or, to take an example from a more limited sphere, and of a
more personal nature, we may appeal to the history of the
patron saint of Bohemia, which, at least, cannot be classed
* Pius VII.

SEPARATION OF TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL POWERS. 311

among the legends, and which, in any case, will afford a beau-
tiful and simple example of a noble, perfectly allowable resist-
ance of a spiritual party against the injustice of the political
head of the nation. By such passive resistance, and by such
alone, did Christianity, in the earliest centuries, though so
unattractive and so lowly at its first commencement, gradually
attain a secure external foundation, and become the religion of
the whole civilised world. A public outbreak and even a secret
feeling of discontent between the spiritual and the temporal
power, between Church and State, is, at all times, and in every
case, a great evil, threatening and bringing danger and ruin
on both. For the state, as being ultimately founded on a
religious basis, undermines its own foundation by assuming
an hostile attitude towards religion. No financial difficulties,
or any such partial calamities, will ever ruin a people, so long
as any moral energy still exists in the whole body, and it is
consequently sound at the core. Political scepticism, which
is the immediate and necessary consequence of infidelity in
religion, is the true cause and origin of the decay of nations.
These two vital principles of human society, therefore, these
two powers, however essentially and necessarily distinct, must
work together in perfect peace and unity. For the one can
only flourish where the soil has been rendered morally fertile
by the other, while the latter cannot exercise its full influence
except under the sanction of the political power. If religion
were at unity in itself, and totally free from party and contro-
versy, and the state, as the public life, were in perfect har-
mony with it, and thoroughly pervaded by its life-giving spirit,
humanity would, by such a consummation, have made a great
step in advance towards that divine peace, for which every
human pacification, however imperfect, is the expression of a
profound and imperishable longing of a pursuit which, though
ever attaining, is still never wholly abandoned.

However, the alienation and separation of the civil and
spiritual powers seems to belong peculiarly and essentially to,
or rather to be a necessary law of, the present condition of
humanity, still involved in struggle with evil, and not yet
having attained to the end of its endeavours. It is much
older than men think. It must have existed in the first ages of
the world, and in the earliest stage of the Gentile religion. For
among the Hindoos, who, as they are the most ancient people

312 AFFINITY OP INDIAN AND TEUTONIC RACES.

that we are acquainted with, are also the most authentic
monument that remains of the primaeval condition of the
human race, we find this separation formally and definitely esta-
blished. It there forms an insurmountable barrier between the
regal and the sacerdotal dignity. On this point it would not
be advisable to direct our attention exclusively or even prin-
cipally to the condition of the priestly class among the Greeks
and Romans, since, in the later epochs of these nations, Gen-
tilism had greatly degenerated, and in the more civilised days of
these people had lost all its essential forms, and its true spirit
had disappeared. But, with that still more ancient people of
the Hindoos, the same unchanged law still exists in these
days as in the very earliest times. A Brahmin who should
attempt to ascend the throne or usurp its powers, or a rajah
who should wish to be as a Brahmin, or to suppress and anni-
hilate the Brahminical caste, would be universally regarded as
an abomination. The attempt, on either side, would appear
an offence against human nature and divine laws. For a mix-
ture or confusion of castes signifies to the Hindoos the very
abomination of anarchy ; and by this term, in one character-
istic word of their language, they designate all revolutionary
times, even though, we must observe, such periods among the
Hindoos were never more than brief and transitory, the waves
of anarchy breaking harmlessly against the everlasting rocks
of this ancient and solidly compact system.

Besides the many other traces of family affinity between the
Indian and Teutonic races, another is furnished by the Ger-
manic constitution, which forms the political basis of most
European kingdoms. In India the noble class who most
especially are bound to military service forms also the caste
of the lords of the soil ; and from their latter character they
also derive their name as a class.* Some of the most general
and most ancient features of the feudal system have likewise
been discovered among them, though not indeed its more arti-
ficial and complicated system, to which feudalism was in later
times developed among European nations. To this landed
nobility belong the nabobs and even the rajahs. For it was
left open to the fluctuating fortunes of different families to rise
to or to fall from the summit of political dignity. Between
the several grades of honour accessible to a particular caste
Cshatriyas. (See " Philosophy of History," p. 146.)

THE CHHISTIAN PRIESTHOOD NOT HEREDITAEY. 313

no insurmountable barrier was raised ; all were open to all the
members of the same rank or caste.

The dernocratical writers of a recent era, in obedience to a
sentiment natural enough to their false system, have expressed
a deep horror and strong aversion to this institution of castes
among the Hindoos, stamping it on every occasion with the
strongest marks of reprobation. Viewing it, however, in an
historical light, I for my part am disposed to think that it
is to this ancient and hereditary institution, however much of
imperfection it undoubtedly involves, that this great and popu-
lous country owes that firm stability of its laws and customs,
and that indestructible prosperity which the various conquests
it has undergone both in ancient and modern times have been
unable to shake or to undermine. No doubt the Indian gra-
dation of ranks wants the stamp of perfection and mildness
which belongs to Christian politics. And in this respect
the comparison is especially instructive. It serves to olraw
attention to, and strongly illustrates the fact, that a Chris-
tian division of ranks is, in some points, different in its
principle, and the very opposite to the correspondent state of
things in the old world, as yet unrefined and purified by this
divine element. For first of all, according to the Christian
idea, the spiritual class cannot depend upon birth; it must
possess a higher and peculiar vocation. This order, conse-
quently, cannot recruit itself merely by birth ; but must
derive its members from the other classes which are here-
ditary. But in consequence of this principle, the partition-
wall, otherwise impassable and absolute, between the other
ranks, which, taken on the whole, are hereditary, is so far
removed, that exceptional cases occur when these barriers
are opened to merit or other important considerations. It
is a self-evident fact, requiring no elaborate argument for its
proof, that the Christian sentiment, or as we have here ex-
pressed it, that principle of equity so universally and essen-
tially interwoven with the Christian idea of justice, demands
that every alleviation of their toilsome and oppressive lot
should be afforded to the industrious classes. To those on
whom the accident of birth, as the world speaks, or as we
should prefer to say, a higher and a divine Providence, has
laid all the hardships of life, it is but just that every privilege
should be conceded that does not militate against the general

314 CONFEDERATION OF STATES ITS PRINCIPLES.

welfare, or the private rights of individuals. And in the same
spirit, every political constitution that is organically arranged
and founded on a Christian, and consequently modified sepa-
ration of ranks, will attentively observe and engraft into its
old constitutional stock every new historical shoot. A great
and instructive example of the kind is at hand. In the Teuto-
nic constitutions of the middle ages, and especially in the
Germanic Empire, cities and trades, which at an earlier period
had formed a very immaterial and comparatively insignificant
element in the whole, in short, the growing burgher classes,
were at their very first appearance understood humanly and
politically, received a great organic development, and taken
into a living combination with the old.

In all probability our own deeply-agitated times, which
assuredly deserve not to be called unfruitful, even though,
together with the good fruit, they may also produce many a
false blossom, give birth to much that is new indeed, but which
, is, nevertheless, or at least may eventually become, historical.
The phenomena of the present, therefore, demand our most
careful consideration, lest any negligence in this case should
inevitably involve us in disaster, and bring on us a natural
historical retribution. An exclusive and narrow aristocracy,
or if we must say so, one senselessly insisting on its privileges,
such as in the earlier part of the last century was probably to
be met with in a few countries, is, to the true friend of the
ancient order of things, the most painful phenomenon. It is
its own greatest enemy. Since, by a historical law of antago-
nism and reaction, one extreme inevitably calls forth the other
sooner or later. Hereditary monarchy, as it is the oldest form
of polity in history, so, if it is maintained in the mild and
moderate spirit of the Christian state, is likely to survive all
others, and to be the last in force among the human race.
For a state which is founded and established on the Christian
principle of an equitable distinction and division of ranks,
must, in every calm and unprejudiced judgment, deserve the
preference over the artificial constitution of a dynamical
balance of powers. For the necessary equipoise is liable to
be disturbed by the restless agitation to which the latter form
of polity is exposed. And it is only therefore in comparison
with an absolute despotism that the dynamical theory can
appear desirable and win so many adherents, while the former,

JEALOUSY OF MARITIME AND CONTINENTAL POWERS. 315

on the other hand, as the only remedy for popular anarchy,
if administered with talent and energy, becomes not only
tolerable, but acquires even an historical justification.

Each of these two extremes, the absolute and the dynamical,
admit, however, of a wider application than merely to single
states and their different forms, according to the fluctuation
of the times between prosperity and adversity. For the entire
system of Christian states throughout the civilised world may
in their mutual relations and confederations depend principally
on the absolute preponderance of some leading power which
holds the others in subjection or rules them. But this is an
authority which all are ready to throw off, and is never wil-
lingly acknowledged or submitted to. Or perhaps the whole
political world may, on the dynamical theory, be based on the
balance of power, each state being held in check by the rest.
This was the reigning system of the eighteenth century, and
at its first foundation was admired as the perfection of a wise
policy. In experience, however, it has proved inadequate
and practically untenable. The only case where it seems to
admit of application, is that of a division embracing the whole
globe, but based on geographical relations ; but even in such
a case it could only serve to check mutual injury, and not to
promote any salutary end.

In the middle ages, as soon as the German Empire, having
fallen from its original purity, had become totally false to its
Christian principle, it found, according to the spirit of the
times, a salutary check and counterpoise in the Church. And
that iron character of the Ghibellines, which was exhibited no
less strikingly in individuals and morals, than in politics and
counsels of state, affords the best justification for this antago-
nism, as well as for the opposite great party of the Guelphs,
with their milder bearing and sentiments.

But now that this ancient division and conflict of the spi-
ritual and the temporal powers is in these enlightened times a
bygone thing, and in the older sense is extinct for ever;
since it seems mankind cannot do without antagonism of
some kind, we have instead of it, an elementary one between
land and water. A political schism variously manifests itself
between the ocean and the continent. In fact, that great
Island Kingdom which traverses and rules the ocean, and
by founding colonies and settlements wherever it listeth or

SI 6 CHRISTIAN JUSTICE BASIS OF EUROPEAN PEACE.

thinketh profitable, puts forth, as it were, the feelers of uni-
versal dominion, is properly an empire of the sea. For in
contradistinction from a kingdom we may call every monarchy
an empire which comprises in itself several other peoples and
nations of divers races and political constitutions. In such a
sense we have contrasted this maritime empire with the Con
tinent. But although experience has shown the possibility of
such a division of the whole world and political alienation of
the two elements of land and water throughout the globe ; it
has also established a conviction that though these two divi-
sions might do incalculable injury and mischief to each other,
no permanent or decided supremacy of either would follow,
inasmuch as a medium for maintaining the dependence of
either is wanting. And as it is only in some urgent need of
the times to find some counterpoise to absolute power, or an
apprehension of it, that a dynamical state or the tendency to
it finds its justification, so it was only during the transient
reign of a despotic lust of conquest, and as a check to it, that
this maritime power could have risen so high as it has in the
opinion of the Continental states.

Since then, however, the great powers of Europe have had
a different interest to pursue, and their political counsels have
been directed to the preservation of peace rather than to
selfish aggrandizement. For they have all had to contend with
a common enemy in the restless spirit of the age, which is yet
very far from being conquered and subdued. If then an
absolute preponderance of a single state is hateful to all, and
a dynamical balance of power in the general state- system is
either inadequate for such an end, or else does not admit of
application, is it not at least conceivable that a higher prin-
ciple of Christian justice might be substituted for these which
are equally defective ? Might not a common point of moral
unity be found and established for the European states?
Must this sublime idea ever be nothing more than the noble
enthusiasm of a magnanimous character? And is it to be
regarded as impossible merely because it is imbedded in diffi-
culties? But is not all that is great also difficult? Still,
inasmuch as this exalted political unity must have a purely
spiritual basis in the sentiments of men, a precipitate or
violent attempt to bring it about must inevitably miscarry.
It would not only militate against, but also corrupt the

CONFEDEBATION OF CHBISTIAN STATES. 317

original purity of the very idea. It must be universally recog-
nised before it can, in the contest with the evil principle of
the day, become a salutary power of good, or furnish for the
political relations a general basis of Christian justice. The
one extreme of political Europe, with its absolute polity,
which moreover has fallen very low from its former pre-
ponderance, seems excluded by the very nature of things
from the idea of such an unity. But if it be true that it is
gradually becoming more and more European, a character in
which, until very lately, it has rarely been regarded, then a
modified kind of subordinate connexion with such a general
principle of association among European states, does not seem
necessarily inadmissible or inconsistent. The other extreme
of Europe, with its dynamical constitution, had in an opposi-
tion, moderate indeed in form and conditionally, more than
half renounced this idea. In the opinion, however, of many
competent judges, this renunciation is much more decided,
and must exercise a great and unfavourable effect on the
harmony of the whole. The moral want of our age, judged
by this or some similar idea, is the necessity which was so
keenly felt upon its deliverance from the general yoke of a
military aggression, of a moral and intrinsic regeneration of
Europe. And this unity is not to be derived from and set up
merely in science, but must be felt as a living energy in life
itself. But how is such an inner restoration to be brought
about and effected in Christian states, but by a complete re-
newal and invigoration of their religious foundation ? And
inasmuch as this want actually exists and is felt, the problem
which is to supply it must be regarded as an historical one ;
and consequently the historical development of the times-
abstracted from the accidental form of the first essays at its
solution, will sooner or later cany us to all that is most essen-
tial in the idea.

Formerly, in the medieval times, the German Empire
claimed to be this Christian centre of unity for the states of
Europe although, in truth, it was far from embracing the
whole system of European states. Latterly, in the new poli-
tical theory, the mutual relation of nations has become gra-
dually republican. And this new form has consequently been
accompanied with imperfections and difficulties and almost
inextricable perplexities. Is it then probable that in th

318 PRINCIPLES ON WHICH IT MUST BE BASED.

commencing or recently commenced era of history, a firm,
compact, but vast corporation of states, founded on a principle
of Christian justice, can be substituted for and gradually
evolved out of the two previous ones, which are now found
wholly inadequate for the ends they were designed to meet ?
As a mere historical probability we may well allow this idea
to stand.

Totally different from those idle speculations of an endless
peace, which, for the sake of mere intellectual amusement
and discussion, philosophy was used to advance in the schools,
is this thoroughly practical thought of a confederation of states
based on the principle of Christian justice and vitally con-
nected with religion as the most general centre of humanity.
And the latter must be regarded as the essential condition of
its internal consistency and permanence. At least we may
safely advance the following as the result of a philosophical
consideration of history. An exalted and universal religious
peace of this kind, and proceeding from such a principle, in
which by a peaceful approximation, not only the two parties
in the faith should be reconciled and finally united, but also the
spiritual and the secular powers, the Church and the State,
should be allied together in the profoundest harmony, is, pro-
perly speaking, the very thing which mankind most stands in
need of. But this desirable result never can and never will
be attained until all shall be united in pervading harmony with
religion and with life, especially with public life or the state,
so that all these three principles or fundamental elements of
human existence may work together with one aim and pur-
pose. Such a state of profound internal peace would be some-
thing more than a simple political peace, with its transient
blessings. It would be a sacred peace of God and the higher
spirits, or at least the precursor and the best initiation thereto.
This, however, is not to be effected by diplomatic skill no more
than by scientific hypotheses. It can only be brought about
by the immediate operation of God and by that divine energy
which from the beginning has sustained and still sustains the
system of the universe. Philosophy accordingly must content
itself with pointing to this end and this sustaining power, and
also with calling attention to all the traces historically fur-
nished which tend in the same direction. And since the great
conflict of the age draws all powers into its vortex more

CONTROVERSY WITH ERROR BEGETS ERROR. 319

violently than ever, it may be allowed to be sufficient for us
to have hazarded a glance towards this glorious consumma-
tion ; and we now will turn our attention to the development
of intellect and intellectual powers as at present involved in
the as yet undecided conflict. Thus much at least must be
clear, that if science, religion and the state, and the several
powers, parties and influences belonging to each of these
domains, is as hitherto to pursue each its own way in opposi-
tion to the rest, then will all hasten again with rapid strides into
a state of chaotic confusion. It may, therefore, well be per-
mitted us to endeavour to hold up before men, in as strong a
light as possible, this better hope, and to furnish them with
every possible confirmation of it both from science and history.

If our age be as yet far from healthy if it be still in a
sickly state, if the first fearful crisis has not totally expelled
the diseased matter if, on the contrary, the general European
body in many of its members is still infected with the virus
which has penetrated into the inmost and secret marrow of
life if the source of the malady lie in false ideas, or the total
absence of right ones, or in other words, in philosophical error,
which has spread in indefinite vagueness and endless hair-
splitting over the whole of public and private life, and in a
scepticism no less political than religious then, since the
external refutation rarely avails anything, our first object
must be intrinsically to conquer and to banish this error by
truth, and the spirit of truth in that higher science which is
genuine and lawful and directs itself to divine things.'

The restless anarchical spirit of the times, or the perverted
absolute spirit for they are essentially one and the same, is
yet a spirit it may be a superficial, shallow, sensual, and
negative one, but still a spirit, and therefore cannot be over-
come by any mere negation, but on the contrary only strug-
gles against it with renewed bitterness and consequently more
vigorous resistance. As opposed to the divine spirit of truth,
however, it appears an unsubstantial nullity and soon vanishes
into its own vanity.

A direct controversy with error entails one disadvantage.
By such a course the latter is unduly acknowledged for a
positive power of evil. But in reality it only becomes so
conditionally, through the atomistic splitting and diffusion of
false ideas, and by the mass of its followers, when once every-

320 SCIENCE A GEEAT POWER TOE GOOD.

thing is resolved into elementary decomposition. Moreover,
one extreme of exaggeration, whenever in controversy we
enter into it and get involved in it, easily introduces its oppo-
site, which then again is on its side carried too far or which
even though strictly and literally it be right enough, is yet
asserted with too little of limitation, and applied with unsalu-
tory rigour. It is therefore a lamentable mistake if men of
great and deserving talents, who from a scientific point of view
have devoted themselves to the great task of morally regene-
rating the age, have adopted a too decidedly polemical ten-
dency. For it is partly through exclusively following such a
course that their influence for good has been so narrow and
limited, and has not met with a more general and more un-
qualified success.

If men would only first and before all things endeavour to
set forth with all possible vividness the intrinsic unity which
subsists between higher science with a divine faith, and deve-
lope it for its own sake, without passion or interest, the further
results on life of applied truth would follow spontaneously.
From this simple and pure source they w r ould continue to flow
in ample and widening streams over the whole domain and
all its relations. God is truth, and simply on this account the
spirit of truth in a good and true science must even be divine.
Its proper aim is accordingly directed to the divine ; and on
this account there cannot be such a thing as an indifferent
science. For every science which is not directed to the divine
is shallow, superficial, sensuously negative and idly ration-
alising. On this account it is false, and must consequently
prove, in its external effects, nothing less than evil, injurious,
and destructive.

It is in regard to all this that I have classed science toge-
ther with religion and a Christianly regulated state as the
third power of good. Although merely intellectual (geistige),
it is of great moment in the conflict which all have to wage
against the destructive principles which so fearfully menace
our age. The power of science, it is true, can only produce
an effect in an intellectual sphere, but this intellectual sphere
is of itself of great influence on every other circle of human
operation. Religion has for its immediate object the soul and
its salvation, or its union with God ; and this is its peculiar
region ; but still it comes in various ways in contact with the

RELIGION AND THE STATE TWO OTHER TOWERS 321

higher science, and penetrates deeply into actual and also into
public life. But it is the state, as the organic form of the
latter, by which the divine as law, and as a higher idea of
justice, modified and completed with that of clemency and
equity, is first introduced into reality of actual and corporeal
existence, and this historical and sensible world. But the
state itself has no other than a religious foundation. It is
built upon religion, but also requires the support of science.

By the visible relation, and that parallel similitude which
spontaneously suggests itself between these three great moral
powers in public life philosophy, religion, and government
and that original triple principle of the human consciousness
as consisting of body, soul, and spirit, as the simple but funda-
mental idea of Christian philosophy (however the latter may
insist on this basis in confirmation of its utility in living
application), we do not for one moment mean to maintain or
propose a total separation or estrangement of these three
spheres. This would be quite unnatural. For in a political
as well as in a psychological sense, these three primary prin-
ciples must co-operate and be intimately blended together, to
produce a complete and perfect result in the sphere of any
one individually.

If, as we are perfectly justified, we have been considering
science, at least that which is true and divine, as a power of
a higher kind, we must still remember that is not this in the
same way as religion or government. The latter rests on a
divine foundation of eternal justice ; and therein lies the^
source of its vital efficacy. Religion is the legitimate form or
a living dispensation of the divine strength and grace. TruG
science is the mind's lofty pursuit, in a Godward direction, of
perfect knowledge ; and this direction forms the characteris-
tic distinction between it and false science. In the state, in
like manner, its loftiest character lies in the sacred foundation
of justice. It is therefore a very wrongful and a most per-
nicious error to look for the inmost essence of the state, or
the true source of political prosperity, in any external form
or formula. For this external form is in many cases nothing
but the shape in which the national mind displays itself the
theatre which it erects for its political manifestations. But in
another point of view also the form of the state is subordinate
to the essence and its foundation of right. In the legitimate

322 THE FBEE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE.

state, an hereditary monarchy, i. e., the act of crowning is no
doubt a very beautiful, highly significant, and indeed an essen-
tial sacred right. But with the exception of certain special
cases and positive institutions in some existing constitu-
tions, the monarch's right is not dependent thereon, but even
before the anointing he is truly and fully a sovereign. Far
different is the case, however, where the political authority is
only delegated and vicarious, as with an ambassador or a pleni-
potentiary deputed to negociate a peace or other treaty. For
in such cases there is no authority but what is derived solely
and entirely from the delegating source, and on the legal act
by which the right or power was delegated. Without this, it
is absolutely null and void. This remark extends to every
case and every sphere of legitimate transference of a higher
authority, even though the latter be of a divine origin. And it
is simply on this account that in religion, as the proper sphere
for the dispensing of divine strength and grace, the form is so
highly important and so thoroughly essential even as much
so as the matter itself or the imparted light of the spirit,
and properly is inseparable from it.

The position of science is quite different. For this rests on
what is thoroughly human and inborn in man the passion of
longing ; which, however, if it be maintained in its purity and
perseveringly carried out, may without doubt pass over into
a divine pursuit. Even the form of communication in science
is human throughout ; since it employs language as the intel-
lectual medium for setting forth the truth. If then in this
higher tendency, the full centre of living and divine truth be
attained, according to man's 1 utmost powers and ability, then
even here a higher and divine power may undoubtedly inter-
vene and co-operate therewith. But still, for such a case, no
strictly defined form or external sanction and consecration
exists, and from the very essence of the thing, it is not to be
looked for. That which is divine in science must from its
nature move freely, and be devoid of all such forms. As a
higher power, it must operate immediately, and must seek to
establish its own law for itself, intermediate between religion
and the state, or even in each of them alike, though still in
a peculiar way of its own. Wherever it is genuine and
unadulterated, then it will in no case come into collision with
the actual laws either of one 01 of the other, even because

THE FREE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE. 323

truth is one and everywhere the same. But if science in its
external form, and in its social and political existence, should
become entirely blended with religion and the spiritual class,
being confined and restricted thereto, as was the case with
the institution of castes among the Hindoos, which we have
already noticed, and with the Egyptian priesthood ; then we
must fain admit that freedom, which the scientific spirit
requires for its growth and development in the sphere assigned
to it, would be too closely limited and checked by narrow
and partial considerations. But if, on the other hand, it be
possible for a false science to arrogate that spiritual and divine
right of free action, which unquestionably is in a certain sense
the prerogative of heavenly truth in its invisible kingdom,
which the latter can neither misemploy, nor ever impede in
its course, then such a supposition would account for the pre-
valence of eiTor. It would also, at the same time, serve to
illustrate the mode by which such a prejudice as the arrogated
right of an unrestricted freedom of thought, or rather of the
free and unchecked communication thereof, could ever have
struck so deep a root in the human mind. But this is a
claim which we can in no way recognise or allow, as really
founded in right and justice. Since, wherever, as is the case
in this sphere of purely intellectual operation, all is immediate
and without a definite form of external sanction, there any-
thing like right must at most be indefinite and individual.

It forms perhaps one of the most important problems or
questions of our day, whether the entire sphere of science, the
whole republic of letters, not only the mere elementary instruc-
tion of the schools, but the whole domain of education in
general, embracing under the latter description literature and
the fine arts, might not, in obedience to the requisitions of the
age, be brought into a more organised and well-regulated
form. For if this were possible, it might be made to approxi-
mate more closely to the other great spheres of public life in
religion and the state, and confined within its proper limits,
according to some greater and more comprehensive ideas
than those current amongst us, or than those which have come
down to us from antiquity, which are either defective in them-
selves, or else are no longer adapted to existing circum-
stances. Those which the present age has advanced, are for
the most part crude and ill-digested; and scarcely ever con-

324 SCIENCE A REAL POWER FOR GOOD.

sistently carried out. But after having reflected for many a
long year on this question, so deeply interesting to myself, I
have arrived at the conviction, that for the present at least, a
radical change in this department would be premature and
scarcely desirable, as promising to afford no very advantageous
results. Everything in this sphere is too isolated; whatever
is good, and especially what is best, is too individual and too
formless to allow of its being as yet, without great difficulty,
reduced in all parts and in every point to a firm rule and
definite shape. In all probability, by attempting unseasonably
to introduce organic order and law, we should cramp rather than
assist and develope the good. In the present chaotic state of
science, it is only the vicious and profane that possesses a
systematic coherence. All detrimental and dangerous as well
as futile and indifferent ideas, mixed with a few good and
useful ones, are atomistically diffused and spread in every
possible shape and quarter. And if against this boundless dis-
semination of evil thoughts this elementary decomposition
and chemical analysis of the human mind, and the whole body
of human thoughts, a negative barrier be set up as a preven-
tive measure of defence, and as a temporary substitute for a
better and higher state of things, murmurs and reproaches
immediately rise from all sides. But taken on the whole, and
in so far as principle is involved, these remonstrances are
neither just nor well founded. For in almost every state
where, owing to peculiar circumstances, such precautionary-
measures have not been taken, the most dangerous disorders
and jarring discords have affected the whole of public life, as
the inevitable consequences of its absence.

But let us turn our eyes from the insignificant contro-
versies, with its host of ephemeral publications, the interest of
which seems little likely to outlive even that of a daily journal,
and let us look to the greater and more historical phenomena
amidst them, which in all probability will mark an epoch in
the development of mind. From these it is distinctly ap-
parent that science is a real and actual power. In proof
of this fact we need only appeal to the great talents and
abilities which, not only in recent years but also throughout
the last century, have exercised in the domain of science,
what, without exaggeration, we may well term a world-em-
bracing influence. Only we must admit that in this period

SCIENCE A REAL POWER FOR GOOD. 325

they have taken more or less a destructive tendency, and one
that threatened in this scientific burrowing to undermine the
foundations of everlasting truth. But if we will take a still
wider survey, so as to embrace all the several periods of the
world's history, and the course of the human mind therein;
then, undoubtedly, we may discern the higher might of divine
truth, manifesting itself as an influence for good, as a pure
and genuine spiritual theocracy of science, to whose domain
above all others the idea of an immediate and higher supremacy
of mind and divine power is peculiarly applicable.

END OF LECTURE XTV.

326

LECTURE XV.

OF THE TRUE IDEA OF A THEOCRACY ; OF THE MIGHT
OF SCIENCE, AND OF THE FINAL RESTORATION AND
PERFECTION OF THE HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS.

THE idea which the adverse party, or opposition, in the poli-
tical domain, and in the scientific theory of politics, usually
form of a theocracy, is for the most part incorrect. By the
adverse party I mean all those who either openly assail, or
privately call in question, the religious foundation, the higher
sanction, and the divine authority of the state ; in short, those
in general who are hostile to the religious sentiment. The
latter apply the idea of theocracy and employ the term to
signify the rule of the spiritual power, such as the Egyptian
priesthood may perhaps, or at least such as they suppose them
to have possessed, or a polity where the supreme temporal
authority works in unison with the sacerdotal class.

And even by the defenders of the good cause by men of
higher and better principles, the idea is frequently taken in
too inaccurate and indefinite, not to say incorrect, a sense.
They seem to understand by it nothing more than the divine
authority of the state and of the Church, and their mutual
support and dependence, and their co-operation. But nothing
can be more erroneous than such a notion. For the kingly
dignity, no less than the priestly, as respects the divine autho-
rity, which is inherent in both, is not immediate, but vicarious
and representative.

When, however, we turn to its original source to the
historical basis, i. e., to Christian revelation, and derive there-
from the true idea of a theocracy, we shall find it to be very
different from the assumption which each of these parties
tacitly advances as self-evident. The idea of a theocracy can
only be properly determined from the instance of the Jews.
The history of that nation will not only enable us fully to

THE JEWISH THEOCRACY. 327

develope it as an actual form of polity, having an historical
origin and existence, but also in the clearest and readiest way
to illustrate it. Now the passage from revolution, civil war,
and anarchy, to absolute despotism, in its genetic progress, can
be most clearly and most profitably traced in Roman history.
The true nature, moreover, of the dynamical polity can be
learnt from the historically originated and historically pre-
served exemplification of it in England, far better than from
any theory, or from any scheme of a constitution propounded
for the occasion of some state experiment, for all such experi-
ments require the lasting test of a few generations, or at
least of half a century, before any decided opinion can be
passed on their success and historical permanency. And just
in the same way the peculiar character and essence of a theo-
cracy can be deduced from no source so clearly or so fully
as from the Jewish history. Or rather, the true idea of it can
be acquired from no other channel, since among this people
only has a theocracy ever existed as a real form of national
polity. And here it continued in force for nearly four hun-
dred years.

However poor may be the part which the people of Israel
played in the great drama of the world's histoiy, in comparison
with that of the great conquering nations, the Persians,
Greeks, and Romans, still the prophetic people (whose im-
portance must be sought only in this designation, or, in other
words, their continual relation to the future,) possesses, even
in their peculiar code of laws and form of government, a
remarkable interest for the historian. For in the true histo-
rical estimate of things mere extent of power cannot pass
for the exclusive standard of greatness and importance. And
this has been already the judgment of many writers of history,
who, as far as regards this particular subject, and the general
question of religion, must undoubtedly be pronounced free
from either prepossession or prejudice. The way, too, in which
this ancient people have survived the destruction of their
national government, and for nearly two thousand years since
have uniformly remained separate from all other nations, has
been more than once confessed to be a very striking phenome-
non, unparalleled in the history of the world.

Moses, from whom that theocracy first emanated, or rather
with whom it commenced, was not himself the High Priest.

328 MOSES AS FOUNDER OF JEWISH THEOCRACY.

His brother Aaron enjoyed that dignity. He neither wished,
nor had a title to hold it. He had no hereditary claim to
it, neither was he elected to it by the people. And yet he
stood in no man's place, nor did he forcibly dispossess any
one of his right. And so even if for a while we dismiss the
theological view entirely from our regard, and forgetting it for
a moment, judge of the matter by the strictest juristic notions,
we cannot call him an usurper, even in that sense of the term
which comprises the demagogue's character. At an earlier
period of his life, he appeared likely to become a mere libera-
tor in the usual sense of the word. In this character, how-
ever, he does not appear unjust, even though he allowed
himself to be hurried into an act of violence against a petty
tyrant among the oppressors of his countrvmen. And at a
later period, when he had received his call, we cannot, in his
conduct towards the Egyptians, discover any trace of injustice,
even judging him by the strictest legal notions. Now the
authority which Moses exercised over his own people, while
he led them through the wilderness, rested on the immediate
exercise of the divine powers wnich were lent to him from
above, and which were immediately acknowledged as such,
and nowhere met with any considerable resistance. And,
accordingly, properly speaking, no question was ever raised
against a right which was based entirely on those imparted
powers, although they were totally devoid of any formal or
distinct act of legal sanction. The office he held was prophe-
tical. But by this term I do not mean merely according to
its later and more obvious meaning, the function of warning or
promising, of teaching or predicting, but all this, and some-
thing more, a higher and divine power, which vividly and
persuadingly displayed itself in life and deeds. Looking at it
in a general light, and as applied to a case which at least we
can think of as not impossible, of the Almighty having sent,
or purposing to send, a second Moses to some other people,
then the circumstance we lately mentioned, that this Moses
forcibly dispossessed no one of his rights, and had made no
unrighteous a revolution, must be taken into consideration,
even if it might not simply by itself serve as the character-
istic or distinctive test of the genuineness of the vocation
in question.

For a power emanating from God, and truly divine, would

REVELATION BOTH OLD AND NEW IN ITS DOCTRINE. 329

never violate or forcibly subvert any established right, whether
essentially sacred or hallowed only by prescription. It will
respect the least privilege of equals and inferiors, no less
than the greatest prerogative of superiors. I have intro-
duced these remarks in order to determine more precisely the
right point of view for an historical comparison of Moses with
every other character that sets himself before the world in
the same light, whether the parallel be made with Mahomet,
or that still earlier Indian Mahomet who is usually called
Buddha, although this is only an honorary epithet, and not the
name of any historical person in particular. And the same
standard will hold good for our judging of any other reformer
of the world who makes religion the instrument of his ambi-
tion, to whatever age he may belong, or any modern Mahomet,
in whatever part of the world he may arise.

As regards the religion itself, or the matter of the pretended
revelation, there is another characteristic mark by which we
may distinguish a genuine from a spurious mission from God.
Although it is both external and negative, still, as being histo-
rical, it deserves to be here adduced. It is this : a genuine
revelation is in the doctrine which it promulgates at the same
time both old and new. It is new in regard to its novel ap-
plication to life and in its fulfilments, and also to its animating
force and spiritual awakening; but old in so far as invariably
referring to an earlier revelation and to a still older source
of light it remounts up to the pure fountain of eternal truth.
And such is throughout the case even with the Mosaic revela-
tion. It continually leads the inquirer back to some higher
and remoter source, some deeper spring of everlasting light.
And on the same principle, it also has been acknowledged as
such by the Christian or divine philosophy of the Spirit, and
Moses has been recognised and honoured from all time as its
founder. In the domain of religion, to be absolutely new is
equivalent with being false or groundless, namely, totally
detached from the old and everlasting foundations, without
connexion therewith, and consequently isolated and arbitrary.

In reference to and as contrasted with the above character-
istics of genuine revelation, there is for the most part in sys-
tems of imposture as little really new as actually old. This
is especially the case with the doctrine and Koran of Mahomet,
however much it may have been lauded for its poetry, or on

330 THE JUDGES AS MINISTERS OF THE THEOCRACY.

account of the rhetorical art and vigour which it displays.
Its subject-matter and doctrines are not really new, since they
are but recasts of Jewish and Christian ideas, which it has
freely borrowed, mixing them together and adapting them to
an obvious end and design ; and yet not old, since it does not
go back far enough or deep enough, and never remounts to
the first beginning of nature and of man, far less to the three-
fold fountain of divine life.

Now, with respect to Moses : an historical judge of the
ordinary kind, who could not enter into the religious view of
his character and office, might say, " This is quite a strange
world to us, a very remote period; much is there in this
history difficult to explain and extremely obscure. This much,
however, seems to follow from the whole history: the man
possessed extraordinary mental powers for his times, and an
equally uncommon strength of character ; no wonder, then, if
he bore down all obstacles and by the force of genius carried
everything before him." Such an estimate, however, reduces
everything to the force of genius in an heroic character, instead
of a higher and immediate operation of divine power and the pro-
phetic office founded thereon. Superficially judging this false
view, eluding, or rather perverting, the divine illumination,
admits of an application, though delusive and specious enough,
to Moses, on account of those ample powers of genius which no
doubt he possessed, or even on account of the sublimity of
his style, which the very heathens could appreciate and admire.
Still it is in no way applicable to that line of men, for the
most part of the very simplest character, w r ho succeeded him,
and during the period of the theocracy down to the time of
the kings, held what was immediately a divine or prophetic
rule. It was not by any hereditary title or formal choice
that they ruled; neither were they priests any more than
Moses. Called immediately by God to the dignity of judge,
they suddenly stood before the people, to be instantly and
without opposition acknowledged, and thereupon their mis-
sion and authority were at once established, without any
external sanction or solemnities or any form of legal recog-
nition.

The general condition of the Jewish people under the
Judges was that of a noble and not uncivilised nomadic race.
We must not confound this description, however, with the so-

THE JEWISH MONARCHY. 331

called natural state of a wild and barbarous people, but
rather think of it as resembling that of the Arabians generally
before the time of Mahomet, or of a few tribes still subsisting
in the most retired parts of Arabia, where, under their most dis-
tinguished leaders, as shepherd princes they lead a roving life
of hereditary freedom. Similar, or at least not very different,
was the mode of life and state of society that prevailed among
the Hebrews in the interregnums which occur in this long
period of the Judges. Towards the close of this period, judges
first arise who are invested with the priestly as well as the
judicial dignity. These form, accordingly, the transition to
the regal government and the epoch of the kings. For when
the people at last demanded a king to rule over them, like the
neighbouring Gentiles, every sanction that could exalt, and
every sacerdotal inauguration that could be thought of, was
conferred upon the appointed tribe and the kingly house.
But at the same time the priestly dignity w r as guarded strictly
and jealously from encroachment, and the temporal power was
rigorously kept free from all union and confusion with the
sacerdotal authority. But that wild and tumultuous demand
of the people, or I should say, of public opinion, which at that
time was in favour of a monarch with the same pomp and splen-
dour as the Gentile sovereigns displayed, as in more modern
times it directs itself to the no less heathenish attraction of
liberty, was imputed to them and depicted as a grievous fall
and religious infidelity. For in the previous times of the
direct theocracy, Jehovah Himself had been their true but
invisible king, while, as is expressly asserted, the judges and
leaders were only His ambassadors or plenipotentiaries.
Under the first kings we may discern in the historical de-
scription of the sacred books many traces of that higher power,
and its immediate exercise and effects. Subsequently, how-
ever, it totally disappears ; and after the division of the two
kingdoms, the contrast in the personal powers and character
of the later sovereigns and the consequent fortunes of the
people, so accordant with the political history of other Asiatic
countries, becomes most decided.

The preceding remarks will, I hope, be sufficient to throw
out, in perfect distinctness, the true idea of a theocracy, such
as it has been historically developed. For inasmuch as in the
present age, and amidst the party disputes which mark it,

332 THE PROPHETS KEEP ALIVE THE THEOCRACY.

this idea has been employed in so many various acceptations,
and mostly in a false or partial sense, I thought it expe-
dient, in the present place, not to omit to sift the question to
the utmost. Now, in a very remarkable manner, a single
element, from the earlier and original theocracy of the olden
time, still survived among the Jews in the period of the
monarchy. It formed no longer indeed the supreme power
of the state, for this was held by the kings, but consti-
tuted formally and avowedly an antagonism to them, as a
well-defined opposition, which, so long as it confined itself
within its due limits, was altogether righteous and justifiable,
and which we may justly designate as legitimate and divine.
In this light we must view the position of the later prophets,
who, without, however, being invested with any special poli-
tical dignity or power, dared to raise, before a vicious govern-
ment or, since in those simple days of old everything was
more or less personal before a wicked king who had for-
gotten his high vocation, the voice of warning or denuncia-
tion. This peculiar form of a political opposition, and, as
such, recognised to be legitimate and allowable, this remnant
of the once exclusive theocracy and a complete supremacy of
the prophets, which still survived in the time of the kings,
forms a phenomenon as highly remarkable as it is singular in
its kind. And those who have no admiration but for oppo-
sition, might, perhaps, if they could disentangle themselves
from the forms of their own days, or the notions imbibed at
school, find nere an object altogether worthy of their praise.
They might probably find the duties of an uncompromising
and yet justifiable and lawful opposition to the state discharged
by an Elijah with equal, if not greater intelligence, strength of
mind, and energy of character, as well as sense of justice, as by
the Ephori in Sparta, or a Demosthenes in Athens during the
Macedonian ascendancy, or by the most virtuous of the cen-
sors, and th'e most upright of the tribunes of the people in old
Kome ; or ever by the parliament of England. It was only in
the last per ^a of the total decline of the Israelitish nation,
and shortly before and during the first days of the Roman
dominion, that the regal dignity and the office of High Priest
were united in one family (for even here they were not inva-
riably associated in the same person), in such a manner as to
correspond with the notion that is at present usually under-
Stood by the term theocracy.

FALSE NOTIONS OF A THEOCRACY. 333

Far otherwise, however, was it, in this respect, with the
Christian world. The first apostolical preachers of the new
doctrine of grace and founders of an era which was truly, and
in a divine sense, new, undoubtedly did not possess less of that
immediate miraculous power than even a Moses or an Elijah.
But the only use they made of it was to promote the diffusion
and to set forth the glory of religion. Once only did the first
of the Apostles, for the sake of preserving the hierarchical
authority, and the purity of the community which professed to
give up itself and all that it had to God, make a retributive use.
of the divine authority committed to him. He who for the love
of money was false to the cause of God and of truth, was struck
dead by the avenging glance of him who in will was united
with God as the everlasting Judge. Never did the Apostles
employ their power against the state, or avail themselves of it
in opposition to its decrees. And yet the despotic measures of
the Roman Government towards the degraded nation it had
brought, by force of arms, under its oppressive yoke, might
seem, at least, to justify such an interference with its unlaw-
ful usurpation. Not even in self-defence, or to escape from
afflictions or bonds, did they once employ the theocratic
powers committed to them.

The idea of a theocracy which is entertained in the present
day is so loose and shifting, and its application generally so
erroneous, that it is necessary to show, at length, how little the
common views of it are founded on truth. There exists no
foundation for them in the view or theory of a Christian state
in its first and simple origin. And as little is it the case with
the succeeding epochs of Christianity. Such extraordinary
powers, as were manifested from time to time and entrusted
to particular individuals, have ever been employed for the
diffusion of the faith, its internal development, or to glorify
it before unbelievers, or for a new confirmation of old truths,
but never for the purpose of founding a temporal power or
political influence.

The true theocracy, however, such as it has actually mani-
fested itself, does not depend on any particular theory, but, as
an immediate power and authority from God, is regulated by
the divine will alone. It would, therefore, be precipitate, if
judging of it, a priori, by any arbitrary principle, we should
unconditionally pronounce its recurrence to be impossible.

334 THEOCRACY IN OVERRULING PROYIDENCE.

Generally the wonder of a theocracy must be judged of his-
torically in the light that its own history exhibits it. A mere
theory can lead us to no stable determination regarding it.
The following seems its relation to the natural history of man,
or even, we may say, to the usual course of external nature.
Viewed generally, and in its principle, whatever is, comes
from God, as its first cause. The permission of evil, however,
whether in the realm of nature or of humanity, when, after
their first divine impulse, they are left for a time to pursue
their own course of internal development, is clearly something
of another and peculiar kind. Peculiar, too, are the higher
authorities which exist in the latter, and which are ultimately
founded on a divine law and right, and somewhat different is
the case with their immediate divine operation and miraculous
agency. As, therefore, the course of the world, on the whole,
is natural, and whatever transcends it as a singular or rare ex-
ception, does but interrupt the regularity of the ordinary laws
of nature ; so, too, the course of universal history, in ordi-
nary times, is agreeable to man's nature, as regulated and
modified simply by historical circumstances. At most a few
theocratical junctures, a few eminent moments of a more divine
working and development of power, may be noticed at distant
intervals. And these grand and pregnant epochs, in which
all the existing relations of the world assume a new and un-
expected form, are generally, in the first moment of its
triumphant result, or scarcely hoped for emancipation, rightly
and thankfully regarded and acknowledged as interventions of
a higher and a divine agency; though, alas, the enthusiasm of
man's gratitude to God, even when it does take a passing hold
on man's heart, is wont to evaporate, even more rapidly than
any other of his ardent feelings.

Our own age has afforded a very remarkable instance of this
kind. To this it is sufficient to allude without entering into
any further disquisition concerning it. But it is not only in
such wonderful changes for good or happy deliverances from the
power of evil that these remarkable divine moments or theo-
cratic junctures announce themselves in the history of the
world. We may even recognise them in every commencement
of a truly new era in history, which, in the favourable crisis, is
suddenly and triumphantly effected by a some higher impulse
and divinely imparted power. Many instances of the Kind

THEOCRACY OF SCIENCE. 335

might easily be adduced if this were the proper place for it, or
time allowed. The first triumph of the Cross and Christianity
that was public and extended to the whole world, under Con-
stantine the Great, belongs to this class. As a second instance
I would mention that beginning of the Christian Empire in
the West under Charlemagne, which was afterwards to receive
so happy a development. Superficial inquirers, who judge by
the mere external colouring, are in danger of confounding
these creative beginnings these turning-points of a higher
intervention, with the ordinary event of a revolution, or the
rapid and decisive step of energetic usurpation. But to the
eye of patient observation and deep penetration they are dis-
tinguished from the latter by their profound historical causes
and their attendant circumstances, and by a peculiar stamp of
purity and grandeur. In short, in their essence they are
entirely different.

These observations must have made it evident in what
sense I spoke of a theocracy of science. The power of truth
in that good, science which is directed towards God, is in its
influence of a lofty and even of a divine nature. But it is
this simply, in its immediate energy of operation, without
depending on any external sanction, or even form thereof. In
the same way error also, in its evil effects, is most unques-
tionably, and in the fullest sense of the term, a power ; and
that not merely in a sensuous and materialistic, or relatively to
the mind in a purely negative sense, but a demoniacal power
of evil with a most embarrassing and perverting influence,
such as it has been often and in our own times most unde-
niably exercised. The great degree in which science actually
manifests itself as a power is not apparent so long as we limit
our consideration to the history of the human intellect in our
own circle of observation and the ordinary sphere of European
civilisation.

Among the Greeks, for example, rhetoric became the mere
slave of an extremely corrupt government, and followed it in
all its disorders. Poetry, indeed, was the handmaid of the
heathen worship and its religious legends ; but still, as being
an art and the sport of fantasy, it moved with a considerable
degree of freedom. Accordingly, in the best and purest and
greatest of the poets of antiquity, a profound and significant
symbolism of life lies under, and occasionally appears on the

336 ILLUSTRATIONS OP THEOCRACY OF SCIENCE.

surface of tlieir works, which, as considered from a right point
of view and in a liberal spirit, is neither totally repugnant nor
directly opposed to a higher, or even the highest, i. e., Christian
truth. But still such notes of a divinely inspired feeling, which
in the inspiration attains to a clearer perception of the divine
nature, is very far from amou ting to the power of an idea,
and its actually and determining influence on life. The phi-
losophy and science of the Greeks, from its beginning to its
close, stood in decided opposition both to the popular religion
and to the state. Accordingly, they either exercised no in-
fluence at all on life, or at least no uncontested one. At any
rate, their effects were very trivial. All that can be justly
said of the subject of Grecian science or the ideas of the Greeks
applies, with a slight modification and in a less general sense,
to those of the Romans.

The remarks we made above on ancient art and poetry hold
good, though in a somewhat different application, of the
romantic portion of the middle ages, its legends, viz., and
poetic fictions. However important the nobler aim which
fancy here pursued to influence morals and life, still the idea
of the power of science can scarcely come in here. As for
science itself, the mediaeval mind was divided in its pursuit of
it. On one hand there prevailed a strong desire after what
was forbidden or at least was supposed to be forbidden
the old heathen philosophy ; on the other, as soon as it
appeared impossible to get rid of it altogether, an anxious
endeavour to come to an equitable compromise with it, or at
least to make a rationally Christian application of it, and
especially of Aristotle, who, in the judgment of those days,
ruled as supreme monarch over all the sciences. Under these
circumstances, and confined by these chains of authority, it
was impossible for Christian science to put forth its full power
and might, or to exercise any material influence on the age or
on life. On the contrary, agreeably with the very principle
of the Christian life, the latter shows itself only in writers
like St. Bernard, who did not belong to the schoolmen. For
in the genuine scholastic philosophy, as having its origin in a
perfectly heathen dialectic, neither the method nor the forms
of thought could be purely Christian.

How great the power of science has shown itself within the
last century, and especially in our own age, is a frequent topic

GREEK, ROMAN, MEDIAEVAL, HIICDOO LITERATURE. 337

of remark. And at the same time the fact has not been over-
looked, that this power has gradually assumed a more per-
nicious direction, or at least has become involved in a great and
violent struggle, which as yet is undecided, between a destruc-
tive tendency of mind and the power of goodness and truth
exerting itself in an effort of restoration. And it is, perhaps,
only to the latter, in its conflict with the evil principle of un-
belief and the denial of all that is divine, that the idea of a
theocracy of science and such a higher power of truth is really
applicable. For this alone seems likely to secure to it the
victory in this contest, which, so far as numbers are con-
cerned, is most unequal.

If now we turn our looks to a more distant point, and take
into consideration the older Asiatic nations, though chiefly
and in generally with respect to the religious aspect of their
science and scientific monuments, here, more than elsewhere,
we shall meet with much that corresponds with this idea, and
has on its front a strong theocratical impress and signature.
It will, therefore, pre-eminently serve to elucidate this idea.
The whole edifice of scientific thought among the Hindoos,
though in its form of sacred laws, systems, and authentic com-
mentaries thereon of history, legends and poetry, it is not
less rich and diversified than the literature and philosophy
of the Greeks, forms, nevertheless, a whole Avhere every part
is of one piece and one mould. In all its manifold forms, it
rests and is supported on the same foundation, which is re-
garded and venerated as divine. And therein lies the secret
of its incalculable power, to which it owes its unshaken sta-
bility through so many tens of centuries, as well as its great
influence on the whole of Indian life, which has derived from
it its unchanging form and duration, so that we might almost
say : Here has science, or at least this elevated system of
thought, become the animating principle of life and a second
nature.

To the many and great errors which are mixed up with the
Indian system of faith and thought, I am not disposed to
ascribe this undestructible principle of vitality and permanent
influence on life. At least, if something must be ascribed to
this source, a vast deal more must be assigned to the influence
of the truth that is also contained in it, and which, though
variously adulterated and falsified, still, in its leading features,

338 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THEOCKACY OF SCIENCE.

.has been distinctly preserved from the sacred traditions of
.prinueval times and the first progenitors of the nation. And
yet even here, in this edifice, otherwise so uniform, many a book
and many a system has been introduced from the opposition, even
though the latter exerted its antagonistic principle far more
weakly and far less pertinaciously here than among the Greeks,
or on any other domain of the European mind. For it was
chiefly in the south-eastern peninsula that the founder of that
purely intellectual and ideal, but yet demoniacal and there-
fore truly anti- Christian sect of philosophy and religion, who
lived about as many centuries before the Christian epoch as
Mahomet after it, and whose followers, numbering nearly a
.third of the whole population of the world, spread over the
south-east of Asia, and Tartary, and China, found adherents in
India. Still the old and proper India did not remain totally free
from the pernicious tenets of Buddhism, which of all religious
or philosophical sects and errors is the most fatal and destruc-
tive that ever has been or ever will be.

Let us now glance at the sacred writings of the Jews, though
not indeed in so far as they are to be regarded as the divine law
of faith for that nation, and for all others who should come in
the future and latter times of Christianity (a law, we must ob-
serve, which is expressed in a language so thoroughly individual,
and in so national a spirit, that it often becomes thereby highly
obscure and difficult to understand), nor indeed generally in
a theological light. For otherwise the example we have chosen
for the illustration of the theocracy of science, would be iden-
tical with the matter it was intended to illustrate. We must
here consider it simply as the written record of the origin and
descent of the nation, both in its legal and historical exist-
ence, combining therewith its distant promises and expecta-
tions of the future in short, as the history, poetry, literature,
political institutions and hopes of this singular people. View-
ing it then in this light, merely in its human, national, and
historical aspect, its firm and lasting impression on the Jewish
mind, and its indestructible effects, which survive all the
changes of time, form a most remarkable phenomenon. For
by means of it this ancient people, so miraculously scattered
among all the nations of the world, is to this day, thrce-and-
thirty centuries from, the original composition of its first sacred
books, still one amidst all its dispersion, and we might almost
add, even in spite of its half unbelief in itself.

OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT AND CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 339

In modern history, which commences with the second
epoch of revelation, the four holy Gospels, with various di-
dactic epistles, and the great prophetic book at the close of
all, forms the deep focus of illumination to which, however, I
do not now immediately refer, lest, as I observed in a former
case, the illustration and the illustrated matter should prove
identical. Out of this first germ of light, as it was carried
forward in a living transmission through the first five or six
centuries, was gradually raised an edifice of Christian science
and thought. A new literature was formed in every branch
of doctrine or history, of eloquence or controversy, which,
composed in the two highly cultivated languages of classical
antiquity, has exercised the greatest possible influence not only
on the succeeding generation, but on all subsequent times.
Occasionally no doubt, and especially in the earlier centuries,
a deviation from, or rather opposition to, the prevailing system,
whether as private opinion or positive error, intruded itself into
the midst. Still, notwithstanding these little discords, scarce
perceptible in the entire mass, the whole forms, as a system of
thought, an intellectual power whose effects have been so great
that its authors or rather its spokesmen, have with perfect
justice been styled the Fathers or the earthly creators and
founders of the Church, . e., of this new era and of the truth
which is transmitted in it, without change indeed, but with a
stream which widens as it flows.

I have chosen all these examples from well-known matters
in order to direct your attention to the fact that the idea we
have advanced of a theocracy of science, or a divine power of
truth therein, does not depend for its final triumph and the
total extinction of error on any individual force of genius,
however great, but on a common and joint operation of a
system of forces on a vast and comprehensive edifice of
thought, various indeed in its composition and mental cha-
racter and form of expression, but still perfectly harmonising
as a whole. One thing, however, is indispensable. A divine
tendency must predominate in it. The foundation on which
it rests and is supported must be divine. The one ray of
light, even though in itself it be never so pure and bright and
truly deserve to be termed divine one stroke of the sword,
though never so sharply and keenly struck the one confining
limit, though set up and maintained by never so comprehen-

340 GOD ALONE CAN BEING ABOUT THIS THEOCKACY.

sive an intelligence (which term I use to convey something
more than mere prudence] ; all these will avail nothing against
this new flood of error and infidelity and of Godless ideas
thoughts, that is, which are entirely without God, and making
no reference to Him, proceed from impious and demoniacal
delusion. Against the inroad of atheism, which is threatening
life on all sides, the divine might or theocracy of true science
can alone furnish a defence. It only can raise a new Ark to
save the age from perishing in the flood of spiritual wickedness.
But with this view the most essential point is the building of
a consistent and compact whole, while those who wish to co-
operate in the good work must, like the builder of the ancient
Ark, have their regards turned chiefly to the future, looking
far beyond the present, and its minute and frequently most
trifling controversies.

This true theocracy of science, resting on a divine tendency
in man, which, though it is inborn, is seldom found pure, and
still more rarely retains its purity to the end, must look to the
state to secure its external stability and unimpeded action. To
this end it is necessaiy, however, that the state should under-
stand and recognise its own divine foundation, and look to
that heavenly grace and strength which religion alone vouch-
safes to it as the true source of its vitality and permanence.
Individuals can at most do nothing more than co-operate in
bringing about this desirable consummation. They must not
attempt to go beyond the true relation of this co-operative
character. The moving power must come from above ; it must
proceed from the fountain of all goodness and all truth.

Philosophically viewed, indeed, science and its divine ten-
dency rests on the good and genuine aspirations of the human
consciousness. And it is only by the restoration of man's
mind to the perfection in which it originally came from the
Creator's hands, that science can attain to its perfect state.
Now that the consciousness in its present state is imperfect
or, rather, that as compared with its condition when, in the
first fresh energy of life and in full and unimpeded action, it
came immediately from the Creator, it is no longer micorrupt,
unconfused, or unimpaired, as it was almost our opening
remark, so it has been kept in view throughout the present
series of Lectures. The most natural conclusion of our labours,
therefore, is to consider the possibility of restoring it to its

RESTORATION OP PERFECTION TO HUMAN MIND. 341

original divine perfection, as being the only method which can
secure to science a stable foundation and enable its Godword
tendency to attain its proper end.

In a cold, dead, and abstract understanding in a passionately
blind and absolute will in a reason which loses itself in dia-
lectical disputes or amuses itself with dynamical theories, and
consequently never reaches its true object in a fancy which is
ever longing after and pursuing its own imaginations, living;
on and lost in a dreamy and imaginary world of its own ; in
these severally faulty forms of the human consciousness, as
corrupted by the influence of sin and the consequences of the
Fall (even though the objects of this vitiated thought and will
may in themselves appear perfectly innocent, indifferent, un-
selfish, and even intellectual) lies the original fountain of all
perverted and deadly thinking. The soul, in the centre of this
fourfold source of false cogitation and false volition, is torn
and distracted many ways, impeded, and as it were crippled
and deadened. But still it remains eternal and immortal.
Accordingly, the soul must be the point from which the resto-
ration and re-awakening of life must proceed. But this
restoration of the human consciousness to perfection is to be
called divine, on this account, because it can only be reached
by the soul attaching itself exclusively to what we formerly
called the second new and divine starting-point of human
existence. For the more that the soul, created for immortality
and loving, and in love embracing that which is in itself im-
mortal, adopts this great and new word for man, this second
beginning in Gocl, and is impregnated with it, in the same
degree do reason and fancy cease to be at issue with each othei*
and to be independent, isolated, and clashing faculties ; and
finally, they become altogether merged in the one thinking and
loving soul. Then, too, does the soul cease to be dead, cold,
and abstract, and becomes instead a living and wakefid spirit,
i. e., one which in its new life works freely and energetically.
And the will, too, is no longer bb'nd, no longer passionately
absolute ; but restored to sight, becomes one with the internal
sense, as the third member of the human consciousness. And.
by this union the will is, as it were, fully armed and equipped.
For the external sense, which hitherto has been thoroughly
passive, as soon as the will is restored to sight, assumes by its
means an active and living operation; and the inner moral

342 BEYIEW OF PREVIOUS RESULTS

sense, which before was merely subjective, acquires a power of
external discernment.

This is the end of perfection. And it is only on this road
of a divine restoration of the human consciousness, according
to its established law of progress, that the divine tendency of
science can attain to perfection. With the attainment of this
end an entirely new era will commence. But the intricacy of
the problem which our own age has to solve arises simply from
this circumstance, that a truly new era and a false one are
engaged in mortal conflict. The former can only spring up
and nourish when the latter decays and is got rid of. To this
end, the present false spirit of the age, which is but a per-
version of the true cosmopolitan spirit, must die the death.
And this must be brought to pass by the sword of the Word or
of eternal truth, which pierces even to the joints and marrow
and divides asunder soul and spirit. For the immortal, God-
created and God-devoted soul requires to be separated and
detached from the so-called spirit of the age, which is mixed
up and compounded of so many dim, false, imperfect, and evil
spirits. And the spirit of the age must itself be entirely con-
verted and be brought to a knowledge and open confession
of its error, and when once whatever in it is totally dead has
been adjudged to eternal death, it will itself be renovated and
purified in the fiery floods of the truly new times.

In this divine restoration, however, of the human conscious-
ness, or theocracy, man's part must be wholly passive. It is
enough if he does not hinder or retard it ; for in a certain
sense he can at least co-operate in bringing it to pass. Even
that final consummation towards which that true new era,
which as yet is entirely hidden and, as it were, choked by the
false, longs and yearns, that peace of God, of which the
highest and best religious peace is but a foreboding symbol
and, as it were, the first weak grade or step, cannot be brought
about by human art and power. It is not by any diplomatic
courtesy, which in this case would be highly culpable, not
by any amalgamation, which in the present sphere is contra-
dictory to every notion of right, that that peace can be
brought about, in which, according to no vain or unmeaning
promise, there is to be one fold and one Shepherd. Its
accomplishment must be reserved entirely to Him who from
all eternity has been and still is the good Shepherd of all His
creatures.

AND SUMMARY. 343

Here, then, at this point, having, by means of the idea of a
restoration of the human consciousness to its original divine
perfection, arrived at a close, I will pause a few moments to
take once more a rapid survey of, and to throw a clearer light
on, my past labours. And herein I shall purposely refer to
the division of philosophy, and the designations of its several
parts usually giren in the schools. The first five Lectures
treated of the human soul in the wide extent of its original
relation, not only to life but also to nature and to God, and
formed consequently of psychology, though in a wider sense
than the science which is usually occupied with this subject.
The three next, as discussing the divine order of things, con-
tained a species of natural theology, though treated of in a
perfectly living method and relation, and entering historically
into individual, no less than universal, life. Of the last seven
Lectures the first three were devoted to the investigation of
truth. We here examined its fundamental principle of the
unity of the highest science and divine faith, the discrimina-
tion of truth in the struggle between faith and scepticism, and
the final conclusion in the unity of this higher science and
faith with the true life and its influence therein. This higher
logic, in so for as it considers the true essence of things, might
even be designated an ontology. And, indeed, since it derives
everything from a divine principle, it might not inaptly be
called an applied or mixed theology, in the same sense as this
designation is employed in the mathematical sciences, viz.,
as the first part of such an applied theology. In this sense
the second part thereof would be formed by the metaphysics
of life, as the science of that which is above nature, whose pro-
vince it is to indicate all higher and supernatural principles in
the whole sphere of existence and the actual world, so far as
it is given to man to know them. Employing the old phraseo-
logy and division of the schools, we might term this a cos-
mology, in a moral and intellectual sense, and with a regard
to what human philosophy can attain to. The symbolical
energy of the divine communication in religion, the divine
foundation of the state, the Godward tendency of science, and
the restoration of the consciousness by God, form, as it were,
the four poles or summits of all these principles, which trans-
cend and overpass the merely natural.

Concerning the accomplishment of perfection in man's

344 RESTORATION OP THE DIVINE IMAGE IN MAN.

divinely-restored consciousness, and also in the whole of
existence, or in nature itself, a few words yet remain to be
added. And thus this last section, considered as a cosmology,
is based on a divine principle, so far as this is attainable by
man.

Now the first consequence of the perfection of the human
consciousness, as accomplished by God, will be the restoration
of the divine image and likeness in man. The soul, now
purified and made complete again, becomes once more spiri-
tually fruitful, and in this internal productiveness, which even
the pure spirits do not possess, is rendered similar, though at
an infinite distance and in a very secondary sense, to the Creator
in His productive energy. The livingly operative spirit in the
creature is like to that in the being who is increate and from
all eternity, while the livingly active sense, as the third mem-
ber or element in the perfected consciousness, is similar and
correspondent to the divine operating word. And lastly, in
this livingly quickened and completely restored consciousness,
man reassumes his original true and distinct relation to
nature. By the soul, first of all, he is reunited to God; in
his spirit, now restored to true life, he enters into a living
and clear communion with all other kindred spirits; and by
his will, now clearly seeing and working in God, he assumes
once more his original relation to nature as her first-born son
and her legitimate lord.

But nature, as the creature that groaneth and travaileth in
pain together, waiteth in earnest expectation for its perfec-
tion and restoration. And this is the only view of it that is
either founded in truth or really Christian. And in this idea
of creation groaning and travailing in pain lies a fulness of
prophetic intimations for nature. While she seems on the
whole to be deeply slumbering, this alone excites a hope of a
great and general awakening; whereas it is scarcely a genera-
tion and a half, or two at most, since physical science first
began to awaken out of the grave of its own dead notions,
when in nature itself, no less than in the science of it, all seemed
sunk in death.

We need not, therefore, be surprised if this Christian view
of nature and a dynamical physiology evince so little of agree-
ment. For the latter invariably regards the system of nature
as something absolute and as perfect and complete in itself;

INFLUENCE OF EVIL IN NATURE. 345

but this it evidently is not. And indeed many an eloquent
theological essay on the proofs of design in nature and on its
indications of the goodness of the Creator, sets out on a simi-
larly defective hypothesis, that nature, in its present condi-
tion, is exactly the same as God originally created it. But
this is directly contradicted by the promise so expressly and
distinctly made to the last times, of " new heavens and a new
earth." For this not merely implies, but rather asserts,
that nature stands in need of a grand renovation, which it
transcends the ordinary course of its proper powers of develop-
ment to accomplish, and which consequently is only conceiv-
able as brought about by the immediate operation of divine
power, or of a celestial theocracy for this purpose, in the time
of the universal regeneration.

We are far more ready and disposed to assign to the
powers of evil a greater influence and a wider field of opera-
tion in the world of man than in the system of nature. But it
is perhaps more conformable to truth to see in the present con-
dition of the latter a state of truce with the evil and destruc-
tive powers which formerly raged more fiercely an interval
during which the conflict is confined within certain limits,
rather than as a complete and perfect peace. Its external
influences, as they affect man, must not be taken for the stand-
ard in this case. For they may be merely accidental ; just as
the ordinary inundations belong to the economy of the balance
of the elementary forces of nature, and as the storms and tem-
pests, which occasionally are fearfully destructive, are never-
theless, it is clear, a process necessary for the purification and
salubrity of the atmosphere. But, on the other hand, many
facts of medical experience and peculiar phenomena of dis-
ease or even births of faulty or defective organisation as well
as the loathsome generation of insects in the atmosphere or
on the surface of the earth, and many diseased states in both,
when viewed simply and elementarily, and apart from the
usual principle of epidemic contagion, appear to point rather
to some intrinsical evil and originally wild demoniacal cha-
racter in the sphere of nature, even though they only occur as
exceptions to these general laws. How deadly even sidereal
influences may prove is at least established by the fact of
lunacy. In those fields of celestial light, too, and those bril-
liant hosts of heaven, which, as nature's more retiring and

346 NATURE ORIGINALLY CREATED IMMORTAL.

lovelier charms, become visible only by night, and display
themselves to the calm and tranquil soul, all is not in such
perfect unison and harmony as the first impression would lead
us to suppose. A note of discord arises from the irregular
orbits of those eccentrically revolving stars, which, though rare
in their appearance, seem to be pretty numerous exercising
either a watery or an arid influence 011 the terrestrial atmo-
sphere, and whose paths astronomy has indeed calculated,
though her calculations have not always been verified. All
our knowledge, too, and recorded observations of the rest of
nature, i. e., in this sense of the earth itself, docs not go
beyond the surface consequently to only one portion of it ;
arid yet perhaps that internal part, which is hidden from us,
is the very one that is most deeply significant, and more
nearly akin to the eternal. Nature, in her interior and reality,
may perhaps possess little resemblance to what we see of her
externally. At every step we stumble on some new proof of
our ignorance, and much also that gives an intimation of a
new and unknown world.

Nature in general may for us be compared to a towering
pyramid of hieroglyphics heaped together at random, from
which, with our utmost pains, we can scarcely succeed in
bringing together and deciphering two or three at most ;
while we have not the key for interpreting the meaning and
order of the whole. For we must not, as under a very erro-
neous idea is often done, seek this in nature itself, but en-
tirely in its divine principle. For in this must all that is
unintelligible find its solution. Now in that one part of
nature which we are best acquainted with, its surface after-
that law of sexual distinction which reigns not only in the
animal but also in the vegetable world, and which, moreover,
in a certain sense prevails in the very atmosphere and its
elementary organs of life no other law of nature is so uni-
versal as that of death. But if it be true that through that
spirit and power of evil who first revolted from God, death
came into the world and also into nature, then must the
earthly and now natural death have proceeded from the author
of eternal death.

Very questionable, in this case, would it appear to be,
whether the first and original creations of nature were other
than immortal. If He whose essence is omnipotence thinks

DESTRUCTION OF DEATH AND PERFECTION OF NATURE. 347

hieroglyphics, then are they living creatures; and can we,
judging of Him in Himself and His proper nature, suppose
that He would conceive of or create aught else than what is
eternal and immortal ? The old curse still hangs over nature,
wherein the first author and inventor of death has contrived
to root himself so deeply. And that malediction was not
removed by the first man ; on the contrary, it was deepened
and confirmed by him. And even at the divine renewal of
the human race, the same anathema was again pronounced
upon the natural tree of an earthly life, condemning it to
wither still more and more under the baneful dominion of
death. The victory over death is only to be gained together
with the perfection of man. And then shall follow a theo-
cracy and divine renovation of nature, under which all that is
therein shall again become immortal. A perfect harmony
shall thereby be restored to the whole of creation.

END OF PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE.

PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE.

PREFACE OF THE GERMAN EDITOR.

IN these pages we give to the world the philosophical Lec-
tures which the late F. V. Schlegel delivered last winter, at
Dresden, to a numerous and distinguished auditory the last
monument of his life and mind. To many of his personal
hearers they will probably be welcome, as enabling them, in the
perusal of what their own ears so lately heard, to realise more
distinctly the matter of the Lectures, and the whole person of
the eminent individual who was so unexpectedly taken away
from among them. But to a still larger circle of the friends
and admirers of Schlegel, this publication will no doubt be
acceptable, especially since, under a pervading reference to
language, it throws much light and more fully carries out the
views advanced by Schlegel in the Lectures delivered two years
before, at Vienna, on the Philosophy of Life. In this rich and
important fragment, Schlegel's whole idea of philosophy stands
out far more clear and distinct, though for its complete eluci-
dation and exposition it was his intention, had he been spared,
to add at least one more series of Lectures to the three
already given to the world.

The present publication is eminently calculated to show
what in these three connected series of Lectures it was the
author's first object, both as a thinker and teacher, to accom-
plish, viz., to convey the living words of his inmost mind,
rich with the fruits of many years' study and research, to all
who possessed a sensibility or disposition likely to be roused
and animated thereby to pursue or promote some kindred
inquiry or object. It would, therefore, be a proof of grave

350 PREFACE OF THE GERMAN EDITOR.

misconception, to make such requisitions on these Lectures as
are incompatible with this end and with the character which
they most covet, of being, in the higher sense of the term, a
living discourse. For to satisfy such demands was neither
the design or wish of the author. It was not his purpose
either to take some single abstract notion, and by detailed
elucidation to make it clear and obvious, nor to set up some
rigorously limited system of notions, with its definitions and
arbitrary terminology, whose great merit should be made to
consist in such regularity of plan and faithful execution, as
should everywhere command the notice and the wonder of the
reader. In short, it was not his object, in some partial specu-
lation of the reason, exclusively to set forth a long series of
abstract propositions as a model and precedent for such essays.
Those, however, who, to use Schlegel's own words, look upon
these Lectures as a series of questions to which their own
hearts silently indeed give a concurrent answer, or find therein
the satisfactory solution to many difficulties suggested by their
own reflections on the life and mind of man, will not be able
to get rid of a just and righteous sorrow, to think that the
voice from which they still looked for many such questionings,
and much similar instruction, is suddenly silenced, and that
none remains who, as inheriting the spirit of the departed, or
as his favourite and intelligent scholar, is able to supply what
is still wanting.

With this heavy feeling of sorrow, it seems perhaps incon-
sistent to express a passing regret that the author has not been
permitted himself to superintend this edition of his Lectures,
and to make those corrections which here and there might
have appeared to him desirable. A few passages (noticed
thus in the text + ) were marked by Schlegel himself either for
emendation or enlargement, and the loss of these corrections
we cannot but miss and regret.

351

LECTURE I.

BY philosophy and this term best expresses the historical
and original conception as it was understood by the Greeks,
who so variously and ingeniously developed it I understand
man's innate and natural curiosity, so far as it is universal in
its scope, and not from the first limited to any one specific
end or subject.

This natural curiosity consequently, stimulated by the mys-
teries of existence, whether in the external world or of its
own consciousness, would fain make all these enigmas clear
to itself, and by attaining to an inward illumination, would
discover the true signification, or, if we may so call it, the
all-explaining key- word of life. And, indeed, there is no
reasonable doubt but that the possession of this revivifying
and living key- word would give to life, both individual and
universal, a more exalted energy.

For nothing less than an internal light of intellectual bright-
ness, or of the spirit made clear to itself, is that search after
truth and knowledge, by which we discover the key- word and
true signification of life, as a whole. By it all the powers,
qualities, and faculties of the soul are strengthened anew,
inwardly elevated, and augmented in force and fertility. And
if any would prefer to give the name of science to this highest
and earliest speculative knowledge or pursuit of internal cer-
tainty and divine truth, we object not, so long as it is admitted
that it is not a science precisely in the same sense, and still
less in exactly the same or similar form, as the other sciences,
which are directed to one specific aim and limited to one
subject. Free as life and the free-formed spirit itself, ever
new, wonderful, versatile, and infinitely varied, both in internal
structure and external manifestation, are the ways of man's
thinking and speculative spirit. A ready and apposite illus-
tration will clearly demonstrate this peculiar freedom and
manifold variety in the methods, species, and developments of
philosophy. At any rate, if it do not place it vividly before
our eyes, it at least suggests the idea of it. The written

352 THE TRUE METHOD OP PHILOSOPHY.

dialogues of Plato that great master of philosophical expo-
sition and of the thinking dialogue of science, with its ever
living and changing play of thought, and earnest spirit of
investigation are perhaps not less diversified in their course,
not less wonderfully manifold and exuberant with all the
riches of genius ; not less peculiar in their general concep-
tion, as well as external development ; not less exquisite in the
finish of the several parts and divisions, than the poetical pro-
ductions of the greatest and most admired of dramatists.

Those who are best acquainted with the art and the intellect
of the poet and of the thinker, will be least inclined to dispute
the justice and accuracy of this comparison. We appeal to
the instance of Plato with greater confidence, not only because
he stands alone, as inimitable for beauty of exposition, and for
fulness and grace, as well as spirit and vividness of style, but
also because (as is apparent from the numerous and varied
compositions which he has bequeathed to posterity) every path
of inquiry previously opened, as well as every road and by-
way of dialectic subtilty still conceivable or possible, were
perfectly familiar to this lofty intellect. There was, in short, no
field of speculative thought and investigation, however high or
deep, that remained unexplored by him. From any one of
his most perfect masterpieces, consequently, we might per-
haps, by a precise and exhaustive analysis of the art and skill
that lies hidden in it, gain a more correct notion of the true
and profitable method of speculative thought and investigation
than from many or most of our compendiums of all absolute
ideas and metaphysical chimeras, or from the systems at pre-
sent in vogue of unconditional logical negation.

In order, however, to establish this view of a true philo-
sophy of life, which in its very form is also living, it is unne-
cessary to appeal to any single example, even though it be one
so splendid as that of the Socratic school in general, or of
Plato, the greatest thinker it has produced. For in fact, the
whole history of philosophy, from its commencement to its
close, will serve as a proof and confirmation of its truth. In
various ways does it teach and convince us that in this lofty
struggle after truth the most divergent, and even apparently
contradictory methods and tendencies may, however, and actu-
ally do, lead to similar conclusions, nay, to one common result.
It shows us that, however various may be the paths, the end of

TTSE OF SCHOLASTIC OB MATHEMATICAL FORMS. 353

knowledge the eagerly sought jewel of truth itself is by
no means always and in all cases tied to any immutable and
exclusive rule of one fixed form and solely felicitous method
of thought, as to a magic charm on which all depends, and
from which all success must flow. The history of philosophy,
I said, for, understood in its full extent, in its correct sense
and spirit, and in its deepest significancy, what else is this
than the internal reverse of the picture of man : the intel-
lectual half of humanity, in its development through all the
peculiar and remarkable processes which in the pursuit and
cognition of truth that noblest exercise of man's powers and
faculties he has at any time had recourse to. And in tracing
this gradual progression, we may easily discern an invisible
guidance which shows itself, especially in the more remarkable
epochs or transition-points and decided periods of the struggle.
In the general exciting cause, and the new directions which
the inward intellectual development occasionally took up, and
the law it followed, an entirely distinct order of things mani-
fests itself to the glance that looks beneath the surface, of a
far higher and more exalted nature than aught which is com-
prised and established by the insignificant rule of our ordi.
nary school methods, or which is only estimated and judged
thereby.

It is by no means my wish to set aside the usual scholastic
form in the academical exposition of scientific philosophy, or
in any way to depreciate it when it is effectively carried out on
.strict principles. In its right place, and when the occasion de-
mands it, we must acknowledge it to be indispensable. It is not
to be neglected with impunity. This is especially the case in
that period of our life which is more particularly and exclu-
sively devoted to the study of the sciences, when philosophy
naturally takes its place among the rest in the academical
course, and also in the systematic mode of instruction assumes
a form similar to the other sciences. It is involved in the
already advanced but briefly and imperfectly developed idea
of the spiritually free and ever-varying, ever-shifting form
which belongs to the very nature of philosophical thought and
knowledge, that when circumstances predispose, and its
external relations afford the opportunity and occasion, philo-
sophy should adopt and appropriate the limited and less abso-
lute form of other sciences, or, as I would rather express it,

354 USE AND ABUSE OF SYSTEM.

may and can condescend to assume them. But this is only a
special application for some collateral purpose, a deviation and
exception from, and not the rule itself, if we thereby under-
stand the natural rule, or that which is essential and original,
and consequently the simplest and highest.

As regards, however, the philosophy which pretends to be
the science of life, and not merely of the school, this principle
follows from the fact, that when taken as a whole, and when
the question is not of any special application to a particular
view and object, its form also must be free and vivid. Conse-
quently, even when classed and associated with the other
sciences, it justly lays claim to the first place among them, as
being of a different nature and origin.

It is far, therefore, from being requisite that philosophy,
following the mathematical sciences as a handmaid, should en-
deavour servilely to copy them, as has been so often erroneously
done, and in spite of experience of its impracticability, over
and over again attempted. Still, with a true view of a living
philosophy, mathematical science, however dead in itself, and
even fatal to a higher spirit, attains under profounder appre-
hension to intrinsic significance, and becomes elevated and
ennobled. The true method (that, namely, which alone deserves
to be so called,"the~meth6d of truthj is based on the simple
process of thought and its living development, in w r hich one
thought springs and unfolds itself naturally from another, and
rigidly excludes all that is foreign and _ repugnant. The true
method does not move in paragraphs and numbered proposi-
tions, making an outward parade of an apparently strong chain
of evidence, in which, however, a rigid scrutiny often detects
some specific link in the chain totally valueless and without
illative force, or at least weak and far from cogent, or placed in
a false position, to which it has properly no reference, and only
in appearance filling the void it covers. Thus it is also with
what we call system, or systematic. We are indeed accustomed
to employ this word in a twofold sense, either to convey

E raise, or in an evil and deprecatory signification. In the
itter use we say, "This or that work is nothing but a
system," or "According to this or that system." But by such
phrases, when criticising any comprehensive theory of scien-
tific thought, we do not mean that the work is entirely
without foundation, purely and absolutely imaginary. For in

CONSISTENCY OF IDEA THE ESSENCE OF SYSTEM. 355

such a case it would hardly be worth while to spend more
words upon it. Our meaning; rather is, that while containing
something that is true, and much that is excellent, undue im-
portance is ascribed to the system, or too much is inferred from
it, everything being forcibly made to agree with it, and itself
carried beyond the limits of sober truth : in a word, that the
systematic coherence is only external and specious, and the
result of much labour and art. In reality this is very fre-
quently the case. This course is too often pursued in the
theories and discoveries of modern science, especially in those
branches which stand in the closest relation to physical life
and its preservation, and are consequently most influenced by
the fashionable ideas of the age. Some happy thought, bearing
the very stamp of genius, some ingenious idea or entirely new
view is started ; on this foundation a system is forthwith raised
either by the author himself or his followers and disciples.
Embraced with the ardour of enthusiasm, the novel theory is
further extended and promulgated, and becomes the watch-
word of a sect or party, until, degenerating into a mere
fashion, and being borne up awhile by the eddies of the
moment, it sinks at last into insignificance, and is sw r allowed
up by the vast stream of time. When once the matter has
reached this point or this stage in the pathology of human
thought and opinion, then that first happy idea and original
invention may be considered as good as defunct, or at least is,
as it were, buried alive, and the true vital principle which
originally animated it is no longer perceptible.

But in a good and legitimate sense we may characterise a
scientific work or a scheme of thought as systematic, or as
forming a system in itself, and as such approve of it, if only it
possesses thejvirtue of internal consistency, and the spirit of
unity pervades and animates it. And if this consistency of
idea be really intrinsic and spiritual, and at the same time
living and naturaT, it will "Be "easily recognised in its perspi-
cacious simplicity of form and expression. It will need neither
the external display of systematic precision and prolix demon-
strative argumentation, nor the apparently rigid concatenation
of paragraphs, in which, however, the forced connexion and
the panoplied array of propositions form but a poor device to
Conceal the deficiency of intrinsic life and unity.

The case is precisely the same with the science of human
2 A2

356 PHILOSOPHY THE CEOWN OF EDUCATION.

thought and philosophy, as with external life and daily expe-
rience. Nothing is more highly estimated in society, business,
or politics, than an active and consistent character. Pro-
perly speaking, this example is not so much a simile as the
very thing itself, or the same subject viewed from another
ground or in a different relation. But this high and rare
property of a genuine consistency of character does not
depend on the delivery of a multitude of philosophic adages
in and out of season, or the specious thrusting forward of
moral maxims, but rather manifests itself amidst general
reserve and silence, by its straightforwardness of action, or
when it speaks, by the clear simplicity of its language. So is
it also with consistency of idea in philosophy. The intrinsic
and vital unity of a comprehensive system of thought the
systematic coherence which results from a reigning idea of
the whole, reveals itself and is to be known by a simple and
familiar form of expression, not unlike that of a friendly con-
versation, and is not exclusively confined to any prescriptive
or preconceived formula of the schools or artificial method.

But in respect to academical instruction, and the position
which philosophy either may or ought to occupy therein, I
have one remark to add. If I may judge by my own expe-
rience, or by what I have at times observed in others, either
when as a youth I was an academical student, or when after-
wards as a visitor at several of the German universities, I
took part in the scientific pursuits, and occasionly as a lecturer
propounded my own views and opinions, a decided and striking
division seems to subsist between philosophy and the peculiar
scientific studies proper to the future wants of life. This is,
however, less the case with the study of medicine, which being
founded on, and conversant with, the science of nature, stands
in a close relation to philosophy. Still even the prosecution
of this natural science proves distinctly enough that the inter-
ests of general science follow entirely different paths from
such as are most eligible, and more especially conducive to
the acquirement and collection of particular information.
Still more does this apply to that numerous class who devote
themselves to civil professions, and whose future life is to be
employed in political departments. By them philosophy is
pursued as a mere collateral and secondary object of study,
as a half superfluous intellectual luxury. But this she nowise

PHILOSOPHY THE CROWN OF EDUCATION. 357

admits of; she demands an earnest and devoted affection,
and must be embraced with the full ardour of love. It is in
this very earnestness of purpose, and this genuine attachment
and enthusiasm, that it has its source and being. Hence we
may often observe many a studious youth attracted by the
general question as to the nature of the human soul, and by
these sublime investigations into the mysteries of existence.
Under the influence, as it were, of some magical spell, he is
absorbed in them so as completely to forget and lose sight of
^th~e~ studies appropriate to the calling he has chosen, or at least
to neglect them, viewing them as comparatively secondary,
while others of more practical tendency steadily devote them-
selves to the study of their profession, and confine themselves
exclusively to its pursuit. Rigidly rejecting the metaphysical
charm and seduction of system, as a dangerous lure, they care
little if at all for the contempt with which the other class,
whom dialectic speculation has bewitched into forsaking its
proper object of study, looks down upon them as incapable of
rising to the height of its own exalted argument. Now if I
might venture to hazard a suggestion for the removal, or at
least the accommodation, of this alienation from, not to say
opposition to, philosophy, which exists in the tone of our Ger-
man universities, and if it be not out of place here to enter
into this matter, my first desire and advice would be, that the
study and course of philosophy should be kept entirely distinct
from that of the profession or the particular science which is
learned with a view to future avocations in life. In such a
case philosophy might most advantageously be taken up by
the student after the completion of his other studies, in short,
at the conclusion of the whole academical course, setting, so
to speak, the crown upon it, and forming the last step which
the pupil must take before he enters upon the realities of life.
Moreover, there is no leisure for idle meditation during the
years of academical study that period of preparation which
few have a second time afforded them, and which being entirely
practical, ought to be specially devoted to the perfect master-
ing of the special sciences which in after life are to occupy us.
It is rather in our later and maturer years, after the acquire-
ment of the particular professional knowledge, and even in
the midst of the active business of life, that leisure, together
with a convenient opportunity, or a natural occasion, is afforded

358 PHILOSOPHY CONVERSANT WITH LIFE.

for that meditation with which philosophy ordinarily begins,
but which in its results remains no idle speculation ; or for
that apparently superfluous inquiry, which, however, investi-
gates a subject more necessary and more essential to man than
all else.

So much if it has not been indeed too much I believed it
requisite to say concerning the form of philosophy, not so
much to justify or to excuse that which in the present case
I could alone adopt, as rather from this point of view also
to establish the independent position, and to depict the lofty
aims of philosophy. For if philosophy is nothing less than
the actual science of life (and the sceptical query whether
such a science be either possible or attainable by man, will
in nowise affect the question; for if the doubt concerning
the nature of life, or life itself, is suggested by life, and con-
sequently is living and real, it amounts to the same thing, and
the objection applies alike to the doubt or the certainty) ;
if, I repeat, the object of philosophy be the sublime concep-
tion of our inner life, struggling to unravel the mystery of its
own being, how can it be right, or how could a wish arise to
exclude from it one-half of humanity, or society, or of civilised
life ? The proper sphere of philosophy, no less than of art, is
the whole civilised public. This is the body in which it must
circulate, and to which its action must be applied. The
specious ground for such an exclusion can only be looked for
and discovered in the ordinary school-form, which indeed, as
I have endeavoured to show, is by no means essential to it,
but rather a mere accident, \vhich is so far from being neces-
sary, that it is not even of universal application.

If, therefore, the subject-matter of philosophy is the \vhole
inward life of man, if its end is the solution of the ever-re-
curring questions of the speculative consciousness, and the
reading of the enigma of existence, or however else we may
choose to characterise and express it, it is assuredly some-
thing of a distinct and more exalted nature than any of the
preparatory sciences which make up the academical course of
study for the specific objects of some limited calling and pro-
fession. The philosophy of life, as it sets out only with one
simple position life, viz.. man's inner life, is restricted to no
particular sphere, but embraces them all in their fit season
and occasion. When, indeed, in the youthful, not to say

PHILOSOPHY CONYEBSANT WITH LIFE. 359

childlike spirit, standing on the threshold of expectation,
this inward feeling of life or consciousness has not as yet
shaped itself into an ardent speculative curiosity, or a grave
and melancholy questioning, or when, at least, it has not passed
through the first stage of thoughtful wondering, then it is
as yet too early for the awakening of philosophy that inward
search after truth and meditation on the nature of our exist-
ence and consciousness, that self-examination, those half-
doubting yearnings after an unknown love. Youth, inexpe-
rienced and undeveloped, may reasonably be supposed to be
excluded from a participation in this natural field of philo-
sophical speculation, although even in this, as in every other
case, it is extremely difficult to define the precise limits. It
would also be idle to repeat the remark so often insisted
on by the sages of antiquity that where life is totally ab-
sorbed in the business or pleasures of life, or distracted by
the cares of avarice or ambition, so that, strictly speaking, no
voice from within is heard, no soul-cherished feeling or
sentiment, nay even scarcely a thought, purely spiritual, still
survives, or finds a place in that world-engrossed bosom
there philosophy finds no ear for her sublime revelations of the
inner life, nor dares hope for a responsive echo to her high
soaring meditations, and that profound emotion from which
it draws her own birth.

Philosophy, I said, takes nothing for granted but life ail
internal life, that is. The more perfectly, the more manifold
the aspects, and the more comprehensively within the given
limits under which this life which it supposes is viewed and
studied, the more easily will it fulfil its object, the sooner
will it attain to that which constitutes its proper end and
aim. For this aim is to render clear and intelligible both to
itself and others, that blgher life, whose existence it assumes
as the necessary basis of its speculations. But how would
this primary postulate, this natural basis of a philosophy of
life, be restricted and limited, if the sex which is so pre-
eminently marked by strong and deep feeling, should be
entirely excluded from the sphere of its inquiries. Indeed,
according to a more liberal, comprehensive, and enlarged point
of view, such as is most consistent with the true nature of
things, youth, with its enthusiasm and quick sensibility for the
beautiful its first and most exalted love, is not to be exclu-

360 PHILOSOPHY CONVE11SANT WITH LIFE.

sively given up to the fine arts. As the latter are elements of
life, and very important elements too, they cannot be excluded
from the sphere of philosophy, but, on the contrary, form no
inconsiderable portion of its general problem. The objection,
however, might be raised, that these, the best and fairest of
the gifts which nature dispenses with a liberal and benignant
hand, are but transitory, and that they wither and disappear
before the first rude touch of external circumstances that
limits their free play; so that, to judge from appearances,
they scarcely can abide, or be steadily kept up to the gravity
of philosophical contemplation. Often, it may be urged,
some unpropitious destiny, some sudden storm of fate, over-
whelms and destroys them, stripping the youthful tree of life
of all its leafy honours before it has properly put forth its
blossoms. This, no doubt, is perfectly true. In most cases,
however, the destroying principle does not come from without.
Fortune and external circumstances have little to do with it.
It lies rather in the inner impetuosity of passion, in self-will,
or some other dark shade of character, perverting and bringing
jarring discord into the most exalted feelings of the soul.
Would it not be well and especially advisable to place from
the very first these tender and delicate flowers of youthful feel-
ing within the influence, and under the action of an inward
illumination and reflection, as the only probable means of im-
parting to them greater hardihood and durability, and thereby
to convert the fair but ephemeral flowers of youthhood into
the mature and enduring fruit of sincere benevolence, of a
generous activity and inward harmony ? There is, in truth, no
easier or more simple mode by which man can hope to arrive
at this end. It is only by means of such inner light and purity
of sentiment and luminous meditation, that we can hope to
work our way to that key- word of existence which shall recon-
cile every difficulty, clear up every doubt, and attune to har-
mony every discord. For hereby also will the power be gained
which alone can sustain and protect this inner life from every
destructive influence. This enlightenment, however, is no-
thing else than the philosophy of life, and therein consists its
essence.

Now, in order to place before us the very centre .of.-the-
entire question, and at least to noticeHfreforehand that which
must more perfectly develope itself as, step by step, we trace

PHILOSOPHY CONVERSANT WITH LIFE. 361

the natural process of thought, both in life itself and the
science of life, one remark is necessary. The soul is no'thing
less than the faculty of love in man. For this reason, also, the
Bloving 7 soul (if I may here make such an application of the
words of a great teacher,) is the clear mirror in which we
gaze upon the secrets of divine love either reflected or
symbolically figured as so many enigmas, which nevertheless
serve us as light-giving and guiding stars, amid the darkness
of this earthly existence. And in this pure mirror of our
soul we plainly behold the ever- verdant and immortal plants
or hidden flowers of nature, like the dark bed of the deep
through the clear waters of a still sea. In this mental
mirror nature greets us with features less strange and un-
known, and with familiar aspect seems to claim at once a
kindred sympathy.

In these slight and passing remarks, I have touched briefly
upon many a topic of which the full development must be
reserved for our subsequent Lectures. Still, though thus
limited, they contain the grounds which to my mind fully
justify my adhesion to the opinion which more than thirty
years ago, in the first commencement of my literary labours,
I advanced with regard to the question of the propriety of
excluding one-half of mankind from this region of specula-
tion. And although in maintaining this sentiment, I have to
stand alone in, or even am opposed to, the age in which I
live, still on this point I prefer to take as my guide and
precedent the ancients, the Socratic school, and above all,
the great master, Plato. And were it necessary, and the
present place admitted of it, I might easily, both from ancient
history and modern times, adduce authorities enough, both
in number and in weight, to refute the opposite opinion, or
rather prejudice.

The sphere, therefore, and field in which philosophy has to
move, or to which it has to apply itself, is no narrow one,
hemmed in and confined by any unwarrantable exclusiveness.
On the contrary, it must, so far as is possible for aught that is
human, be complete and perfect. And for this reason also,
she must not, as indeed she cannot, take her rise in a con-
sciousness artificially parcelled out and divided, and in short
but one-half of its true self, and which being biassed and
visionary in its views, is divorced from real life. It can

362 ABSTRACTION NOT THE TRUE METHOD.

originate only in the mind's greatest perfection and in its full
and most undivided entirety, inasmuch as to make this con-
sciousness clear to itself and to others constitutes even its
proper function and entire aim.

In the latest period of German philosophy many an ingenious
path of investigation has no doubt been here and there struck
out. By a critical comparison of different views, systems,
and opinions, dialectics, as a preparatory course of study, has
been improved, psychological research advanced, especially the
philosophy of nature enlarged. Still, on the whole, a purely
abstract mode of thinking, totally estranged and separate from
actual life, is almost universally held to be the only right
road to a profound philosophy. This so-called pure and
abstract thinking takes nothing for granted, and allows of no
postulate or axiom ; it acknowledges none besides, and gene-
rally has no foundation save itself; it starts from itself alone,
and in so far has, strictly speaking, no proper beginning.
Consequently, without proper end or aim, it goes on continually
revolving around itself as a centre, and within its own charmed
circle. Assuredly, where the dialectic art and system moves
within this narrow range of thought, and restricts itself
thereto, employing a language which, while it is sharply
abstruse, metaphysically recondite, and pre-eminently abstract,
has at least the merits of clearness and distinctness, and
ingenious classification, then the very first result of such an
exercise of dialectic art is profitable, although merely negative.
For it establishes the fact, that truth and knowledge are not
to be attained by this method ; that thus it cannot profitably
be either sought or found. It shows, too, that this dialec-
tical preludium itself is nothing more than a preliminary
exercise that at most does but serve as an introduction to
another and more lively way of fruitful thought ; though even
as such it is suited, not indeed for all, but simply for those
who enter upon it with this view of its nature.

Human language, with its wonderful suppleness, can adjust
itself even to the consciousness which is parcelled out and
abstractedly divided, so as perfectly to copy and reflect it in
its ever-moveable mirror. It is able to give a perspicuous
order and an artist-like shape, even to the mere logical
thought which has no subject-matter. It only fails when the
logical conceit of mere empty thought contemptuously rejects

ABSTRACTION NOT THE TRITE METHOD. 363

in the giddy whirl of supreme abstraction, as its last earthly
defect, the laws of grammatical art, and refuses to add to its
abstract style the merit of perspicuity, in order that, as a
metaphysical chimera, it may in the inaccessible darkness
that shrouds the obscure of the high-enthroned " Ego," soar
higher and high r, and withdraw itself as much as possible
from the eyes of man. A confused terminology, perfect unin-
telligibility, are the never-failing companions and peculiar
characteristics of a false philosophy, which dreams of finding
the inestimable jewel of truth and science in a never-ending
and elaborate division of the consciousness. It places per -
fection in an abstraction carried continually higher and higher
in its emptiness. But in truth it is only in the living unity of
the full consciousness that we can properly understand the
pure logical forms of thought, such as they are inborn in the
human mind, or are engraved thereon as the first directive traits
and principles of its intellect and rational activity. They ~
must be judged of according to the place which they occupy
in the whole, and relatively to the manner in which they act
in or influence it. It is thus alone that their true signification
can be determined and truly conceived.

As often, however, as from that self-styled pure, but in
reality empty and totally abstract mode of thinking, which is
divorced from life and the realities of things, it is hoped to
raise or to evoke, as it were, by spell, a real system of time
knowledge, we have a repetition of the old history of the
Babylonian tower, with its consequent confusion of language.
Every new system of this kind is nothing more than an
additional section of or an appendix to that ancient confusion
of speech, as well as of views and opinions, so ancient in the
history of the human mind. Each of these builders in the
edifice of endless error' commences with pulling down the
fabric that his immediate predecessor and all before him may
have commenced, while in the space he has thus cleared for his
own labours, he founds and rears the imaginary tower of his
own knowledge and science. He has at least the firm intention
to raise- it still higher, nay, far and far above the height that all
before him have attained. But one man understands another
iust as little as himself. More and more entangled and obscure,
consequently, becomes this new confusion of ideas, till at last
nothing remains but the anomalous ruins of crumbled and

364 THE HUMAN MIND A PREY TO DISCOBD.

abraded thoughts, which even when entire were only so many
lifeless stones mere abstractions, soon either wholly forgotten,
or if surviving, becoming daily more and more unintelligible
since the original lexicon or alphabet, or the all- explaining
key to these rare and singular characters, can be recovered
only with the greatest difficulty.

A true and living philosophy cannot choose and pursue this
method of ever-advancing abstraction ; much less can it recog-
nise it as the only right one. It proceeds rather from life
itself and the feeling of life, and, in truth, from a feeling and
consciousness of it, which- strives to be as complete as possible.
Far is it from dreaming that it is in any artificial and elabo-
rately worked-out division of the human mind, that it must
seek its success or hope to attain its aim the end of all true
knowledge. Without that, it feels that man's consciousness,
in its existing state, at least, is already too much rent and
distracted by division, and being by means of this dismember-
ment checked in its natural action, and weakened and im-
peded.

And this even is the point on which all turns. That philo-
sophy of so-called pure, but properly empty thinking, sepa-
rated and abstracted from actual reality, without end and
without beginning, without ground as without aim, knows
nothing of our postulate of life, in the full extent and sense
of this word, so far as anything is full and complete for man.
The thinker, once entangled in the meshes of such a philosophy,
cannot admit of such an hypothesis, will allow to it no value,
or rather, knows nothing of it, and would never be able to
make anything of it. And yet, notwithstanding, in this very
philosophy an hypothesis is started, or rather assumed before-
hand one, however, which in truth is entirely arbitrary, and
which, when examined more closely and with rigid scrutiny,
betrays at once its utter baselessness. It depends on or con-
sists in assuming that the human mind, as it exists at present, is
in a perfect state, and has remained entire and complete and
altogether unaltered from its original constitution. It holds that
nothing is wanted for the attainment of truth, beyond a careful
and skilful aj *lysis of man's self-consciousness, and a correct
and appropriate classification of its several members. But,
on the contrary, whenever we yield and give ourselves up to
the feelings of our inward consciousness, and try carefully to

THE HUMAN MIND A PREY TO DISCORD. 365

understand it simply as it is, the first thing that strikes us
most forcibly is a discord and opposition subsisting not only
between ourselves and the external world, but a strife with
oneself raging in the inmost centre of the mind, so that it
seems to fall asunder and to rend itself into absolute uncon-
sciousness and irreconcilable contrarieties.

Now is it probable that strife would form the original state
or the proper destiny of the human or even of any other
being ? can this, in short, have been the case from the first ?

Strife, it is true, prevails everywhere in human life. It has
its parties and divisions in the present no less than in the past,
in the free intercourse of private as well as in political life,
in the family as well as in the faith, in knowledge as in thought
and opinion. Wherever these act upon life, or in any way
affect it, they invariably involve it in hostile opposition and
sectarian animosity.

But the immediate question here is not of this strife of the
passions, or of the moral corruption of the inner character,
which is excited by their indulgence, although, in truth, the
external strife of human nature, which comes forward, as it
were, in a visible and bodily shape, had its earliest source in
the hidden contentions of the inmost soul, which arise from
its entire constitution and the present condition and state of
our faculty of thought.

Just as little also do we refer to any view taken of the sad
mutilations of the human consciousness resulting either from,
some faulty organisation and disease, or from those defects
which proceed from defects of character or weakness of intellect.
The conditions which, relatively speaking at least, we call
physically and morally sound, as being free from all remarkable
deficiencies or disorders, are nevertheless not to be regarded
on this account as perfect, and endued with full living energy,
and possessed of their original completeness.- On the con-
trary, in the general mind, such as on the whole we find it at
present, and which, in this respect, we may look upon as
being in its true and proper state, there is much that is evi-
dently perverted from its right object, much that has fallen a
prey to disorder. And indeed we are naturally led to take
the same view of it when we discover most of the several con-
stituents of the mind for the greater part extremely weak, and
as it were in a crippled state, and its different faculties seldom

366 TBADITION BEST EXPLAINS THIS FACT.

if ever maintaining a deep pervading harmony, and keeping
in perfect unison with each other. It is to this internal oppo-
sition and original dissension of the thinking consciousness
that I here would draw your attention, as psychologically
manifesting itself between thinking, feeling, and willing. In
this dissension, so deeply rooted in our inmost being, intellect
and will are, even independently of the effect of human institu-
tions and observances, but seldom in harmony ; while reason
and imagination, if not always opposed, are at least greatly
estranged, and seldom maintain a mutual good understanding.
This is man's first and ever recurring, ever renewed per-
ception of his inward life. Careful observation of self is ever
impressing on him a consciousness of what we might almost
call an inborn, or at least hereditary, discord and division in
the human mind. This intellectual fact, which is one purely
psychological and totally independent of the disturbing influ-
ences of passion or disease, may in truth well carry us to the
conclusion which, independently of it, so many other moral
phenomena and historical traces appear to point at. It leads
us on almost irresistibly to embrace that exposition of it
which has been held in common by almost every ancient
people ; the doctrine, namely, that man at the very onset fell
from his original state of harmony into dissension and dis-
union, and has since sunk many degrees lower and lower
from the dignity which belonged to him on his first creation.
But as this primitive obscuration and degeneracy went to the
inmost root of man's being, under its influence, not only his
relations to the external world, but also in himself, in his
pure internal thinking, feeling, and willing, all is deranged,
discordant, and fragmentary, -, so that very rarely indeed
do the three co-operate effectually in a living and enduring
1 harmony. And it is doubtless because the prevailing theories
of the human mind overlook the fact of this great change
that they are so utterly unsatisfactory and generally so tame
and superficial. The determination, however, how far this
event is to be regarded as an historical fact and rests on
authentic tradition, is a question which lies beyond our present
purpose, and belongs rather to a purely critical investigation.
The immediate and specific aim of philosophy is simply to
analyse and clearly understand the psychological fact of the
discord and dissension which subsists between the several

TRADITION BEST EXPLAINS THIS FACT. 367

faculties of soul and spirit, and to exhibit it just as it is.
Having accomplished this, it will then proceed to indicate the
point or position from which the work of restoration must be
commenced, or by which at least the way which leads to it
may be discovered ; the path, namely, of return to the original
harmony of the soul. In other words, its ultimate object will
^be to discover the means of restoring a living and perfect
consciousness, and of bringing about a more harmonious
co-operation of its hitherto divided powers and faculties,
whether of soul or spirit.

Now, even in ordinary experience, certain propitious combi-
nations of circumstances do occur, when this inward strife and
innate or hereditary discord between the understanding and
the will, the reason and fancy, is happily overcome. Under
their influence the faculties, which previously were separate
and divided or hostilely arrayed against each other, are, partly
at least, and for one individual life in all its incidents, actions,
and productions, brought into profitable agreement and har-
mony. These rare occasions are furnished by extraordinary
energy of character, unrivalled artistic genius, or other high
and rare mental endowment. These therefore form not only so
many experimental proofs of the possibility of restoring the now
discordant elements and the isolated organs of the inner man
to completeness of unity and entirety of life, but also furnish
stable points from which to start again, and to carry on the
work of restoration. Such instances, however, are but excep-
tions from the general course of things. Fortunate and rare
exceptions they are no doubt, but still, even as such, they only
serve to establish more surely and incontestably the predomi-
nance of the rule, and the universal fact of the internal strife
among the faculties of the human mind.

Not unnecessarily to distract your attention at the very
outset, I shall for the present omit to consider many sub-
ordinate and derivative, but applied and complex faculties of
our mind and soul, such as memory, the external senses, the
various instincts, and the conscience. Restricting, therefore,
myself immediately to these four principal powers, under-
standing and will, with reason and fancy, which we may
regard as the four poles of the internal world, or as the
quarters of the human consciousness, I shall consider generally
the opposition which displays itself between these elementary

368 FOURFOLD DISCORD OF THE MIND.

powers of man's mind. This fact is so universally recognised,
and so generally predominant, that it displays itself even in
the experience and incidents of every-day life. To what
amounts the opinion so commonly expressed of many men,
nay even the greater part of distinguished characters, " that
their judgment and will are not in unison ? " " What ex-
tensive learning and comprehensive views does he not pos-
sess," is said of one man, "what acuteness, excellent judg-
ment! What might he not accomplish if he had but the will,
but he is so changeful, you can never depend upon him, so
inactive, so void of energy of character, that he does not
himself know rightly what he wishes." Now in such passing
estimates of men, it is deserving of remark, that it is not the
passions, or of passionate transgressions of the moral law,
that come in question, but rather some internal defect and
weakness. " He has the best will," is said of another, " is
always active, capable of any sacrifice and devotion, and of a
firm and undaunted resolution, but at the same time he is so
narrow-minded, so unbending and short-sighted, and pos-
sessed by such inflexible prejudices, that nothing can in truth
be made of him, and every enterprise is sure to miscarry
that he has anything to do with." The discord is not indeed
in every case so strongly marked and distinct, still every one who
at all observes his own consciousness may easily determine, and
satisfactorily answer the question, whether this opposition be-
tween the understanding and the will, or at least the disposition
thereto, is not deeply fixed and rooted in our inmost nature,
and on the whole universal. Whence else springs the high esti-
mation in which steadiness and consistency of character are
generally held, but from the fact that it is a rare exception
for will and understanding the inward thought and the out-
ward practice to be in perfect harmony ax d agreement ? And
in truth consistency, thoroughly carried out in the whole life,
steadfast unison of idea and practice in short, power imme-
diately enforces our respect and admiration, even though we
may not be able to agree with the motive and principles on
which it acts, and moreover remark much in the whole line of
conduct deserving of blame, when measured by the highest
ideal standard of moral justice and perfection. How often
do we feel this to be the case in the historical judgment and
estimate of great and celebrated men, where our admiration

COMPARISON OF MAN WITH BRUTES WITH ANGELS. 369

by no means implies or carries with it a full and perfect
approbation of every trait in their character or actions.
Another mode of view and comparison will perhaps serve to
set in a still clearer light the characteristic feature of the
human mind in its present broken and discordant condition.
Man usually directs his glance downwards to the brutes, in
order, by pointing out its difference from the animal world, to
determine the peculiar essence of his own being and nature.
In this comparison, after much and painful investigation, man
discovers that although his physical organisation and the
principle of life, the blood-soul, as the source of vital heat, is
of the same kind and nature with that of the brutes, he
nevertheless possesses a rational soul, which they do not
enjoy.

More instructive would it be, occasionally at least, to raise
our contemplation to things above. By this method, many
characteristic qualities of the human mind might be briefly
but distinctly set forth in sharper contrast by comparison with
other created things, or as the poet calls them, " superior spirits,
with whom we share our knowledge."* Leaving this belief in
the existence of purely spiritual beings, which was common
to all nations of the old world, to rest on its own deep founda-
tion, and passing over the doubts which might perhaps be
raised against it, I shall simply take for the basis of my com-
parison the general idea of these angelic essences, such as
from the very first it has been long and widely entertained.
Now, from this point of view I should be at least justified,
were I to point to that fickleness and inconsistency, or weak-
ness and even defect of character, which I have above
mentioned and depicted as forming the ordinary condition
and the specific characteristic of man, which according to our
hypothesis does not belong, either in the same degree or at
all, to the pure spirits. With them understanding and willing
are altogether one, and every thought is at the same time also
a deed, eveiy fact perfectly comprehended and carried out,
with a design perfectly understood. Their activity is ever
one and the same living and uninterrupted operation, whatever
be its direction, in a bad as well as a good sense. And thus
it is that with these spirits knowing and willing are one ; so

* See PhUosophy of Life, p. 20.
2B

870 KEASON AND FANCY SFJLBOM. HARMONISE.

that a living and effective intellect is even a very spirit, and
equally so is a perfectly self-conscious will. But a spiritual
being like man, in whom intellect and will are not one, is, as
contemplated from this point of view, a spirit divided and
distracted, and one that has fallen into disunion with itself,
which only by means of a new and higher aspiration can be
again raised to its full energy and living unity.

Still more obvious, and even more striking, than the general
and universally prevailing discord between the understanding
and the will, is the opposition and division which holds
between both the fundamental faculties or opposite poles of
the inner world of consciousness, namely, between reason and
fancy. The fancy is the fertile, and, properly speaking, the
inventive~and creative faculty of man : but she is blind, and sub-
ject to many, or rather, we must say, innumerable delusions.
This is not the case indeed, at least not in the same degree and
manner, with the reason, as the faculty of calm prudence in man
the internal standard of the moral equilibrium of his nature.
Still, actually to produce, truly to bring forth or to create, is
with all its reasoning utterly beyond its power ; and if at
times, as is the case with the false philosophy and mere dialec-
tical thinking, it does make the attempt, it gives birth to
nought but lifeless abortions and mere thought- created phan-
toms of abstract nothingness. It will hardly be necessary to
track this opposition between reason and fancy further, and to
follow it into the great arena of public life, or to prove by a
lengthened discussion that the men endowed with the best
reasoning powers are not at the same time or especially en-
dowed with the fire of genius, or that the most aesthetical and
artistic natures are not always the most logical. True genius^
however, forms a rare exception to this rule, because in him
the faculties of soul and spirit, which are usually found
Isolated and opposed, are happily united and effectually
co-operate in an harmonious unison. In other words, we have
in such a case an union of the creative fancy, which in the
productions of genius is the most essential point, and the
acute, discerning sagacity, as also the distinctness of sensible
shape and order, which cannot be absent from any real produc-
tion of art. And yet, for all this, the understanding of the
artist is something quite distinct from practical reason and
logical acuteness. There is, moreover, another state, or rather

LOVE THE MEA2CS OF KETJNIOX. 371

quality of the soul, wherein the else divided reason and fancy
are intimately associated and entirely reunited. This is a
natural, pure affection and the very faculty of love, which is
itself the soul and the peculiar essence of man's spiritual soul.
"For example, a mother's love for her child, which is the
deepest and strongest of the natural affections ; no one can
call this love irrational, although it must be judged by an
entirely different standard from the reason. At least it does
~not arise from any carefully weighed process of the reason,
for it is over it that it gains its greatest triumphs. In ...Icyge
both halves of the soul are united. For, taken separately
and apart, reason is only one-half of the soul, and fancy the
other. In love alone_do both concur, and the soul is there
presentrtotaHy and perfectly. In it both halves, which other-
~wise are ever apart, being again united, restore a perfect state
of the consciousness.

And in the same manner there is also a means of reunion
for the understanding and the will. And that too is a pure,
strong, and morally regulated love. Whenever, proceeding
from the very depths of man's being, it has become, as it were,
a second nature ; and having received a higher and diviner
consecration, it forms the still and invisible, but ruling soul
of life, then is it the best and surest road for attaining to
the reconciliation of the otherwise inveterate and deeply-rooted
discord between the intellect and the will. By such a love
the inmost man may be restored to peace and harmony with
itself, and the otherwise distracted consciousness, regaining
a full and perfect unity, is enabled to exercise its best and
highest energies.

The following are briefly the results of this our first psycho-
logical sketch, so far forth as they are necessary for the purpose
and object before us. The ordinary state of the human mind,
such as, in its present condition, it exhibits itself to cur
internal apperceptions, is one of fourfold discord and distrac-
tion. Or rather, if we may so speak, it is a quadruply
divided consciousness, as being a prey to the double con-
trariety between the understanding and the will, and between
reason and fancy. But the mind, when restored to its full
and living perfection, is threefold, or, if the expression be
here allowable, it is a triune consciousness the soul restored
to unity in love the mind or spirit requickened by the energy
2x2

372 TRIUNITY OP THE PERFECT CONSCIOUSNESS.

of a consistent life, and lastly, the internal sense for all
that is highest and divine which third member, as the
external medium and the ministering instrument of the
other two, cannot interfere with or disturb their profound
harmony. Now, the return from the mind, checked and
limited in its operation by its existing divisions and discord,
into a living triple or triune consciousness, is the very begin-
ning of a truly vital philosophy, and indeed of a renovated
and enhanced vitality.

END OF LECTURE I.

373

LECTURE II.

WHEN man is considered relatively to his external existence
in the sensible world and nature, to which by his body he
belongs and forms a constituent part, then the three elements
of which, as regarded from this point of view, his whole being
or essence appears to consist, are body, soul, and spirit.
Now, not even from these are schism and conflict excluded.
There is little or no harmony between the higher and spiritual
principle of the inner man and the outer world, to which pro-
perly his sensuous faculty belongs. The natural wants and the
organic laws of our corporeal life are at issue with the moral
law of the inward feelings with the exalted requisitions of
the soaring thought and the profound desire of the pure spirit.
The struggle between these two distinct laws or ordinancesrof
life, the higjier ana the Tower, forms perhaps the chief problem
which in nis moral destination on earth man has to solve. At
least it constitutes the first beginning and step thereof. No
doubt, the external frame of the human body, with its won-
derful organisation, presents in the prime of its development
the corporeal image of a more exalted and more spiritual
beauty. In its highest and happiest expansion in its noblest
forms -in many a bright gleam, for instance, of animated
expression on the countenance of youth we read the~ graceful
reflection of a more than earthly loveliness. The stamp of
man's heavenly origin is not quite extinct or completely de-
faced even in his frame. But on the other hand, it is exposed
and subject to innumerable injuries, sufferings, diseases, and
corrupdonsi so that we feel at once the truth of the Apostle's
wordsT^nTcalling it the " body of this death." Added, then,
to the other two elements of man's being, spirit and soul, the
organic body forms the third constituent, in which, however,
is contained the ground and occasion of conflict and strife.
XiPthe" inner man, indeed, taken by itself, and in soul and
spirit, as the two constituents of his higher life, there is
involved no absolute element of discord. No doubt even
here the harmony is liable to many disturbances and perfect

374 MUTUAL DEPENDENCE OF THOUGHT AND PEELING.

unison, perhaps, is veiy rarely to be met with ; but still the
discord has not its ground in the essential constitution of these
two principles of soul and spirit. The contrariety between
reason and fancy, understanding and will, though existing
in the fourfold consciousness of man in its present state,
prevails not there by any law of necessity. It is not a result
of their essential constitution. Simply, the spirit is the more
active faculty of the whole higher principle and of its internal
life, the soul the more passive one. I have designedly em-
ployed the expression the more active and the more passive
while thus speaking of soul and of spirit ; for perfectly passive
and entirely devoid of liberty, the feeling and loving soul is not,
as neither, on the other hand, is the spirit perfectly active and
independent. The latter stands in need of the fellowship of
the soul and of the life-giving feeling to kindle and to expand
it. To a certain degree, both spirit and soul, or at least the
preponderance of the one or the other, are dependent on the
organisation and organic differences of sex. In general, we
may at least assert and admit this much: that, viz., spirit or
thought predominates in man, but feeling or soul in the female
sex. But even here (so incalculably great is the diversity of
human character and disposition, so various are the methods
and forms of education and moral culture,) many exceptions,
either by way of complication or deviation from the original
simple relation, are found to subsist. In no case, moreover,
can this preponderance of the reigning element be taken or
understood as a total isolation or severance from the other.
On the contrary, there are manifold transitions and fusions in
the reciprocal action of soul and spirit. In the same way
that there are j>eculiar modes of thought^ a special kind of
intellect, whicHTBy a happy divination, goes infallibly to the
point and the truth, and is entirely the judgment of feeling the
issue, in short, of the feeling soul ; so, too, there are many im-
pressions on the feelings (an ardent love, for instance, and a
purely intellectual enthusiasm), which take their origin imme-
diately out of some thought, or generally from the under-
standing. And, in fact, the very separation of the two generally
yVdoes but lead to their more intimate union, and furnish a new
bond of unity. Thought and feeling stand reciprocally in
\ 'need of each other. As thought gains new life and animation
\ from the rich feeling, with its facile, tender, and profound

THE MIND'S CONSUMMATION IN GOD. 375

emotions, deriving therefrom its vital nourishment and suste-
nance ; even so the feelings are not unfrequently first awakened,
and very often strengthened and elevated, by the lofty flight
of thought in its bold and searching investigations. It is
even this that constitutes, in part at least, the attraction of
socjal intercourse, the charm of love, and the happiness of a
well-assorted union, which does but become more close by
years ; the one party finding in the other the intellectual or (if
the term be preferred) the psychological complement of his
own being and character.

But now a similar complement for the void and deficiency
which, even in the most favoured dispositions, enjoying the
highest advantages of learning and culture, still remains in
man's consciousness and internal existence, may be found in
yet another wise, and by a far superior method. We may, for
instance, seek this consummation of our nature in that Being
who contains in Himself the fulness of all might and of all
existence of all life, and of all love and out of whom both
sold and spirit proceed and take their beginning. Now, if vr&
should wish to form an idea of the heavenly state of supreme
felicity, such, at least, as in forecasting hope we may suppose
it to be, and indeed are justified in so doing, then we may
doubtlessjthink of it as such that in it both soul and spirit, sunk
in the abyss of eternal love, will rest perfectly satisfied. Or

""rather, in a living communion of thought and feeling, they will
most intimately sympathise in this ineffable majesty, being
absorbed in the never-failing stream of the infinite plenitude
of divinity. In this state of bliss, the body will be dissolved,
and no longer existent. At least, transfigured and changed,

"it will remain nothing more than the pure, luminous veil
(Lichtliiille] of the immortal soul and the spirit, now totally
and freely emancipated. For it will no longer be possible,
with any propriety, to think of the body as separate and dis-
tinct from the soul and spirit, as in truth and fundamentally it
will not be separate from them. Now, for this blissful state of
perfect union with the supreme essence, no less than for those
single and rare moments of mental ravishment, during which,
even in this earthly life, man occasionally, though transiently,
docs, by vivid thought, transport himself to such a state, the
third element, which as the connecting link must accrue to
these two fundamental energies of man's inward being and

376 ABE SOTJL AND SPIEIT IDENTICAL?

existence, in order to complete and perfect it, is God Hin
For it is here even as in the external world of sense ; there
must be a third element. There, however, it is the body,
which, as no less essential than the other two, completes the
existence of the total man. Merely psychologically regarded,
and when we adhere and limit ourselves to the given sphere of
the internal consciousness, the triple principle of man's being
is neither God, soul, and spirit, as in the higher blissful state,
nor even body, soul, and spirit, as in this material world, but
simply spirit, soul, and sense. These are the three elements
of the mind, which as such immediately concern us at present,
and form the essential basis of the following considerations.

Much is there that attaches itself to this principle, or
follows from it. It would consequently only lead to confu-
sion were we at present to take a full survey of all these
cognate matters and consequences, and lay them before you at
the outset. Many of them will arise much more naturally
afterwards. Even the treating of and elucidation of the
relation in which the senses, as the third element of the
human mind, stands to the other two, and the place which it
holds among them, will hereafter come more appropriately
before us. And this is especially true of a question which,
however, has an important bearing on the matter before us
the question, viz., whether or not some particular faculty,
either of soul or spirit, is to be regarded as an internal sense,
a moral instinct, or an immediate perception and intuition of
the highest and best. And, connected with this inquiry, is
^ the remark, that even in the usual outward senses there lies a
spark of higher spiritual perception such, for instance, as
the artistic eye for beauty of form and colour, and for grace
of motion, or the musical ear for lovely sounds and measures ;
so that even the senses are not so purely corporeal, so totally
material and grossly sensuous, as at the first' "glance they
appear. But there is another topic which here enforces
itself on our consideration, and which for the correct appre-
hension of the whole matter, is even still more important than
that of the relation which sense holds to the other two elements
of man's consciousness. And this is to determine whether
these two, soul and spirit, are really different, or whether it
be not probable that, as the active and the passive powers and
aspects of a higher principle in man, they are on the whole

MAN AS COMPARED WITH ANGELIC SPIBITS. 377

one and the same, and consequently ought not, in thought
even, to be unduly separated and distinguished. But however
this question is to be answered, even though in man they be
really and necessarily united, still a relative distinction of
them is justified by that preponderance of one or the other
which manifests itself at different times and in different rela-
tions of life. But a weighty reason exists for supposing that
they are essentially two elements. A fair presumption that
after all soul and spirit are not perhaps one and the same under
two several sets, arises from a comparison of man with other
created spirits, if only it be allowed us to make a further appli-
cation of a parallel, which on a certain hypothesis we have
already hazarded. For, however problematical at most the re-
sults of such comparisons may appear, still in such cases as the
present they are often very useful. They tend, at least, to give
a sharp and precise determination of the peculiar and charac-
teristic features of man's consciousness. Now, the free and
pure spirits far surpass man in energy of will in activity and
power and secondly, in rapidity and clearness of apprehen- , -^
sion, possessing as they do an intellect immediately intuitive.
In these properties, as contrasted with the mutability and
weakness of man's vacillating will, the slowness of his groping
and erring intellect, the angels have greatly the advantage of
man. But, on the other hand, the human mind or spirit pos-
sesses in its peculiar creative fertility a vast prerogative,
which cannot not, at least, in the same degree be ascribed
even to the pure creatures of light. And in truth, it is on
the soul, which is not merely receptive or sentient, but also
inwardly productive, lovingly creative, and ever giving new
forms and shapes to the old and common, that the creative
faculty of invention, so distinctive of man, ultimately rests.
At least, it forms the inner foundation and root out of which
it springs and rises. Fancy, indeed, with its external shape
and visible manifestation in art, is only one portion of it. !'
But still the other part also of the soul, viz., the reason,
when directed to its right end, and so long as it remains
within its natural limits, is a faculty of endless intellectual
development, infinite advance and perfectionment. And, in
truth, the position is by no means new, that perfectibility, or
the faculty of endless improvement (whi^h, however, is asso-
ciated with an equally great and ^o less infinite faculty of

378 ASCKIPTIOX OF HUMAN FACULTIES TO GOD.

deterioration), is the essential and wholly peculiar prerogative
of man. It is his characteristic property. With regard to the
other aspect or portion of the same property, the productive
fancy, viz., and its creative productions, a similar view to our
own and, indeed, under the same parallel and hypothesis-
is expressed in the poet's assertion, already quoted

" Thy knowledge thou sharest with superior spirits ;*
Art, oh man : thou hast alone."

Only the term "art" must here be understood in a wide and
comprehensive signification, so as to take in language. Or
rather, language itself is the general, all-embracing art of
man. For nowhere does art evince its peculiar, internal, and
intellectual fertility, its creative faculty of invention, so strik-
ingly as in this wonderful structure of human language, with
its many compartments. Man, we might Well say, in general
terms, is a production of nature that has attained to the per-
fection of language. In other words, he is a spirit to whom
before all other creatures, the word explanatoiy and declara-
tory, the guiding, the communicative, and even the command-
ing word, is lent, imparted, committed, or conveyed, and even
therein consists his original, marvellous, and high dignity, so
far surpassing the ordinary standard of creation.

On this account, therefore, it is only natural and consistent,
i. e., agreeable to man's nature arid dignity, that the compara-
tive juxtaposition and parallel which is to lead to a more
correct characterisation of the human mind, with its peculiar
faculties and properties, should, as I said, be directed up-
wards, rather than, as is usually done, downwards to the
brutes, and to the animal consciousness, if, indeed, we may
justly ascribe such to them. Now, in this method of com-
parison I would go a step further, for by so doing I hope to
promote the more perfect understanding of the whole, and
also to arrive at a correct and accurate notion of the several
faculties of man's spirit and of the powers of his soul. Which
then of man's faculties or powers may be rightly attributed to
the Deity, and which not : To answer this question, however,
it is not my intention to enter into any very difficult and
abstruse investigations, such as would neither be very apposite

* See quotation from the ' Die Kunstler" of Schiller, " Philosophy of
Life," p. 20.

REASON AND FANCY NOT ATTRIBUTABLE TO GOD. 379

to this place, and perhaps (to speak generally) would be abso-
lutely without and beyond the limits of the human under-
standing. It will be sufficient for my purpose throughout to
take for granted what, according to the universal feeling of
mankind, is generally admitted, and which is even as gene-
rally intelligible, as it is easy of apprehension and clear. But
when I thus without hesitation take for granted an universal
belief in the existence of a divine principle, notwithstanding
the doubt which in the human mind springs up as against all
else, so also against the highest object of faith, I do so with a
deliberate view and purpose. For I shall reserve the solution
of this grave problem to a later period of my sketch and
exposition of the thinking consciousness and of a true living
science. It is there, in truth, that it will find its most natural
and appropriate place. Here, however, for the purposes of our
intended comparison, which, as the instance itself will prove,
is likely to be highly instructive, it will be sufficient if I con-
fine myself to a single remark. The little that we know or
can with certainty predicate'of God, may be comprised almost
in the few words: kk God is a spirit." It is by virtue of this
proposition that we ascribe to Him an omniscient intellect and
an almighty will. Both these attributes or powers of God,
are, it is self evident,^ in the most perfect harmony, and can
scarcely be separated from one another ; whereas in man they
are frequently widely divergent, at times even hostilely
oppose each other, and at best do but check and limit their
mutual action. Here, however, arises the question whether
in strict propriety we may venture to ascribe to the Deity any
of the other mental faculties and powers which man is con-
scious of, though on a greater and different scale, and in a very
extended sense ?

Now, in the creative energy of God, there is in truth com-
prised the plenitude of all fertility, and, if it be allowable so
to speak, an inexhaustible source of all invention.

But still, as every one must at once feel, a productive faculty
of imagination and a creative fancy cannot on this account be
ascribed to Him ; for, were we to do so, we should step at
once into the domain of mythology with its fabulous gods.
And even as little, in strict propriety and accuracy of lan-
guage, can we attribute to God the faculty of reason, which u
in man is the opposite of fancy. Reason is the connecting,

380 UNDERSTANDING MAY BE PREDICATED OF GOD.

/- inferring, discursive faculty of thought. But all this, with
* its graduated series of ideas or conceptions, is not applicable
to the Deity, for in Him all must be thought of as standing
at once and immediately before the divine mind, or rather, as
directly emanating from Him. Consequently, in a strict
sense, and following a rigorous precision of a thoroughly
correct designation, we may indeed ascribe to God an imme-
diately cognisant and intuitive understanding, but not reason ;
since by this term it is only by a violent abuse of language
and a total conversion of ideas that a faculty of intellectual
v intuition can be understood. One kind alone or branch of
] reason is immediately intuitive ; and that is the conscience, or
the moral instinct, for the appreciation of whatever is good or
evil, right or wrong. This might not inaptly be called an
applied reason; viz., a reason applied to the will and to its
inmost motives, and to its just commencing still inchoate
determinations, out of which external actions ultimately issue.
But even because conscience is an immediate perception of
right and wrong, a moral instinct for good and evil, and
consequently in form wholly distinct from that function of
reason which infers and deduces consequences, I am indis-
posed to give it such a name, and would rather regard it as
a peculiar faculty of soul or heart, subsisting by itself, and
intermediate between will and reason. In any case, it would
be superfluous to observe how highly inappropriate it would
be to designate by this name that warning or punitive judicial
vision with which God looks through and penetrates the
inmost heart, even though we must seek here the root and
origin of the lucid oracles and simple revelations of the
human conscience. As a property, however, it can only bo
ascribed to those beings who, like man, behold the law of God
far above them, but by no means to that Being who is Himself
the sum and source of all moral laws. But let us now revert
to our first question of the predication of reason to the Deity.
If in our present reigning systems, and especially in the
latest German philosophy, reason is, notwithstanding, ascribed
to Him, or rather the eternal, unconditional, and absolute
reason is itself called God, and rationality is made to be His
essence ; this is but the immediate consequence of the pre-
dominantly pantheistic tendency of these systems, in which
the Deity is identified with the mundane All, and resolved

GOD CANNOT BE SAID TO HAVE A SOUL. 381

into the universal essence. For, inasmuch as it was felt that
it could not be merely the all-producing and all-absorbing
the all-bearing, infinite, vital power of the heathen systems of
nature and since a more scientific designation was required,
nothing remained for the totally abstract designation of the
one All, but the name of that faculty which even in the
human mind forms the principle of unity.

No doubt in the preceding centuries one or two great teachers
have employed very similar, if not identical expressions, in
reference to the Deity, still this to my mind appears an excep-
tion from the general rule, to be explained and justified only
by individual terminology and points of view. And at any
rate it is much safer to follow the ancient usage on this point.
Accordingly I have made it a law scrupulously to observe it
throughout. But if people will all at once subvert the ancient
modes of speech, and completely interchange and confuse the
ordinary signification of the terms reason and understanding,
then all must naturally turn on the thing itself and the inter-
nal thoughts and the proper meaning which lies at the bottom
of them. And then, by a due consideration of these, a mutual
understanding may perhaps be eventually arrived at, notwith-
standing the differing modes of speech. With most of the
writers and philosophers of the present day this perhaps is
scarcely to be hoped for. The grave question however here
(and which, as it lies at the bottom, must ultimately decide on
this difference of phraseology,) is this whether philosophy
in general is, according to the rationalistic way of thinking, a
mere philosophy of reason, or a higher philosophy of the j
spirit and of spiritual revelation, or indeed of a divine experi-
ence.

Further, whenever, in the olden phraseology, there are
ascribed to the Deity, memory and even desires, not to say
impulses which, viewed nearly in the same light as man's
appetites and passions, are designated by the same terms, all
this is to be understood in the same way as the expressions
concerning His all-seeing eye, His ear, and His mighty arm.
They are merely figurative and symbolical phrases. In the use
of them there is no pretension to scientific accuracy, with which
understanding and will are universally and actually ascribed
to Him. They are devoid even of that apparent probability
which gives rise to the question whether imagination and

382 FREEDOM OF THE WILL.

reason can, with the same propriety as the former two, be
attributed to Him. With as little truth can a soul be ascribed
to Him. For this is exclusively a passive faculty, whereas in
God all is energy and activity. The expression, however, of
a soul of God is found, by way of exception from the general
usage, in a few among ancient writers.

A more correct mode of indicating what is meant by this
term, would be to say that God is love, and that love is even His
essence. Or the same idea would be well conveyed by speak-
ing, under the form of a living force and property, of God's
fatherly heart as the centre of His being, of His omnipotence
and omniscience, and of the infinite love which results from
the two. No doubt even this expression of God's fatherly
heart is merely figurative and symbolical. Still it is one of
high significance, and as such it is not a mere figure without
meaning. For, the higher and profounder spiritual philo-
sophy, from Plato down to Leibnitz, has ever purposely
employed such symbols and figures to indicate that which
properly is inexpressible. In fact, it has always preferred them
to the abstract notions employed by the rationalising systems
of our own lifeless metaphysics of nought, which, as they are
f oid in themselves, so do they in reality say nothing.

Thus, then, has the very first step in this comparative psycho-
logy carried us at once to the utmost limits of what is know-
able by man. Still it has tended, in passing, to place in an
eminently distinct light many important matters and essential
properties and faculties which belong to our present sphere of
psychological inquiry. It is now, however, necessary for me
to turn my regards back to the point from which we started. In
order to commence our philosophy of life with the centre of
life and of man's whole consciousness, we set out from a psy-
chological fact, which immediately impresses itself on the
awakening consciousness. This fact is the perception of
the discord which reigns in our entire self, and especially of
the deep-rooted dissension which in their usual state divides
the four principal faculties of the consciousness, according to
the twofold contrariety of understanding and will, and of reason
and fancy. I will here merely add the remark, that further
still, another essential property of man, and a state equally cha-
racteristic and peculiar to him, is closely associated with, and
iadeed is grounded in this internal discord, viz., the freedom of

FBEE WILL IN MAN AXJ) ANGELS. 383

the will and the state of doubt. Now this freedom of will which
belongs to man, is very different from the freedom of God, or
even from that of the pure spirits who were first created. The
notion of free will, however, is so deeply and firmly grounded
in our inmost feelings, that man's universal conviction of it
can never be wholly undermined by any doubts of the reason,
however subtilly advanced and in appearance demonstratively
urgent. No objection or difficulty can totally extinguish and
annihilate the persuasion of its truth within our breast. For
even after the greatest shock which our faith in ourselves
may sustain, either from reflection or from subtilly refining on
the subject, after what apparently is a complete refutation of
its truth, this divine and inborn prejudice (if I may so term it) of
our intrinsic freedom still springs up again. As the inextin-
guishable vital flame of the spirit, it rises anew from the ex-
piring embers of those deadening doubts, which are themselves
nothing more than the dead notions and null phantoms of a false
semblance of thought. .. Now this freedom of will is a liberty
of choice, i. ., a will long vacillating between two different
SCITCB of ideas of opposing grounds and reasons, and at last
deciding for one or the other. This volition, however, is by its
nature so little decided, and frequently finds so great difficulty
in coming to a decision, that even when externally it has
already concluded its deliberations, it often becomes again
undecided and begins anew to hesitate. Or this freedom of
choice in man may otherwise be described and thought of as
a decision of the understanding, which compares tog ther two
different volitions, carefully weighs the conflicting grounds in
favour of each, and at last in its final judgment recognises
the preference to one or the other. ^Consequently this free
will and choice so peculiar to man, depends intimately and
essentially upon that controversy between understanding and
will, which, if not inborn, has become at least a second
nature to him. I have spoken of this freedom of will as
peculiar to man, since it is not necessary, and rather would
be a most arbitrary hypothesis, were we to go so far as to
assert that, assuming the existence of other free but created
essences, our own special kind of freedom is the only possible
and conceivable one. Still for our present purpose it is allow-
able to make such a purely hypothetical simile and comparison,
if (a point on which the experiment itself must decide) it be

384 MAN'S FREE WILL MANIFESTED IN DOUBT.

likely to render our own peculiar form of consciousness more
intelligible and conceivable. In this sense, then, we may go
on to say that we must conceive the liberty of the blessed
spirits as being in its essence very different from that of
man's. As such it belongs to beings who have long passed
beyond the probation of the still undecided choice, or who at
the very beginning of their existence were, by the design of
the Creator, withdrawn from it, and have consequently attained
to eternal freedom, together with undisturbed and undisturb-
able peace in God, who is the sum and inexhaustible source,
as well as the unfathomable, of all freedom, no less than of
all life.

But even irrespectively of this freedom of choice for actual
life and its particular objects and motives irrespectively also
of the freedom which is conversant about external actions, and
of the inward moving causes of the will which contain the first
ground and hidden germ of the former, and of that state of
uncertainty which follows therefrom, and which not unfre-
quently long vacillates between one side and another there
are also in pure thought, simply as such, a similar state of in-
ternal hesitation or doubt t. <?., of a thought hostilely attack-
ing, undermining and destroying, denying and annihilating
even consciousness and cogitation itself. Left wholly to our-
selves, when, closing our regards to the external world, and
without any definite object, we calmly commit ourselves to the
stream of purely internal thought, Ave soon become sensible
of this fact. On the one hand, there crowd on the mind
the impressions of the outward senses, and the manifold
creations of the peculiar never-resting faculty of cogitation,
seeking to gain the mastery over and to carry it along with
them. On the other side, the distinguishing and discerning
reason comes in with its questions and doubts, and chemical
analysis, to resolve everything finally into nought, and to
explain all the conceptions of the mind as groundless and un-
substantial, as so many pure illusions of the senses, conceits
of caprice, prejudices of a limited understanding, and mere
pictures or creations of fancy. Thus, then, the ever-swelling
flood of thought in man's inner being and cogitation is not
any calmly flowing stream, in which wave quietly follows and
succeeds to wave, as through rich and fertile plains it pursues
its course from some distant source to the wide and open sea.

INHERENT DISCORD OF THE HUMAN MIND. 385

The fearful conflict of thought is rather some double current,
where, amidst the crags and rocks, the pent-in waters confin-
ing one another, .beat up into foaming breakers or still more
dangerous, beneath their apparently calm and smooth surface
they form the tearing whirlpool with its bottomless abyss,
which, at the least incautious approach, hurries irresistibly
into its vortex the tossing little boat of man's brief existence.
For the most part it is only in natures originally at least
highly endowed and noble that doubt and this internal struggle
of thought rise to the height of despair. These alone are
finally driven, by the rejection of all belief in themselves, into
litter ruin both of soul and spirit. The tendency, however, to
a state of struggle and doubt is universal. It seems to be
nothing less than a characteristic property of human nature,
and to have its foundation in the dissension subsisting between
reason and fancy, which has so firmly established itself in
the mind of man. It may happen, no doubt, that in a mind
whose opinions are settled both in theory and practice, no
instability will be found to subsist in the plans which guide
and regulate life, but that, on the contrary, they are on the
whole followed out with fixed resolution and decided energy.
And yet, even in such a case, particular doubts will occa-
sionally arise affecting many matters, (which, although subor-
dinate to the fundamental laws of life, are nevertheless far from
being unimportant,) so as to force upon us the remark, or even
to extort the confession that in general such a state of immov-
able determination does not belong to human nature, and that
this internal conflict forms one element of that warfare of life
to which man is called. The predisposition to this, I have
referred to the discord between reason and fancy, and for
brevity's sake I have employed throughout the latter designa-
tion for it. I must, however, avail myself of the present
occasion to observe that fancy is not limited merely to poetry
and the fine arts and their respective creations, but inasmuch
as all productive thought belongs to the imagination jn the same
waymat the negative Ttoes to the reason, it also"c6-operatcs
more or less with science. T TtlsTKerefore chiefly in this latter
and larger sense that we here employ the term, since it is from
the contradictions of the productive and negative thought that
the struggle and state of doubt arise.

The first truth then that psychology arrives at is the internal
2c

586 YEARNINGS OF THE MIND AFTER UNITY.

discord within our fourfold and divided consciousness. Having
commenced with a slight characteristic sketch of this fact, I
have attempted to give a further and deeper grounding, and
to invest it with a higher and profounder significance. To this
first perception we appended, as the second member in the
series of our philosophical investigation, the idea of a triplicity
of consciousness as restored to its perfect and living action-
According to this view, the simple division of the mind is into
spirit, soul, and sense. And this will, in all our subsequent
Lectures, form the basis of our psychological reflections on the
human mind. It will also serve as the transition from the
ordinary state of the consciousness in discord with itself, and
with its fourfold division, to the reunited triple consciousness.
We shall make it the starting-point and first step in this
philosophy, which, as it sets out from life, is also to lead to a
higher life.

But now, even in the mind's ordinary state there are many
such beginnings of a higher order of things many moments
of a more concentrated energy, which bespeak a joint operation
of the otherwise divided faculties and powers of soul and spirit,
and have for their result a partial restoration at least of har-
mony to this otherwise dismembered whole. Among these I
would mention first of all that inner fixity of character, where
thought, will, and conduct are consistent throughout ; secondly,
a true artistic genius in the creations both of poetic and plastic
fancy. Lastly, there is that ardent and disinterested love,
with its magnanimous self-sacrifices, which, though it surpasses
all the limits of reason, cannot, nevertheless, be looked upon as a
mere imagination or illusion of fancy, forming as it does a pro-
found and natural energy of the human soul, and constituting
in truth its true and proper essence. No doubt the external
phenomenon and effect of this elevated principle of the soul is
often tarnished and lessened by the dull admixture of earthly
ardour, and the bewilderment of passion. A true and perfect
manifestation of the feeling, consequently, is no less rare than
the truly felicitous creations of real artistic genius. Still it is
to it that we must look for the first principle of a higher living
thought and the true science thereof. The truly loving soul
needs only the excitement and guidance of a mind or spirit
ripened and matured in divine experience. Accordingly, the
consciousaess thus restored to unity and completeness of per-

LANGUAGE A JOINT PRODUCE OF SOUL AND SPIRIT. 387

fcction becomes actively operative in its triple energy. And
in the same manner the spirit striving with most ardent aspi-
ration after the divine, requires nothing but such an animating
contact with the loving soul, in order to attain fully and effec-
tually to its desired end.

In the series of combining elements or principles of union
for the otEerwise divided consciousness there is yet another
phenomenon both great and comprehensive in itself, and which
also reveals itself as such in actual life and experience. And
this phenomenon is furnished by language, with its wonderful
^variety and yet truly artistic uniformity. JAoiT it is_tne vital
"Jrpduct of the whole inner man. All the faculties both of
soul and spirit, however discordant generally, combine each in
their full share and measure to perfect this their conjoint pro-
duction. And yet after all many traces of inherent imperfec-
tion are visible therein. It is only in the highest creations of
artistic genius, manifesting~itself either in poetry or some other
form of language, and then only in the brightest and happiest
moments of inspiration, that we meet with the perfect harmony
jofjauComplete and united consciousness, in which all its facul-
ties work together in combined and living action.

In language, all the four principal powers have a nearly
equal part and share. The grammatical structure, the rules for
the changes and declensions of words, and their syntax, are
furnished by the reason. From the fancy, on the other hand,
is derived whatever is figurative ; .and how very far does not
this reach, extending as it does into the primary and natural
signification of words, which often no longer exists, or at least
is rarely traceable? Lastly, the clear and distinct arrange-
ment of the parts, the nicely finished and beautiful shape of
the whole of any composition, whether poetical or rhetorical,
civil or scientific, are the contributions of the understanding.
And so, also, whatever is truly characteristic whatever, in
short, goes beyond the mere instinctive cry of animal nature,
and the childlike, oft-times childish imitation of external sounds
in short, that deep and spiritual significance, that character-
istic meaning which, in the original stem-syllable and radical
words of some rich old language, invariably is regarded as a
beauty, must be ascribed to the understanding, which so pro-
foundly seizes and precisely designates whatever is peculiar,
unless perhaps it is preferred to assign it to an immediate

2c2

388 SPEECH THE OUTWARD PROJECTION OF THOUGHT.

feeling, which wonderfully harmonises with or responds to it.

Moreover, the magic force of a commanding will, which carries

all before it by its intrinsic energy, is at least noticeable in

i those few brilliant passages of highest inspiration or perfect

| poetic delineation, from whose clear and perspicuous language,

lithe apparently ineffable, shining forth like an electric spark,

jkindles and influences every sensitive and kindred mind.

But before I go deeper into the question of the origin of
language, and examine the correct idea of this all-embracing
and wonderful faculty of speech, as man's most remarkable and
peculiar property, I would call your attention to the intimate
connexion subsisting between thought aud speech, which is
throughout reciprocal. For as speech must be regarded as a
thinking outwardly projected and manifested, so, too, thinking
itself is but an inward speaking and a never-ending dialogue
with oneself.

Judging from all appearances, the consciousness of animals,
so far as we are justified in ascribing it to them, is perfectly
simple, but sadly defective and limited. But even here, how-
ever, the several melodious courses of irrational and seemingly
unconscious sounds appear like so many echoes of a better
foretime lost traces of ancient memory, and which, together
with the moving and mournful cry of deep painful longing,
seem to make tolerably clear to us the notion of the creature
waiting and groaning for its emancipation. Highly simple,
too, but in quite a different respect, is the consciousness or
thought of the free spirits in their pure activity, such as we
may and ought to represent it to ourselves ; like the ray of
light which in its rapid descent penetrates all space. But mar-
vellouslyjntricate, on the other hand, _andJhi&hlyj?omplicated,
is the so^ manifoldly rich, and, at the same time, so versatile
and changeable consciousness of man. Such, afTeasT,~Ts The
impression which a serious and searching glance into thejon-
fathomable depths of our inward man enforces upon us. AncT
indeed, just as in the triple operation of the consciousness,
when restored to the full perfection of life, we may trace a
certain faint signature of man's pristine likeness to the Creator,
so also a slight vestige of the same kind is, we might fancy,
discoverable in its unfathomable depth, which, however, now
reveals itself in quite a different form from its original
nature, and appears to be converted into its opposite. How

THOUGHT AN INWABD SPEECH OB DIALOGUE. 389

often does the thought that seeks to penetrate the mysteries
of nature the hidden thinker within man believe that he
has completely solved the riddle of existence, and is able to
explain and rightly interpret the many-meaning but obscure
words of the sphinx within us ! And even then, when he
most flatters himself with his own ingenuity, this miserable
CEdipus of his own destiny is stricken with even more fatal
and incurable blindness than the old Theban, and cannot
discern the abyss of error into which his whole life has been
hurrying, and into which it is at last plunged headlong and .
precipitated. Ever labouring to seize the changing Proteus of
its own self, our Ego may perhaps often arrive at a rare amaze-
ment at the enigma of existence, and also is even seized many
a time with a light terror. Never, however, by itself, let it
think and seek as it may, will it be able, without some other
guide, to find the object of its longing, and, in its tragic bEnd-
discover the clue of the labyrinthic mazes of its own
thoughts, and at last to arrive at harmony with itself.

So profound, moreover, and lasting is this our intrinsic
dualism and duplicity (and I use the term here, not in its
usual moral sense, but in a higher signification, which is
purely psychological and metaphysical) so deeply is this dual-
ism rooted in our consciousness, that even when we are, or at

least think ourselves alone, we still think as two, and are con-
strained as it were to recognise our inmost profoundest being
as essentially dramatic. This colloquy with self, or generally,
this internal dialogue, is so perfectly the natural form of human
thinking, that even the saintly solitaries of bygone centuries,
who in the Egyptian deserts or the Alpine hermitages devoted
a half-life to meditation on divine things and mysteries,
were often not able otherwise to indicate the result of such v \p
meditations, to invest it in another dress, to bring it into '
any 'other form of exposition than that of a dialogue of the
soul with God. And in all religions, what properly is true
prayer"but a kind of dialogue, a confidential opening of the
heart to the universal Father, or a filial solicitation of His
benevolence ?

But to pass over at once to the directly opposite aspect
of the matter : even in the classical works of cultivated anti-
quity, at a time when these depths of a loveful feeling were not
yet so widely developed, nor so completely revealed and un-

890 THE SOCRATIC IRONY. PLATO'S DIALOGUES.

veiled, we meet with this same phenomenon in another form,
and one indeed of the highest intellectual clearness and bril-
.iancy in the graceful ornament, viz., of a truly exquisite dic-
tion. I am alluding to the characteristic distinction of the
discourses and teaching of Socrates that peculiar jrjmy L such
as it is found in the Platonic dialogues, and of whichfonlya very
slight trace is to be found in the works of some of the earliest
poets. For what else is this scientific irony of the inquiring
thought and of the highest cognition, than a consciousness
which, while it clearly perceives the secreT contradictions
which beset the mind, even in its most earnest-pursuit of the
highest aim of life, has attained nevertheless to perfect harmony
with itself.

I must not, however, omit to remind you that this term in
modern phraseology has fallen very far below its primary
meaning, and is often so taken as to designate nothing more
than a mere playful mockery. In its original Socratic sense,
however, such as it is found in the whole series of the thought
and the internal structure of Plato's dialogues, where it is
developed to its fullest measure and proportion, irony sig-
nifies nothing else than this amazement of the thinking spirit
at itself, which so often dissolves in a light, gentle laugh. And
this light laugh again oftentimes beneath its cheerful surface
conceals and involves a deeper and profounder sense, another
and a higher significance, even the most exalted seriousness.
In the thoroughly dramatic development and exposition of
thought which we meet with in the works of Plato, the dia-
logical form is essentially predominant. Even if all the super-
scriptions of names and persons, all forms of address and
reply, and, in short, the whole conversational garb, were taken
away from it, and we were merely to follow the inner threads of
the thought according to their connexion and course, the whole
would nevertheless remain a dialogue, where each answer
calls forth a new "question, and the eddying stream of speech

and counter-speech, or rather, of thought and counter-

thought, moves livingly onwards. And unquestionably this
form of inner dialogue is, if not in every case equally applicable
and absolutely necessary, still it is all but essential, and at
least highly natural.and very appropriate to every form of
living thought and its vivid enunciation. And in this sense
\ even the continuous unbroken speech of a single person may

THOUGHT AN INWARD DIALOGUE. 391

also assume the character of a dialogue. Yes, I must confess
that as it is my first object to attain to the greatest possible
perspicuity of a vivid development of ideas, I should then
most confidently believe that I had gained my end, if the present
Lectures should in any degree make the same impression on
you as a dialogue would if they should appear like a series of
questions, to which some of you, if not throughout, yet here
and there, should in your heart give a tacit answer and assent ;
or even (and in this case still more so, indeed,) if, in the
whole context of these Lectures, you should find and believe to
discover for many questions which your own hearts, your own
reflections and life itself suggested, if not a full, satisfactory
answer, yet at least one directly meeting the .difficulty, and
full of suggestions for its solution.

END OF LECTURE II.

392

LECTURE III.

TETTE irony for there also is a false one is the irony of love,
', It arises out of the feeling of finiteness and one's own limita-
/ tion, and out of the apparent contradiction between this feel-
ing and the idea of infinity which is involved in all true love.
As in actual life and in the love which centres in an earthly
object, a good-humoured raillery, which amuses itself with
some little defect of character, either apparent or real, is not
inconsistent with sincerity not, at least, when both parties
have no doubt of each other's affection, and its ardour admits
of no increase but, on the contrary, lends to it an agree-
able charm, even so is this true of that other and highest
love. Here, too, an apparent, or it may be an actual, but
still only insignificant and trivial contradiction, cannot de-
stroy the idea on which such a love is based, but on the
contrary serves rather to confirm and strengthen it. But
only there where love has reached the highest purity has
become profoundly confirmed and perfect does this appear-
ance of contradiction, which is thrown out .in an. affectionate
irony, fail to alloy or weaken all higher and better feeling.
And what other foundation could a philosophy of life well
have and recognise as legitimate than the idea of such a love ?
And this is even that supposition of life, viz., of the inner
life, of which I formerly said that it is the only one which
philosophy requires, and from which alone it must set out.
Only it is requisite that this love should be personally expe-
rienced or inwardly felt, and the notion of it derived from
immediate experience.

Directly opposed to those arbitrary systems which compose
the reigning philosophy of the day, the philosophy of life is
a science of internal spiritual experience, which, as it pro-
ceetDfrrom, so it everywhere rests on facts ; though indeed the
facts on which it is grounded, and to which it has invariably to
refer, are in many respects of a high and peculiar kind. On
this account philosophy may even be called a science of divine-
experience. If man had never, and, in short, were incapable of

THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 393

having any experience of divine things, what could he know
of the Deity with certainty ?__ A knowledge devoid of experience
would be but the arbitrary creation or illusion of his own
mind an inward fancy, or the mere reflex of his own reason
consequently an absolute nullity. And for such a knowledge
the task would ever be difficult to get rid of a mere idealistic
conception of the Divine Being, or at least to repel the doubt
whether He be actually anything more than what such a
conception represents Him. And, in fact, in most treatises
and elaborate developments of that system of thought which
makes man's self the exclusive principle and standard of
truth, the manner of treating the divine nature is extremely
superficial. Such purely formal and empty notions on this
subject are advanced, that we are often justified in applying
to these speculations on the highest topic of human language
and thought, the remark that applies too often to lower scien-
tific treatises : " Thus it is that men write who have no real
knowledge of the matter." " Here we at once see there is
a total want of personal observation ; the work is not based
on any solid foundation of actual experience."

Now the philosophy of life, in its highest range at least, is
a divine science of experience. This experience, however, is
throughout internal and spiritual. It is therefore easily con-
ceivable that it can enter readily and easily into all other ex-
perimental sciences, and into those especially which more
immediately relate to man, as, for instance, most of the
branches of natural history, and still more into philology, with
which at present we are most immediately concerned. And
"this it does, in order^to borrow such illustrations and compari-
sons as may tend to elucidate or further to develope its own
subject-matter, or else to furnish applications to individual cases
in other departments of life. However, in thus proceeding,
philosophy must take heed lest it overpass its own proper limits
or forget its true end and aim. It must not go too deeply into
particulars,_or_lose itself among the specialities of the other
Sciences. On the contrary, it ought carefully to confine itself
to those points which more immediately concern man, and
especially the inner man, and adhering to the meaning and
spirit of the whole, seek to elucidate and throw out this pre-
eminently.

The question as to the origin of language, or more cor-

394 TWO THEORIES AS TO THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE.

rectly, the question how man attained to the capacity for this
wonderful gift or faculty of speech, which forms so consider-
able and essential a part of his whole nature, if it is to be
taken merely as a matter of historical research and philoso-
phical learning, lies out of the circle which we have marked
out to ourselves'. A discussion exclusively confined tcTthTs
special branch of philology has little in unison with specula-
tions involving the inner experience of life and psycholo-
gical observation. There are two opinions pretty generally
diffused on this subject : the one maintaining that there is
one primary and original language, from which, as a stem, all
others have branched forth ; and the other, that several were
contemporaneously formed. These opinions, as unfavourably
affecting the right understanding of the essential connexion
between language or speech and thought, I would wish to keep
out of view, and consequently I shall dismiss them with a few
passing remarks.

The one is founded on an erroneous hypothesis, and is itself
false. It is in open contradiction to facts, as we now know
them with tolerable completeness. As /or the other, even if
it be not in itself truly and properly false, it is nevertheless
based on a great misconception, or at least, as it is commonly
propounded, involves one.

The former theory consists in this, that language generally,
or rather several contemporary languages, as fundamentally dis-
tinct from each other as the several races of men, who, as this
view asserts, sprung up out of the earth, and its primaeval
I slime, were formed spnnfanpninsly^ by jj.jpprfpff.ly nqtural p vn -
cess. To the mere ammaTcries and various instinctive excla-
mations, either of joy and grief, of passion and want, were
associated the deliberate imitation, together with a child-
like mimicry of different sounds, similar to what we may even
now observe in children, with whom such mimic intonations
and mocking word-play is a common and favourite amuse-
ment. From such sensuous beginnings, it is pretended, a
language might have "grown" up, gradually and slowly indeed,
to the height of rationality and grammatic form and order.
That these two elements the animal cries of nature and the
mechanical imitation of sounds have contributed to the de-
velopment of language, is a position that needs not and cannot
be controverted. This element, however, is not found in all

ONE OE MANY ORIGINAL LANGUAGES. 395

languages in equal measure. It is strongest in those Ian
guages which stand at the very lowest grade of development.
Among others, again, which having attained very rapidly to
maturity and having at an early period branched off into several
others, appear in their most ancient state highly intellectual and
significant, it is scarcely traceable. But a fatal objection to the
hypothesis as explaining the universal and complete principle
of the phenomenon of language in all its ramifications, is
the fact that the noblest and most cultivated languages are
found, upon investigation into their earliest state, to possess
even at this date, the most artificial form, and to be manifoldly
ricn7and at the same time higlily regular and simple. And this
is~pre-eminently the case with the Sanscrit or Indian, in com-
parison with the Greek, Latin, and other kindred languages of
the West and North. In those, on the other hand, which appear
to be at the very lowest grade of intellectual culture (and gene-
rally these stand quite isolated from all those in the midst of
which they are found), we frequently observe, on a closer
acquaintanceship, a very high and elaborate degree of art
in their grammatical structure. This is especially the case
with the Basque and the Lapponian, and many of the
American languages. In the Chinese, this excessive and in-
appropriate expenditure of art has been directed to a very
peculiar and complicated system of writing. There was no
place for it in the language^ itself, which is extremely poor,
being in its basis extremely, not to say childishly, simple and
quite ungrammatical Its whole verbal treasury does not,
it is said, contain more than three hundred and thirty words,
which form the same number of single syllables. These, however,
acquire a different signification by means of accents, of which
there are no less than eighty thousand; and even though, as
competent judges and the learned aver, not more than the
fourth of this large number are really necessary and made use
of in practice, still the liability to mistake must be very great,
since the entire language is founded on tin's artificial system of !
writing, much more than on its living and spoken sounds.
Hence, not unfrequently, when even learned Chinese talk
together, they misunderstand each other. This, indeed, is
occasionally the case in other countries also. But the differ-
ence is, that in the former the source of misconception lies
in the language itself; and it is only by WTiting down their

396 THE ONE ORIGINAL LANGUAGE NOW LOST.

words, that the Chinese can be sure of intelligibly conveying
their real meaning.

Modern and experienced philologists have, in consequence
of these difficulties, given up that view of language which
would derive it entirely from the imitation of animal cries.
Plain facts, indeed, speak too decidedly against it. And, in
truth, the chief point to be guarded against amidsLthe ^reat
variety and the immeasurable richness of the phenomena of
language in general, is the explaining them all by any single
hypothesis, or the deriving them from one origin.

As to the other opinion respecting the origin of language?
the view and assertion that God himself brought language to
man, and taught it to him, cannot properly excite any oppo-
sition, in so far as all that is good, and man's best and original
prerogatives, must in reason be derived from God as their first
author. But when it is supposed that the language which on
this hypothesis the first man spoke in Paradise, and which, as
such, is the source of all other later and derivative languages
may still be found, and is to be recognised in any one now ex-
tant, as, e. g., the Hebrew this assuredly is a great error. It
involves a total misconception of the immense interval which
separates us from the first origin of the world. Of the lan-
guage which may have belonged to the first man, before he4ost
his original power, perfections, and dignity, we are not, with
our present organs and senses, in a capacity to form aii idea.
Indeed, we are no more able to do this, than to judge of the
nature of the language employed by the eternal spirits for jthe
immediate interchange of their thoughts, which on the wings of
light fly instantaneously through the wide expanse of heaven,
or of those words, ineffable by any created being, which are
uttered by the Deity in His inmost being, where, to use the
words of the Psalmist, " deep calleth unto deep," and where
the fulness of infinite love answers to Eternal Majesty.

But now, to descend from this unattainable height to our own
level, and to consider the first man as he really was : then in
the simple statement of the first authentic records of mankind,
that God taught man language, there is nothing, if we adhere
to its obvious meaning, which is in any way revolting to man's
natural feelings. For why should it make any such startling
impression on us, if, as it ought, this whole matter be under-
stood somewhat in the light of a mother teaching her child
the first rudiments of language ?

ORIGINAL UNITY OF LANGUAGE PHOBABLE. 397

Still, together with this simple and childlike signification,
it (like every other part of this divine book, thus written on
the inside and the out) possesses also a far deeper meaning.
That name by which each living creature is called by God,
and designated from eternity, must embrace the sum of its
inmost essence the "key of its existence- the reason and the
explanation of its being. As, indeed, generally in the Holy
Scriptures, so here also a high and holy import is combined with
the notion of the name. Interpreted, then, by this profound
sense and significance, this brief narrative, as I previously
pointed out, conveys the idea that by this communication to man
by God Himself, of the names of all living things, the former j
was set up as the lord and king of nature, and even as God's 1
vicegerent over the terrestrial creation. And indeed this was \
his original destination.

If, then, no existing speech or language can afford us an
access_tp this JYgJlgfl original- now become^ inaccessible to us,
stifl the idea of one primary language, or perhaps of several
such, is certainly anything but devoid of an historical founda-
tion. At least it is a very natural hypothesis, and founded in
some degree on facts, which must not be forthwith rejected,
but requires to be tested by further inquiry. It is, however,
of no light importance to the maintenance of this hypothesis
to form a right conception of the difference between deriva-
tory and mixed languages, and above all, to take a compre-
hensive survey of the whole of human language, in its nearly
boundless wealth, so for as such a survey is serviceable to
our present object of arriving at a true knowledge of man.
And how can such a profitable application and applicability
be well doubted ? JF^_jhe genealogical tree of humanjan-
guages, in its manifold ramifications the growth of language
shooting forth from epoch to epoch, with all the vast riches of
art, does but hold before us as it were a written monument
and memorial of the thinking consciousness assuming, so to
speak, a bodily shape, and visibly presenting itself before us,
but still on a grand historical standard, and according to
dimensions which reach over the whole habitable globe. That,
therefore, the history of the thinking consciousness stands in
most intimate connexion, or at least in very close relation to
the science of living thought, is surely a point which requires
neither lengthened investigation nor an express demonstration.

398 ANALOGY OF PHILOLOGY TO GEOLOGY.

In the attempt at this juxtaposition, I shall only project
those points which either are of importance for the right un-
derstanding of the whole, or of interest in themselves. For
this purpose I shall avail myself of nothing but the most cer-
tain and clearly demonstrated results of modern research into
the nature and history of language. All that may appear
in any way uncertain, or would lead us too far into the special
branches of philology, will be left unnoticed.

A simile from physical science will perhaps lead us by the
quickest and shortest road to the object we are in pursuit of.
And, indeed, the geological branch of natural history may
well be considered cognate to the inquiry before us. For
what geology properly investigates is the antiquities of this
terrestrial planet, and the primal condition of the mountain
ranges, observing and seeking to read the long-hidden memo-
rials that are daily brought to light of pristine convulsions,
and to number the successive epochs of gradual change and
decay. But it was not at once that geological science made
any progress beyond the mere acquaintance with the surface
of our globe. An insight into its primary internal constitu-
tion and subsequent processes of formation was not gained
until observation had enabled us accurately to distinguish be-
tween the two kinds of rocks the alluvial and the secondary,
with their fossiliferous strata of chalk and clay and the
primary unstratified rocks of granitic and similar structure,
and by patient and accurate observation of the superficial
phenomena of the earth in different lands and climates, to
establish this classification as a general law. Now this geo-
logical distinction admits of application to language. Those
composite languages which have been formed out of a mixture
or aggregation of several, may be compared to the diluvial
rocks which belong to the secondary formation. As the
latter have arisen out of or have been formed by floods and
inundations, so these mixed languages owe their origin to the
great European migration of nations, or perhaps were formed
by the East by similar Asiatic migrations, at a still older
epoch, and in primaeval times. Those languages, on the con-
trary, which, at least as compared with those which are mani-_
festly mere derivatives from them, we may call primary. In
this class we may mention the Roman among those of Europe,
and the Sanscrit in those of Asrar These, then, stand on the

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY LANGUAGES. 399

same line and dignity with the so-called primary rocks. No
doubt,, even. in. these -further investigation will discover many
traces of a mixture, no less palpable indeed, but one, however,
UPwhich jtht^constituents neither were originally so hetero-
geneous, Jior--sinc.Q_liaye continued so totally unchanged. For
in the same manner, granitic rocks, and others of the primary
order, are also found to be composite in their mineral con-
stituents. These likewise point to a still earlier convulsion of
nature, to which they owed their first production. Unques-
tionably, however, the primary mountains form the first line
and earliest formation among the several epochs of revolution
which the present earth has undergone. But it would, be an
error were we from this simple fact at once to draw any
inference as to the interior of our globe ; for this geologica.
and mineralogical distinction of the two classes of rocks can-
not be proved to hold good beyond the mere surface and coat
of the earth. To this alone is man's observation and experience
confined.

It is impossible to penetrate very far into the interior or the
central mass of our planet, and investigate its internal consti-
tution, and consequently this ring of rock cannot be regarded
in any other light than as analogical to the thin covering and
epidermis of the organic living creature. And just so is it
with the science of language. There are undoubtedly lan-
guages which, in a certain sense, we may term primary. Only,
in so doing, we must not think that in any one of them we
have discovered and possess the long hidden original of all
existent languages. If, for instance, from this correct geolo-
gical classification of rock, any bold speculator should go on to
assert that the whole interior of the earth, or at least the
centre of it, is a mass of granitic or other primary rock, we
feel at once that this would be a baseless hypothesis. And
it would be as grave an error, in the domain of philology,
were we to go on and draw a similar conclusion. The Sanscrit,
for instance, holds unquestionably the foremost rank, as the
oldest among those which belong to the same family, and, as
compared with these, may undoubtedly, in a precise but limited
sense, be regarded as a primary language ; but it would be an
idle assumption were we therefore to consider it in the same
light that Hebrew was formerly, and to look upon it as the
universal original, the first source and mother of all other
languages on the surface of the earth,

400 THE ENGLISH THE PERSIAN THE FRENCH.

But not even the historical prerogative of a high antiquity
no, nor even the merit of having preserved a primary form
in greatest purity, however valuable a quality, is the sole
standard of excellence in a language, nor that which alone de-
termines its perfection. The English language affords a ready
illustration of our remark. To it, beyond all others, the de-
signation of being a mixed language applies ; indeed it corre-
sponds altogether to this character. It furnishes at the same
time a striking proof of the height of excellence which even a
mixed language is capable of attaining ; meeting, as it does,
all the requisitions of a solemn and nervous poetry, the earnest
""appeals of eloquence, and the calm flow of descriptive prose.
And yet, on analysis, it presents to the grammatical eye the
somewhat heterogeneous compound of two wholly different
elements, whose originally chaotic mixture has been reduced
into a rare and happy proportion. For into its original High-
Dutch or Anglo-Saxon basis, many words have been intro-
duced from the Latin or Norman-French, which among fhe
living roots of the former appear so far aliens and foreigners,
as, being little capable of grammatical declension or deriva-
tion, they do not, like the others, form so many fruitful verbal
stems, from which new forms and compounds shoot forth. Of
Asiatic languages the Persian is in this respect of a similar
constitution to the English. Here also the essential founda-
tion and living root of the whole is some peculiar and old
national language, closely akin to the Sanscrit and Gothic-
German ; but its Arabian admixture is as great in degree as the
Latin-French of the English, and indeed both were brought in
by a similar political revolution. Still the Persian is_ .generally,
and with good cause, praised as a noble language, abounding
in lively poetical ornament, and moreover, like the French in
Europe, is adopted throughout Asia as the general language
of business and conversation. ^Those derivator^ languages also
which stand next in order to the mixed, and in part also be-long
to them, and which have rather softened down than abofehetl
the stricter grammatical forms, having rounded them off, as it
were, for greater convenience of use, do not necessarily. standon-
ferior to the mother- tongue in grace and vigour of composition^
On the contrary, in respect of style, they are often vastly supe-
rior to them. Thus the Italian appears softer and more flexible
for lyrical verse, and perhaps for every creation of the poetic

LANGUAGE PERFECT IN ITS OBIGIN. 401

fancy, sweeter and more graceful than its Roman mother-tongue.
The French too, at least as the language of society, moves with
an unequalled freedom, while, for precision and distinctness of
expression, its prose has attained to an unparalleled height of
excellence. The Spanish also, besides being praised for the
excellence of its prose, as admirably suited either for the dig-
nity of serious narrative or the ingenious play of wit, is in poetry
distinguished above most of its sister dialects by a wonderful
-richness and peculiar grace in the.jJg^jd gg]]^ggjg^tiie fanny.
And yet it is a derivative language, and compounded of the
most heterogeneous elements. For not only it is highly pro-
bable that the GothTc-GrermaiT admixture is even greater in
this than in any other of the romance dialects which sprung
up out of the Latin, but the Arabic also forms a very con-
siderable element in it.

But it was not to descend into the grammatical specialities
of philological erudition, or to heap up a mass of purely sesthe-
tical remarks, that I have alluded to these pregnant instances.
What I chiefly had in view was to remove, if possible, all
enmipgrig,TiotionR fn>m thft fionrpptinri nf the primal language.
It was, in short, my object to bring before your minds its origin
and growth, according to that continuous process which may
even still be seen going on in any spoken language. And
although in our own neighbourhood it is only in a few partial
instances, and these far from definite, that we can trace this
living process, still they are not on this account to be neg-
lected, since they furnish much instruction, and are calculated
to throw much light upon the whole matter.

Now as regards the historical origin, not only of language
in general, but also of its several extant dialects, and especi-
ally those which relatively to such as are derived and com-
pounded out of them may pass as primary : there is one essential
point towards a right understanding of the matter. We must
not attempt to account for their origination and development
merely by a mixture and derivation from many individual parts, :

But rather endeavour to set them before our minds as produc-
tions similar in nature to that of a poem or any other piece of
art. For the latter are severally the result of a conception which
from the very first was a whole ; they never could have been
produced by any successive agglomeration of atomistic parts.
In this view of language we must in thought place ourselves

402 SPEECH VARIED BY MORAL DIVERSITIES.

at a very different epoch of mind from the present, x Now we
cannot well hesitate to allow that in the primal period of
the human race, and of nations individually, the productive
fancy would manifest itself in the creation of words with far
more of inventive genius and fertility than would be likely
to be displayed at a subsequent period of mental culture, when
the analytical reason had, step by step, succeeded in gaining the
preponderance.

Commonly, indeed, men speak strangely enough of the
origin of languages. They talk of the matter somewhat in the
same fashion as it would be to say of a picture, that it had
its origin in ochre, lake, ceruse, asphalt, and such like colour-
ing substances, together with the addition of oil, which holds
here somewhat the same place that in language the reason does
with its grammatical arrangement and logical combinations.
Of these motley materials, it might be said, one little particle
after another is laid on the canvas, till gradually long streaks
appear, which again swell gradually into fuller and deeper
Outline, until at last a complete form and figure stands forth,
to which at last there accrues an expressive physiognomy.

ryA And so at last the picture is finished. Biit in all this descrip-

1 tion it seems totally forgotten that unless the ideal conception

the picture as a whole had from the very first been present

to the mind of the painter, it would never have attaineiLto

such a realisation, thus growing up, step by step, under the

hand of the artist, At least, -without this it would not be a

true artistic work of genius, since this is in every instance

s the result of some foregoing conception of a whole.

Not piecemeal, therefore, and fragmentarily, did language
arise. It came forth rather at once and in its totality out of
the full inner and living consciousness of man. We shall
have no difficulty in thus considering it, if only we can succeed

-'\vO i 11 ideally transplanting ourselves to that foretime when the

thinking faculty was more creative, and when in the designation

,-v K &/ ' and expression of its ideas it moved more freely and with the

elasticity of genius. But if speech answers to thought, and if

t* -^ '"language itself is Tmt a true copy, a shifting diorama, a&it were,

. of man's inward self, then (to make use of that oldest record
of the human race, which, as it is better and more natural
than all others, so it also furnishes the best clue for unra-
velling the riddles of olden tradition,) we might well ask

CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES. 403

whether the language of Cain, the accursed vagabond wandering
over the face of the earth, could have been the same as that of
the pious patriarchs and saints of the primeval world, some of
whom, under other names, but in equal honour, arc found men-
tioned in the traditions of the ancient Persians, and the sacred
books of the Hindoos and other Asiatic nations ? Or could it
well have been the same with that of Noah, the second proge-
nitor and the restorer of the human race, whom likewise the
earliest traditionary records of every people recognise and
mention. The family of the Cainites holds no inconsiderable
place in the earliest history of civilisation, and the first work-
ing of metals, and the invention of several useful arts, is ex-
pressly ascribed to them. But still their difference in lan-
guage from the other families of the antediluvian world, and
generally in their whole civil constitution, must have been very-
great and palpably noticeable. And this favours the hypo-
thesis, which in itself is anything but impossible, and deserves
rather to be called highly probable, of several primary lan-
guages, or at least of different epochs in the primaeval speech
of the earliest foretime, which, moreover, serve to indicate so
many natural sections in the progression which the mental
development of the aboriginal family of man observed, and the
shapes which its mode of thinking successively assumed.

Ko\v, if I may venture to suggest the course in which some
such progression may, in idea at least, be projected and traced
in the entire system of the vast multitudes of languages which
exist on the face of the earth, I would set out with the San-
scrit. For this is the best known and understood of the whole
Hindoo family, among which it holds the foremost rank as
the oldest and most complete. To the same class would
belong first of all the old Persian, the Gothic- German, and
the Scandinavian, all of which are most intimately related to
the former ; then the Greek, and the Latin with its many deriva-
tive' - ; and lastly, according to the opinion of competent judges,
nearly the whole of the Slavonic dialects. All these languages,
each in its measure, and in proportion to the cultivation it had
enjoyed, are marked, especially in their earliest stages, by a
very artificial structure and a beautiful grammatical arrange-
ment, but pre-eminently by a highly noble poetic shape, com-
bined with an equal degree of scientific precision. This,
however, is but one family among many others which make
2 D 2

404 CLASSIFICATION OP LANGUAGES.

up the whole system. The latter, however, stand at a far
lower grade of development and perfection. Among those
which, like the Tartaric-Chinese and the African, belong to
the latter class, the highly remarkable dialects of America
occupy an important and characteristic place. The traveller*
best acquainted with the American races and dialects has de-
scribed the former as singularly remarkable for the degradation
to which their mental faculties have fallen below the original
standard, while he speaks of the latter as resembling the relics
of some great ruin or mighty devastation. On this expression
of the famous traveller, which agrees so accurately with the
idea I am here developing, and with the result of my own
investigation into the course of the human mind since the old
and primal times, I am disposed to lay very great stress. For
with him it was the conviction impressed upon his mind by
personal observation alone, unbiassed by any preconceived
opinion or hypothesis favourable to my views . This character
of deep degradation belongs, perhaps, to the better class of
languages, since they present but little analog} 7 to each other
in their material elements, and admit scarcely of any classi-
fication. At least it forms a distinctive mark of them, and
awakens a melancholy impression.

The Egyptian, which, since the partial deciphering of Jts
hieroglyphics, is no longer totally inaccessible, belongs, I think,
to this second class. In it, however, it holds a very important
place, and is eminently distinguished. For its hieroglyphical
mode of Avriting, by combining the alphabetical with the sym-
bolical mode of indication, gave it consequently great liberty
of choice among the different phonetic figures which might
stand for the same alphabetic character, so that the phonetic
word was, as it were, invested with a symbolical garb, and
all alike assumed an hieroglyphical tone. Some of the Greeks
regarded the hieroglyphical as the oldest of all human lan-
guages ; and indeed that sombre melancholy which seems to
reign in all the monuments of ancient Egypt, might well be
regarded as a silent witness to the great event of the ruin of
a primaeval world.

In order to complete our subject, the Hebrew still remains
for a general notice in that brief review which alone our limits

* Alexander von Humboldt.

THE HEBREW LANGUAGE. 405

admit of. We must, however, give such a characteristic view
of it as will enable us correctly to determine the place which
it is to assume among the rest. Apparently, it stands isolated
by itself, belonging altogether to neither of the two classes
we have described. It seems to favour the conjecture, that
a new and peculiar class is necessary to embrace all the phe-
nomena in this first and oldest epoch of language. This,
then, with the two already considered, will form three classes.
In its radical words the Hebrew exhibits only a slight relation-
ship to the Indo-European family. This, however, on further
examination, will probably be found to be still more con-
siderable. For it is often impossible to recognise it at once
beneath a totally different grammatical form and structure,,
and it is, moreover, withdrawn from immediate notice by the
difference 'of its predominant mental tendency. We know,
however, as an historical fact, that the Phoenician, which,
differed from the Hebrew only as one dialect from another,
was not without some connexion with the Greek, on which
it exercised no inconsiderable influence. Now, with respect,
to the peculiar character of the Hebrew, everything in it
is directed to the attainment of the highest vividness and
profound significance. This is even the case with its gram-
matical principle, which makes all its other terms, whether
names of objects or qualities, subordinate to the verb. The
triplicity also of the roots, which, with very few exceptions,
consist of three letters which again for the most part consti-
tute as many syllables was assuredly not without a significant
design, and possessed collaterally a certain mystic allusion.
In its profound significancy and compressed brevity in its
figurative boldness and prophetical inspiration, far more than
in any chronological precedence of antiquity, consists the
peculiar character and high prerogative of the Hebrew. On
the other hand, it is somewhat inferior to many others, as, for
example, the Greek, in poetical forms and shape, in richness
and variety of development, and in precision of scientific
diction. In its essential character, the Hebrew language is
prophetical, like the people itself, even in the present evil
days of their dispersion the people in whom the living word
of the twofold ancient prophecy, now that the Jews have
handed it over to the Gentiles, has first attained its perfect
accomplishment.

406 LANGUAGE THE PICTURE OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS.

The whole system of the languages of man is but the
external and visible copy and true mirror of his inmost con-
sciousness. The different epochs of their ancient production
are but so many terms in the progression observed by the
human mind in its development. Consequently, language in
general, as the clue of memory and tradition which binds
together all nations in their chronological series and succes-
sion, is, as it were, the common memory and organ of recol-
lection for the whole human race. It is only in this relation,
which is certainly important, and also essential to the problem
before us, that I have thought it allowable to enter upon this
episode. Many of the particulars may perhaps have been
unattractive enough. Still I trust that the general result,
as throwing light upon the origin, or rather, the historical rise
and oldest development of language, has proved universally
interesting, even though at most it has but suggested matter
for future meditation.

'This result may be expressed or briefly comprised in the
? ollowing words : on our side of that obscure interval or great
chasm which separates us from the hidden and inaccessible
history of the first formation of language, the first grade in
its growth is indicated by a deep state of decline and a

melancholy sense of the fact. And yet^yen_from_lhi& state

a highly significant art is not altogether excluded, sinrp we
see it expressing itself in the beautiful symbols of the figu-
rative language of Egypt. The second step in the further
development of human speech is formed by the lofty Jlight
which the poetic spirit took in the ancient languages, whicE
greatly excel all others in beauty of form and perfection of
structure, in richness of poetical ornament, and perspicuity
of scientific precision. Some of the oldest fragments in those
languages are also marked with a peculiarly beautiful tone of
sacerdotal solemnity, as is the case with many a relic from,
the earliest period of the Latin.

But the fuller and higher initiation in divine lore, and a
bold, religious enthusiasm, form another and a peculiar grade
in the historical development of language ; and this was the
third step that it took in this earliest and primaBval time.
And, as a proof that the characteristic just alluded to is not
derived solely from the spirit and tone of the holy writings
of the Hebrews, and that I have not, without further corro-

LANGUAGE THE COMMON MEMORY OF MANKIND. 407

boration, transferred it at once to language in general, I will
add one more remark, tending to show that in some degree
it has it* foundation in the very nature and grammatical struc-
ture of human speech .itself. In the Arabic, which in many
other respects is closely akin to the Hebrew, many of these
characteristic properties may likewise be traced, even though
the Arabians at a very early date, turning aside from, the
simple faith of the old patriarchs, gave themselves up to the
superstitions of magic and astrology, and, since the times of
Mahomet, have been animated with an inextinguishable and
fanatical hatred of a profounder truth of godliness and the
religion of love.

I called language in general as being the storehouse of ,
tradition where it lives on from nation to nation, and as being
the clue of material and spiritual connexion which joins century
to century the common memory of the human race. Now,
it is this faculty of memory which I would now seek to give
a more precise characteristic of. For the present seems its
appropriate place in our series of psychological inquiries,
according to the relative position which it holds in the general
system of the mental faculties. Before entering upon this
topic, however, the position that language must not be
thought of as being in the first instance produced piecemeal
by the concretion of several atomistic and unconnected parts,
but as moulded in one cast, and in its totality, similarly to
a poetical or other creation of art, requires proof and cor-
roboration. For this purpose then I would bring to your
remembrance a fact or phenomenon which is closely connected
with the investigation into the nature of memory, though it
involves a marvellous leap of the memory, or at least of its
usual method of operation : I am alluding to what by an old
phrase is called the gift of languages or that_iiatunil gift by
which certain individuals seem enabled to enter all at once
into the spirit and structure of foreign languages, and that not
merely in the case of very simple ones, but even the highly
cultivated and artificial languages of modern Europe.

This phenomenon of the soul transporting itself or, as it
wore, transported all tit once into a language previously quite
strange to it, so as to understand any spoken or written com-
position in it, is certainly not one of ordinary occurrence ; and,
in truth, whenever it manifests itself strongly and decidedly,

408 MEMORY.

it closely borders on the marvellous. Still it is a fact suffi-
ciently well known, and neither unheard of nor rare. On the
other hand, the higher and active case of the same phenomenon,
which is marked, not merely by the understanding but also by
the speaking of a language never before learnt, and which was
meant by the gift of tongues in the old sense, is certainly a
really miraculous fact. But even this is acknowledged and
believed, and there is no sufficient reason for calling in ques-
tion the ancient witnesses to the fact, merely on account of
the nature of it.

For

__ __

however subordinate this faculty may in other respects appear,
relatively to those which everywhere make prominent claim
to the spontaneous burst of genius, still, even in the case of
memory, its first spring and origin is often veiled and inexpli-
cable, and it presents many points of view leading to pro-
foundest questioning and suggesting grave investigation.

In our psychological survey of the whole human mind, we
set out with its four leading faculties, as arranged under the
two contrarieties of understanding and will, of reason and
fancy. Besides these four leading faculties, there are several,
perhaps just as many others, derived indeed from the former,
but still not so much subordinate to them (for in another rela-
tion they appear equally important and not less essential than
them) as rather co-ordinate with them and having a peculiar
function assigned to them. Of these I have in my former
Lectures analysed and described the conscience as the moral
instinct for right and wrong, when I named it the reason
applied to the will, or rather, as I preferred to consider it, as
a peculiar and independent faculty, intermediate between
reason and will, and being an immediate feeling and judgment
as to what is good and evil in human desires and actions.
jjgw? just-as conscience is a mean between reason and will, so
is memory intermediate between reason and understanding.
With both of them it is closely connected. Memory, on the
one hand, is the treasure-house of the understanding ; indeed, it
is the understanding hitherto acquired and worked out, now laid
and stored up. On the other hand, as the clue and thread of
recollection, memory furnishes that ground and principle of
association in the consciousness, on which reason itself and
its exercise is dependent. So entirely is this the case, that

INNATE IDEAS AND FORMS OF THOUGHT. 409

the partial or total loss of memory from sickness or old age,
though producing no derangement of the reason, is neverthe-
less followed by a partial decline and slowness of rational
thought, which occasionally amounts to a general deadening and
extinction of the rational faculty. The close connexion
between memory and understanding is especially visible in
children, in whom the first faint opening of intellect is gene-
rally simultaneous with the first apperception of self and
retention of external impressions or signSj_ The under-
standing is that thinking and cognition of individuals, which
is even the act of intellection. Consequently the individual
mark and characteristc sign in the function of memory be-
longs to the understanding ; but the combining link between
these individual conceptions or signs their permanent asso-
ciation is the reason's share in memory; for the latter is
the knowing and consciousness which, in the coherent whole
of associated and illative thought, is conversant about general
notions.

And here arises a question similar to that which we started
in our investigation of language. Must we assume, at the
first awakening and hidden spring of memory, a divine im-
pulse, so to speak, or a higher foundation for it from before
the beginning of this terrestrial existence ? Or, indeed, since on
this subject many theories have been started of old, and are
ever springing up, to retain a place among the world's
floating opinions, what are we to think of these views, tested
by that knowledge of our inmost consciousness which the
observation of life furnishes ? How far do our feelings and
reflections justify or limit them ? Among these opinions
is the hypothesis revived by Leibnitz, of innate ideas, or
rather, according to the most recent exposition of it, of certain
forms of thought essential to the reason, existing, antece-
dently to experience, in its fundamental scheme, and, as it
were, engraven in it. Now all such opinions, whatever varia-
tions they may present, arise without exception from the
Platonic notion of the anamnesis possessed by the soul from a
previous existence, and, moreover, they agree with the dogma
of the metempsychosis, which, Indian in its origin, is, how-
ever, widely diffused among other nations also.

A real and actual pre-existence, however, of the human
soul, as it does not admit of any historical proof, so is it not

410 INNATE IDEAS AND FORMS OF THOUGHT.

easily reconcilable with, our own feelings, nor with our general
sentiments on the relation we stand in to God and the divine
economy in the government of the world. And as for the
ancient belief in the migration of souls, it cannot, however
remarkable for its wide diffusion, be regarded in any other light
than an arbitrary creation of fancy and a kind of mythology of
the soul. Moreover, with regard to the theory of essential forms
of thought impressed on the reason antecedently to all expe-
rience and prior to the first awakening of consciousness, it is
based on a view of the reason which would make it a universal
receptacle of the thought, divided into greater and less cham-
bers and compartments. It is thus made the residuum or
dead precipitate of the natural functions of the living cogita-
tion, and of the law of life which rules therein, which, thus
arranged in rank and row, are placed before us, like the dried
specimens of a herbarium, or like the butterflies pinned to the
entomologist's case, from each of which, however, amidst
the mechanical arrangement, the true, delicate, light-winged
Psyche has long since flown away. And since in philosophy our
first object must be to seize, if possible, the living thought in
its very life, and to give to it also a living expression, or at least
to paint it after the life, it is not easy to see to what end this so
circumstantial procedure is to lead. The whole hypothesis, in
short, seems useless and superfluous. As to the principle or
hypothesis of innate ideas, which in truth requires to be kept
perfectly distinct from the one previously considered, it is
quite conceivable that it may be a right method for the artist,
who is ever in pursuit of the ideal, and in some cases also for
the thinker, to present to his mind the object of his concep-
tion, and which he is seeking ideally to manifest, such as with
a similar end it would appear before and be contemplated by
the divine mind. At any rate, such a mode of thought would
greatly facilitate the execution of his ideal conception. But
if what is meant by this theory is an antecedent intellectual
intuition of the pure ideas in the divine mind, then we are
brought again to the difficult and debatable hypothesis of an
actual pre-existence. Moreover, when we go into details, and
attempt to apply this theory to particular instances, we are
at once involved in the greatest perplexity. For what, even
in the department of art, are we to understand by the inborn
idea of a noble, wide-spreading tree, of a beautiful flower, a

TIME AND ETERNITY. 411

grand and well-proportioned architectural edifice, or other
monument ? or a vigorous animal, or noble human form ? and
what meaning, in the domain of practical life, would it convey,
to talk of the innate idea of a skilful general, or of a M'ise finan-
cier? We cannot, indeed, imagine to what good end this
hypothesis can serve or lead, and consequently, as soon as it
is taken for anything more than a mere figure of thought, it
involves us in new, if it does not entangle us again in the
old, inextricable difficulties.

The question, however, admits of a more general sense..,
Without supposing that there is inborn in the human soul a
whole system of notions and forms of thought, a whole world,
in short, of all possible ideas, may there not have been im-
parted to it from above a higher gift, which naturally is only
called into action simultaneously with the awakening of the
rest of the human mind, or of the mind generally ? If so, would
it not appear to the soul in the form of a memory, and in a
certain sense be really such, though, indeed, not so much a
memory of the past as of eternity ? This is a question,
which, advanced in this sense, cannot, I think, be absolutely
negatived. _Not that any essential necessity or actual ground
exists for it, but that, carefully guarded by certain limitations,
it is an hypothesis that may, without hesitation, be assumed
or conceded. Can it, in truth, well be doubted that every
spiritual being created by infinite love, has had imparted to him
a share in the source of eternal love, which is to remain his
for ever, or so long at least as the connexion with the supreme
source of his being is not violently broken and rent asunder ?
If, then, such a portion is to remain for ever the property of
every created spiritual being, it must assume a definite place
in his consciousness, and in the development of the latter
manifest itself in its due place. As regards indeed the human
soul, this supposition can with less justice be denied, the more
universally and pre-eminently the prerogative of a high degree
of resemblance to the divine image is ascribed to it.

Now this_rjarticipation in God, as the primary source of
eternal love, which abides for ever in the human soiil, and
which becomes extinct in one extreme case alone this divine
endowment of the human consciousness from above can only
be thought of and described as the recollection of eternal
love ; and this, moreover, is the only innate idea in the human
mind which it is possible or allowable to assume.

412 TIME AND ETERNITY.

The thought of an original recollection in man, which pro-
perly is not of a mere foretime, but of eternity, but which in
all propriety still admits of being termed a recollection, has
brought us to the notion of time and eternity, and to the ques-
tion of their reciprocal relation of which the true and correct
view is probably very different from that which commonly pre-
vails. But this is a topic which, for its further and complete
elucidation, demands a special investigation.

END OF LECTURE III.

413

LECTURE IV.

THE idea of a pre-existence of the soul in an earlier and
different state of being from the present, is a delusion and
groundless hypothesis, arbitrarily tacked on to Plato's doctrine
of the anamnesis or of innate ideas. As such, it is calculated
to involve us in innumerable difficulties. I have, however,
endeavoured to show that the doctrine itself is distinct from,
and can be kept separate from, this arbitrary admixture.
Stripped of all extraneous additions, the essential parts of
this Platonic doctrine of a higher memory have always pos-
sessed a powerful attraction for many deep thinkers and
noble minds. From its first author down to Leibnitz, it
has made a deep and lasting impression, which has ever
enabled it from time to time to recover its ascendancy.
In its purer sense and more simple and legitimate view,
we may, I asserted, understand by it no completely life-
less and mechanical system of all the possible ideas which
reason may evolve in the human mind, antecedently arranged
and classified^JbuJL-aiL-idea of his divine origin innate or im-
planted -in. his mind, which cannot be otherwise or more
simply indicated, than by the expression we have chosen to
designate it of a recollection of eternal love. But this recol-
lection, I affirmed, is not so much the remembrance merely
of some special past, which would again lead us to an actual
pre-existence of the human soul, as a remembrance of eternity ;
and it is in this light that the whole idea must be regarded,
if it is to be allowed any force. Now, this gives rise to and
calls for a closer investigation into the mutual relation and
whole conception of time and eternity.

This faculty of remembrance is of an entirely different kind
from the ordinary exercise and function of memory. This state,
this quality or power of the soul, or whatever else it may be
called, might be appropriately termed a transcendental memory,
if it were not out of season, or if any advantage would be
gained by renewing the already half-forgotten and involved
terminology of the philosophic schools of the last generation.

414 TIME AND ETERNITY. TIME TWOFOLD.

Yet this would but be a change of name for the self-same idea
and object, which at best could only serve to exhibit more
distinctly and clearly, and from many points of view, what-
ever is peculiar in the nature of such an unusual idea, or its
new and unusual sense, as well as the proper and difficult
focus of inquiries and investigations of this nature. But the
point upon which depends the decision of the whole matter,
or rather, from which alone its right explanation can and
must proceed, is, as already stated, the mutual relation between
time and eternity, and a just conception of both.

Usually, or at least oftentimes, eternity is explained and
understood as being the entire cessation, the perfect non-
existence and unconditional negation of all time. But this
would involve at the same time the negation of life and all
living existence, ( + )* so that nothing would remain but an
absolute negative, which is a void entity and perfect nullity.

In place of the endless contradictions to which all negation
generally, and especially the absolute negation of time, cannot
but lead in place of that to which the English poet's phrase of
" darkness visible" is applicable, I would offer a description of
the idea of eternity, which may perhaps render it less incompre-
hensible. Eternity., as I should define it, is the all-embracing,
completely complete time, which is infinite not only " a p.arte
external i. e., ever passing, yet everlasting, without beginning,,
and without end, but also infinite " a parte internd " so Jhat
in the endlessly Living, thoroughly luminous present, and in
the blissful consciousness thereof, the whole past, and also the
whole future, are equally actual, equally clear, and equally
present to us as the very present itself. For can we form any
other conception of a state of bliss ? Nay, is not this idea
of the fulness of time entirely one and the same, and exactly
coincident with that state which at least we are able to think
of, and indeed cannot well avoid thinking of ? and is not this
also the only form of existence applicable to the divine con-
sciousness, on the assumption and belief not of any mere
divine essence, but of an actual living and self-conscious God-
head? That, at least, the idea of time is not absolutely
' excluded from the life and essence or the operations of the
living God of revelation, there exists in the latter abundant

* The passages thus indicated were marked by Schlegel himself for
revision.

TIME NOT EXCLUDED FROM THE IDEA OP GOD. 415

indication, testimony,, and proof. Almost all the expres-
sions there chosen for this matter allude to that full and
divine time, in which yesterday and to-morrow are as to-day,
and " a thousand years as one day/' and many others which
convey the same idea, but in no ways apply to the false notion
pfeternity^ which makes it the absolute negation of all time.
Tnlfvery Hebrew name of God furnishes a confirmation of
this assertion. And I may here indulge myself with producing
it, since we shall be able to accomplish this object without
entering into an analysis of the language itself, and its sense
can be made perfectly clear according to the sense of our own
language, without any circumlocution or periphrase.

In the sacred volume of the Old Testament, two names are
used to designate the Supreme Being. The one is perfectly
general, and signifies the idea of God or the Deity absolutely,
being also applied to the gods of the heathen, and occasionally
employed simply to signify angels and spirits. The other,
however, is exclusively given to the true and living God of
revelation. This word is derived from a Hebrew root, which
signifies " to be," or rather, since we can hardly expect to
find in these ancient languages, and in the primary significa-
tions of the radical words, the idea of a simple abstract exis-
tence, it means life, a positive living existence. In one place
this name, which is made up of four letters, is explained and
interpreted as signifying " I am that I am," or more accu-
rately, " I am that I shall be." Now, this is as much as to
say, the true and living God of revelation, He who from the
beginning has manifested forth His glory in creation, and who
ever since is continually manifesting Himself, internally, at
least, to the whole human race and to each individual, though
in truth often unattended to and little regarded, and who will
still more gloriously reveal Himself in the end of time, that
is, of this earthly duration and period of change, or as it is
expressed in Sacred Writ, in the fulness of time, or when
time itself shall be accomplished.

Now here it is evident the idea of time is not absolutely
excluded from a conception of the essence and operations of
God. On the contrary, this description involves the idea of
full and complete time, which lasts from eternity to eternity,
and to the height of which, when the hour shall have come,
that is to say, at the final consummation this our earthly

416 TIME AND ETERNITY NOT IRRECONCILABLE.

time, in whose fetters this our world of sense is now held, shall
be raised and glorified.

The question, therefore, is properly to determine whether
there exists such an absolute opposition between time and
eternity that it is impossible for them to subsist in any mutual
contact or relation, but the one necessarily leads to the nega-
tion of the other, or whether, at least, there is not some con-
ceivable transition from the one to the other. Now in the
former view, since the absolute, universally, and most espe-
cially absolute thinking as well as absolute willing, forms the
destructive principle in life, there lies, perhaps, the first source,
not only of false systems, but also of the metaphysical pre-
judices which man's intellect nourishes, and especially of all
the deeply-rooted, inborn, or hereditary errors of the reason.
On the other hand, according to the theory on which our
present speculations are based, both time and eternity are not
incompatible with or in hostile and irreconcilable opposition to
each other. Their ideas do not mutually destroy each other.
Certain definite connecting links and points of contact and
transition exist between them. The contrariety is not an
incomprehensibly absolute one of eternal negation, but rather
a living one, similar to the distinction between life and death,
or that between evil and good. So long as we believe in a
great and irreconcilable contrariety between time and eternity,
such as at the first delusive aspect they present themselves,
we cannot hope to extricate ourselves from the labyrinth in
which external things and our own internal reflections involve
the mind. This can only be effected by the idea of a two-
fold time, such as it is our purpose accurately to define and
bring before you. And this notion of a twofold time arises
from the difference between the one perfect and blissful time,
which is nought else than the inner pulse of life in an ever-
flowing eternity, without beginning and without end, and that
other time which is prisoned and fettered in this lower w^>rld
of sense, where the stern present alone is prominent, and
lords it over all else with despotic sway the past being lost
in darkness and sunk in the night of death ; while the future,
now advancing, now receding, hovers like a shadow, in an
I obscure, glimmering, and deceptive twilight, until the now bril-
liant present passes away, and in its turn becomes as nothing,
being buried in the darkness of death, which shrouds all past

THE WORLD ETERNAL : IN WHAT SENSE. 417

and former existence. And as there is a twofold time, so also
may we, in relation to God and the world, distinguish a two-
fold eternity. Let us, for this purpose, contemplate the whole
creation, including not only this visible world of sense, but
also the invisible world of spirits, either in its original per-
fection, which it possessed when it issued unsullied from the
hand of the Creator, or even in that state of perfection, which,
glorified and perfected, and become imperishable, it is to enjoy
when the course of earthly time shall have run out, and when
there shall be no more death.

Now, relatively to_ either its original perfection or_that tp__
which it is finally to be restored, we cannot better designate
the universe than by terming it the created, while God is the
uncreated eternity. The world, however, accordmgT6~w1ia1r
we know uf-itrfrom revelation, is not absolutely such. JLt is
eternal only from one point of view, that, namely, which looks
forward to its everlasting, continuous, and blessed duration,
and not from that of its first origin. For the world (if it
was, as we are taught, created out of nothing,) had a beginning
a precise beginning which took place in time. And this
fact, again, suggests and confirms the remark how the idea
of time, which is unquestionably involved in that of the
beginning of the universe, is not absolutely excluded from the
essence and operations of the Godhead, at least of the living
and personal God of revelation. On this point, however, I
would wish to say no more than this : here is the decisive
point two distinct, opposite, or diverging paths lie before
us, and man must choose between them. The clear-seeing
spirit, "which in its sentlmenlsT thoughts, and views of life,
would be in accordance with itself, and would act consistently
to them, must in any case take one or the other. Either
there is a living God, full of love, even such a one as love
seeks and yearns after, to whom faith clings, and in whom all
our hopes are centered (and such is the personal God of reve-
lation) : and on this hypothesis, the world is not God, but is
distinct from him. having had a beginning, and being created
out of nothing. Or there is only one supreme form of existence,
and the world is eternal, and not distinct from God; there. is
absolutely but one, and this eternal one comprehends all, and
is itself all in all ; so that there is nowhere any real and essential
distinction ; and even that which is alleged to exist between evil

418 TIME AND ETERNITY.

and good is only a delusion of a narrow-minded system of ethics,
or of conventional prejudices, that man allows to pass~as~suc&,
and holds externally in honour, but which intrinsically, and as
tested by the rigour of science, has no real and substantial
import. Now the necessity of this choice and determination
presses urgently upon our own time, which stands midway
between two worlds. Generally it is between these two paths
alone that the decision is to be made, since all the doubts and
opinions which branch off between them are nothing more
than the still unsettled oscillations, assuming in appearance a
fixed scientific shape, or a vague mixture of narrow and im-
perfec^ views, which are just as far from having taken any pre-
cise form or determination. But the choice between them must
be perfectly free. No one's conviction can be forced to adopt
either one or the other. For that which is to constitute the
inmost sentiment and thought of a man, or the first, last, and
deepest foundation of all his sentiments, does not admit of
being imposed upon him extrinsically as the condition of con-
troversial defeat, without his own internal consent and agree-
ment. It cannot enforce his assent as easily as a mere process
of calculation.

But now, if eternity is nothing else than time, vitally full,
illimitably perfect, and blissfully complete, who, we may ask,
first of all caused or produced this earthly, fettered, and
fragmentary time, which seems but the great bond-chain of
the whole world of sense, -and what, then, is this time itself?
j I might answer this latter question by the words of the poet,
that it " is out of joint." * For although originally em-
ployed of a particular period of history, they admit, I think,
of a more extensive and universal signification, and possess
an entirely metaphysical application. And what, in short,
is metaphysics, or what do we name metaphysical, but
that which transcends our ordinary nature and the earthly
and limited world of sense? And man cannot abandon or
get rid of all hopes, all prospects of eternity, in short, the
thoughts which, partly, at least, outrun these narrow limits.
For if so, he must at the same time be willing to cease to be
a man, in the full, and true, and highest sense of the word.
Consequently, as often as he adventures a bolder flight of

* Shakspeare. Hamlet, Act I. Scene V.

TIME AND ETERNITY. 419

thought agdjnquiry into, that elevated region, then his words
and phrases must also transcend the familiar sense and ordi-
nary use of language.

I would not, however, be understood as asserting that the
language of philosophy, in its descriptions of supersensuous
things and ideas, should anxiously avoid all living expression
and everything lifelike. ( + ) For, in strict rigour this is neither
possible nor practicable, and in any case would lead to a mere
abstract nothingness. On the contrary, the more vivid, the
more striking, and apparently startling, the more boldly figu.
rative and rare, are the terms or forms of expression employed,
the more pertinently and clearly do they often convey our
meaning, and the more happily chosen and to the point do
they appear.

In proof and confirmation of this assertion, I would appeal
to the language of Holy Writ. Most if not all its descriptions
of matters belonging to the invisible world, and the super-
sensuous regions of thought, or metaphysical subjects, if we
could still recall or still experience the first fresh impression,
would at once be confessed to be the boldest that language
nas ever ventured upon. Long familiarity, however, has made
them seem ordinary and tame. And it is necessaiy to contem-
plate them long and intensely, if we would revive their original
fulness and peculiar significancy. In a very recent epoch of
science, there prevailed a somewhat similar view of this subject.
In Lessing especially it is traceable. For, as often as he
entered this region of inquiry, he for the most part designedly
employed a free and bold style of language, similar to that which
occasionally I have attempted myself to adopt. Now, if it be
allowable in this way to apply to time poetical phrases, simi-
lar to the one above quoted of " Time out of joint,'' giving
them at the same time a more universal and entirely meta-
physical sense, I would, in the further consideration of the
whole question as to tune, advance the following remarks.

eternity is essentially nothing else than the fulness of
time, which consequently is in itself complete and blissful, then
the time which, is " out of joint," the deranged and distracted
time of sense^ jsjoought but eternity fallen or brought into a
state of disorder. Here, then, the further question presents
itself, " Who can have plunged it into disorder, and perpe-
trated this jarring interference with the primaeval harmony,
2E2

420 PRINCE OF THIS WORLD - SPIRIT OF THE AGE.

disturbing the inner pulse of the world's universal life, which
was originally so sound?" According to one of those two
views which I so lately spoke of as lying before men to choose
between, all this is but a deception a mere illusion, produced
by the imperfection of our senses. Even pain and misfortune,
equally with what is called evil, exist only for the poetical
purpose of creating, by the skill and spirit with which they
are treated, transient, overpowering impressions, which are
ultimately to give place to more elevating emotions. But in the
other view, which is here adopted as our fundamental convic-
tion, the answer is easily found. Or rather, it is one long
since given, and generally known. Since .all JJie xleinenlary
forces and original powers in creation can only be regarded
as spiritual ; therefore, the power or might which threw both
time and existence, universal life and the whole world, into
disorder, could have been no other than the spirit of absolute
negation which rose in revolt against the primary source both
of itself and of all. The power and influence of this spirit of
eternal contradiction and endless destruction, which in an-
other place I designated the inventor of death, cannot lx)
rightly deemed either slight or insignificant, if he be with
justice entitled " the Prince and Ruler of this world." By
this term we cannot understand any so-called " spirit ol the
age." Not, at least, in the ordinary sense of the term, in
which it signifies the spirit which has originally arisen out of
the age itself, and in its sphere brilliantly predominant, but
which at the same time transcends in some way that sphere,
either blending itself with some equally great, if not still
more exalted, past, or with some new and future era. For
with all its excellence of greatness, it is still perhaps partial
and narrow in its views ; and in any case, so soon as the parti-
cular age shall be over, it too will finally pass away and decline
with it. It is rather the very spirit that originally introduced
the whole of that disjointed time. It is, therefore, the author
of this fallacious world of sense, the supreme ruler and imi-
" versal king of all the several periods and eras which belong to

it, and are so linked together, that as one succeeds and passes
into the other, all of them in succession are finally absorbed-iii-
the general abyss of eternal nothingness. Consequently is it the
supreme lord ; all these so-called spirits of the times which are
derived from the primary and supreme spirit of the age, being,

LOUD BYRON S CAIN FATALISM. 421

so to speak, his absolute subjects and ministers. .Now the
belief iu such a spiritual power of evil, and even the idea
of it. simply and nakedly as in other times it is presented
to us, is almost wholly lost sight of in the present day.
The expressions of a former faith for what it is now the
fashion to call " the spirit of the age" have become anti-
quated, and make but little impression, being for the most
part scarcely even regarded, or else ingeniously explained
away, if not derided from the height of a superior enlighten-
ment. Amidst the killing monotony of a sleepy scepticism
into which men's views of the world and things had fallen,
and as contrasted with a philosophy, neutral from its origin,
and finally indifferent to everything, the celebrated English
author of Cain makes a gratifying exception by his vigorous
and vivid language, giving at least honour where honour is
due* and calling things by their right names. Accordingly,
he paints to the life the king of the spirits of the everlasting
abyss and the ruler of this world, in all his majesty of dark
ness, so that we often wonder whence he could have derived all
the tints and touches of truth, and are almost tempted to ask
whether this striking portrait, thus executed with a genius
and fidelity surpassing all similar poetical delineations, does
not owe much if not all its truth to a personal acquaint-
ance.

But, however., this deadly spirit of absolute negation, though
the name be now scarcely ever heard except in poetiy, has
not the