Music, on the other hand, is eminently an art of longing. To this it owes all its ravishing enchantments—its magic and irresistible charms. In music, however, as in every other form of art, the higher and the earthly—the soul, as it were, and the body—the heavenly longing and the terrestrial are often blended together in the same note and tone, so as scarcely to be discriminated. It is this mingling of feelings and emotions—where from amid the half-unconscious earthly longing a higher and more heavenly aspiration gleams out, that in youth, when man’s sensibility is first developed and expanded, gives to newly-waking loveits peculiar magic charm, the inner grace of the youthful soul contributing as much if not more than even the bloom of corporeal beauty. The question, indeed, whether in this youthful longing really a higher love of eternal duration, as an inner light, which is continually purifying and perfecting itself, be inclosed within the earthly veil—whether this first love of youth be even the true love, or whether all may have been nothing more than the transient and flickering flame of a delusion—this question can be alone determined from its results; in other words, by the life which proceeds and follows from it. It must be proved by the unwavering truth and fidelity—I might almost say, the inward truth of the heart and the outward character of the whole life; and, in short, of a higher love in its every species, whether human or divine.
Now this longing holds a most important place in man. Not only is it the crisis of transition from childish, shall we say consciousness or unconsciousness, into a more mature development—not only is it the threshold under which youthful expectation enters on a fuller and more perfect life; but also still surviving uninterruptedly to the end, it ever remains the first, strongest, and purest impulse of the inner man. The light of its never-dying flame, growing purer and stronger, lights him on his way to a higher and better existence. It seems, therefore, not out of place to add here the remark, how deeply hope, which is so closely associated with this longing aspiration, is interwoven into the very being of man, so as almost to form the characteristic peculiarity of his inner life and whole state.
The lost spirits, we are told, “believe and tremble.”[68]Love, too, is the essential property of God, and even his very essence, and in a certain sense, also, it is common to all beings created by eternal love. Even in the hidden veins of life, through all animated nature, beats this pulse of universal love. Hope, however, can not be ascribed to God, for in Him all is full and perfect. Nature can only sigh and bemoan itself; and even though it be not hopelessly wretched, yet, properly, it can not hope for aught, by its own power, at least. To man, above all other created beings, belongs the prerogative of hope. We might almost call him an immortal spirit, subjected to the condition of hope. And so, before the rest of creation, he is destined and chosen to be the evangelist of divine hope.
As the third of the inner life-springs of true art and higher poetry, I spoke of a true enthusiasm and inspired feeling of the divine. Now, among the various arts, I would especially appropriate this to the plastic art—in that widest and justest sense of the term, in which it comprises, also, the higher architecture. For, in enthusiasm and inspiration, the divinity with which it is imbued is not viewed and contemplated in the remote distance either of the past or the future. It is embraced at once as something actual and present. And this holds good both of the enthusiasm of art, and also of that which, in moral and political life, often creates for itself an epoch, shaping and bringing forth whatever is truly new and original. Now, the divine in beauty must be actually present to the mind, at least, of the artist. It must have stood vividly before his mental eye before it could have come forth in outward and visible form. Since universally the perfection of art depends on some antagonism and the artist’s triumph over it, it is self-evident that even here the most exalted enthusiasm must be associated with a thoughtful sagacity and persevering steadiness of execution, if any great and perfect work is to be produced. Moreover, it can scarcely be necessary to remind you that the arts, even though, perhaps, in each of them there is a predominance of some peculiar kind of higher feeling, or some spirit of higher life swells out in it, are not, therefore, rigidly limited on all sides and irrevocably confined within these narrow limits. On the contrary, one branch of art often passes over into the domain of another. And this interference is not always a misconception, owing chiefly to some confusion of essential matters, and, therefore, in the highest degree erroneous and prejudicial. Poetry, especially, often springs up indigenous in other domains of art, being the most universal of all. And if in poetry itself those ancient and primitive poems or epic songs of sublime recollections occupy the first place, who, therefore, would exclude from it the deep, inner, ardent longing—the oracular faculty of divination for exalted love and eternal hope, with all its music of the feelings, forming, as it does, the spiritual contents, the animating principle and distinctive essence of the lyrical art? Who, too, would dare to censure poetry, because, striving to give another and a newer expression to all that, in these divine remembrances and longing anticipations, constitutes its inmost soul, it attempts, by dramatic representation, to portray the essential features of its inmostbeing, with all the vivid reality and distinct completeness of the present? For does it not, in this respect, approximate, so far, at least, to the plastic arts, and begin to assume many points of affinity with them?
It is, however, necessary to guard here against a possible misunderstanding. Not without good cause, I believe, before all things is the rigid discrimination insisted on which must separate true poetry from a spurious semblance. Poetry which condescends to minister either to the passions or to fashion, or even to prose, or any mere prosaic ends, can not deserve the name. But it is another thing when the poet works his poetical view of things (and this is that which constitutes the poet, and not the mere outward form of poetry alone) into the prosaic reality of some present time, or some historical subject. So, too, is it when in some consistent and artistic imitation of life he takes for his theme the maze of human passions, by no means for the purpose of prolonging it, and still less of inflaming it, but rather because he clearly sees through its complications, to unfold and disentangle them. This we might call—employing a term belonging to the mathematical sciences, though in a different but still analogous sense—mixed or applied poetry; and to this class belong many of the highest productions of art in different ages and nations.
The different arts, or, rather, the different directions of one and the same art, in the several epochs and ages of the world, or among nations variously divided by language and manners, as well as by the style and character of their thought and intellect, may be considered as merely so many varying dialects of one and the same language, which have a common origin and are nearly related. For they possess a common meaning, which, interpreted by a profound and noble perception of art, will be found to pervade all centuries and all people, uniting and enchaining them all by this soul-binding tie of a loving and love-kindled fancy. These eternal and fundamental feelings of the human breast, the remembrance of eternity, an innate longing and high-soaring aspiration, stand in the most intimate connection with each other, even though we can not take a full survey of it, and often feel it profoundly rather than are able perfectly to explain it. They are like so many stem-words and radical syllables, and form together, as it were, one common language. And if, as I before remarked, we should in vain seek for that common and original language, from whichall those now spoken on the face of the earth can be derived, both ethnographically and geologically, may we not still find in art a universal language intelligible to all men? Is not this language (as I may term it) thus enveloped in the garb of art, through which, however, a profound significance gleams brightly forth, an original language of a higher and intellectual order, and at the same time intimately akin with our own nature? Do not its echoes, however faint and broken, when reawakened by true art and sublime poetry, strike a chord of unison in every human breast?
THEgeneral notion of the inner life formed the point from which we started in this attempt to portray the whole spiritual man. I maintained, you will remember, that the philosophy of life proceeds on the simple assumption of this inner life. Now, in the preceding discourses it has been my endeavor to unfold this general idea into a more fully-developed and more definite conception of human consciousness, both in its several principles and total coherence. And this almost completes the first division of our whole sketch. For fully to complete a knowledge of ourselves, and of life in general, a few particulars only remain to be added, and a comprehensive review of the whole once more to be taken. And this, in the natural order of this simple development of thought, forms the next subject of our labors. By reason of the close vital connection which subsists between thought and speech, language served in the first instance for an external basis of comparison, which in the next place art enabled me to carry still farther, inasmuch as the latter may also be regarded as an inner language. For, however fragmentary and incomplete may be our collection of languages and the science thereof, notwithstanding all the enlargement it has received from modern observation and research, it is still possible, by a rigorous distinction of the derivatory and mixed offshoots from the more ancient and purer branches, to gain at least an insight into the history and progress of language, and thence to trace the probable course of its development, even while its origin, no less than the equally incomprehensible phenomenon of its first exercise, remains veiled in impenetrable obscurity. And when we called art a language, we did not mean this merely in the same sense that poetry has been styled—and indeed has even herself assumed the title of—a divine language, on account of the ornamental figures of its external form; neither was it because of the allegorical shapes and allusions, nor of the symbolical garb which plastic art so often puts on. The so transiently advanced metaphor was intended to convey the idea that art in general, not merely in its outward form,but in its inmost essence, and in all of its forms and species alike, is a language of nature of a higher and spiritual kind, or, if the term be preferred, an inward hieroglyphical writing and original speech of the soul, which is immediately intelligible to all susceptible natures, and to every one whose sensibilities a taste for any form of art has rendered open and accessible to its appeal. For the key to it lies not in any arbitrarily established principle, as is the case with that ingenious and beautiful, but still merely conventional invention of the East—the symbolical language of flowers, but in the feeling and the soul itself. For the eternal and fundamental feelings of the soul are awakened, or, rather, reawakened, in these inner-soul words of true art, which, in the same sense that we speak of the riddle of life or of the world, making its solution the object and aim of philosophy, we may likewise term a riddle of hope—of that hope, in truth, which is eternal and divine. But high art, like life and the world, remains a riddle, and must ever appear to us as such, simply because in reality, or at least for the greater part, it is only a few detached notes, without the full and coherent air, that it allows to reach us.
There is, then, an intrinsic connection between thought and speech, between language and consciousness. Moreover man, to judge of him by the collective sum of his characteristic and essential properties, is nothing else than thecreated word, the faint echo and very imperfect copy of the uncreated and eternal, and stands amid the rest of creation, midway between the world of nature and that of spirits. For these reasons, then, in the further exposition of his inner life I shall invariably make use of the idea of language, and even many of its characteristic properties or peculiarities, as the external basis of a comparison calculated to throw light upon much that in the inward thought of man it is otherwise difficult to express and to make clear by words. For, indeed, generally, living thought and the science thereof, can not well or easily be separated from the philosophy of language.
The general idea of the inner life was, I said, the basis of all the previous development of ideas, and this was the only hypothesis which a philosophy of life stands in need of, or can venture to assume. An objection may, it is true, be here started. In the various digressions into which, in the further development of this one fundamental thought, I have been led by my wish to expand it to a full and completeidea of the consciousness, it may be said that much besides has been supposed or taken for granted, if not expressly, yet tacitly; not indeed arbitrarily, but still as the result of a merely personal conviction, however positive and deliberate. To this objection, so naturally to be expected, I can only reply, that if occasionally I may not have expressed myself hypothetically enough, it was, nevertheless, my intention so to do. Consequently all hypothetical positions, with the exception of the fundamental one of the inner thought and life, hitherto assumed by me, are to be regarded here simply in such a light. They are advanced only for the nonce, and provisionally, until they can receive a further and completer analysis, without in anywise anticipating the proof, nor, by a hasty decision, assuming the truth, as if it were independent of argument.
Now, since doubt is a necessary and inevitable property and an essential principle of the whole man in his present state, we are brought by the regular course of our analysis to the problem which is furnished by the thought at issue with itself. To this subject, which now forces itself immediately on our attention, we must devote an entire section of our labors. The object of the first portion was to advance the simple and general thought of the inner life (as being in this simple generality too vague and undefined), or to raise it, step by step, to a full, complete, and comprehensive, but at the same time rightly divided conception of the human mind. In the same way, in the next division of my speculations, the essential subject and proper aim will be to carry that feeling, call it as we will, whether of pure love, or inner life, or higher truth, whose existence we have, we think, clearly established, through the crisis of doubt, to a determinate judgment of profound certainty and unwavering conviction, or at least to a rigorous distinction between that which is certain and that which must forever remain uncertain.
Now, to render in any degree complete that characteristic of the human mind which it has been our object or endeavor in the previous Lectures to sketch in detail, we were obliged to take in also those higher elements which by many are called in question, and by some positively denied to exist. And herein lay the natural ground and the occasion for our introducing the mention of them, at least as facts of consciousness generally acknowledged by the common-sense of mankind. Not that we thereby meant toexclude them from a profounder investigation, or to guard them against the intrusion of that doubt which knows no limits to its skepticism. We only reserved them to their appropriate place in the natural course of our development of living thought. Some there are, we know, who hold even a higher and genuine sense of art to be a mere fancy either of genius, devoted to and displaying its excellence therein, or of the meredilettanti. Others again, and even celebrated writers, have explained conscience and its still, small voice, by the acquired or instilled prejudice of education, or as the delusive effect of custom. How far more numerous, then, must be the doubts which such a system of abnegation of all that is good and exalted would raise against the Platonic doctrine of a recollection of eternal love, or that idea which I have labored to establish, of a pure longing after infinity! If, again, many question the freedom of the will, they deny, in fact, the will itself; for a will that is not free ceases to be will. If, moreover, others refuse to recognize in all human thought, fictions, and inventions, any thing creatively new and peculiarly original, seeing therein nothing but repetition or fresh combinations of external impressions, consequently denying to the human mind all power of invention, then must fancy be denied to be one of the mind’s fundamental powers. For, in truth, in such a case, it is nothing more than memory, or, rather, it is memory fallen into delirium. Others, again, would refer even reason itself and the essential rational character of man simply to a more delicate sensuous organization than is possessed by the most highly-endowed among the brute creation. All such special and eccentric opinions form but so many subordinate chapters of our second part, which has for its theme reason and doubt, and the state of doubt, which are natural to man. To it, therefore, they must be reserved for investigation. We can not anticipate the period of their discussion in the present place, where our first object is, by a development of the simple thought and the general ideas of the inner life, to sketch a perfect outline of the human mind, which shall take in all its higher elements and capacities, as well as the earthly and inferior ingredients which are blended with them.
The thought or conception, as the general manifestation of the inner life, is in its nature and form indefinite, but still a cogitation, which even at this step is already referredto a particular object, and so in its contents limited thereto. An idea or notion, however, is a conception mathematically proportioned by number, measure, and weight;i.e., according to the number of its several constituents it is carefully divided, and its subordinate genera enumerated; measured according to its extent, and according to its internal value and comprehension, and also its relation to other kindred notions of a higher or lower order carefully weighed and pondered; in short, a conception complete and perfect in itself. Hitherto, therefore, it has been properly but a single notion that has engaged our attention, and formed the subject-matter of our whole speculation—the notion, viz., of the human consciousness. For it is not merely philosophy to link together in a never-ending chain its own self-derived and arbitrary ideas, by some specious rule of necessary connection. The duty of philosophy is rather originally to combine facts—and, in truth, all the given facts of a certain kind, and within a certain range, in one clear, intelligible, and perfectly vivid notion, and it has generally to do with very few ideas. Two or three ideas, in short, such as that of consciousness, of science, or of man himself, are quite sufficient for its purpose of solving, if not fully and completely, yet at least to the full extent of what is not merely possible and allowable, but also wholesome and profitable, the three riddles of life, of the universe, and of a divine hope, which lie before the whole human mind, and thereby to arrive at some abiding conviction with regard to them.
Now, in concluding our development of the human mind, and adding to it all that is still wanting to its completeness, I shall observe the same method of exposition as I have hitherto followed. Leaving for the nonce unmooted, the grave questions whether there be any such thing as truth—and, if so, whether man is capable of recognizing and attaining to it in any degree—and reserving them to their appropriate place where they will naturally arise, I shall adopt into the outline of the general notion of the consciousness all those facts of it which are acknowledged by the common-sense of mankind. I shall, as such, allow them all and no more than their due weight. Occasionally, however, when any such phenomenon appears somewhat questionable, I shall add a word or two of explanation, in order to guard against the possibility of misconception, or an overhasty inference, setting down thefacts purely as such, and so far as they are already apprehended, for further investigation and inquiry.
The four opposite poles or extremes of man’s divided and discordant consciousness are, I said, its four fundamental faculties or powers, understanding and will, and reason and fancy. With regard to the two first, every one may, both from internal experience of his own self and from observation of his fellow-men, easily arrive at a conviction that they seldom work together in perfect harmony, and that the discord is often the most violent when either one or both of these two faculties possess more than ordinary strength. The marked opposition between reason and fancy reveals itself but too plainly, both in private and public life. The men of mere taste and imagination, artistic and poetical natures (to which category, in a somewhat loose sense, very many really belong, though the happy exceptions of true genius be indeed rare), on the one hand; and on the other, the men of practical reason—the utilitarians, who limit their views, more or less, to the public advantage to be derived from this quality of practical reason, and look with distrust to every higher flight of fancy or feeling, form two hostile classes of men, who with difficulty comprehend each other. At least they are seldom in a position to understand one another’s feelings, and rightly and fairly to appreciate them. Still more rare are the exceptions, where both these faculties and mental characters are found united in one and the same individual.
After these four fundamental faculties of the first order, come certain accessory functions of the second order, derived from or compounded of the former. Of these, conscience and memory, and after them the instincts and passions, have been described as movements of the will, passing over into the illimitable region of the fancy, and consequently holding an intermediate place between will and fancy. We have now to add a word or two concerning the external senses, and therewith to complete our sketch of the human consciousness in its present divided and distracted condition. But previously to entering upon this topic, I would, with reference to this last-mentioned characteristic of instinct, call your attention to a particular species of it, which is not unimportant, but rather belongs essentially to a complete picture of this part of the human consciousness. It will, moreover, furnish a new instance, to show how in nature herself there lies a cause, or at leasta first occasion for many parallels of comparative psychology, similar to those which have already presented themselves. I am alluding to the artistic instincts displayed by some of the more sagacious animals, and especially some of the industrious members of the insect tribe. These present a remarkable affinity to human art, in which all, at least, is not the effect of teaching. In the lower but still beautiful degrees of artistic talent, there is much that seems instinctive in its operation, and, as it were, unconscious and innate. True and lofty genius of art can not be here included. It belongs, on the contrary, to a different sphere. For in it the unconscious creative faculty is not narrowly restricted to one rigid path or definite form, but has rather for its essential basis a productive power of imagination, of universal range and fullness, and which, as it were, travails in birth with the infinite.
Now this notion, thus borrowed from natural science, for the purposes of a comparative psychology, seems well applicable to that pure feeling of infinite longing which is the most exalted of all man’s aspirations. According to that idea of it which I have labored to establish, we can name this profound inward longing, which nothing earthly can ever satisfy, man’s instinct of eternity—an instinct which often long remains, and at the first always is perfectly unconscious of a higher vocation and divine destiny.
The external senses are in one respect the faithful organs and instruments of the understanding in the material world, with which it makes its experience or observations therein, and draws therefrom its experimental science. In another point of view, they may not improperly be termed an applied or practical fancy, which for a definite direction exercises itself on the individual phenomena of the material world, for the copying and reproduction of external impressions on the organs, as,e.g., of the visible form or reduced image in the eye, is in any case nothing but an inferior species or a collateral branch of the general faculty of productive imagination. But that new and spiritual sense of higher potency, which in the purely material can only develop itself as an exception, or may appear to be veiled therein—I mean the keen appreciation by the ear of musical tones, and the eye for picturesque beauty of form in the plastic art—can only be regarded as a lightning-spark of fancy passing along and operating through this external medium and conductor.
One remark seems of importance in connection with our whole subject; at any rate it will not be superfluous, as confirming our assertion that the threefold principle of human life in general is found repeated in its single members; and though on a smaller scale, is still manifested in the same relation. We observe, therefore, that whatever physiological, or, it may be, anatomical reasons physiologists may have for counting five senses—and they may be perfectly sufficient and adequate for the requisitions of physical science, still, psychologically, it is far more accurate and also simpler, in a philosophical sense, to limit their number to three. No doubt, in the sensation of taste, not only a mechanical contact occurs, but there is also a chemical decomposition of the tasted matter, by which the sensation of sweet or bitter is produced. So, too, in smell, although no visible evaporation takes place, still it is a fact that aëriform floating particles are thrown off from the sensible body, and actually taken in by the sentient. Still these are far from being adequate grounds for making of them two independent senses. Even in the inner organic perception of one’s bodily health and ease, and in the opposite case of pain, it is something more than the mere mechanical contact from without that is therein sensuously perceived. But are we disposed on this account to agree with those who propose to divide still further the single sense of material touch, and increase the number of the senses? We feel at once that this would be superfluous, since all these proposed divisions are, at least in a psychological point of view, to be regarded simply as modifications—as branches or lower species of one and the same sense. And by the same analogy, then, we may reckon all these material senses for one. Thus, then, we have in all but three senses, presenting in this smaller and meaner sphere an accurate correspondence to the triple man, and the three elements which make up his whole being—body, soul, and spirit.
Of the outer senses, the eye is incontestably the most spiritual. The ear, whereby we are sentient of sounds, words, and voices, and melody, and all music, corresponds to the soul; while the sense of material feeling, which is also destined to be the ministering organ and guardian of the health and welfare of the body, is corporeal, and corresponds to the principle of organic life. After the loss both of sight and hearing, the body may both be and long continue healthy and vigorous; whereas a defect in thesense of feeling, so soon, at least, as it became general and total, would be the commencement of death, or at least appear to be so, since diseases temporarily take this form. However, this third and corporeal sense of feeling is not always entirely external and grossly material. It may develop itself, at least by way of exception (since the sense of art in the eye and ear is not universal), as a sort of intellectual perception, though still a physical feeling of kindred life and of the inner light, which often gives rise to a peculiar and remarkable immediate natural sense (not to call it an instinct) for the invisible, which is enshrouded within the outward phenomena of life. And though some would fain deny the reality of this capacity, still, inasmuch as its existence is a matter of fact, adequately confirmed by experience, as great, if not greater error may be committed in the opposite direction. Because this acute natural sense does unquestionably often arrive in a most wonderful manner at a just and right conclusion—or this instinct make most remarkable divinations—we must not, therefore, exalt it at once into a kind of invisible, infallible, and, as it were, omniscient oracle. For such is not to be met with in the path of psychology, nor in the whole circle of faculties which belong to man as man, and least of all in that critical point of transition out of the ordinary perception of consciousness into a complete state of unconsciousness, and from this again into a clear and bright consciousness; which point, even on this account, seeming to stand midway between light and shade, exhibits here and there a strong resemblance to the world of dreams. Such, in general, is the limitation of the human intellect, that reason, as has been already often remarked, can never be regarded as an unerring oracle and infallible organ of truth; neither is the clearest understanding and the most experienced artistic sense, even in its own peculiar sphere, always unerring. Still less can either the will or the fancy make such a claim. Even the inner voice ofconscience, although its name alludes directly to an inwardknowing, and thecertaintythereof,[69]is not always and universally recognized as such an infallible guide—otherwise many a thinker and writer on the subject would not have set up, as necessary to explain at least some cases, the idea of a mistaken conscience. It appears, then, that this natural sense, even where it exists in the greatest strength and clearness, must be always regardedas an entirely individual and peculiar gift, and can only be understood and judged of as such. This remark involves, perhaps, the most important consideration, which, in judging of it, we must always keep in view. Moreover, even where it really and decidedly exists, whether in a state of complete or half-consciousness, or in full conscious wakefulness, it always requires the closest observation and the most watchful care before it can attain to its full perfection; for its development must be extremely slow and gradual. In this respect it must resemble the expansion of that high and spiritual sense of art which forms a bright and luminous point within the material organ of the ear or eye—which lies enshrouded in the external organ like a spiritual germ, or—as we may justly term the artist’s vision as compared with that of other men—aneye within the eye.
We have now taken a general view of the whole human mind, finding it to comprise four great fundamental faculties of the first class, and then certain secondary ones—viz., memory and conscience, with the appetites and external senses, which, at least in the psychological point of view, appear to be mixed forms or derivatives of the former. The four first are occasionally found combined together in due proportion. When this combination is the natural endowment of genius, they attain to their noblest energy, and even by a lively and careful development, they often attain to a most exquisite unity of operation. Mostly, however, we meet with a decided preponderance and exclusive ascendency of some one, which in its external effects is only limited and checked by the fact that it is thus isolated. The four rarely co-operate together; and, for the most part, by their dissension they prove checks and hindrances to each other. But not merely in the individual and his personal life and conduct do these four fundamental forces display such strength and vital energy in the grand development of the whole human race; and in its history we may also observe the same fact. Among the Greeks we recognize, distinctly and clearly, a profound and ingenious intellect predominating in life, no less than in art and science; in the Romans, an irresistible and sovereign force of will, reducing the world to its subjection, and often no less gloriously imposing laws on itself; in the Christian middle ages, the lovely devices of fancy giving its bold shapes to life itself as well as to art; and lastly, in modern times, reason squaring every thing to the measure of its own mind and laws,coupling often, and associating, or, by its middle terms, equating together the remotest elements, and not less frequently exercising a destructive energy against all, and even against itself. Thus this ground-scheme of human consciousness, which formed the first result of the psychological investigation of our own selves, meets us here also on a grander scale as a part of the world’s history, and in the large dimensions of successive ages and centuries, as the first striking result in the history of man’s civilization during the twenty-five centuries which, as lying nearest to our own times, we are best acquainted with. Much as may be wanting to fill up, both in the commencement and the middle—much, in short, as it would be necessary to add or more closely to define, if it were our object to draw a universal sketch of the four historical epochs and ages of the civilization of the world within the limits best known to us, yet for our immediate object these mere hints are sufficient; for they prove how, even in history, in its place each of these four fundamental powers of man developed itself in the most decided form and displayed a marvelous and uncontrollable energy. Here, too, we see that an intrinsic equilibrium between these several powers forms in general but the rare and happy exception, while on the whole it is mostly wanting. Indeed the absence of a complete vital union and co-operation is but too painfully felt and perceived in the history of the world.
Quite different, however, is the case with the mixed and mediate faculties of the second rank, which are derived from the former. To these may be applied the remark we lately made on the American tribes and languages, in relation to that degradation of the human race so especially noticeable in them, and its still advancing degeneracy and dismemberment. The external senses, whose meager powers of cognition are but a sorry make-shift for man’s mind, which in its thirst of knowledge would embrace all existence, the Godhead, and the universe, are narrowly restricted to the material world immediately around him. From such slight and unpromising beginnings, science is no doubt occasionally able to evolve many a great and noble truth. And even in the external senses themselves a feeling of art or a clear and pure sense of nature gleams forth at times, like a little spark of purer light. Still even here many and great impediments affect them and their sure application. Memory, too, is on the whole little more than a mechanicalreadiness, with difficulty acquired, and soon weakened and blunted. The appetites or instincts are liable to numberless aberrations and passionate excesses. As to conscience, there is but too much reason to fear that it is for the most part in a state of weakness and apathy, dwarfed and mutilated in its powers and operations. At least, the remark is no very strange one that conscience, which has an ear as well as a small, still voice, does not always hear very quickly, and often fails to hear very much that it might and would do well to listen to. Whether there are not men who in this respect may be considered perfectly deaf, is a question which can only be answered by an accurate and specific history of human crimes, or by those whose calling it is to study this sad and gloomy side of the picture of human life. Such complete moral deadness as this, however, which happily forms a rare exception in humanity, may, perhaps, be rightly regarded as a kind of moral imbecility for all higher and moral sentiments, even though it is frequently accompanied with great clearness of intellect and a high degree of instinctive shrewdness or cunning. On the other hand, the cases are probably rare, where the delicate moral sensibility or inward perception of right and wrong among nobler natures, is developed in such purity and strength, and carried to such a height of perfection and stability, as the musical ear and artistic delicacy is by great musicians and amateurs of the art. Probably, too, it is more suitable, and also more profitable, for human nature in its present degraded state, that its higher senses and organs for the invisible should not manifest themselves in us in all their extreme and overpowering energy, and for the most part should but shine with a subdued light, or, as it were, gleam through some shrouding envelope. Even of the conscience this is true. At least, it admits not of denial that a few moments’ brief enjoyment of a truly bright and clear-sighted conscience would be enough to tear the soul forever from its present indifference, and to plunge it into an abyss of unspeakable grief, for which earthly language possesses no adequate expression, and for which the human bosom has no suitable notes of lamentation and mourning. It is, therefore, only the greater proof of beneficence if the invisible world, and the mysteries of eternal woe which await the lost spirit—in comparison with which every earthly pain and all earthly suffering are as nothing—is in mercy shrouded with a veil, which only seldom and on rare occasionsmay lawfully be lifted. Now, generally, it is at the uttermost confines of error, in the very depths of degradation, and the lowest level of narrow-mindedness, that the first higher impulse and beginning of happier times exalts itself, opening out the way of return to a newer and better life. The same probably may be the case in our present shackled and distracted consciousness. Those very gross mistakes and aberrations to which the limited and discordant faculties are liable, may furnish the common basis for the growth of another vitally complete and harmonious co-operating consciousness.
For now that we have, by the enumeration of these eight faculties, made a complete sketch of the human consciousness, the question may arise, naturally enough, “Which is the common center of this sphere, or what is there found or demonstrable in this center?” It was with a view to this question that I attempted to give a refined interpretation of the Platonic idea of theanamnesis, taking it to mean the recollection of a higher love, not so much in a former existence as of and from eternity. We explained it, consequently, to be a species of transcendental memory. And in this sense we justified it, demonstrating at the same time, in that other region which is formed of man’s instinct and desires, the existence of the pure idea of infinite longing as the highest effort of the human soul. The sense of art, and profound feeling of natural beauty, which belong to true artistic genius, are recognized as being in their sphere extraordinary endowments. In the same way no one will wish to deny that the moral feeling, as the natural expression of the inner voice of conscience, constitutes in social life the fundamental condition and the surest foundation for all lofty and noble sentiments. Thus feeling is that center which we were in search of, of the otherwise divided and distracted consciousness. I might call it the moral feeling, only then it would not be of so universal an application as it really is. For the moral aspect constitutes only a single view and energy of the whole, since the feeling of art, and every other kind of higher sentiment, belongs equally to it. With much greater propriety I might term it the inner, by way of distinction from the external and material sense of feeling. Less clear than the understanding, and not so decided or definite as the will, with more vitality and life than the reason, but at the same time more narrowly limited than the fancy, the immediate sphere of individualexistence—feeling, occupies the central space between the four fundamental faculties, as well as between the four intermediate faculties of the second order. It is the apparently indifferent, but in truth the full and living center of consciousness, where every vibration of all the other isolated powers meet and cross, either neutralizing each other, or combining together into new life and harmonious co-operation It admits, indeed, of the most various degrees of development and of every kind of progression, from the simplest, almost indifferent, and passive sense of mere existence, up to the highest and self-sacrificing enthusiasm, which heeds no form or phase of death, or up to that highest state of rapture which loses itself on the very verge of unconsciousness. In this respect we might well say, with the poet, “Feeling is all.” It is the center of life, and the heart of the whole, each single and individual faculty, in and by itself, being, as compared with it, but “noise, powder, and smoke,” “shrouding the bright empyrean.” And yet this center of the consciousness is not, however, such as to be able, by its inherent force and activity, to organize and regulate the whole, holding in union all those otherwise isolated powers and states of the human mind. In this respect it is, on the whole, passive. Indeed, viewed in a more accurate light, feeling is not so much an individual and peculiar faculty as an entirely formless and indefinite, but still vitally moved and frequently excited, condition of the consciousness, which is to form the point of transition from its present state of fourfold division, into the living, perfect, and harmonious co-operation of its triple state. When reason and fancy have ceased to be divided, being restored to oneness by the living feeling, but are blended together in the thinking and loving soul, we have the basis on which a restoration of the consciousness to harmony and perfection must in every case be commenced. When the great faculty of the understanding no longer stands aloof by itself, coldly inactive; when the strong will ceases, by its blind obstinacy, to impede its own efforts; when the two have now grown together into an effectual potency of the life-enlightened spirit, in which every thought is at once an act, and every word a power (a state which is only possible and attainable in this center of a higher love)—we have then the second step on the path of return to the original perfection of the consciousness.
But before I attempt to add to this scale of progressionthe last term which is yet wanting, I must episodically introduce and discuss another question. It relates to the phenomenon of judgment, which as yet has not had its place assigned to it in the consciousness. Is it to be considered as an independent faculty of the soul, and in what relation does it stand to the other mental powers? Now, by judgment, in the merely logical sense, nothing more is understood than the connecting of a predicate with a subject. For instance, in the complete syllogism, “All men are mortal: Caius is a man, therefore Caius is mortal,” the minor premise, where the middle or general term is specially applied, and, consequently, predicted of an individual, alone forms such a judgment. Now, since it is the reason that logically connects thoughts together, it is not easy to see why this one act, by which the predicate and subject are connected, should be separated from all others and set up and regarded as an independent and especial faculty. For by so doing nothing is explained, and an unnecessary addition is made to the subdivisions (already too numerous) of the human mind and its thinking powers. Quite otherwise, however, is it with another class of judgments, which, in fact, are highly deserving the name. For these in their proper sphere actually decide. And their decisions are generally regarded as authoritative because they are based on natural talents, a practiced eye, a multifarious and extensive experience, a long study of the matters they are concerned about, which in practice render them more or less certain and trustworthy. In this case the act of judgment is no simple function of the thinking faculty. It is, rather, the sum of the manifold elements and spiritual perceptions on which it exercises itself, and which it presupposes. For the most part it is the highly complicated and composite result of many fundamental premises. We can not, however, reckon this higher function of judgment in any particular sphere as a peculiar mental faculty, since in such a case a special one must needs be assumed for every one; for a right discrimination in any one sphere does not by any means imply equal certainty in another. Moreover, the several species and branches of the general gift are found to exist quite separately and distinct from each other. Since, then, the general notion of an independent faculty does not afford a satisfactory explanation of the phenomena of judgment, we must seek it in some other direction. And here a few examples will greatly tend toillustrate the whole matter. How much, for instance, is comprised in a genuine artistic judgment! It is compounded of a multitude of observations, impressions, reflections, and emotions. And yet the opinion resulting from all these is simply one, and definitely comprised in one simple sentence. Suppose the opinion pronounced to be, that this or that beautiful and ancient painting is not from the master to whom it is commonly ascribed, but belongs, rather, to this or that other school. Of course I am not supposing the case where such an assertion can be proved historically by documentary evidence. In such a case the decision would turn on a matter of fact, and not on judgment—at least, not on true artistic judgment. The judgment in question must principally, if not entirely, be drawn from the work itself—from the style of the handling, and similar indications, by a practiced and almost infallible tact. So various, in short, and manifold are the observations on which such an artistic judgment depends, that they often furnish matter for a whole book, or, at least, for an essay. Whenever, however, it is really artistic discernment, and not merely historical knowledge, that is involved, we invariably meet with some one point or other which does not admit of mathematical demonstration, and on which the ultimate decision must be left to each man’s personal judgment, or that immediate perception which forms a feeling of art. Most justly, therefore, does our language closely connect the two expressions. For a true artistic judgment [Kunsturtheil] is itself nothing else than this intuitive feeling of art [Kunstgefuhl] applied to a special case or subject, and brought out in perfect clearness and comprised in a definite shape. Just so it is in the sphere of social life with regard to the judgment on what is proper—the feeling, in short, of propriety. Here, for instance, it is no uncommon question whether this or that word, spoken in some delicate posture of affairs, was really necessary, exactly what was right to be said and thoroughly suitable, or altogether ill-chosen and unseasonable. Or with regard to some step still in contemplation, it may be disputed whether such or such a method be the best and the most appropriate. How many little niceties and delicate considerations are here involved, which a fine feeling can alone enter into! What various and intricate contingencies, for which it is often difficult to find words sufficiently expressive, must such a judgment take into account,in its deliberation on such matters! And in social converse on such instances, is not the casting-voice generally left to the acute sensibilities and quick tact of woman?
For in all such cases the decision invariably depends upon an immediate feeling of propriety, which, though first called forth and developed by the social intercourse of life, is in truth original and innate. Such, indeed, it must ever be. For where it does not exist naturally, it can never be learned nor artificially acquired. The original want of this inward feeling can never be replaced by any varnish of external culture, however brilliant. And the case is also the same even in the sphere of science; for instance, in the shrewd, searching glance by which the skillful physician takes his diagnosis of disease; or in the clear, perspicacious sagacity which enables the judge, in some highly complicated suit or doubtful criminal trial, to seize the right point on which truth and justice hinge. For in judicial cases, with much that admits of demonstrative proof, or which, as matter of fact, is unquestioned, there is still more where nothing but this psychological penetration, long practiced in such matters, and to which past experience has given confidence in itself, can immediately see through all the sophistical wiles not only of the pleadings and the skillful advocate, but also of the litigant parties themselves, or of the crafty criminal.
The same remark applies also to a sphere, apparently, indeed, related to the one last mentioned, but, in fact, essentially different and widely remote from it. I allude to the unerring tact of the experienced statesman, by which he not only penetrates, through his knowledge of mankind, the political designs of others, but is also enabled to read the great events of the world and their tendencies, and infallibly to seize the right moment for action.
In all these instances (and many others might easily be added) it is upon an immediate perception or feeling of what is right that the decision finally turns. And this fact is almost confessed by such expressions as a “penetrating glance,” an “unerring tact,” and many similar ones to be found in our own and other highly cultivated languages. Such a judgment may, therefore, not inaptly be termed an intellectual feeling; for it implies the existence of intellect. And this not only as an inborn natural talent, for the special domain within which the judgment is to be exercised, but, moreover, a certain development of the understanding,strengthened by long practice, and confirmed by varied experience in the particular province. But still, with this intellectual element there is invariably mixed a feeling, or immediate perception, of what is right and just. It is this, in short, that properly decides and makes the opinion ultimately expressed to be a judgment. On this account I can not attribute the act of judgment exclusively to the understanding, for the former involves something more than the simple intellection of a single object. It comprises, at the same time, a rigorous distinction between two objects, or a decision between yes and no. Perhaps, therefore, the best and most perfect explanation of judgment would be to call it an intelligent feeling of a correct discrimination, comprised and expressed, and also communicated to others, in a general form. The last-mentioned quality, however, does not always belong to the judgment, since it often remains merely internal; at least, it does not form an essential or necessary part of it.
Thus, then, this digression (though, in truth, it is not properly a digression, since the question concerning the faculty of judgment, and the position it occupies in the whole soul, is essentially connected with the consideration of the latter) has again led us back to feeling, as the living center of the entire consciousness, where all its extreme tendencies converge and reunite. Here it is that the dull and unpromising state of calm, contemplative indifference meets together with the highest excitement of energetic activity, the lowest and most insignificant states of consciousness being found there, as well as the most exalted and most sublime—the enthusiasm that carries all before it, no less than the clear self-possession in the spirit’s feeling of a discernment of truth, or, as I called the judgment, an intelligent perception of what is right and just. In this advance of feeling in the mind or spirit [geistigen] up to that height of self-possession and clearness at which it receives the name of judgment, the former bears the same relation to the latter as the mere thought, in its first vague generality, does to the notion which I have defined to be a thought perfectly divided into its organic members, and mathematically measured both inwardly and outwardly—both,i.e., as to extent and comprehension.
Now, this inward feeling, taken in the full comprehensive sense of the word, is the same as what I previously called sense, when I spoke of the human consciousness as consistingof spirit, soul, and sense. In these places, however, you will remember, I reserved to a future opportunity the further and closer determination of the relation in which this general sense stands to the other two elements of the mind. But inasmuch as the notion of sense always carries us back to a special kind of sensation, limited and only open to a special sphere of objects, the expression of an inward feeling seems far more strictly appropriate to the third element of the mind. For the term feeling, by its vague generality, comprises all objects of consciousness, or, in other words, all kinds and species of a higher sense. Now, this higher and all-embracing internal feeling is the starting-point from which we must set out if we would hope to arrive at the complete reunion and living co-operation which marks the consciousness in its original threefold state. It is not, however, the key-stone of consummation. It is simply the foundation on which all the rest must be built, or it is the deep fountain out of which rich nourishment springs up on all sides for the other two elements of the mind, viz., the soul and the spirit. The latter two, in fact, constitute the whole essence of the inner man. Now, since the spirit is an active faculty, while the soul, though possessed of a creative vitality, is on the whole mostly passive, their undivided union and constant co-operation may, by way of figure, be designated as an inner intellectual union or marriage in the consciousness. Indeed, we might not inaptly explain man’s essence as consisting in the spirit being wedded to its soul, and in the soul being thereupon clothed with an organic body. But, to pursue the same metaphor: this marriage between spirit and soul is not always a happy and harmonious union. Whenever the soul, drawn off by every external impression and attraction, loses itself in the manifold ways and by-ways of the material world, or wanders to an unsafe distance with fancy, as she roams at liberty amid the things of sense; whenever the spirit, trusting to its own inherent powers, follows their dictates alone, and recognizes nothing above, and disregards all that is without, itself, then this marriage is invariably distracted by passionate discord and unquiet. Here, perhaps, as well as in the external world, the words apply: “What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” A complete and total divorce is indeed scarcely conceivable, such is the coherence of the living consciousness. By death alone is it possible to be brought about, or perhaps also bythat flaming sword of the Holy Word, which it is said pierces to the bone and marrow, dividing soul and spirit. Where the first bond of union was given by God, it must be maintained and continually strengthened by recurring to this supreme center, if it is to be permanent and to look finally for perfection. This is only possible where the spirit recognizes a divine standard above itself, and where, in all its thoughts, works, and deeds, it acts upon this exalted principle, and where also the soul seeks before all things this eternal center of love, and is ever reverting to it. In such a case both soul and spirit are united in God, or at least are ever yearning for such a union. And, in truth, nothing more is required of man than what has always and every where been required of him, though, alas! this requisition has seldom been fully realized. God, then, is the keystone which holds together the whole human consciousness; and this is the point to which our investigation has, step by step, been leading us. And now our notion of the whole scheme and delineation of the human mind is complete.
Its general basis and outline, such as we find it within ourselves, is formed by the four fundamental faculties first described, together with four others of a lower and secondary order. Feeling—i.e., the inner feeling, comprising every higher form thereof, is its center. It is that by which we first are awakened to its present existence, and also at the same time the point at which we pass into a higher state, wherein its operation will be more vivid and its union more harmonious. But as to the threefold life of the inner man, it consists in spirit, soul, and God, as the third, in whom the first two are united, or at least must seek their union.
In proportion, therefore, as this key-stone is removed from the human mind, it falls a prey to discord and the isolation of its several powers; nay more, the latter sink continually lower and lower, and fall from one depth of degradation to another. And when occasionally, as in the might and strength of genius, there occurs a preponderance of some one faculty, it exercises for the most part a destructive tendency against the harmony of the whole, checking, if not suppressing altogether, the free developments of other powers as necessary and as essential as itself.
ACCORDINGto that outline of the human mind which we have just sketched, its whole alphabet, so to speak, consists but of twelve letters or primary elements. These are formed first of all into the stem-syllables or radicals of higher truth and knowledge, out of which again, in the inner language of true science, entire words and connected propositions are constructed. And these again must further combine into one universal key and all-embracing fundamental word of life. In this internal alphabet of the consciousness, however, there is one point on which a few words of further explanation are necessary to a right understanding. And it is one of the very highest consequence, since it concerns the final aim or even the first foundation, being nothing less than the center of life and perfection of unity. God, it is said, must form the key-stone in the arch of the whole consciousness; and no other real point of union can be found. But now God is without, or, rather, above, the human mind. How, then, are we to designate that by and through which this center of unity, which we feel and acknowledge to be raised far above us, is to be seized and retained, so that it may livingly operate within us? I know no other way of indicating it than by the wordidea—the idea, viz., of the divine and of the Divinity Himself. As, then, feeling forms the common center of life for the lower and ordinary consciousness of man and its eight elementary faculties, so it is this idea that, as the third internal principle, makes up, together with spirit and soul, the higher threefold living consciousness. But by this idea we mean not a merely speculative or abstract and dead idea, but an effectually operative and living idea of a God, who, having life in Himself, is the source from which all life proceeds. In its outward form, and as compared with the other functions of the consciousness or acts of the thinking faculty, this idea is a notion. At the same time, however, it is also a figure or a symbol. For it is only figuratively that that which is not so much inconceivable, as rather transcends conception, being far above and beyond all possible notions, can be at all indicated. It is by symbols alone that suchcan be conceived or comprehended. Indeed, the wordidea, in its original Greek sense, alludes to some kind of visible figure and figurative shape lying, as it were, within the notion itself. All that is highest of every species can only be apprehended by such a mode of thinking as is at the same time both logical and symbolical—in which the logical thought of reason and the symbolical of imagination—the scientific, viz., or of that which in cognition is the inward productive faculty, are once more in unison, being thoroughly combined or wholly blended together. The idea, however, is not merely a conception, which is a notion, and yet, at the same time, as properly transcending all notion, a figure or symbol; but looking to the inward form of the consciousness, rather than to the object itself, it is a conception which is also a feeling. Indeed, without the supposition of the latter it can not exist, and, strictly speaking, is not even conceivable. That this is the case, the following instance will fully show: How could we, if we wished it, suggest the idea of true love, or make it clear and comprehensible to one who had never felt any thing of the kind, and was, in short, totally incapable of such a feeling?
Properly, however, and in scientific rigor, there is only one idea truly so called. And that is the one idea of the Godhead. All else that we call ideas, whether in this higher signification, or in a kindred and similar sense—like the innate ideas, without number, of which the Platonic philosophy speaks, or that idea of true love which I lately alluded to (having previously made frequent use of such expressions, and intending to do so again whenever they appear calculated to lead to accuracy of distinction or vividness of indication)—all such can only be called ideas in a certain sense and analogy. Such a mode of speech, however, is allowable whenever we are treating of such notions and conceptions as stand in any relation to the higher and divine. For, contemplated from this spiritual center of the divine idea, they shine in a new light. Being purified in its flame, they seem to be elevated and brought many degrees nearer to this one supreme idea of the living God, in all His perfection and beauty. In all its fullness and completeness, however, this idea can not truly be said to be innate in the human mind. At most there are there only the elements of it, viz., the remembrance of eternal love (which Plato’s doctrine of the anamnesis, when purified,amounts to), the infinite longing, the voice of conscience; and then, completing the number, as the fourth element, comes the genuine and exalted enthusiasm for art and natural beauty. All these higher elements, however, of the divine in man, form but a weak echo of the whole. They are, as it were, but so many faint dying notes, or the first infantine lispings of this one divine idea, which in its full force and brightness must be given, imparted, and revealed; while that which is thus given and experienced, and indeed personally experienced, can only be embraced, understood, and retained by faith through love.
He who has never had any feeling or experience of God, who is a stranger to love, and incapable of faith of any kind, to such a one, so long as he remains in this state, it would be lost labor to speak of God, or of the divine idea, with all that flows immediately from it. This idea may indeed exist as a rational notion necessarily emanating from our own cogitations. But in this form, as the creature of our own conception, but not as a given and revealed, it is little better than the fixed reflection of ourselves—the objective projection of our own Me. For such in all purely rational systems it ever is—emptied and utterly void of all effectual living power, and of all truth and reality. But when the idea of God has been received by a higher experience (and thus only can it be vitally imparted), then may we in truth call it divine. For it is no longer the barren, unfruitful idea that it is in all other cases, but it contains in itself an effectual living and life-giving energy.
The fundamental elements of the human consciousness are, then, twelve in number. The first universal basis is formed by the eight special faculties, with love as their living center. To these must be added the three principles of the higher inward life—soul, spirit, and the idea of the divine—such as we have accurately defined and characterized it. These together I have called the alphabet of the consciousness. And this alphabet, like a fixed and established logical notion, I shall henceforth adopt in this precise shape and number, making it, without any essential variation, the basis of my subsequent remarks. It is, no doubt, of great advantage, and even necessary for the elucidation of any matter, rigorously to separate the several elements of the general notion, duly arranging them, and accurately preserving their number. Still we may be overanxious in this respect. And, indeed, language itself is not alwaysvery precise in its designations; and the different dialects of human speech, with their fluctuating phraseology, often assign a different rank and position to the parts of the same whole. Much, for instance is set down as an independent faculty, which, more correctly regarded, is but a state—or even only a passage from one state into another—or it may be merely a natural talent; or, perhaps, some such happy coincidence and harmonious co-operation of several powers of the soul as constitutes true genius. An instance of this kind gave rise to that question which so lately engaged our attention, whether the judgment is rightly to be considered a special faculty; and, if not, how is it in strictness of truth to be designated? And in a similar respect, I now find occasion to say a few words on wit, as being nearly related to judgment (if the latter be, as I have explained it, anintelligent feeling), and as holding an intermediate position between judgment and genius. For now we have given a complete sketch in outline of the whole consciousness, it is desirable to fill in, as completely as possible, all the lesser and nicer features. In other words, it is expedient to assign their proper place in the entire consciousness to those properties of soul and spirit which are not so much simple or first principles as complex phenomena of a secondary order, and compounded of several distinct elements. Now wit, like judgment, is an intelligent feeling, marked, however, with the qualities of immediateness and pertinency. But it is not, like the judgment, associated always with a special knowledge and insight. On the contrary, wit often arises from a certainnaïveignorance of the entire province to which belongs the object on which it exercises itself. We might almost say that the disposition to wit consists in auniversallyintelligent feeling, for its quickness of perception is confined to no particular department of life, but exercises itself on life in general, and finds therein its proper arena. But this describes rather the notion of what is commonly called “sound sense,” or “natural intelligence,” which, in itself, is not wit, and is often found existing totally unaccompanied with the latter. Nevertheless, this at least is manifest, that if an individual be said to be entirely devoid of judgment—which is nearly the same as saying that he possesses nointelligent feelingin any species or form—it would be in vain in such a person to look for much, if any, wit. That, moreover, which forms the chief characteristic of wit, and essentially distinguishes it from judgment, is itsunconsciousness. On this very account children even, if they be at all lively, are often witty. And, indeed, this childish wit forms, perhaps, one of the most graceful of its many forms and kinds. To prove how greatly this childish wit depends on its very unconsciousness, we may appeal to a fact, which, moreover, will teach us at the same time not to lay too much stress on the fact, if children, even at an early age, appear very clever and witty. It is no unfrequent observation that when children, by the development of their understandings, attain to greater clearness of consciousness, their wit suddenly ceases, and their character assumes a touch of dry, solemn, but still childish earnestness. That genial unconsciousness which ever remains the property of true wit, both of social conversation and of poetry, at once forms and attests its affinity with genius. But, still, wit alone is not a complete creative power. By itself it rarely gives birth to aught. It is but a single element, which is added as the last finishing grace to all the creative productions of fancy, and to every other work in which a fertile and original mind gives utterance to its thoughts. On this account it manifests itself in the most varied and opposite forms. It is not limited to social conversation, or to art and poetry, but even in philosophy—and the Socratic especially—assumes a peculiar and important place as the essential ingredient of irony.
Now the variety of forms in which wit so richly displays itself is a further point of resemblance between it and judgment. Still this common property has a different cause in each. The immediate judgment, or intelligent feeling, presents so great a variety of forms, because the human mind is not equally conversant in every province of thought, being generally familiar with some one in particular. But in the case of wit, it is its very versatility, by which it suits itself to and insinuates itself in every object of intellectual attention, that is the source of its manifold diversity. But that it would carry us far beyond our present limits, it would be highly instructive in a scientific point of view to take a survey of all the several forms in which this mental quality gushes forth in all the rich fullness of genius.
But now, since our exposition of the human mind has been hitherto carried on by means of a parallelism with the idea of language, it will not be out of place to make a few remarks here on the real alphabet, or the elementary letters of different languages, as bearing a relation to what wehave called the alphabet of the consciousness. For the former presents more than one remarkable analogy with the higher principle of the inward life, and its whole organic framework. Properly, syllables, and not letters, form the basis of language. They are its living roots, or chief stem and trunk, out of which all else shoots and grows. The letters, in fact, have no existence, except as the results of a minute analysis; for many of them are difficult, if not impossible, to pronounce. Syllables, on the contrary, more or less simple, or the complex composites of fewer or more letters, are the primary and original data of language. For the synthetical is in every case anterior to the elements into which it admits of resolution. The letters, therefore, first arise out of the chemical decomposition of the syllables. But the results of this analytical process are very different in different languages, as is proved by the difference of results in the variety of alphabets. While in our own we reckon four-and-twenty letters, in many others the number is far greater. In those oriental languages nearest akin to our own, they amount to more than thirty; while the Indian family counts as many as fifty.
It forms no easy problem to indicate most of these by our European characters; and to pronounce them requires the organs of speech to be more than ordinarily flexible. On the other hand, profound and philosophical inquires into language, by rejecting all mere modifications of harshness or softness in the same sound, and whatever is manifestly a mere variation of the same letter, or a mere compound of simpler tones, have reduced the whole alphabet to ten primary elements. According to this system, which has not been established without great acuteness, so much at least is evident, that properly there are but three vowels,[70]instead of five, as we usually count them, the E being asoftened I, and U a deadened or faint O. The diphthongs, and other tones intermediate between the simple vowels, in which the German is so rich, are evidently to be considered but as so many musical transitions from one to the other. We may here appeal to the Hebrew, as being in its system of letters, notwithstanding its other ancient oriental features, highly simple and profoundly significant and coherent.[71]Its two-and-twenty characters may be divided into two orders. The first and higher, as I would term it, contains the three vowels, the aspirates (of which more by and by), and then the simplest and softest (they might almost be called the child’s) consonants, B, D, G. The twelve letters of the second contain all the other grosser, more corporeally-sounding consonants. Usually, indeed, all letters, and especially consonants, are classed into labials, linguals, and dentals, according to the organs principally employed in their utterance, distinguishing, on the same principle, certain nasals and gutturals. But however correct this classification may be in an anatomical point of view, and physiologically considered, still, for that parallel, which is grounded in nature itself, between speech and thought, and for the analogy which subsists between man’s inward and outward language, it is both unsatisfactory and uninstructive. For it looks exclusively to a single aspect. The ordinary grammatical division also of letters into vowels and consonants, is at least incomplete. It would be far more correct to associate with them a third class of aspirates. For the latter may be distinguished from the former by many a characteristic property, even though they are indicated by signs which resemble those of the other class and often pass into and may be resolved into them. In the various alphabetical systems the aspirates stand out most individually. They assume the most diversified forms, even in their mode of notation, and it would almost seem as if the ethereal breathing which floats around them refused to be corporeally fixed and confined with as much easiness as the other elements of language. In some languages, as the Greek, for instance, according to the extant system, which belongs not to the earliest period of its development, the principal aspiration is not denoted by a letter, but is indicated in the same way as an accent. In the oriental, and, generally, in all ancient languages, the aspirates, accordingto the different forms into which they enter, hold a very important place. It almost seems that the more aspirated a language is, the nearer it is to its original state. It is also remarkable, that wherever this element appears in undiminished vigor, it gives to the whole language a character of antiquity and grandeur, and lends to it a pervading tone of spiritual gravity, such as has been observed in the Arabic, and prevails also in a high degree in the Spanish; though, indeed, an undue prevalence of this high and solemn note, unrelieved by others, is apt to degenerate into monotony. In our own German the aspirates were originally far more numerous than they are at present. And, generally, the more a language is softened down and refined by daily use and conversation, the more it loses this impress of antiquity. And it even happens with some, as with the French, for instance, that the aspirates cease to be articulated, even though they are still marked.
Now, while the aspirates form the spiritual element in the whole system of elementary sounds, in the vowels, on the other hand, predominates the soul-full voice of song. These, in short, form the musical ensouling principle of language. The less a language is overladen with consonants, and the more fully the simple vowels sound out, the better adapted is it for music and songs. The consonants, on the other hand, which only in part imitate sound, make up the material element of language. They are, no doubt, necessary to the richness of a language, and its variety of expression; nevertheless, when they greatly predominate, they render it corporeal and heavy.
Now this remarkable analogy between this division of the alphabet into aspirates, vowels, and consonants, and the triple principle of human life and operation, as consisting of spirit, of soul, and of body, or of bodily exterior, I could not but notice in passing, and throw out as distinctly as possible.
But now this analogy and parallel between speech and consciousness presents another view of the matter, which it appears desirable to consider. In the alphabet of the human consciousness, which furnishes the several elements out of which syllables and then words are framed, which again form the first elements of all man’s higher knowledge, I would pre-eminently consider as its vowels those eternal feelings of the Godlike which have their foundation in the very nature of man. Now it is usual to designate thesefundamental feelings of man as faith, hope, and love (charity). But, however customary it may be to class the three together, the intrinsic connection between them is not easily pointed out. And yet, perhaps, if we have recourse to another analogy with the visible world, it will help us to trace this bond of union. This method will probably be both easier and simpler than a direct refutation of erroneous views on the subject, or any critical enumeration of elements which in the psychological apprehension are incorrectly associated with them. Now, these three feelings or properties, or states of the consciousness, may be regarded as so many organs for the cognition or the perception, or, if the term be preferred, for the suggestion of the divine. In this respect, then, and relatively to their different modes of apprehension, we may compare them with the external senses and their organs. Thus love, in its first soul-exciting contact, abiding attraction, and finally complete union, strikingly corresponds to the external sense of feeling. Faith is the inner ear of the spirit which is open to, catches up, and retains the imparted word of a higher revelation. Hope, however, is the eye, whose clear vision discerns, even in the remote distance, the objects of its profound and ardent longing. The latter brings us to a thoroughly vivid idea (or, rather, presupposes the existence) of faith, according to which it is no arbitrary and artificial idea, but one real throughout and vital. Although intelligent and spiritual, it is still a feeling, and ultimately rests also on a feeling, that, viz., of love, out of which, as its root and foundation, it arises. Indeed, faith is nothing else than love, through a pure will, maintained with consistency of character; and this applies to it even in its nobler relations among human things, and does not apply to it merely in a higher and divine reference.