The philosophy of life, and philosophy of language, in a course of lectures. Friedrich von Schlegel

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СКАЧАТЬ 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-organized 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 testifies,[24] is, indeed, subject to nullity, yet, without its will, and 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 profoundest longing.

LECTURE V.

       OF THE SOUL OF MAN IN RELATION TO GOD.

       Table of Contents

      A DIVINE science of nature—one, i.e., which is ever looking to and has its root in God, unlike the old heathen physiologies—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 connection 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 subsequently and long afterward 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 higher and a diviner region—this will form the theme of our present disquisition. In discussing it, however, our attention will be directed principally to its psychological aspect—its relation, i.e., to the theory of consciousness. For the moral examination of this subject, even if it be not allowable to assume that it, at all events, is well 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 can not 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! Reason and fancy, too, both in the inner thought and in outward 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 irreconcilable 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 justified 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: 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 presents, 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 philosophers is any thing 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 whole artificial system.[25] 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 every where manifests itself, and of which the thousandfold material discords of man’s outer life is only the reflection—its natural consequence 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 right road for the attainment of its end. For the problem of philosophy, as contemplated 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 СКАЧАТЬ