Chapter XXV: Preface: Of the German Editor (8)

Now this idea of science, which points to it as possible and actually attainable, and which also in fact leads us to it, rests on two assumptions. It implies, in the first place, that man must continually advance to a fuller understanding of a given truth, and, having the capacity, is also able to do so, if only he has a real and abiding wish for it. How, indeed, can it in general be doubted, that we are not absolutely incapable of understanding any given truth, when the very fact of its being given implies it in some degree at least, however limited, and when the very apprehension of the given matters forms a beginning, it may be a very imperfect one, of understanding? But, in the second place, the idea of an actually attainable science rests on the assumption that we are in a condition to recognize as such, and in its true light, the error which springs up every where in the human mind, and by so doing to emancipate ourselves, if not from every trace of its former influence, yet, at least, from its absolute dominion and tyranny. And since in this field of human errors we are at least at home, there can be no obstacle to our taking a full and complete survey of them, and taking the exact measure of their shallowness. This requisition, as well as the possibility of its accomplishment, is fundamentally involved in that old Grecian maxim, “Know thyself,” when interpreted in its more scientific sense. And in truth there is no ground to doubt its possibility, if only a firm footing--the ποὑ ςὡ of Archimedes--can be found for us out of ourselves and of the ordinary state of the human consciousness. And such a stable point is actually found and provided for us in the revelation of a higher truth than man’s. That a recognition of error as such is possible, and thereby the emancipation of the mind from its slavery may be facilitated, will be best and most clearly evidenced by actual experiment. We must, then, try to assign to each single faculty of the consciousness, in its present degraded and distracted state, the essential scientific error which peculiarly clings to and besets its exercise, or at least to point out the tendency thereto which is deeply rooted therein. And such an experiment may be made successfully, if we take up our position in the high point of view furnished by a consciousness restored again to unity and harmony in God. Now, from this point of view it is, no doubt, impossible, as we have already remarked, to assume or concede the existence of innate ideas--at least, not in the usual and literal sense. Innate errors, however, may well naturally be assumed to exist in the first degraded state of the human mind. Not, indeed, that there rules in them any blind inevitable necessity, but, rather, a false tendency--an evil habit become a second nature--which is only in appearance an original imperfection. And such have been often enough recognized in the illusions of imagination and the narrow limits of the reason; only the recognition has not been complete and total enough, and, consequently, not sufficiently explanatory. Indeed, the notion of scientific error, as innate in the human mind, must be taken exactly in the same light as the moral weakness and frailty of man in his present condition--as being, in short, peculiar to the whole race, and transmitted, as an inheritance, from generation to generation.

Now, to the knowledge of error, as such, is opposed the recognition of truth--the higher, that is, divinely revealed truth. And this perception it is that furnishes the stable point of intrinsic certainty to every species and form of human cognition. But here the question might arise naturally enough: How can man recognize a truth, which, nevertheless, is revealed to him from without, making himself thereby, as it were, at once its master and its judge? How, in other words, can he, as it were, know again that which is now first given to him, and which previously he was not in possession of. In this matter the case stands almost exactly the same as it does with innate ideas, which are not to be understood literally as involving the hypothesis of a pre-existence of the soul--and as it does with that eternal memory which, as connected with the theory of innate ideas, rightly and more correctly interpreted, is both justifiable and tenable. If man is to be declared totally incapable of this recognition of divine truth, then must he be first stripped of all the high prerogatives which the Almighty has bestowed upon him above the rest of the natural creation. The very last trace and vestige of the divine image that is in him must be erased and destroyed. Among these endowments, that which we may well call the dangerous privilege of free will holds neither the last nor the lowest place. God created man free, and free he is even in his relation to God. It is left to man’s choice, whether he will or not acknowledge the Deity above him. But this being the case, this free and unconstrained acknowledgment, so far as the choice is rightly made, by no means involves any exaltation of man’s judgment above the law of God. On the contrary, it is nothing more than a free and voluntary assent to the divine. However, it is the inward experience that we have here to consider. For the facts and external data of mere experimental sciences can only so far belong to our present consideration, as they bear upon the inner experience of the consciousness and the knowledge of human nature--as well upon that more exalted experience (which is indeed contained in the former) of a higher destination imported and announced to man by God. And this is the case with history or language. It is exactly in this relation that a scientific knowledge of either stands to our present subject. But not only language, but every object also in the whole domain of human inquiry--in the vast realms of art and nature--belongs thereto, or may be made a part of it, if only it stands in or admits of being brought into this relation to the inward and higher experience. Now this understanding of the truth that is above man, which is ever growing in clearness and brightness--this perfect recognition of whatever is erroneous and false--this ever-advancing comprehension of the actual, so far as the latter lies within its limits, form the three grades or spheres of science which, even according to this idea of it, may unquestionably be regarded as possible, and founded also on the actual and real.

The latter is an important point; as to all else, the different ways, methods, and directions of thought belong to the outward form, rather than to the intrinsic essence of science. Essentially, there is but one law and standard for all ways and modes of thinking. The necessary thought of the reason, with its strict logical concatenation, no less than the possible thinking of the scientific imagination, with its generally symbolical dress, must, if it would not lapse into error, and become ultimately null and vain, adhere to the actual and real, and stand and maintain itself on the firm soil of experience. It is only when the necessary cogitation sets out from reality that it is truly necessary; and in like manner is it with the possible. If it does not rest on the firm basis of the actual, it is not really possible and actually attainable. Without this intrinsic gravity and point of rest, the mathematical method, with its pretended rigor of demonstration, no less than the most ingenious but arbitrary hypotheses, are perpetually oscillating through the wide realms of infinite space--like pure fictions--not, however, like good fictions based on realities, for such often possess a deep and profound significance, but like thoroughly unmeaning and aimless figments, and unsubstantial phantasms. Against the intrinsic reality of the mind’s experience and its science, which is built upon this foundation of a recognition and understanding of what is revealed and imparted to it, of an acknowledgment of what is spurious and false, and of a comprehension of the actual and real, all the doubts of skepticism avail little, or, properly speaking, nothing. If, however, we set out from the unconditional science of reason, holding it and considering it really to be such, then there is no longer any safeguard to keep us from falling headlong into the bottomless abyss of endless doubt. In such a case, the human mind may for a time be lulled into a calm, which, however, is any thing but a true and perfect serenity. Between that arbitrary faith which is the mere creation of the reason, and devised for the express purpose of filling the profound void which man must feel so long as his heavenward aspirations are unsatisfied, and the endless doubts of his intellect, there is at best but a temporary and passing truce: it is no true peace. It is like some “_Concordat_,” which, effected with the greatest difficulty, and ever on the point of being dissolved by the mutual jealousy of the contracting parties to it, does but leave each member to follow his own devices, so long as he engages to abstain from all hostile interference with the other. In such a case, a complete and harmonious co-operation of the mind’s hitherto divided and estranged faculties is not for a moment to be thought of. That, however, must be sought by a very different path.

LECTURE VIII.

In the domain of art it is an old and established opinion, not only that a peculiar genius is required for its original creations, but also a special sense or feeling is indispensable for a correct appreciation and estimate of the works produced by the former. Indeed, we can hardly call it an opinion; its validity is so universally acknowledged, that it is acted upon as a principle. In the same way the Platonic philosophy assumes for its foundation an enthusiastic aspiration after divine truth and a higher knowledge of it. Moreover, as it sets out from a consciousness elevated and expanded by enthusiasm, so it looks to the same for access and adoption. And this is the source of that affinity between this species of philosophy and an artistic enthusiasm which is traceable in all ages and nations, however widely different in the general character of their minds, among whom the former has in any degree manifested itself, assuming, every where, if not the shape of dialogue, yet some other equally beautiful form of exposition. Hence, too, so far, at least, as this is possible in the domain of science, the point of view of this philosophy is predominantly artistic. The more, then, that in modern days, and especially among German writers, the school form has become prevalent in science generally, and especially in philosophy, the greater is the merit of those who have striven to give to philosophy this artistic elegance and structure, or, at least, to preserve it and restore it to favor. And even if any be disposed to set less value upon this artistic grace and enthusiasm for the beautiful in philosophy than, in my opinion, is due to it, they must, at least, admit that it tends to promote a more liberal and comprehensive culture of the mind. On this account it is surely to be defended, and deserves our most favorable judgment. This remark does not apply, exclusively, to our own German literature and culture, and that devotion to the arts of the beautiful which is so peculiar to our countrymen; it has a general reference to all modern nations. A more artistic feeling is a universal want of the times to counteract the prevailing school form, and the preponderating mathematical view of the world, or, at least, a predominantly mathematical cast of mind. Accordingly, Hemsterhuys, who, in philosophy, adopted a view similar to, if not identical with, the Platonic, though writing in the French language, which was not his vernacular tongue, has labored with a masterly hand to give to his style the exquisite beauty of art. But still, notwithstanding this common affinity and enthusiasm for the beautiful, a distinction exists, and must ever remain, between the scientific notion of beauty and the mere artistic conception of it, and that fanciful view of the world and things which is derived from and dependent on it. For, according to the latter, the highest beauty is to the poet and artist nothing less than the height of truth, as, indeed, it really is of poetic and artistic truth. But, to the view of science, between the divine and eternal truth and beauty, even the highest beauty, there is, and ever must remain, a certain degree of distance, which, if it do not amount to an interval, is yet, nevertheless, a line of demarkation. Eternal truth is even God himself. And if, occasionally, in the Platonic philosophy, the Prime Being is distinguished and designated as the archetype of beauty, this is but a loose way of speaking, not exactly consistent with scientific accuracy. For, according to the latter, the excellence of beauty is but a perfect mirror, or a pure reflection of eternal perfection, but not eternal perfection itself. Indeed, in order to express its perfect purity from all admixture, and from every the least stain of the sensible world, as well as from every mist of earthly delusion that otherwise might cling to and encircle it, I should prefer to call it the holy beauty, rather than the archetype of beauty, or even the height of beauty. For the latter shifts and varies with the subjective tastes of individuals. One man sees the standard of beauty in an Apollo, another in some other equally sublime and highly-finished god-form of ancient statuary.

What, then, is this beauty, according to the pure and original notion of it, and relatively to reality? For, according to the principle which the philosophy of life assumes, we must trace every thing back to the real and the actual--to the actual and the real of nature and of earth, or else to one that is higher and more spiritual, nay, even Godlike. What place, then, does beauty here hold? what is its relation to the rest of creation, or, still more generally, to the whole created universe and its author? What is it in and by itself, and in truth?

Now, in that sacred language which treats of holy things, and devotes to them well and carefully-weighed expressions and terms, mention is made of a wisdom created in the beginning, and before all time. As, therefore, it is said to be created, it is plain that by it is not meant, and that we must not confound with it, that uncreated and eternal wisdom who is elsewhere called the Almighty Word, by whom the whole system of nature, and all things, were created in their original beauty. Now this created wisdom, which, consequently, as such, is also a creature--what else is it than the thought, the image, the expression and impress of the hidden and internal essence of the Deity--wherein its inapproachable depth and unfathomable abyss are outwardly projected and rendered visible? Is it not, in short, the exact mirror and unsullied reflection of the divine perfections? But, however we may choose to name and describe it, the creature--even though its creation may have been before the whole world, and even before time itself--must always be kept distinct from the uncreated Being of eternity and omnipotence, who, moreover, called the former into existence. Now, if we were to apply to this created wisdom the expression of “a soul of God,” which was formerly employed by a few writers, but which was soon allowed to fall again into disuse, from a dread of the misapprehensions it might possibly lead to, it would give, perhaps, a good sense. It might thus serve to distinguish this, the first of all creatures, in its pure and original beauty, from a mere soul of the world, or of nature, however ideally conceived. Only, in that case, care must be taken to keep in remembrance, that such a mode of speaking can only apply to a creature, and that of such alone is it allowable so to speak. For--in correctness of language and in the true meaning of words--a soul, as being, on the whole, and predominantly, a passive faculty, can not be attributed to God, in whom all is infinite power and pure activity, and who, as such, ever worketh and never ceases in His infinite operations.

It is this, the first of all created things, which, with its pure splendor, lights up in brilliancy whatever in the rest of creation still retains aught of childlike innocence and blessed purity. It is the inner charm, the spiritual flower of nature, the hidden germ of that paradisiacal loveliness which, though veiled in this terrestrial shroud, still gleams forth occasionally. It is even that sacred beauty which fills to the full the true artist’s soul, even though he is never able fully and completely to realize it. It is that for which the thinker, in his inspired enthusiasm, seeks in vain for words and expressions. All the forms and terms of language fail to reach its high excellence. For, in fact, so long as man, holding it to be a pure ideal, regards it as nothing but a thought or notional relation, he can not but fail to seize and apprehend this mystery of love in all its living reality.

And here it is that I would apply the words, already quoted, of a great thinker. They were used by him in reference to his own system of science and philosophy; and though in my application they relate to a very different matter, it is, nevertheless, one which has an intimate bearing on the first science. Slightly modifying his words, then, I would thus say: whether the notion of beauty I have here advanced be for the artist absolutely the right one--_i.e._, whether it be perfectly satisfactory and sufficient, or whether in its special application to a particular branch of art, and in the actual execution of any given work, it requires several intermediate notions and means of transition, and whether, moreover, several elements equally essential must concur therein--that I know not, or at least I make no assertion about it. And indeed, I see clearly enough that even for art and its perfect realization, something else is wanting besides the pure idea of beauty alone. This, however, I do know and am quite certain of, that, viz., the notion of beauty which I have here advanced, and besides which scarcely another will be found, is the true and right Christian notion, of which all the statues of heathen gods, all fantasies of nature, all mental ideas, are but single rays, faint memorials, corporeal images, or mere scattered and mutilated fragments.

The thought, too, of that blissful state in the infancy of creation--when sorrow had as yet no existence, and evil, with its many woes, was not--is a notion not insignificant, but full, rather, of rich influences for the higher and more spiritual aim of art, and especially for the deeper and profounder essence of poetry. I have, indeed, already alluded to this notion; and I revert to it because I feel it is one which does not deserve to be so totally neglected as it usually is. Now, the higher poesy was termed, in consideration of that Godlike idea of eternal hope which predominates in it, the dawn of an uprising morn in the world of intellectual culture and poetic fancy; but at the same time I remarked that it was accompanied by a mournful recollection of a great foretime, long since passed away and departed. Not that this sad backward looking to a lost infantine happiness of the first times is in discord with or in opposition to the hopes of the rising dawn. Rather must it be regarded as in harmony with it. For this feeling is, as it were, the reflection of that hope--the same light thrown back from yet another side--even as the lovely hue of the sky at eventide, and the bright rays of the breaking dawn, make a kindred impression on the fancy. In this respect we might almost venture to say of poetry and its inmost essence, that it is but the spiritual echo of the soul--a sorrowful remembrance of a lost paradise. I do not mean that the latter and its history, such as it is transmitted to us, or even as it has been handled by the English poet, is the only fitting or even a particularly happy subject for poetry. I allude rather to that paradisiacal state of universal nature throughout the whole globe--creation’s state of infantine happiness, before it was ruined by revolt from God.

A note of these paradisiacal remembrances, a sorrowful _memento_ of this heavenly innocence and primal beauty of a new-born world, seems like an inward and animating soul to breathe in--or as a thread of higher and intenser life, to run through--all the songs and exquisite delineations of a more than earthly poesy. Not that this ray of light ought or ever could form by itself the subject-matter of the finished work of any true poet. His subjects are generally, and indeed must be, somewhat more corporeal, being drawn for the most part from history and from life. What I formerly said of divine hope applies here also. Even while the picture of reality which is set forth is worked out most elaborately, with accurate observation of all its little and nicest traits, this purely spiritual and almost unearthly tone ought, nevertheless, to be present. It must be found there as the inner soul of the whole, however veiled beneath the outer world that is portrayed in the story. No work, however, in which this inner thread of life is totally wanting, is or ever will be in its essence more than simple prose, even though in form it be verse. Art it may have unquestionably, and wit, a story, and irony; all in short, that can be wished--any thing but poetry. For, except where its true notion is either already lost or fast disappearing, the idea of poetry can not possibly be separated from that of enthusiasm. The calm, cold poetry of the head, if such can for a moment deserve the name, is to the true inspired poetry of enthusiasm in the same relation that the spurious faith of the pure reason stands in to the living faith of the full feeling which springs out of a profound personal conviction and love.

Now, the full essence of this enthusiasm, which, according to the Platonic notion of it, takes in all things in its embrace, is in the Christian harmonic triad of faith, hope, and love, dissolved, as it were, into its three time-forms. For though faith has its root in the present, still, in every case, it looks backward to some past, whether of an extant or still earlier revelation, which at the same time it embraces and adopts into itself. And even in that faith which admits the revelations of history, or that practical faith which, in the ordinary transactions of life, places its trust in human testimony and the recorded facts of experimental science (since even out of the domain of religion faith is inseparably mixed with all that man thinks or does)--in all these kinds of faith a similar reference to the past might easily be pointed out. To the future it is that hope directs itself, while in love there reigns a full and intense feeling of the present. And even so of God’s everlasting love--this, too, has ever been and always must be understood as a full, intense, and abiding feeling of a never-ending present, which, without beginning and without end, goes on forever in abiding felicity. Besides this subdivision into three branches or elements, species or forms, there is yet another character by which these three fundamental Christian feelings are essentially distinguished from the single and all-embracing one of enthusiasm. To this distinction I have already alluded, and it consists in this, that whereas enthusiasm indicates nothing more than a passing state of a more intense consciousness, the three categories above mentioned contain not merely a transient but a permanent enhancement of it, or, in other words, a consciousness which has really become higher and more intense, and as such, endures in full self-possession and inward enlightenment. Accordingly, when we are speaking of the relation of faith to knowledge, this scheme of the fundamental feelings of Christianity seems in the highest degree appropriate to that philosophy which undertakes to show the connection between knowledge and faith, and the passage from one to the other. For it is in truth well calculated to lead to this end, even more rapidly and more surely than the Platonic fundamental principle of enthusiasm, notwithstanding the profound and essential affinity which subsists between these two views of the world and things.

With respect to the relation of faith to knowledge: we must remember that the positive dogmas of a fixed definite creed belong to theology, and lie altogether out of the domain of philosophy. For though a truly learned exegesis of Holy Writ most unquestionably demands a truly philosophical spirit, it is not philosophy itself. And this applies also to ecclesiastical tradition, as running parallel to and co-ordinate with written revelation. This enlarged assumption, however, of a twofold source for deducing a knowledge of the truths necessary to be believed, and for their dogmatic interpretation, as touching on a particular province of history, or as some, perhaps, will rather say, a controverted point of church authority, must be left to theology to discuss and decide. It does not fall within the true limits of philosophy, which properly is concerned only with faith in general, and the notion thereof relatively to knowledge. And here comes in the greatest of the distinctions between the philosophy of life (which is founded both on an external and also an internal and higher experience, being itself a science of experience) and the philosophy of absolute reason. The relation between faith and knowledge, as respectively established by them, is thoroughly and essentially different. According to that absolute view of the world and things which rests on and springs from a pure and necessary rational science, faith and knowledge stand in absolute opposition to each other. The only connection into which they can possibly enter is that by which faith is called in to the aid of reason, and in order to supply its deficiencies. When, for instance, the unconditional science can not by itself attain to fullness and perfection of knowledge, or, after all its labors, finds itself standing unsatisfied even within its own domain, then the transition is made forcibly, and, as it were, by a great and sudden leap into the opposite and totally different domain of reason, in order to seek there refuge and protection from itself. And this indeed is the only way still open, if not to a complete reconciliation between the two, yet, at least, to a peaceful compromise of the respective claims of knowledge and of faith. Quite different, however, is the relation between them, as set forth by the philosophy of life, which takes its position in experience and the knowledge which is based thereon. For, in the first place, faith and knowledge are not so rigorously separated, nor so absolutely distinguished in it as they are in the preceding system. And, secondly, as regards the order and succession of the two: here, in the wide field of man’s experience, both inward and outward, in nature and in his own self, it is faith for the most part that furnishes the beginning and foundation of knowledge, which, however, as such is incomplete, and requires further development. We have already remarked, that the positive dogmas of a particular faith, together with the scientific investigations appropriate to them, form a special domain of higher experience. This is a statement which scarcely requires any labored proof. And we need not dwell on it further than to remind you, that even here the faith, so far as it is dogmatically propounded, forms the foundation. In this higher region faith is the first and that which makes the beginning, while the knowing forms the further development. Descending into its particular applications, the latter furnishes an explanation, or, rather, elucidation, of the whole. Still it must all the while adhere faithfully to the fact of a revelation, and maintain its authority over the rational principle which otherwise seeks to depress, and does often actually overbear it. And so is it also with the first awakening of the consciousness. And even in experimental science, the order between faith and knowledge is exactly the same. In actual life, too, every great enterprise begins with and takes its first step in faith. In faith Columbus, compass in hand, and firmly relying on its revelations, traversed, in his frail bark, the wide waters of an unknown ocean. In this faith he discovered a new world, and thereby opened a new era in the history of science and of man. For all his inquiries, all his thirst and search after information, all his thinking, guessing, and supposing, did not as yet amount to a complete knowing--by such means he could not succeed in working out a full conviction, either for himself or for others. It was the given fact, the unquestionable proof of actual experience, that first exalted his bold conception into true and perfect certainty. In a greater or less degree this is the course by which all the great discoveries in science have been made; passing by a slow but still advancing process of thought from faith up to knowledge. And the same character of faith is stamped on every great and decisive act, every important event in the history of individuals or of nations. And if, in contrast with these grander phenomena, an instance be required from the first and almost unnoticeable beginnings of consciousness, I would refer to the first time that, with manifest purpose, the infant seeks and finds for itself its mother’s breast. But perhaps the force of this illustration may be questioned, as being drawn from what might be called a mere gratification of an animal want. I shall therefore take one which borders closely indeed on the former, but which does not appear to be so immediately connected, not to say identical, with instinct. We will take, then, the second moment of consciousness--that at which the child regards its mother for the first time, full, apparently of reflection, and, certainly of attention and meaning, as it were with a wish to say something, if it had the power to talk. And this eye, upturned for the first time, full of love and meaning, what is it but the first look of faith? And though even this opening dawn of consciousness involves a certain distinction and recognition, it is still very far from the certainty of knowledge. And is not the former instance highly appropriate and well fitted to illustrate the relation in which man stands to God? For that paternal heart, which, as the living pulse of omnipotence, beats sensibly in the boundless universe--is it not also, as it were, the full maternal fountain at which the immortal spirit imbibes its first milk, and indeed all its nourishment for eternity? In short, at the vivid point of experience, the first--the still delicate and innocent--beginnings of feeling are very often in close contact with the full maturity of the most enlightened knowledge, expanded and elevated to the height of its Infinite source.

At this point, then, of living experience, faith and knowledge are not so sharply separated from, or so unconditionally opposed to, each other as is commonly thought. The relation of faith to knowledge is that nearly of the beginning to the consummation. Such, too, is the case with experience and revelation, as the data of all scientific knowledge. These two also stand in close dependence on each other. Their mutual relation is something similar to that of the external manifestation to the inward energy--of the visible body to its animating principle, or to that inward spark of light which the body serves as an organ and vehicle, or as an outward garb and veil. In history, and in every science that in any way deserves to be called historical, the spirit or mind has been long and generally acknowledged to be the first and only thing that gives to the whole its true worth. And in the domain of physical science, which of all branches of mere empirical knowledge is the most comprehensive and most extensive, the case is precisely similar. The externally given phenomenon of the fact or natural object that is under consideration, forms only the outward investiture and is to be regarded as the mode of manifestation--the visible form--of the inner life, and law which rules within it. And man’s chief object in investigating the former is, if possible, to pierce its shroud, and to seize and to discover the inward law of life, as all that is most essential, and as the germ of existence, which is wrapped up and hidden in the outward and sensible veil. Many of the special branches of physical inquiry, such as botany and mineralogy, can only be considered as preparatory labors, which are to furnish the materials and apparatus for future science to act upon, and not really as sciences. When all the facts of mineralogy shall have been brought under one great and universal law--when the isolated results of anatomical research and observation can be reduced to one common physiological idea--when chemistry, by its exclusive analysis, and decomposition of matter into its ultimate elements, shall be able to discern, in the different gases and other imponderable agents, the various forms of the invisible principle of things--when a higher range of physical research shall penetrate the grand primal phenomena of the electric shock, of magnetic attraction, and the prismatic decomposition of light, and its artistic imitation for scientific purposes, then only shall we be able to remove the last veil which shrouds the mysteries of nature.

For the whole effort of natural science is indefatigably directed to reaching to that hidden center of life through external existence, of whose inner light and splendor the whole corporeal mass of the sensible world is but the broken and multiplied reflection, and empirical science but the chemical precipitate, the gross material residuum of its pure and spiritual truth. It is to this that all the results of science point and tend; every investigation in the domain of natural history, which in any degree pretends to be philosophical, likewise leads to this conclusion. Assuming, then, the existence of a God as the Creator of the world, what else can nature be than a revelation of God and divine love--a visible manifestation thereof in outward and material matter? And how, if otherwise conceived of, can it ever be understood or comprehended? Supposing also (what at the first we may very well allow) that even from this point of view much remains obscure, enigmatical, and unintelligible to us--still these incomprehensible, or, rather, uncomprehended, matters are merely a few individual instances. The whole, nevertheless, will, on this hypothesis, be found full of deep significancy, and satisfactory, not only to the feelings, but even to the inquiring and questioning intellect. But, according to the opposite view of the universe, though many, or, let us say, very many individual facts in nature may be acutely explained and scientifically understood; still the whole, if it be not looked upon as a revelation from God, but a peculiar self-existent entity, remains forever an enigmatical mass of indissoluble complications. Stripped by this hypothesis of its higher design of leading man onward to the divine, it becomes, for him at least, perfectly unmeaning. But when, on the contrary, the universal system of nature is regarded as the unfolding and visible revelation of the hidden majesty of the Creator, then, together with that other one which is written and contained in the divine law and sacred records, it forms one consistent whole. Holy Writ and nature, according to this view, appear two mutually explanatory and supplemental halves of that book of God which is written on the inside and the out. The inner voice of conscience also has often, and indeed from the very earliest times, been represented as a revelation, though of a different kind; and the moral feeling and its peculiar law have been supposed to be frequently opposed to, or at least wholly independent of, nature and the natural law. But even this internal revelation is also double, like the external one of Holy Writ and of nature. For in its negative prohibitions, in its gentle or terrible, but ever-distinct warnings, as well as in its positive requisitions, it is quite distinct from its other form as a feeling of devotion and of mental prayer, or of an illimitable aspiration after God and divine things. And it is by no means allowable to confound or mix up these two distinct forms. For the one is universal, however variable in its degrees of intensity; whereas the other manifesto itself rather by way of exception as an individual vocation, or, if the term be preferred, as a peculiar genius for piety, and a special sensibility for holy thoughts and feelings.

Now this fourfold divine revelation, embracing the two external branches of Scripture and of nature, and the two inner ones of conscience and devotion, has its seat in the four faculties of the lower order which have so repeatedly been brought before our consideration. For the memory is the organ of its written and oral transmission and perpetuation--nay, of writing and language generally, according to the intimate connection which subsists between them. And in the next place, the external senses, with which we may also associate an immediate intuition into the depths and mysteries of nature, are the organs for perceiving and understanding the sensible phenomena. Lastly, there is conscience, and, on the other side, a longing after God and divine things, as the highest and most enhanced degree of human pursuit--of the profoundest aspiration of man’s soul, and the purest desire of his spirit. For it is even here, in these subordinate faculties, where the deep decline and gross degeneracy of the human mind in its present state most strikingly displays itself, that a susceptibility for improvement is first excited. Here springs the earliest impulse to return to the higher state from which we have fallen. Here the divine seed of resuscitation soonest expands itself, revivifying and restoring to its pristine worth and dignity the morbid and lifeless consciousness. The internal revelation, however, of devotion and prayer must be regarded as clearly distinct from, and as lying altogether out of, the domain of philosophy, even as the learned exposition of Scripture, and a scientific study thereof, forms a peculiar branch of intellectual pursuit. But though philosophy must not be mixed up with it, yet on the other hand it must not lapse into, or inseparably identify itself with, a pure mysticism of devotional feelings, or, if the term be preferred, a theory of prayer, and a mere contemplative meditation on the Deity and divine things. And the reason is obvious: devotion, with its mystical feelings, must necessarily and absolutely attach itself to the positive data of a fixed dogmatic faith. For in such alone can it find, not only a definite form and a maturely-developed external shape, but also an inner assurance for itself as well as a safeguard against the possible errors of fanaticism.

And here, however, it must not be forgotten that the intrinsic essence of divine longing, as well as of all other holy feelings, can never be or seem alien and repugnant to the philosophy of life, which indeed takes its rise out of this very center of a high and holy love. On the contrary, it must always be intimately associated with and amicably disposed toward it. The philosophy of life, therefore, even while it carefully guards against falling into a mere exposition and commentary of Scripture, may freely borrow from the old Scriptural language its awful spiritual phrases and its vividly forcible expressions. It would, in fact, be an overstrained pedantry, and an excessive affectation of scientific purism, were it to wish to avoid it. Still it is necessary to draw a precise line of demarkation between religion and philosophy, and carefully to observe their limits. And in the same manner, philosophy will abstain from an undue encroachment on the province of natural history, or on the domain of ethics where the internal revelation of conscience furnishes the basis of all moral legislation. At least it will keep from so doing as long as it is anxious to preserve its true dignity as a philosophy of life, and of thought and science in general, and fears to degrade itself by becoming nothing more than a special branch and application, either as mere morals or natural philosophy. This, however, does not preclude from it the liberty of occasionally entering even deeply into them, or of taking a general survey of their results, or borrowing largely from their facts, as pregnant instances, remarkable phenomena and similes, in order to make this remote region illustrate its own sphere, though properly they do not belong to it. Philosophy has enough to do with what really forms the subject-matter and contents of its own province, without seeking to enlarge it by any extraneous addition.

Now, to these four forms or sources of a higher revelation, both internal and external, a fifth remains to be added. It constitutes, as it were, their common bond of union--the center at which, converging and coming into contact, they exercise a mutual influence, and, adjusting and accommodating themselves to one another, combine in living union and perfect harmony. This we would designate by the general name of a revelation of eternal love. But a revelation of eternal love in man, and not merely such a one as we might, with good reason, pronounce nature and the whole creation to be. And even when we say _in man_, we do not merely mean thereby such as is revealed in his instinctive emotions of devotion and religion, but that, rather, which speaks out in man’s most universal feeling, and in his profoundest and intensest consciousness. But if love itself is nothing but the pure idea, the inmost spirit and essential energy of all true life, and especially of that which is highest and most exalted, then must this revelation of love be pre-eminently the subject-matter of the philosophy of life. For it is even the rich and intrinsic center of the other four sacred sources of divine revelation, and out of it all higher life, thought, faith, and science, flows into the soul of every man that has any susceptibility for such exalted excellence. This remark, moreover, implicitly determines the relation which both faith and enthusiasm (according to the Platonic notion of it) hold in general to science, and also to revelation and love, though, indeed, with respect to the latter, it is only inchoately and in outline that it is so fixed.

But, in order fully to work out and complete the idea of science, according to all those external relations which we have already laid down, it will be necessary to examine the several elements of this idea in their internal coherence, and also, by means of contrast with a complete evolution of the system of inborn error, to set them in the fullest and clearest light.

We have already declared and enumerated the several elements and degrees, or species and constituents which, together, make up scientific knowledge. First of all, there is the understanding and explaining, the discerning and distinguishing. In the second place comes the living cogitation or complete comprehension of the actual, which forms the true center of scientific knowledge, if not its very self; and, lastly, that which is closely connected therewith, the immediate perception and recognition of truth, and an inward feeling of certainty. All these, however, are more or less falsified and led astray by the principal of those scientific errors which are innate in man’s mind--which sometimes secretly undermine, and, at last, totally subvert and destroy them. First of all, the living thought is often converted into a dead cogitation, being carried away from its natural direction toward the actual, and misled to an unsubstantial pursuit of empty abstractions. The total confusion of ideas which this leads to is fatal to all distinctness and precision of understanding, and renders it impossible to have a clear discernment and correct judgment of things. And then, in this bottomless abyss, the firm foundation of actual truth and inward certainty sinks and is swallowed up.

Every one, indeed, of the four fundamental faculties of the human mind contains, in itself, a faulty disposition and pernicious germ of a special and precise form of scientific error, which establishes and fully develops itself in its appropriate domain, and which, when circumstances are favorable, is matured and shaped into a system of falsehood. It is chiefly in the visible consequences of its further development, and, also, by the intrinsic inconsistencies in which it is involved by the unfounded assumption from which it sets out at the very first, that each of these abortions of unsubstantial and empty cogitation is most easily detected. And, in fact, in the history of the human mind and philosophy, and even of science generally, the essential characters of these leading phases of scientific aberration are only too distinctly legible to him who contemplates that great intellectual picture with an eye unblinded by prejudice.

The error most peculiar to the reason, and which, in its domain, springs up almost indigenously, is one that has already been frequently mentioned--viz., the phantom, of the unconditional, or the delusion of absolute necessity. Now, all the data on which man’s knowledge must be based have a triple source; they are presented to him from within, from above, and from without. But the reason, which is the faculty of the logical connection of ideas, and of the logical necessity which rules in that connection, often quits this safe and solid ground of reality, as presented to it in triple experience, whether of revelation and history, or of natural science, and resting entirely on itself, tries to build exclusively on its own foundation. Whenever, therefore, it attempts this impossibility, it invariably copies the mathematical method of demonstration. And so there immediately springs up the false semblance of a necessary knowledge. As the faculty of logical thinking, the reason is at the same time a power of endless progressive development. To invent, however, to create and to produce, is absolutely beyond its capacity; and it forfeits its own rights, whenever, abandoning the pursuits most appropriate, and assigned to it by nature, it usurps the prerogatives of an inventive and productive faculty, and thereby gives birth to the abortions of false metaphysical systems.

When, however, the firm basis and sure principle of some real and actual fact is once given, then the further scientific development, derivation, and wider deduction from this first foundation may be carried illimitably onward. There exists no cause at all why we should wish to set bounds to its advance. For were we to do so, we should perhaps afterward discover that they had been drawn either too narrowly or too prematurely; as, indeed, has already been too often done in many a branch of mathematical science. And, even because it is exactly in mathematics that the illimitable procedure of scientific development manifests itself most signally and most brilliantly, and is at the same time not inconsistent with the greatest rigor of form and certainty, if only it originally sets out from a stable principle of actual reality, this science will furnish, perhaps, the most appropriate and pertinent illustration. And, indeed, the more so, as the prejudice still subsists in men’s minds, that the first foundation of mathematical science is an original invention of the reason--a pure product of the internal intuitions of the intellect, and that this science stands quite apart from all other so-called sciences of experience. But in its first development and acquisition, this is very far from being the case. If we could only observe in others, or could in our own case recall to mind how long it is before a child can actually count three, or clearly separate from itself the external objects it perceives, or learns to distinguish between any two objects, or between them and itself, we shall be forced to admit that the first basis of enumeration has an empirical origin, and that it is on such, consequently, that all mathematical science is built up and founded. Geometrical lines and figures are properly nothing more than numbers, or the fundamental arithmetical notions fixed in space and invested with a corporeal shape, and thereby become visible. It is, however, not unusual to regard the first principles of geometry--such as the point, the right line, the square, and the triangle, out of which all else is compounded--as independent of experience, and existing absolutely in and by themselves. But, in truth, these primary facts of geometry are, without exception, first furnished by experience. And even if, for the purposes of science, they are advanced in a degree of abstract purity and of notional completeness, which they do not possess in the external world of sensible things, where they are always combined with more or less of gross admixture or of imperfection, this is only what is the case, in exactly the same degree, with the first principles of all other experimental sciences.

Astronomy is one of the highest applications of mathematical science, which in it is carried to its highest limits of development. But here, too, the latter has grown together and in common with natural science. The complicated and elaborate calculations, the approximate hypotheses of mathematical astronomy, are intimately interwoven and mixed up with manifold sidereal facts and observations. Properly, therefore, and rightly understood, mathematical science forms no exception to the general principle that all knowledge is based upon experience, derived from inward, outward, or, it may be, higher perceptions. Consequently, it is not so much in kind as in degree that it is distinguished from other experimental sciences. We must not, however, forget that in very many cases of the application of mathematics to real life and natural history, it is not so much a material science as rather a mere organ and instrument for the advancement and further elaboration of the particular sciences to which it is applied. Viewed relatively to a higher physical science, mathematics do but form the mere outline and articulation of the whole structure of the inner skeleton of the whole body of nature; or, rather, it is the hidden key and rule of speech of the marvelous language of revelation, and of that otherwise hidden existence which is here brought to the light, and which we call nature--its inner grammar, in short, and higher symbolism.