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

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 age, are the rational thinkers, the worshipers 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 negative import, it is therefore insufficient to meet all the requisitions 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 darkening 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 approximation toward 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.[A] But this statement was the result of his having abandoned in his system the true center of life and consciousness; 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 refutation. 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, where, as in life itself, they often stand confronting each other in hostile array. This division can not well be called superfluous, 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 center, then the external methodical thought and the internal productive thinking, 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 combined in the living cogitation of the loving soul. The several forms, too, of a higher love and a higher endeavor, 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 function 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 memory, they are in any case but ministering faculties, which only appear distinct and independent 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 understanding 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 harmonized thought and feeling—they would walk amicably together, and work in common, and would not, as hostile beings, turn aside in opposite directions, or as is mostly the case in actual life, be divided from each other by an impassable gulf, and never meet in friendly contact.

      Thus nearly, or somewhat similarly, must we conceive of, and attempt to represent to ourselves, the human mind in its original state, before it was darkened, rent asunder, and condemned to lasting discord, but was as yet eminently simple and perfectly harmonious.

      And now as regards understanding and will, as a division of powers essential to the mind or spirit, which, however, as such, is not 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 [geist], and which will serve as an appropriate pendent to that last quoted about the soul, the essence of mind or spirit in general consists in the negation of the opposite.[26] Now I can not stop at present to inquire what sense this would give, if 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 destined them. But it is not of themselves, but of God and His 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 ray of light, imparted to them from 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 fashion, and in the prevailing phraseology. And, indeed, in all 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 hand, the maxim above quoted applies truly enough: their 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 rigor of consequence, and not unconditional and absolute enough.

      All that has hitherto been said reduces itself to the following 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 consequences 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 develop itself. We have already spoken of this futile idea of the deadness of all external life, which has taken such deep root in the center 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 content 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 cogitation of abstract ideas, with its processes of combining and inferring, or of analyzing and drawing distinctions, may be carried on into infinity, as being that wherein the essence or function of reason consists, СКАЧАТЬ