In the attempt at this juxtaposition, I shall only project those points which either are of importance for the right understanding of the whole, or of interest in themselves. For this purpose I shall avail myself of nothing but themost certain 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 memorials 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 constitution and subsequent process of formation was not gained until observation had enabled us accurately to distinguish between 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 geological 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 primeval times. Those languages, on the contrary, which, at least as compared with those which are manifestly 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 Asia. These, then, stand on the 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, in which the constituents neither were originally so heterogeneous,nor since have 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 constituents. These likewise point to a still earlier convulsion of nature, to which they owed their first production. Unquestionably, 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 geological 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 constitution, and consequently this ring of rock can not 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 languages 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 geological classification of rock, any bold speculator should go on to assert that the whole interior of the earth, or at least the center 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.
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 determines its perfection. The English language affordsa ready illustration of our remark. To it, beyond all others, the designation of being a mixed language applies; indeed it corresponds 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 introduced from the Latin or Norman-French, which among the living roots of the former appear so far aliens and foreigners, as, being little capable of grammatical declension or derivation, 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 foundation 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 derivatory languages also which stand next in order to the mixed, and in part also belong to them, and which have rather softened down than abolished the stricter grammatical forms, having rounded them off as it were for greater convenience of use, do not necessarily stand inferior to the mother-tongue in grace and vigor of composition. On the contrary, in respect of style, they are often vastly superior to them. Thus the Italian appears softer and more flexible for lyrical verse, and perhaps for every creation of the poetic 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 dignity 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 playful sallies of the fancy. And yet it is a derivative language, and compounded of the most heterogeneous elements. For not only it is highly probable that the Gothic-German 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 considerable element in it.
But it was not to descend into the grammatical specialities of philological erudition, or to heap up a mass of purely æsthetical remarks, that I have alluded to these pregnant instances. What I chiefly had in view was to remove, if possible, all erroneous notions from the conception of 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 neighborhood 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 neglected, 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 especially those which relatively to such as are derived and compounded out of them may pass as primary, there is one essential point toward 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 endeavor to set them before our minds as productions 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 at a very different epoch of mind from the present. Now we can not 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 geniusand 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 coloring 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. And so, at last, the picture is finished. But in all this description 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 attained to such a realization, 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, 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 in ideally transplanting ourselves to that foretime when the thinking faculty was more creative, and when, in the designation and expression of its ideas, it moved more freely and with the elasticity of genius. But if speech answers to thought, and if language itself is but a true copy, a shifting diorama, as 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 clew for unraveling the riddles of olden tradition), we might well ask 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, underother names, but in equal honor, are found mentioned 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 progenitor and the restorer of the human race, whom, likewise, the earliest traditionary records of every people recognize and mention. The family of the Cainites holds no inconsiderable place in the earliest history of civilization, and the first working of metals, and the invention of several useful arts, is expressly ascribed to them. But still their difference in language 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 favors the hypothesis, which, in itself, is any thing but impossible, and deserves rather to be called highly probable, of several primary languages, or, at least, of different epochs in the primeval 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.
Now, 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 Sanscrit. 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 derivatives; 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 arrangement, but pre-eminently by a highly noble poetic shape, combined with an equal degree of scientific precision. This, however, is but one family among many others which make 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 theAfrican, belong to the latter class, the highly remarkable dialects of America occupy an important and characteristic place. The traveler[64]best acquainted with the American races and dialects has described 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 traveler, 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 favorable to my views. This character of deep degradation belongs, perhaps, to the better class of languages, since they present but little analogy to each other in their material elements, and admit scarcely of any classification. At least it forms a distinctive mark of them, and awakens a melancholy impression.
The Egyptian, which, since the partial deciphering of its 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 writing, by combining the alphabetical with the symbolical 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 languages; and, indeed, that somber 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 primeval world.
In order to complete our subject, the Hebrew still remains for a general notice in that brief review which alone our limits 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 favorthe conjecture, that a new and peculiar class is necessary to embrace all the phenomena 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 relationship to the Indo-European family. This, however, on further examination, will probably be found to be still more considerable. For it is often impossible to recognize 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 Phœnician, which differed from the Hebrew only as one dialect from another, was not without some connection with the Greek, on which it exercised no inconsiderable influence. Now, with respect to the peculiar character of the Hebrew, every thing in it is directed to the attainment of the highest vividness and profound significance. This is even the case with its grammatical 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, constitute 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.
The whole system of the languages of man is but the external and visible copy and true mirror of his inmost consciousness. 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 clew of memory, and tradition,which binds together all nations in their chronological series and succession, is, as it were, the common memory and organ of recollection 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 following 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 even from this state a highly significant art is not altogether excluded, since we see it expressing itself in the beautiful symbols of the figurative language of Egypt. The second step in the further development of human speech is formed by the lofty flight which the poetic spirit took in the ancient languages, which 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 sarcerdotal 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 primeval 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 corroboration, transferred it at once to language in general, I will add one more remark, tending to show that in some degree it has its foundation in the very nature and grammatical structure 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 Mohammed, 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 store-house of tradition, where it lives on from nation to nation, and as being the clew of material and spiritual connection which joins century to century—the common memory of the human race. Now, it is this faculty of memory which I would here 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 molded in one cast, and in its totality, similarly to a poetical or other creation of art, requires proof and corroboration. 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 marvelous 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 natural 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 were, transported all at once into a language previously quite strange to it, so as to understand any spoken or written composition in it, is certainly not one of ordinary occurrence; and, in truth, whenever it manifests itself strongly and decidedly, it closely borders on the marvelous. Still it is a fact sufficiently 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 learned, 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 question the ancientwitnesses to the fact, merely on account of the nature of it.
I called this fact a wonderful leap of the memory. For however subordinate this faculty may in other respects appear relatively to those which every where 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 inexplicable, and it presents many points of view leading to profoundest 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 relation 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 analyzed 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. Now, 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 clew 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 the partial or total loss of memory, from sickness or old age, though producing no derangement of the reason, is, nevertheless, 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 connection between memory and understanding is especially visible in children, in whom the first faint opening of intellect is generally simultaneous with the first apperception of self and retention of externalimpressions or signs. The understanding is that thinking and cognition of individuals, which is even the act of intellection. Consequently, the individual mark and characteristic sign in the function of memory belongs to the understanding; but the combining link between these individual conceptions or signs—their permanent association—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 impulse, 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, antecedently to experience, in its fundamental scheme, and, as it were, engraven in it. Now all such opinions, whatever variations they may present, arise, without exception, from the Platonic notion of theanamnesispossessed by the soul from a previous existence, and, moreover, they agree with the dogma of the metempsychosis, which, Indian in its origin, is, however, 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 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 can not, 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 experience and prior to the first awakening of consciousness, it is based on a view of thereason which would make it a universal receptacle of the thought, divided into greater and less chambers and compartments. It is thus made the residuum or dead precipitate of the natural functions of the living cogitation, 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 an herbarium, or like the butterflies pinned to the entomologist’s case, from each of which, however, amid 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 conception, 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 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 skillful general, or of a wise financier? We can not, indeed, imagine to what good end this hypothesis can serve or lead, and, consequently, as soon as it is taken for any thing more than a mere figure of thought, it involves us in new, if it does not entangle as 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 imparted 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 part as of eternity? This is a question which, advanced in this sense, can not, 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 forever, or so long, at least, as the connection with the supreme source of his being is not violently broken and rent asunder? If, then, such a portion is to remain forever 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 participation in God, as the primary source of eternal love, which abides forever in the human soul, 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.
The thought of an original recollection in man—which, properly, 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 question of their reciprocal relation—of which the true and correct view is probably very different from that which commonly prevails. But this is a topic which, for its further and complete elucidation, demands a special investigation.
THEidea 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, endeavored to show that the doctrine itself is distinct, 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 possessed a powerful attraction for many deep thinkers and noble minds. From its first authors down to Leibnitz, it has made a deep and lasting impression, which has ever enabled it from time to time to recover its ascendency. In its purer sense and more simple and legitimate view, we may, I asserted, understand by it no completely lifeless and mechanical system of all the possible ideas which reason may evolve in the human mind, antecedently arranged and classified, but an idea of his divine origin innate or implanted in his mind, which can not be otherwise or more simply indicated than by the expression we have chosen to designate it—of a recollection of eternal love. But this recollection, 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. Yet this would but be a change of name for the self-same idea and object, which atbest could only serve to exhibit more distinctly and clearly, and from many points of view, whatever 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 nonexistence and unconditional negation of all time. But this would involve at the same time the negation of life and all living existence (+),[65]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, can not 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 incomprehensible. Eternity, as I should define it, is the all-embracing, completely complete time, which is infinite, not only “a parte externâ,”i.e., ever-passing, yet everlasting, without beginning and without end, but also infinite “a parte internâ;” so that 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 fullness of time entirely one and the same, and exactly coincident with that state which at least we are able to think of, and indeed can not well avoid thinking of? and is not this also the only form of existence applicable to the divine consciousness, on the assumption and belief not of any mere divine essence, but of an actual living and self-conscious Godhead? 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 indication, testimony, and proof. Almost all the expressions there chosen for this matter allude to that fulland 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 of eternity which makes it the absolute negation of all time. The very 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 significations of the radical words, the idea of a simple abstract existence, 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 accurately, “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 fullness 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 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 negation of the other, or whether, at least, there is not some conceivable transition from the one to the other. Now, in the former view, since the absolute, universally, and most especially 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 prejudices 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 can not 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 twofold 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 naught else than the inner pulse of life in an overflowing eternity, without beginning and without end, and that other time which is prisoned and fettered in this lower world 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 obscure, glimmering, and deceptive twilight, until the now brilliant present passes away, and in its turn becomes as nothing, being buried in the darkness of death, which shrouds all past and former existence. And as there is a twofold time, so also may we, in relation to God and the world, distinguish a twofold eternity. Let us, for this purpose, contemplate the wholecreation, including not only this visible world of sense, but also the invisible world of spirits, either in its original perfection, 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 to which it is finally to be restored, we can not better designate the universe than by terming it the created, while God is the uncreated eternity. The world, however, according to what we know of it from revelation, is not absolutely such. It 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 sentiments, 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 revelation), 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 and good is only a delusion of a narrow-minded system of ethics, or of conventional prejudices, that man allows to pass as such, and holds externally in honor, but which intrinsically, and as tested by the rigor 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 imperfect views, which are just as far from having taken any precise 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 controversial defeat, without his own internal consent and agreement. It can not enforce his assent as easily as a mere process of calculation.
But now, if eternity is nothing else but 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? I might answer this latter question by the words of the poet, that it “is out of joint.”[66]For although originally employed 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 can not 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 thought and inquiry into that elevated region, then his words and phrases must also transcend the familiar sense and ordinary 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 every thing lifelike (+). For, in strict rigor this is neither possible nor practicable, and in any casewould lead to a mere abstract nothingness. On the contrary, the more vivid, the more striking, and apparently startling, the more boldly figurative 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 supersensuous 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 has ever ventured upon. Long familiarity, however, has made them seem ordinary and tame. And it is necessary to contemplate them long and intensely, if we would revive their original fullness 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, similar to the one above quoted of “Time out of joint,” giving them at the same time a more universal and entirely metaphysical sense, I would, in the further consideration of the whole question as to time, advance the following remarks.
If eternity is essentially nothing else than the fullness 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, is naught 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 perpetrated this jarring interference with the primeval harmony, disturbing the inner pulse of the world’s universal life, which was originally so sound?” According to one of these 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 togive place to more elevating emotions. But in the other view, which is here adopted as our fundamental conviction, the answer is easily found. Or, rather, it is one long since given, and generally known. Since all the elementary 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 another place I designated the inventor of death, can not be rightly deemed either slight or insignificant, if he be with justice entitled “the Prince and Ruler of this world.” By this term we can not understand any so-called “spirit of 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 particular 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 universal 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 in 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, so to speak, his absolute subjects and ministers. Now, the belief in 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 antiquated, 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 enlightenment. Amid the killing monotonyof a sleepy skepticism 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 every thing, the celebrated English author ofCainmakes a gratifying exception by his vigorous and vivid language, giving, at least honor where honor 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 darkness, 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 acquaintance.
But, however, this deadly spirit of absolute negation, though the name be now scarcely ever heard except in poetry, has not therefore lost, as yet, his dominion over this world of time and the science thereof. On the contrary, in the baseless and arbitrary systems which the philosophy of the day propounds, he is acknowledged more than ever, though it be with an unconscious reverence. As the idol of absolute rationalism, most highly is he lauded, not to say deified. It is, in fact, remarkable that, in many of the most extreme systems of absolute reason, the whole section of theology is exclusively confined to the negative view of the divine truth. Almost the whole of it, if only a few slight changes be made in the more important phrases, may far more consistently apply to the primal antagonist of eternal love and of revelation, than to that beneficent Being himself.
And even in those systems of rationalism which are less spiritually perverse and less extravagant, but still equally subversive of a right knowledge of the highest truths, the divine nature is frequently if not always confounded with that nothing out of which He has created the world. Or, perhaps, in some more tragic view of the universe, that rigid law of time which operates on the world of sense, and which gives it up as a prey to misery, is, at least poetically, deified as the blind fate of an iron necessity. Now, if eternity is in itself and originally nothing more than the living, full, and essential time, which is still invisible(+), and if our earthly shackled and fettered time of sense is but an eternity “out of joint,” or fallen a prey to disorder, it is easily conceivable that the two do not stand apart andhave no mutual contact. On this hypothesis they may possess many a common point of transition from one sphere into the other. At least such a point of transition is in general experience afforded us by death, which is mostly looked upon and regarded in this light. Trivial as may sound the sentiment so commonly uttered of the dead, that they have changed time for eternity, still we can not well question the correctness of the notion on which the expression is founded. Now, these questions about time and eternity nearly concern, and in many ways interest, every thoughtful mind, not only by their connection with life and death, but generally with all existence and consciousness. I can not, therefore, approve of the wish to exclude them entirely from the philosophy of life, as lying beyond the ordinary range of the practical intellect, and, therefore, with all similar matters of unprofitable disputation, to be abandoned to the theologian and the student. On the contrary, I have felt it to be most agreeable to the position which I have taken up, and the view which it opens out, to hazard at least an experiment, and to try whether it be not possible to express these subjects, and to set them forth in language at once appropriate and generally intelligible.
Religious people often speak of death, sometimes generally as a “return,” at others with a further addition as “a return home.” Such modes of speaking, I admit, merely as such, and especially when they are uttered as so many empty phrases, unaccompanied with real feeling, and repeated without discrimination, in season and out of season, are not, perhaps, calculated to make a very deep impression. Still a very beautiful but grave meaning is, nevertheless, contained in them, and one which throws out very strongly the purely spiritual aspect of the matter. But here, then, a difficulty immediately presents itself. The question arises, how can we be said to go back or return to a place where, in fact, we never were before, or how can that be rightly called our home, which in our present life we first seek, and are to find and learn to consider as such. In short, the difficulty recurs in the same manner as the somewhat similar questions which are involved by Plato’s notion of ananamnesis, so long as it is conceived, not (as we would understand it) as a recollection of eternity, but quite literally as that of a former state of things. But if, agreeably to a vivid conception of time and eternity, a less absolute distinction prevails between these two ideas, andmany points of contact and transition from one to the other may be found, of which death is one, all the difficulty is removed, and every thing in our view and hypothesis becomes easily intelligible and self-evident. It is, at least, one aspect of death, and a cheerful one too, which exhibits it as a transition from time into eternity, or out of a fettered and distracted time into that which is true, perfect, and blissful. In truth, however, much more is involved herein. For death, in general, is no simple event, but a very complicated phenomenon. No doubt that feature which stands out most fearfully in the whole event, throwing into the shade and obscuring its other higher and more spiritual elements, is the sufferings of disease, which are often so agonizing—the pang of dissolving and decaying organization in the last awful struggle of nature, as it tears itself so reluctantly from life. But even in the midst of all this, occasionally, at least, another and a better state intervenes. A cessation of all physical pain seems suddenly to occur, and to be followed by an almost joyous, or, at least, composed state, which may be often regarded as the harbinger of approaching dissolution. Medical experience, moreover, has recorded many special cases (the explanation of which, however, I leave to others) of idiotcy and madness, which had arisen either from sad defects and derangement of the thinking faculty, suddenly disappearing at the approach of death, and of the full, perfect consciousness returning with extraordinary clearness in the few brief moments which precede the instant of decease. There is yet another remarkable element or feeling in death; and it is one totally independent of the organic pain of dissolution in its various modifications, or the striking phenomena which may be observed in individual cases. I allude to the feeling which shrinks at the thought of the decisive transition and forcible passage into an entirely new sphere, which, however, must not be confounded with an unmanly fear of death. In many instances, too, it has no connection with any troubled thoughts or anxious cares for near and dear ones to be left behind, nor yet with any inward doubts of a restless and disturbed conscience. By no such feelings alone by themselves can it be interpreted or explained. All this is entirely distinct from that which I have at present in my mind, and which may very simply be termed a slight mental shrinking before a wholly unknown state of being, which is, at least, natural to all men, and affectsevery one, more or less, if the change comes upon them in the full possession of their faculties. But in those whose contemplations have long been directed to this closing event of life—in whom a profound and deep acquaintance with the thought of eternity, and the sublime enlightenment of a confiding faith, have taken the place of a dark uncertainty, and who also, between the last struggle of organic life and the final pang of dissolution, enjoy for a brief interval the last quickening breath of the departing energy of nature, there death is seen in its bright aspect. For such it unquestionably does possess. How often, on the very countenance of the departed, does a calm and beautiful death like this leave its touching trace behind! How often do we see with astonishment a sweet smile, like that of a sleeping child, lingering on the well-known face, but in whose very sweetness is mingled a slight though scarce perceptible trace of some faint recollection of previous suffering. He who has once seen some dear friend or acquaintance so die, or beheld the beloved countenance after such a death, will assuredly cherish forever the remembrance of this soothing expression. Nothing less than a blissful presentiment of eternity seems to have preceded or impressed itself on the dying features, breaking through the shackles of time before its full course was ended. And it is only in this light that I have mentioned it as being one of the points of contact or moments of transition which facts clearly establish between time and eternity, since this final crisis of our consciousness forms an important element for the psychological and perfect comprehension of the human intellect and its development.
But even during life itself there also occur many phenomena and occasions in which, for the brief continuance at least of such moments of intense existence, the limits of time seem to be broken through or removed. To this class belong those brief intervals of rapture which are enjoyed in the midst of deep and earnest devotion—or of proper ecstasy, which, so far as it is genuine and real, we can not but consider as an interval of eternity in the midst of time, or as a fleeting glance into the higher world of full and unchecked spiritual life. Even the inward worldless prayer, in so far as it is preceded by a real emotion of the heart, profoundly agitating its inmost feelings, is, as it were, a drop of eternity falling through time into the soul. Genuine ecstasy, in so far as it is real and actual, is often on itsorganic side accompanied by a beginning, which indeed is little more than the appearance, though a highly delusive feeling, of dying away, which precedes the higher gleam or echo from the world beyond the grave. Such phenomena, however, require attentive examination before we can draw from them any precise inference. The general idea of them may be distinctly traced in the human consciousness. The recognition of their existence is therefore essential to a full knowledge of the latter. It is, however, often very difficult to form a judgment of individual instances, which are often more or less doubtful. On this account it will be sufficient in this place if, without entering deeply into these necessary distinctions and manifold doubts to which all of such phenomena are liable, we simply notice the fact, as forming one of the most intimate points of association at which time and eternity come in contact and mutually intermingle.
Of such points several still remain to be noticed. One of the least astonishing, and one which in its operation on the soul is no less universal and beneficial than it is generally intelligible, is that which is found in true art and the higher kind of poetry. For here also, even beneath the earthly shell of sensuous phenomenon and the temporal incidents of figurative poetry, the eternal brightens over all. And it is on this mighty influence of the eternal, which gleams through its external investiture of ornament, that the exalted dignity and distinctive charm of true art and the higher branches of poetry depends. Even here, however, as elsewhere, a strict distinction must be made between the true gold and the worthless æsthetical tinsel and mere mannerism of fashion. For such a distinction is necessary in every case where the heavenly and eternal comes into close contact with the earthly and transitory.
That recollection of eternal love, which is implanted, communicated, or innate in the human mind, and which here swells out from its hidden depth (and this is the true original subject-matter of Plato’s notion of theanamnesis, which, as I have endeavored to show, thus cleared from all foreign admixture and corrupting additions, is quite unexceptionable), is not merely a principle of the higher life. Rather is it one of the great vital arteries of true poetry and art, of which, however, there are many others equally essential and no less rich and prolific. Such, for instance, is the longing after the infinite, whose hopes and aspirationsare directed more to the future than is the case with that remembrance of eternal love, which, as such, clings more closely to the past, and is often also lost and absorbed in the historic perception of some actual past. On the other hand, the true inspiration, both in art and in life, is exclusively devoted to a something divine in the present, which may be either real or what is at least held to be such, being most intimately bound up with a feeling of such a divine presence, and with a belief therein. Thus, then, these three forms of the highest sentiment in man’s nature, as it yearns after the infinite or swells forth from the eternal source, and longs to receive the divine, are in their different tendencies tied again, not unnaturally, to the three times, or rather, the different categories of our earthly-divided time.
The recollection of eternal love, as far as regards its influence on art, is in truth nothing but a feeling or an inborn idea, if some will so call it. And yet its influence may be universal, and extend itself over the whole field of man’s consciousness. For all other sentiments of the inner man, all the thoughts, conceptions, and ideas of the thinker, and even all the images, shapes, and forms—in short, the whole ideal of the artist—are now forthwith imbued with this one fundamental feeling of eternal love, being, as it were, bathed in a sea or stream of higher life, spiritually refined, and exalted and transformed into a purer and higher degree of beauty and perfection. And thus it is that this ideal view of the world becomes at once conceivable and perfectly clear, to all at least who can enter into and sympathize with Platonic sentiments and ideas, and especially in its close relation to science and the plastic arts. And thus, understood in this correct sense, within its proper limits, and in that place of the human consciousness to which it really belongs, may well be admitted, and even extended to a wider application.
(+) In order, however, to be able to assign their fitting place in the whole consciousness to those other two exalted feelings which are implanted in man’s breast as so many suggesters of eternity, the longing, viz., after infinity, and a vitally energetic enthusiasm, it will be necessary still further to prosecute and complete our psychological review, so as to take in the whole range of faculties belonging to it, and to exhibit their mutual relations.
In my sketchy outline of man’s spiritual life and consciousness,I set out, you will remember, with the four elementary faculties, understanding and will, reason and fancy, as the four opposite and extreme poles of the inner world. As conscience and memory presented themselves to our consideration in the progress of our inquiries, they were characterized as mediate and collateral faculties of the reason, since the conscience stands midway between reason and will, and the memory between reason and understanding. In a similar way I would now attempt to explain man’s instincts, especially in that peculiar form in which they belong only to man, as distinct from the brutes, and subsequently become passions. Afterward I shall proceed to explain why, in those instances when they appear to be exaggerated into passions, they must, to preserve analogy with the view hitherto maintained, be held to be nothing else than movements of the will, or as a will which has yielded itself to the illimitable range of fancy, and thereby lost its inner equilibrium, and finally all liberty, or at least its actual exercise. This intermediate position of the instincts between will and fancy, and the fatal and pernicious influence which both these fundamental powers exert in that height of passionateness and sensuality which constitutes them faults of character, are also especially manifest in what are properly the natural instincts, as enjoyed by man in common with the brutes, and the evil of which arises always, or at least principally, from their excessive indulgence and undue excitement. It is often possible for this excess to reach such a height, and to become so deadly injurious, as to destroy the health, corrupt the whole soul, and to debase the mind to such a degree that it is felt to be almost injustice to compare such a human being, thus degraded by his own fault, with the nobler animals, whose simple instincts and their gratification alternate almost as regularly as day and night or the rising and setting of the stars in heaven. In such cases, however, we may easily discover what was the first cause of such aberrations.
In the better case, at least, the corruption,i.e., of what was previously a noble disposition, it is invariably, in the first instance, some false charm of fancy or imagination which has overmastered the mind with magical power, and subsequently carried it away captive to its will. In every case, however, it is some perverted apprehension, or illusory power of the infinite, which causes a man who has once fallen a prey to any strong passion to devote all hisenergies, thoughts, and feelings to the one object, or to surrender himself, heart and soul, to the despotic tyranny of some ruling habit or favorite pursuit. How else could there ever have been any talk of the delusions of fancy, which, however, exercise so wide and fatal an influence on human life, and generally in the world, unless a distorted fancy had lent a hand and co-operated therein? Even such emotions and impulses as fear and anger, which are not directed merely to the gratification of the wants of nature, but to self-preservation and defense, and which, consequently, belong equally to the brutes—these also admit of being carried, by unrestrained indulgence, to the height of passionateness. This is especially the case with anger. Wherever long indulgence has made it a ruling habit, and if, moreover, it is associated with envy, hatred, and revenge (which, indeed, are not properly natural instincts, and in this form can scarcely be ascribed to the brutes, but rather faults of character in a demoralized rational being), its outbreaks of passion are fearfully violent. Under their combined influence the wild outbreaks of man’s evil principle often run into fury and madness. But even in avarice itself, it is also some false and strangely-perverted charm of fancy, which in its highest degree approximates very closely to the nature of a fixed idea, that furnishes the first ground and deepest root of this unblessed passion for the earthly mammon. And here, again, in this insatiable love of riches, we meet with a false force of the infinite, and one which can never be satisfied.
A further ethical investigation into these erring instincts does not lie within my present limits. The context of our psychological inquiries only brought them before us for a limited consideration, with a view to determine the position they occupy in the whole consciousness. And here, as in my former instances of comparative psychology, I do not wish to cast my glance downward longer than is necessary, but rather, as quickly as possible, to raise it upward again. In the present case this can easily be done. For, for our present purpose, the simple remark will suffice, that the power of infinity in itself, and the pursuit of the infinite, is properly natural to man, and a part of his very essence. All that is wrong in it, and the source of all its aberrations, is simply and entirely boundless excess. Above all, we must blame that quality of absoluteness, which in every time and place exercises a fatal and destructive influence, bothon thought and practice, or, perhaps, the fault may be laid to a false direction of this pursuit toward the sensible and material objects of this earthly and transitory existence, which, for the most part, are utterly unworthy of it. For man’s natural longing after the infinite, even as it still shows itself in his passions and failings, can not, wherever it is still genuine, be satisfied by any earthly object, or sensual gratification, or external possession.
When, however, this pursuit, keeping itself free from all delusions of sense, and from the fettering shackles of earthly passion, really directs its endeavors toward the infinite, and only to what is truly such, then can it never rest or be stationary. Ever advancing, step by step, it must always seek to rise higher and higher. And this pure feeling of endless longing forms, with the recollection of eternal love, the heavenward-bearing wings on which the soul raises itself upward to the divine. This, indeed, has been felt and perceived by Platonic thinkers in all ages. From the earlier centuries to the present many a deeply-significant sentence might easily be selected and quoted on the idea of this longing after the infinite. And this testimony is not confined merely to the comparatively modern philosophy of Europe and the West. The sacred writings, also, of the Hebrews contain a beautiful sentence on this head. Thus a certain prophet, as endowed with more than ordinary power, as chosen for a high and divine destination, or mission, is expressly called a man of longing [desires],[67]as by a title peculiarly suited to him, and most clearly indicating the natural preparation for all higher spiritual and divine avocations. And, in a sense borrowed from, if not exactly identical with, the above, a somewhat similar title has been given to the richest and profoundest of his works by a French philosopher of our own days, to whom, while I can not adopt unconditionally all his principles and sentiments, I must concede the highest praise for the zeal with which, in all his writings, he has maintained and promulgated a high and lofty tone, both in intellectual and divine things, and that, too, in the midst of revolutionary times, when the prevailing tone of thinking was decidedly material, and, indeed, had assumed a thoroughly demoralizing and atheistic tendency. At a former epoch, now more than twenty years ago, when I attempted, in French, to set forth to a friendly audience the principles of the Philosophy of Life, so far asI at that time comprehended it, I thought that it was indispensable to make this pure idea of an exalted longing the primary position from which the whole view of life must be developed. This, however, was too exclusive, and, for that reason, unsatisfactory. It is, therefore, my present wish to embrace all higher elements of conscience, however manifold they may be, and however different in kind they may appear, and, taking a comprehensive view of them, to unite them in a whole.
Even for poetry and art there is more than one such primary fountain or vital artery of higher sentiment. If, then, the recollection of eternal love must be recognized as one of these, who can well doubt that the pure longing after the infinite, which holds so deep and firm a root in man’s bosom, also forms another? In poetry, the former is distinctly traceable under the form of elegy—at least in the first simple poesy of fancy’s earliest and youthful days. It sounds forth here a mournful recollection of a faded world of gods and heroes—as the echoing plaint for the loss of man’s original, celestial state, and paradisaical innocence, or, lastly, in a still more general and higher sense, as the faint and dying notes of the happy infancy of the whole creation, ere yet the spiritual world had been divided by dissension, and before the first outbreak of evil, and the consequent misery of nature. Viewing it in this light, and designating poetry in general analogically to an expression which we before made use of, we may term poetry the mind’s transcendent recollection of the eternal. For the first and most ancient poetry, as the common memory of the human race—its higher organ of remembrance—passes on from century to century, and from nation to nation; and though ever dressing itself in the changing fashion of the day, yet, through all time, it refers us back to the primary and eternal.