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

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СКАЧАТЬ soul—still, from causes which are easily conceivable, a pure development of this species is far rarer than even of the enthusiasm for art. No doubt, in certain happy temperaments, under circumstances favorable 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 fullness 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 manifestations of this feeling is both simple enough, and easily found. For as this longing may 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 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 youthful 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 genuine longing, which, directing itself to the divine, is itself also of a celestial origin. Out of this root springs almost every thing 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 refined 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 dispenses 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 destructive effect, so also it co-operates beneficially with the longing which is directed to the good and the divine, and imparts to it its animating ardor, 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 living 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 understanding 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 unreal 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 supposition is derived merely from one species of it—the poetical fancy. And yet even this, in its genuine manifestations, contains 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 undoubtedly 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 outward 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 apprehended, labors to invest it with a living form, to apply and to realize it. In itself, therefore, and in its pure and uncorrupt 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 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 detected, 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 unsympathizing 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 misrepresent 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 center 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 constitutes marriage, is tied and completed therein. On this union, then, which, as historically represented, appears to be the true commencement of civilized 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 any thing like true and genuine love is absolutely denied. But, in the first place, in the case of a union which embraces the entire man—his sensuous as well as his rational, or, as I should prefer to say, his earthly no less than his spiritual nature and temperament—it can not 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 imbittered by mutual distrust and misunderstanding, 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 ardor of youth yields only to an СКАЧАТЬ