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Atheism in Philosophy,
AND
OTHER ESSAYS.
BY
FREDERIC HENRY HEDGE,
AUTHOR OF
^ '* REASON IN RELIGION," " PRIMEVAL WORLD OF HEBREW TRADITION,''
"ways of the SPIRIT," ETC.
BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
Copyright, 1884,
By Roberts Brothers.
JSniticrsitB Presg:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.
CONTENTS.
PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
Paqe
Introduction 3
Epicurus 5
The Philosophy of Epicurus 24
Arthur Schopenhauer 51
Schopenhauer's Philosophy 70
Critique of Pessimism as taught by Eduard
VON Hartmann 123
MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
Life and Character of Augustine 145
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz 195
Leibniz's Philosophy 217
The Monadology of Leibniz 245
Immanuel Kant 271
Irony 306
The Philosophy of Fetichism 337
Genius 354
The Lords of Life 376
PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
"Philosophy, Socrates, if pursued in moderation and at the
proper age, is an elegant accomplishment ; but too much philo-
sophy is the ruin of human life." — Callicles, i7i Plato s Gorgias.
PHILOSOPHIC atheism;
INTRODUCTION.
"DY philosophic atheism I mean speculative
■■-^ denial of a supermundane, conscious intel-
ligence, — theories of the universe which regard
it as the product of blind force, or as a self-
subsisting, self-governing, independent being. Of
these theories, however repugnant to practical
reason and religious faith, we are not authorized
to- say with Milton, —
" Of such doctrine never was there school
But the heart of the fool,
And no man therein doctor but himself." 2
Justice compels us to admit the claim of some
who have reasoned thus, to be counted philoso-
phers, — lovers of wisdom, seekers of truth.
1 Not to be confounded with the scientific atheism of the Posi-
tivists.
2 Samson Agonistes, 297-299.
4 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
The moment we begin to speculate about the
universe, there arises the question of origin. Phi-
losophy, even atheistic philosophy, cannot stop
short of the " primordia rerum ; " it wants to
know '' unde Natura creet res, auctet alatque."
The arch-atheist of antiquity could not rest in a
given phenomenal world, but pushed his inquiry,
says his great commentator,^ " extra flammantia
moenia mundi." The question Whence ? is found
to be involved in the questions What ? and How ?
And here it is that philosophic atheists differ
among themselves almost as widely as they dif-
fer from theists. I select as illustrations two
prominent examples, an ancient and a modern,
representing two opposite types, — Epicurus and
Schopenhauer.
1 Lucretius : De Rerum Natura, i. 73, 74.
EPICURUS.
EPICURUS.
'T^HERE are few philosophers, and indeed few
-■- men, about whom such opposite opinions
have been formed and such different judgments pro-
nounced as those concerning Epicurus. To speak
of him as an atheist at all, in the view of some,
is to misrepresent him. There have not been
wanting defenders of his philosophy who acquit
it of that charge, and have even sought to adjust
its principles with Christian doctrine. Prominent
among them is Gassendi, who published toward
the middle of the seventeenth century an elaborate
account of Epicurus, entitled " De vita, moribus,
et philosophia Epicuri ; " to which he afterward
added " Animadversiones in Diogenem Laertium,"
the biographer of Epicurus, and also a " Synta-
gma philosophias Epicuri." Among ancient critics,
his best advocate was a leader of the sect most
opposed to his own, — the Stoic Seneca.
I call him an atheist in philosophy ; for though
he recognizes the existence of the national gods,
it is only as accidents, not as powers. He recog-
nizes no divine agency in his system. His gods
have no right to be, in the light of his philosophy.
They have none of the attributes proper to deity;
Y
6 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
they are chance collections of atoms, destined
sooner or later, like all other creatures, to perish
and dissolve. To him thev have only an ethical im-
port. Finding them fixed in the popular belief,
he uses them as illustrations of a blessed life.
The testimony of the ancients is decisive on this
subject. Lucretius makes it his special merit to
have freed his followers from the yoke of religion.^
As to his morals, the authorities differ. Plu-
tarch represents him as licentious ; but, on the
whole, the balance of testimony gives the impres-
sioii of a man who led a blameless, and unques-
tionably a very frugal and abstemious, life.
An Athenian by nation, he was born in Samos,
where his father, as KXrjpovxo^, had settled him-
self on his allotted estate, in the third year of
the 109th Olympiad, about 342 b. c, on the seventh
day of the month Gamelion.^ His father, Neocles,
earned a meagre livelihood by giving instruction
in reading and writing. His mother, Charestrata,
added a little to the res angusta by lier magic arts ;
being what would be called in modern times a for-
tune-teller. Her social position was of the lowest ;
but Epicurus says she had in her body all the
atoms which go to make a philosopher. The only
1 De Rerum Natura, uU supra.
2 The marriage month, the seventh of the Attic year, com-
prising part of January and part of February.
EPICURUS. T
memorable thing recorded of his boyhood is the
well-known anecdote mentioned by ApoUodorus.
His teacher was explaining the theogony of Hesiod,
how everything sprang from original chaos. " But
whence sprang chaos ? " the boy demanded. The
question revealed an inquisitive mind. The chaos
of Greek mythology seems to have served the
same purpose as the tortoise of Hindu specula-
tion. It was the ultimate ground, the foundation
of all things. You must stop somewhere in your
inquiry. With the Hindu the question was one
of statics ; and he stopped with the big tortoise,
which bears the elephant, which bears something
else, which bears the world. With the Greek the
question was one of genesis ; and he stopped with
chaos : from that all things were made. But the
boy Epicurus would not stop there. What made
chaos? It was a boyish inquisitiveness, nothing
more ; the man Epicurus found, after all, nothing
better than chaos to begin with or end with.
At the age of eighteen he first visited Athens,
where it is thought he may have studied philos-
ophy in the Old Academy. Plato had left it, and
the city, and the world, a quarter of a century
before ; but the school on the old Platonic founda-
tion remained. It was run by Xenocrates. It is
not very likely that Epicurus was admitted to its
teachings. He probably wanted the qualification
8 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
of a knowledge of geometry, since he affected to
despise mathematical science. But the Old Acad-
emy met applicants for admission with the warn-
ing, ^7]SeU ay€co/JL€Tp7]To<; elcriTco ; and Xenocrates is
said to have been particularly strict in enforcing
that condition.
His stay in Athens at that time is supposed to
have been shortened by political troubles, which
forced him to rejoin his father, who was then a
teacher at Colophon ; but that, too, was a brief
sojourn. He followed for some years a vagabond
life, studying and teaching in various places, found-
ing schools at Mytilene and Lampsacus, over which
he presided for several years. Finally, in 307 b. c,
at the age of thirty-five, he returned to Athens,
where he spent the remainder of his life.
He had chosen his career. Philosophy claimed
him, drew him; and if predetermination of will,
and devotion of every faculty and means to that
pursuit are proofs of vocation, a philosopher he
was morally called to be. His intellectual quali-
fications are not so apparent. His aptitude for
transcendental speculation or fresh discovery in
the realms of thought was small. Neither the
intuitive nor the analytic faculty in him seems
to have been constitutionally robust or happily de-
veloped. His theory halts, and his logic stumbles.
A consistent and intelligible view of the universe.
EPICURUS. ^ 9
with or witliout a God, or a rational psychology,
it was not in him to construct. He was equally
deficient in the power of intellectual appropriation.
He failed to comprehend the speculations of other
men ; existing systems he had not the patience to
fathom. He borrowed chiefly from Democritus,
but travesties the Democritic theory which he uses.
And because he was unable to master previous
systems, he abuses their authors. He vilifies the
thinkers of his day, as Schopenhauer does the
thinkers of his. Cicero says of him : " Contume-
liosissime Aristotelem vexavit, PliJEdoni Socratico
turpissime maledixit." ^ Even Democritus, his
master, does not escape his disparagement ; " in
Democritum ipsum quern secutus est, ingratus."
He seems to have imbibed little or nothing of
the scientific culture of his time, which he af-
fected to despise. Learning of every kind he
treated with disdain. " Non satis politus," says
Cicero, '' iis artibus quas qui tenent eruditi appel-
lantur." TIacrav iraiheiav fiafcdptot (pevyere, '' Shun
all learning, ye blessed ! " he writes in a letter to
Pythocles ; reminding one of a certain other
Epicurean, who declared that " much study is
a weariness of the flesh," and that " he that
increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." He
nevertheless verified by his own example the
1 De Natura Deorum, i. 33.
10 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
confession of the Hebrew, that " of making many
books there is no end ; " for he is said to have
been one of the most voluminous of the writers
of antiquity. " JToXfY/oat^coraro?," says Diogenes
Laertius, his biographer. Three hundred vokimes
are ascribed to him. They have not survived ;
and if the fragment TJepl ^vaeo)^, discovered in
Herculaneam and edited by Orelli, is a fair sam-
ple, literature has suffered little by their loss.
A prolific writer, but a poor scholar, in the
great intellectual movement which distinguished
his century above all preceding epochs he had
no active, scarcely a passive, part. For him
Plato had lived, and Aristotle was living, in vain.
He boasted himself an autodidaktos, and disclaimed
all indebtedness to those who preceded him.
Yet as an ethicist he built on Socratic ground.
He reverted to Socrates, just as Schopenhauer,
repudiating Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, went
back to Kant. Ritter regards his philosophy as
an episode, an interpolation in Greek philosophy ;
but Steinhart — more correctly, I think — recog-
nizes in it a lineal offspring of the great Socratic
movement.
His abstinence from public affairs and the ser-
vice of the state is ascribed by his partial biog-
rapher, Diogenes Laertius, to extreme modesty.
He had certainly what is called a retiring dispo-
EPICURUS. 11
sition. Retirement was a cardinal point in his
practical philosophy, the logical result of his
fundamental principle, XdOe /Btcoaa^. " I never
sought," he says, " to please the people ; for the
things which I know, the populace disapproves,
and the things which the populace approves, I
am ignorant of." There might he other reasons
for this abstinence. Since Athens had lost her
independence, and Greece her political importance,
men of talent were no longer in demand. The
motive which once induced the ablest minds to
engage in public affairs had ceased to operate.
The state had no need of philosophy, and philos-
ophy ignored the state.
Having chosen Athens for his residence, and
finding nothing congenial in other schools, Epi-
curus adopted a course which characterizes the
genius of the man, and which properly dates
his philosopliic career. He purchased for eighty
min^ (about $>300) a lot of land within the
walls of the city, threw it open to the public,
and gathered around him a society of intelligent
men and women, who with him devoted them-
selves to philosophic pursuits ; ^. c, to philosophic
discussion and social converse. I say intelligent
women. The women, it is true, so far as T can
learn, belonged to the class of hefairai,^ — a
1 Literally companions; not al vays, but most commonly, con-
cubines.
12 PMILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
class whom their own sex in most countries
exclude from the pale of their society, but
who seem in Athens to have occupied a less
degrading position than elsewhere, and, what is
singular, to have been the best educated and
most agreeable women of the city. They are the
only women one hears much about in Athenian
history. Aspasia, as a foreigner, belonged tech-
nically to this class, though not in the baser
sense.
With what right the kyj-ttol 'EiriKovpov were
called a garden is not apparent. Of horticulture
there is no record. Gassendi thinks the word
took its name from the region of the city to which
it belonged, — the Ktjttol. Pliny, on the other
hand, in his " Natural History," testifies that Epi-
curus introduced the custom of having gardens
in the city. " Primus hoc instituit Epicurus otii
magister. Usque ad eum, moris non fuerat, in
oppidis habitari rura." It could not fail that the
presence of women of the class I have named
should give rise to scandalous reports concerning
the morals of the school. Its enemies — some
of them deserters from the company — wrote and
circulated disgusting accounts of the manner of
life and orgies of these philosophers, which have
probably given rise to the bad repute which at-
tached to the sect among the ancients, — to the
EPICURUS. 13
" porci ex Epicuri grege." The curious in such
matters may find the scandal recorded by Plu-
tarch and Bayle, — recorded, not adopted. The
best authorities entirely discredit all these alle-
gations. The respectable opponents of Epicurus
declare him free from all taint of licentiousness.
Chrysippus the Stoic, his chief antagonist, who
certainly would not have missed the opportunity
of a credible accusation, not only exonerates, but
pronounces him incapable of sensual passion.
Cicero and Seneca vindicate his character, while
condemning his doctrine. On the whole, it was
a pure and beautiful life which those garden-
philosophers lived, if not, as judged by Stoic and
Christian standards, a very heroic one.
An inscription at the entrance of the garden
welcomed the visitor with the words : " Guest, it
is good to be here ; here pleasure is the supreme
good." And certainly there was never before, and
has never been since, a pleasure party — a com-
pany of men and women assembled for the purpose
of enjoyment— whose views of enjoyment were so
severe, and whose style of pleasure was so refined.
" Spare Fast, that oft with Gods doth diet," was
caterer to these voluptuaries ; Sobriety the butler
that officiated at their carousals. " Here barley-
cakes and fresh spring-water," the visitor was told,
" are freely dispensed. The garden will not tempt
14 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
jovi with artificial delicacies, but will satisfy natural
hunger with natural food. Will you not be well
entertained?" "Such," exclaims our Greek Dry-
asdust, ^ " was the man who taught that pleasure
is the chief end," — TotovTo<^ rjv 6 ti-]v rjSovrjv elvat
reXo^: SoyfjiaTL^wv. The trifling cost of this garden-
life was defrayed by voluntary contributions from
individuals thus associated. There was no commu-
nity of goods, as with the Essenes and the Pyth-
agoreans. There was no obligation on the rich
to make common stock of their wealth, or even
to bear their part of the expense. Epicurus dis-
dained such enforced communism ; he viewed it
as a sign of mistrust. True friends must have
that confidence one toward another which without
any formal institution would give them the vir-
tual command of each other's goods. It was a
kind of perennial picnic, where each contributed
according to his humor. Never has the world
seen finer examples of friendships based on intel-
lectual affinity, never a society bound by sublimer
trust Really, those Greeks had a style of their
own beyond the capabilities of modern life. Ima-
gine in some modern capital — say Paris or New
York — a public garden offering pleasure as the
supreme good, open to all classes and all repu-
tations, and continuing for centuries to furnish
1 Diogenes Laertius.
EPICURUS. 15
this sort of entertainment, and to draw high and
low by the simple attraction of philosophic in-
quiry. A remarkable feature of those conferences
was the presence and participation of slaves ; and
a beautiful trait in the character of Epicurus,
noticed by Seneca, is his treatment of this class
of fellow-beings, whom he called his friends, —
thus proving his superiority to the prejudices of
his age, and illustrating by his own example the
humanity commended in his doctrine. " Habe-
ant enim sane nomen quod illis Epicurus noster
imposuit." ^
Besides this garden, in which most of his time
was spent, he possessed, according to Diogenes
Laertius, a house in another part of the city, in
the demos Melite, — a house of small dimensions,
but which his boundless hospitality and the strong
attraction of his friendship filled witli guests.
Cicero extols this characteristic of the man, — the
high value he set on friendship, the place assigned
to it in his theory of life and in his practice. T
quote the passage from the " De Finibus : " ^
" Epicurus says of friendship, that of all the things
which wisdom shall have provided for a happy life, there
is none which surpasses friendship, nothing more fruitful,
nothing more delightful (nihil esse majus amicitia, nihil
uberius, nihil jucundius). And not with his words alone
1 Seneca, Ep. 107. 2 Lib. i. c 20.
16 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
maintained lie this, but far more with his hfe, with his
deeds, with his manners. The significance of this fact
may be inferred from ancient fiction. Many and various
as are the stories which have come to us from the highest
antiquity, there are found in them scarce three pairs of
friends, from Theseus to Orestes. But Epicurus, in a
single house, and that a small one, entertained what
troops of friends bound together by how great a consent
and conspiracy of love ! (Quam magnos, quantaque amoris
conspiratione, consentientes tenuit amicorum greges !) And
the Epicureans at the present day maintain the same
practice (quod fit etiam nunc ab Epicureis)."
From all I can learn 1 should say that no
man of his day was more widely and deeply
beloved ; and what renders this attachment more
remarkable is that the subject of it appears to
have been entirely deficient in the sprightliness
and humor which season social intercourse, and
which constituted so prominent a characteristic
of his countrymen. A man of unusual gravity ;
Cicero says of him : " Homo non aptissimus ad
jocandum, minimeque resipiens patriam."
His temperate habits did not secure him the
exemption wdiich might have been expected from
some of the worst forms of bodily disease, arpay-
fyovpla KOI BvaevrepLKa irdOi], which he bore wdtli
unshrinking fortitude, and in the midst of wdiich
lie died, foreseeing his end, aware that the day of
his greatest suffering was his last. He called it
EPICURUS. 17
a blessed and joyful day ; and in that spirit wrote
to Idomeneus ^ a letter which Laertius has pre-
served to us : " On this happy and closing day of
my life I write to thee this : ' While suffering with
strangury and dysenter/ pains incapable of in-
crease, I am compensated in all this by the joy
I have in the memory of our former discussions.' "
Seneca alludes to this heroic confession in an
argument with a friend on the goods of life. " I
will give you," he says, " Epicurus his classi-
fication of goods, — very similar to this of mine.
There are some things which he would prefer
for his allotment, such as ease of body, free from
all annoyance, and the calm of a mind rejoicing
in the contemplation of its goods. There are
others which though lie would rather they should
not befall him, he nevertheless praises and ap-
proves ; such as the experience of ill health and
very severe pains. And this was the case with
Epicurus on that last and most blessed day of
his life ; for he says that he was suffering tortures
of the bladder and of ulcerated bowels which
admitted of no increase, but that nevertheless it
was for him a blessed day." We cannot, I think,
deny the praise, if not of high heroism, at least
of an equanimity more germane to the Stoic than
1 Cicero says to Herniachus ; but I follow the authority of
Diogenes Laertius.
18 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
the Epicurean doctrine in such an ending. Here
was a man about to lapse, as he supposed, into
endless nothing ; for a future existence was some-
thing undreamed of in his phih)Sophy. The atoms
which for seventy-two years in joint-stock com-
pany had carried on a certain life-business called
Epicurus, were about to dissolve partnership, break
lip their establishment, not one of them ever again
in eternal time, as he believed, to resume that
business and renew that life. What, in view of
this impending wreck, is his resource and conso-
lation ? — the man who held that pleasure is the
supreme good, according to whose theory every-
thing else was dross ? If he had n't that, he had
nothing ; his doctrine had failed in the final test.
But the fangs of mortal disease were clutching
at his heartstrings — pains that admitted of no
increase. How manage the pursuit of pleasure
in such straits ? What pleasure for a man with-
out a future, hemmed in between bodily anguish
and death ? Future there is none ; the present
is torment ; but the past remains. He recalls
discussions with Idomeneus in years gone by.
The joy of that remem]>rance compensates all.
Was ever philosopher so put to it for support in
extremis f
" Oh, who can hokl a fire in his hand
By tliinking on the frosty Caucasus ? "
EPICURUS. 19
Plutarch pours contempt on the story. " A
man may better see the resemblance of his own
face in a troubled deep or a storm, than a
smooth and smiling remembrance of past plea-
sure in a body tortured with such lancing and
rending pains."
He died at the age of seventy-two, in the second
year of the 127th Olympiad (270 b. c.) His very
minute testament, preserved by Laertius, is char-
acteristic, and exhibits at once his kindly dispo-
sition and his self-conceit. He gave their freedom
to several of his slaves. The bulk of his property
he bequeathed to two of his confidants, Timo-
krates and Amynomachus, who were to come
under bonds to provide for the maintenance and
education of the sons of his friend and disciple,
Metrodorus, until their majority, and also to
furnish a dower for his daughter. To another
friend, then living, he bequeathed a life-interest
in the " garden," and appointed him his succes-
sor, as head of the school, with the provision
that every future successor while in office should
have the usufruct of the garden, which should
thus continue to be the headquarters of the sect.
He moreover directed that a portion of the in-
terest of his property should be devoted to the
annual celebration of his birthday, and to cover
the expense of a feast on the twentieth of each
20 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
month, in honor of him and his friend Metrodo-
rus. This proposition Cicero severely criticises,
partly on the ground of vanity and inconsistency
with the teachings of one who professed to hold
that nothing pertains to us after death, and partly
on the ground that a philosopher, and especially
a physicist, ought to know that the idea of an
annual birthday is all nonsense. The same day,
he says, can occur but once, nor indeed its like-
ness, unless, after the lapse of many thousand
years, all the heavenly bodies shall come to have
precisely the same position. " Quid verene ? Po-
test esse dies ssepius, qui semel fuit? Certe non
potest. An ejusdem modi ? ne id quidem, nisi,
cum multa annorum intercesserint millia, ut om-
nium siderum, eodem, unde profecta sint, fiat ad
unum tempus reversio. Nullus est igitur cujus-
quam dies natalis." Democritus, Epicurus' great
oracle, would not, he thinks, have acted thus. It
was not the part of one who had traversed in his
mind " innumerabiles mundos, infinitasque regi-
ones, quarum nulla esset ora, nulla extremitas."
It was not until after his death that the fame
of Epicurus attained the expansion which Plu-
tarch charges him with secretly coveting, in spite
of his \d6e jSicoo-a^. " The truth is," says Plu-
tarch, ^' Epicurus himself allows there are some
pleasures derived from fame. And, indeed, why
EPICURUS. 21
should he not, when he himself had such a fu-
rious lechery and wriggling after glory as made
him not only disown his masters, and scuffle about
syllables and accents with his fellow-pedant, De-
mocritus, whose grammar-rules he stole verbatim,
and tell his disciples that there never was a wise
man in the world besides himself, but also to put
it in writing how Colotes rendered homage to
him, as he was one day philosophizing, by touch-
ing his knees." Whatever of justice or injustice
there may be in this accusation, it would seem
that Epicurus anticipated the postumous glory
which awaited him, when he wrote to Idome-
neus, who aspired to political distinction : " If you
are smitten with the love of glory, my letters
will make you more famous than these objects
which you adore, and for whose sake you are
adored." So Shakspeare's sonnet promises his
friend, —
" And thou in this ehalt find thy monument,
When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent."
Famous he became. His followers bore his im-
age engraved on cups and rings ; his native city
erected statues to his memory. The school flour-
ished, the sect increased ; it prevailed in Greece,
it found followers in Rome. St. Paul, three cen-
turies later, encountered its disciples at Athens;
22 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
and Seneca, contemporary with Paul, writes to his
friend Lucilius : —
" Glory is the shadow of virtue ; it will accompany even
those who desire it not. But as shadows sometimes precede
and sometimes follow, so our renown is sometimes before
us, and offers itself to cur sight ; and sometimes it is
turned from us ; but the later it is, the greater it is, when
envy has died away. . . . Look at Epicurus, whom not
only the learned, but the ignorant multitude, admire. This
man was unknown in the very city of Athens where he
hid. Survivor of Metrodorus by many years, in a letter
in which he celebrates their mutual friendship with grate-
ful remembrance, he adds at last that, possessed of such
goods, it was no injury to Metrodorus and himself that
the nobles of Greece not only ignored, but scarcely knew
them by report. . . . Metrodorus also confesses in one of
his letters that he and Epicurus had not tiie distinction
they deserved ; but afterward adds, that a great name was
in store for them with those who were willing to follow in
their steps. I^o virtue can remain concealed ; or if con-
cealed, it is not virtue's loss (nulla latet virtus, et latuisse
non ipsius est damnum)."
It is not very likely that new discoveries will
throw new light on the man whose personality has
proved such a power in the world, whose charac-
teristic idea yet lives, and has representatives
still, although the school and the confession are
long since extinct. We have all the materials we
are likely to have for forming our judgment of his
character and life. What shall the verdict be ? 1
EPICURUS. 23
cannot accept that of Plutarch concerning the man,
though Plutarch rightly judged the doctrine. I
incline to that of Cicero in the Tusculan Ques-
tions : ^ " Venit Epicurus, homo minime malus
vel potius vir optimus." An austere gravity, a
kind of Quaker simplicity, I judge to have been
his type. In his letters, instead of the customary
salutation, %at/3e ! hail ! he is said to have sub-
stituted an admonition to act well, — Ev Trpdrreiv ;
and we are told that in his treatise on Rhetoric
he named but one excellence, that of plainness.
A simple, grav^e, and kindly man; a man who
meant well and who lived well, if that garden
theory of his be allowed. But when we ask what
fruits of enduring worth that garden yielded to
continuous culture of three hundred years, — what
venerable name, to be ranked with the heroes of
the Porch, with the Catos and Antonines, the
Epicurean school has produced, — the answer is
a blank. A blank in history is the school of
Epicurus, though not altogether a blank in let-
ters. One poem at least, of prime renown, it has
given to the world, the consummate exponent of
its doctrine. The poem of Lucretius, " De Rerum
Natura," is ranked by the critics among the fore-
most — by some, indeed, as the very foremost — in
Roman literature. Ovid predicted for it a fame
1 Lib. ii. c. 19.
24 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM,
coeval with the earth's duration. We are safe
in pronouncing it the first of didactic poems. It
is one of the very few of that class which have
won for themselves an enduring fame. Pope's
" Essay on Man " is the nearest approach to it in
that kind. And this is the only fruit that has
reached us from that Epicurean garden, the only
product that remains of a school which in point
of popularity occupied the foremost place among
the philosophic systems of antiquity and filled
the classic world with its fame.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF EPICURUS.
In my characterization of Epicurus I spoke of
the poverty of his intellectual culture, and noticed
the want in him both of the intuitive and the
analytic faculty. For speculative inquiry, for dis-
coveries in the realm of thought, he had no apti-
tude ; but for practical philosophy a very decided,
inborn vocation. Philosophy for him was a rule
of life — ivep'yeta rov evBatfioua /3lov nrepLTroLovcra.
He sought in it precisely what Socrates had taught
men to seek in it, — practical well-being. Espe-
cially he sought in it freedom, — the freedom
which Athens, deprived of her autonomy, and tend-
ing to political downfall, no longer enjoyed. He
sought emancipation from the yoke of superstition.
JTf.
EPICURUS. .^^^^^ 25
Lucretius, as we have seen, celebrates this motive
in one of his sublimest strains. But though the
philosophy of Epicurus is mainly practical, he did
speculate ; he was given to system-making ; he
had his theory of knowledge and his theory of the
universe, as well as his theory and rule of life.
And so his philosophy, as Diogenes Laertius tells
us, divides itself into three systems, the Kavco-
vL/cov, which we may translate psychology, the
cj^vcTtKoi/, and the tjOckop^ — Psychology, Physic, and
Ethic.
The Psychology need occupy us but a very few
moments ; it is crude, even for that period. The
prime source of all knowledge in the view of Epi-
curus is sensible experience. The objects with-
out us throw off certain images ; these are received
by the senses and communicated to the mind.
The senses are infallible : but they have no mem-
ory ; they can deal only with what is immediately
present. An internal faculty operates on the im-
ages which sensuous perception has lodged in the
mind. Then the sensations — that is, pleasure and
pain — advise us of what is conducive or detri-
mental to our well-being. Hence three criteria
of truth, — perception, ataOrjo-c^;, conception, irpo-
X7]yjn<i, and sensation, Tra^o?. IlpoXrj^jri^ — includ-
ing memory, understanding, reason, judgment, all
in one — stores away the images which enter the
26 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
brain through the senses, calls them up at pleas-
ure, arranges, compares, and draws conclusions
from them. Our perceptions are always correct,
because they are an efflux from the things them-
selves. Our opinions are only so far correct as they
agree with the testimony of the senses ; where they
contradict or differ from this they are false. But
whence arises this disagreement, and its cpnseciuent
error ? Epicurus' solution of this question is pecu-
liar. Perception, he says, is a motion from without;
opinion, being the result of internal contemplation
of the images thrown in upon the mind, is a mo-
tion from within. If the motion from within is
continuous with the motion from without, like the
co-ordinates of an hyperbola, then the opinion is
correct ; but if it disconnects or traverses the mo-
tion from without, it is false. Thus all knowl-
edge, all truth, is referred at last to material
phenomena. All ideas not derivable from these
he regards as illusions. He allows no laws of
thought, no regulative faculty inherent in the
mind. Sensible experience not only supplies the
material of thought, but determines all correct
thinking ; and sensible experience is a lawless ag-
gregation of insulated phenomena. The science
of geometry not being founded on sensible expe-
rience, or not solely on that, he repudiated as not
sufficiently evident. Here is something that marks
EPICURUS. 27
the difference between the ancient and modern
mind, and discovers a real progress in mental
experience. No modern sceptic would dream of
questioning the validity of mathematical evidence
within its own legitimate sphere. No modern
would venture to subordinate the certitude of geo-
metrical demonstration to that of sensible experi-
ence. But perhaps what Epicurus really meant
was that geometry deals only with abstractions;
and that seeing there are no such things in nature
as the triangles and circles which constitute the
topics of that science, they have not for us the
evidence which comes with tangible realities.
In his Physics, his Ontology, although it was
his hobby and chief pride, Epicurus appears to no
better advantage. His system not only wants the
merit of originality, but adds to that defect a mis-
apprehension and a consequent distortion and per-
version of the doctrine it undertakes to present.
His atomic theory, according to unanimous testi-
mony, he took from Democritus, an Eleatic philo-
sopher of the fourth century B. c, a man of robust
intellect and universal learning, greatly the supe-
rior of Epicurus as well in the intuitive as in the
discursive faculty. He belonged to what is called
the New Eleatic, distinguished from the Old by
the more materialistic and sensuous direction of
its thought. The Old Eleatics applied themselves
28 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
to the study of the absolute ; the New investigated
the phenomenal woiid.^
Epicurus, then, adopted the atomic theory of
Democritus. Starting with the axiom that nothing
can produce nothing (^ovhkv ^iverai e/c tov fx-q
oPTO'i'), he held that the worlds were formed from
atoms which must have had an eternal existence.
In the beginning these atoms existed only in
vacuo, — atoms of various forms and dimensions.
From the confluence, collision, and concretion of
these atoms were formed the bodies that com-
pose our world and all the worlds that are, which
he supposes to be infinite. The universe is con-
stituted of infinitesimal atoms ; it will one day
dissolve into atoms again. But the atoms are
eternal ; they will remain, and form new worlds ;
and so on in endless succession. But how hap-
pened the atoms to flow together while yet they
existed as separate indivisible units ? Here we
come upon the main point of difference between
Epicurus and his original. Democritus had en-
dowed his atoms with an aboriginal motion ; he
started them with an impact, TrXrjyr].^ Epicurus
thought this unphilosophical. But how did he
1 Eleatic, from Elea, a town in Lower Italy colonized by the
Greeks. Not that all the philosophers so named resided there,
but because it was the residence of some of the more distinguished
among them ; e. g. Xenophanes and Parmenides.
2 Cicero, De Fato, 20.
EPICURUS. 29
attempt to correct the error ? He gave his atoms
gravitation. They have weight, and by virtue of
their weight they gravitated downward. Fancy,
then, a snowfall of atoms through endless space ;
a snow which, like that described by Emerson,
" seems nowhere to alight " ! But unfortunately
for this hypothesis, in the absence of concrete
worlds, in pure space, there is no up nor down, and
nothing to gravitate to. Our philosopher, in at-
tempting to improve upon Democritus, substitutes
a greater absurdity for a less. Then again he
saw that his atoms, if they had only this one
downward motion, each descending forever in a
plumb-line, would never in all eternity collide. So
what does he do to remedy this difficulty ? He
adds to their downward a sideward motion —
very slight, just a little cant, the smallest possible
declination. But by what power or efficient cause
this sidelong motion was effected, or how, if all
the atoms have it equally, the difficulty is reme-
died, does not appear. But Epicurus, it seems,
had another purpose in giving his atoms a side-
long motion, besides that of effecting a junction.
Although a materialist, he believed in freedom of
will, and found it convenient to refer that freedom
to the aboriginal atoms. They were not mere
passive subjects of a motion impressed upon them
by necessity ; they exercised some choice in the
30 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
direction they assumed, they chose to go a little
askew. Crude as this notion is, it shadows forth
a very important truth ; namely this, that human
action (which Epicurus would refer to the par-
ticles that compose our organism) is partly the
product of inevitable circumstance, and partly of
free-will, — human life the diagonal resultant of
these two forces.
I have found nothing in Diogenes Laertius re-
specting this declination of the atoms ; my
authority is Cicero. In the treatise " De Fini-
bus Bonorum et Malorum," cast in the form of
a colloquy between L. Torquatus, C. Triarius, and
Cicero, Torquatus, the advocate of Epicurus, asks
why Cicero, who does not, like most of his oppo-
nents, hate the man, cannot accept the philos-
opher, — whom I, he says, " quem ego arbitror
unum vidisse verum, maximisque erroribus, homi-
num anirnos liberavisse, et omnia tradidisse quae
pertinent ad bene beateque vivendum." He thinks
it must be because Epicurus wrote in so plain
a style ; he had not Plato's, and Aristotle's, and
Theophrastus' ornate diction.
" For I can scarcely believe that you will not allow the
truth of his doctrine. Yon are mistaken, says Cicero.
His style offends me not, he writes intelligibly, and that
is all I ask of a philosopher, although I despise not
eloquence if he has it to give. It is his matter with
EPICURUS. 31
which I am dissatisfied, and that in very many respects.
But so many men, so many minds (quot homines, tot
sententise). I may be mistaken (falli igitiir possiimus).
[Being pressed for the grounds of his dissent, he presents
his objections.] Principio, in physicis, quibus maxime
gloriatur, primum totus est alienus. Democrito adjicit
perpauca, mutans, sed ita, ut ea qute corrigere vult mihi
quidem depravare videatur. There are many things in
both which I do not approve, and especially this, — that
whereas there are two things to be considered in nature :
first, what the matter is of which all things are made ;
and second, the force by which they are made, — these
men discourse only of matter, and neglect the efficient
cause. (Sed hoc commune vitium ; illse Epicuri propriae
ruinre.) For he [Epicurus] holds that these individual,
solid bodies are carried by their own weight in a right line
downward, — that being the natural motion of all bodies.
But then the sharp-sighted man perceived that if this
were the case, if all the atoms moved downward from on
high, and that in a right line (ad lineam), one atom would
never touch another. Therefore he added a comment :
Declinare dixit atomum perpaullum, quo nihil posset fieri
minus. Thus were brought about the embraces and copu-
lations and adhesions of atoms among themselves, from
which the world was made, and all its parts, and all that
is therein."
This puerile fiction, he goes on to say, does not
even accomplish its end. The law of gravitation
is violated to no purpose, and w^e have the ab-
surdity so repugnant to physicists, — an effect
without a cause. This error would not have been
32 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
committed, Cicero thinks, if Epicurus had studied
that geometry which he so despised.
The neglect of this science led to another
blunder, in which he shows hi^ inferiority to De-
mocritus. To that philosopher the sun appeared
to be a body of great magnitude, as it naturally
would to a learned man and one skilled in geom-
etry. Epicurus, on the contrary, set it down as
being two feet in diameter (bipedalis), or there-
about ; it might be a little more, or it might be a
little less (vel paulo aut majorem aut minorem). ^
In another work, the treatise " De Fato," Cicero
criticises more sharply the doctrine of the side-
long movement of the atoms : —
**Declinat, inquit, atomus. Primum curl Aliam
enim quandam vim motus habebant a Democrito im-
pulsion is quam plagam ille appellat : a te Epicure gra-
vitatis et ponderis. Quse ergo nova causa in natura est
qu0e decliuet atomum? Aut num sortiuntur inter se
qu86 declinet, qufje non? Aut cur minimo declinent in-
tervallo, majore non? Aut cur declinent uno minimo
non declinent duobus aut tribus t [This is willing, not
reasoning.] Optare hoc quidem est, non disputare. . . .
Ita cum attulisset nullam causam quse istam declina-
tionem efficeret, tamen aliquid sibi dicere videtur, cum
id dicat quod omnium mentes aspernentur ac respuant."^
Lucretius,^ the faithful interpreter of Epicurus,
1 De Finibus, i. 6. 2 Dq Pato, 20.
8 De Rerum Natura, ii. 221-290.
EPICURUS. 33
stoutly maintains the decimation of the atoms, and
finds in it the origin and ground of liberty.
David Hume, in his " Dialogues on Natural Re-
ligion," suggests a modification of the doctrine
of Epicurus as a iwssible hypothesis of the origin
of things. 1
There is nothing else in the physical theory of
Epicurus that need detain us. Its other features,
all his views of nature, are such as naturally
result from his fundamental principle of fortui-
tousness, — the denial of any such thing as law
or order or design in the universe, — and his doc-
trine of the certitude of sensible experience, which
makes appearance the final test of truth.
It is the ethic of Epicurus that constitutes his
real merit, and gives him a substantial title to
the admiration and respect of mankind. Here
he is truly original and great. His ethical phi-
losophy was a bold attempt to establish on inde-
pendent grounds, irrespective of all traditions of
duty and religion, a rational rule and scheme of
life. I do not mean to express approbation of his
system. Its ground idea, however construed, is
questionable. As commonly received, it is utterly
false. Its rule of life fails to do justice to the
possibilities of human nature. Tried by the high-
est ideal, it stands condemned ; yet, as compared
1 See Second Edition, London, p. 146.
34 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
with the Stoic, it has the shining merit of hon-
esty. If it erred in affirming pleasure to be the
supreme good, it did not deny the evil of pain ;
if its scheme of life was impracticable, the Stoic
was equally so.
" For never yet was there philosopher
That could endure the toothache patiently,
However they have writ the style of gods,
And made a pish ! at chance and sufferance.'*
The first suggestion of his ethical system Epi-
curus seems to have derived from the Cyrenaics,
whose founder, Aristippus, a disciple of Socrates,
but widely, in this, diverging from his master,
made momentary enjoyment the prime object in
life. 'HSopiKOL, voluptuaries, they were termed,
in accordance with this trait. Epicurus was at-
tracted to the sect by the one principle in it which
coincided with his own psychological conclusion,
— that the feelings of joy and pain are the only
tests of practical truth, and should therefore de-
termine our rule of life. Accordingly, his starting-
point was, that pleasure is the sum and substance
of a blessed life, — rjBovr) ap-^r) koI re\o<; rov /xaKa-
pLa)<; ^))v. His claim to originality, — the merit
of his system — rests on the further conclusions
which he drew from this premise, — the view of
life, so different from that of the Cyrenaics, which
he deduced from a principle common to both.
If pleasure is the aim which philosophy should
EPICURUS. 35
propose to itself, then, he argued, the higher and
purer the pleasure, the more completely that end
is attained. All pleasure is good in itself ; but we
need to distinguish between such as are permanent
and such as are transient ; between those which are
cheaply won, and involve no unhappy consequences,
— "Mirth that no repentance draws," — and those
which are purchased at too great a cost. Sensual
enjoyment is a pleasure, and so far good. But if
a given sensual enjoyment is attended by evil con-
sequences, followed by pain, whether bodily or
mental, it ceases to be a means of happiness ; it
destroys tranquillity of mind ; it is a misstep in the
way of life, a miscalculation of the supreme good.
It follows that strict temperance is an indis-
pensable condition of pleasure in the Epicurean
conception of that end. Aristippus had made
pleasurable excitement, Kivrjat^, the highest good ;
Epicurus placed it in the KaTacrrTj/jbaTLKai yhoval,
the sober enjoyments which spring from modera-
tion of the appetites.
The next step in the development of this idea
was to exalt the pleasures of the mind, intellectual
and moral satisfactions, above sensual delights ;
still insisting that bodily sensation is the origin
and ground of all our feelings, and that every
mental experience of joy or pain must be referred
to the body at last.
36 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
" Animi voluptates et dolores," says Cicero's defender of
the system, " nasci fatemur e corporis voluptatibus et dolo-
ribus. . . . Quanquam autem et Isetitiam nobis voluptas
animi, et molestiam dolor afferat, eorum tamen utrumque et
ortum esse e corpore et ad corpus referri ; nee ob earn causam
non multo majores esse et voluptates et dolores animi quam
corporis. Nam corpore nihil nisi prsesens et quod adest
sentire possumus, animo autem et pr?eterita et futura." ^
Not momentary enjoyment, but permanent well-
being, is the true pleasure, and the end at which
philosophy should aim.
Our philosopher furthermore perceived that a
virtuous life is not only conducive, but essential,
to this end. You cannot live happily, except you
live wisely, honorably, justly ; and, conversely, you
cannot live wisely, honorably, justly, without living
happily, — " non posse jucunde vivi, nisi sapienter,
honeste, justeque vivatur, nee sapienter, honeste,
justeque nisi jucunde." Thus by the way of plea-
sure, seeking that as the supreme good, he arrives
at the goal which other systems reach by a
different route, and finds in moral rectitude the
true solution of his problem. A well-ordered life
is the answer required to the question where and
how to win the satisfaction which instinct prompts
us to seek, and which Nature declares to be the
true and only legitimate end of all seeking. A
well-ordered life must be, among other things, a
1 De Finibus. i. 17.
EPICURUS. *37
moral life. Such a life is blessedness : and that
blessedness is capable of no increase ; duration
adds nothing to it. Therefore, on ethical, as ^vell
as physical grounds, Epicurus rejected the idea of
a future state. A blessed life is sufficient to itself,
an end in itself. Win that, and we have nothing
more to seek. It is folly to suffer ourselves to be
disturbed by the idea of death ; we have nothing
to do with death. So long as we are, death is not ;
and when death is, we are not.
This is the positive side, and the bright side,
of the system. The problem proposed is happi-
ness ; the solution is a well-ordered, temperate,
upright life. But the Epicurean principle is not
exhausted ; its requirements are not all covered,
by this solution. A well-ordered life is happiness
only so long as it is free from care and pain. It
still remains true that pleasure is the only and
supreme good, and that all pain, all solicitude,
care, anxiety, whatever mars and interrupts plea-
sure, is an evil to be avoided, — exemption from
it to be purchased at any price. From which it
appears that Epicurean virtue, after all, is merely
negative, it is not sufficient to itself, it is not an
end, but a means to the end of pleasure ; and if a
virtuous act is attended with serious inconven-
ience, with discomfort, with painful effort and
sacrifice, the end is not attained. Then virtue is
38 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
no longer a means, and ceases to be binding. Be
virtuous so far as virtue consists in abstinence
from sin, because sin brings suffering. Be vir-
tuous so far as virtue is consistent with ease and
freedom from care and trouble, but no farther;
else you miss the end for which virtue alone is
desirable. By this canon all heroic undertakings,
all grave responsibilities, all painful sacrifices are
excluded from the Epicurean scheme of life. The
virtue to which the system commends us is nega-
tive. Its author was too sagacious not to perceive
that sensual indulgence would cause his enterprise
to split on the very rock he wished to avoid, —
the cravings of desire causing uneasiness of body
and mind. His aim in life was deliverance from
that uneasiness, — the greatest possiljle ease of
body and mind. The way to obtain that was to
have as few wants as human nature will allow;
to simplify life ; to reduce to a minimum all de-
sires that depend on things external for their
gratification. Appetite is insatiable ; the more
we attempt to gratify it, the more imperious it
becomes, the more uneasiness it causes. The
better way, therefore, is not to attempt to gratify
it, but rather to suppress it, to aim at nothing
outward, to strive for nothing, to desire nothing.
Injure no one ; help where you can ; be friendly
and humane. But do not go abroad for satisfac-
EPICURUS. 89
tion ; keep yourself aloof from public life and
political action.
"In des Herzen's heilig stille Raume
Musst du flielien aus des Leben's Drang." i
This is the meaning of the \dOe I^Lcoaa^^ — a car-
dinal point in Epicurean ethics. Live retired, live
to yourself, — a hidden life ; avoid care, avoid irri-
tation, avoid excitement, avoid ambition, avoid
desire ; abstain from politics, abstain from busi-
ness, abstain from marriage, live single.
" Look thou not on Beauty's charming ;
Sit thou still when kings are arming ;
Taste not when the wine-cup glistens ;
Speak not when the people listens ;
Stop thine ear against the singer ;
From the red gold keep thy finger ;
Vacant heart and hand and eye ; —
Easy live, and quiet die."
This is the sum of practical wisdom. If pleasure
is the only good, then pain of all kinds is evil ;
and trouble is pain, and care is pain. Therefore
abstain from all pursuits, decline all situations
from which care and trouble may ensue.
But the avenues of pain are many ; we cannot
command them all. Do the best that we may to
stave off suffering, it will come in the shape of
disease, of untoward accident, causing bodily tor-
ment. What is to be done in such exigency ?
1 In the bosom's holy, still seclusion
Thou must hide thee from the busy throng.
40 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
Why, then, if pain unavoidable gets holds of us,
we are to make light of it, to laugh it off, — a
precept which Cicero criticises as ridiculous affec-
tation, surpassing, because of its inconsistency
with the ground-maxim of Epicurus, the pretence
of the Stoics that pain is no evil. " Neglige, in-
quit, dolorem. Quis hoc dicit ? Idem qui dolorem
summum malum.'* ^
In another passage of the same treatise he
remarks : —
" Epicurus says things which seem intended to provoke
our laughter. He affirms in a certain place that if a wise
man were burned, if he were put to torture, you think
he is going to say he shall bear it, he shall endure it, he
shall not succumb. Greatly to be commended, such a sen-
timent, by Hercules, and worthy of Hercules himself, by
whom I have sworn. But this is not enough for our
rugged and severe Epicurus. If a wise man is in the bull
of Phalaris, he must say : ' How pleasant this is ! How
little I care for it ! ' (Quam suave est hoc ! Quam hoc non
euro ! Suave etiam !) Pleasant indeed ! Is it little to say,
It is not bitter 1 Even they who deny that pain is evil do
not use to say that it is pleasant to be tortured. It is
hard, it is difficulty it is hateful, it is against Nature, they
say ; and yet it is no evil. He alone who says that pain i3
an evil, and the greatest of all evils, expects his wise man
to call it pleasant. (Hie qui solum hoc malum dicit et
omnium malorum extremum, sapientem censet id suave
dicturum.) " ^
1 Tusculanae Disputationes, ii. 19. 2 ibid., 11. 7.
EPICURUS. 41
Another remedy against pain, or another aid
to patient endurance, proposed by Epicurus, is the
consideration that pain long continued cannot be
extreme, and if extreme will soon terminate in
death ; which, taken in connection with Epicurus'
denial of divine aid, provokes Plutarch to say : —
" The Epicureans leave themselves nothing to turn to in
their adversity, but when they are in distress look only to
this one refuge and port, — dissolution and insensibility ;
just as if in a storm or tempest at sea some one, to hearten
the rest, should stand up and say to them • ' Gentlemen,
the ship hath never a pilot in it, nor will Castor or Pollux
come to assuage the violence of the beating waves, or to
lay the swift career of the winds ; yet I can assure you
that there is nothing at all to be dreaded in all this, for
the vessel will be immediately swallowed up by the sea,
or else will soon fall ott md be dashed in pieces against
the rocks.' For this is Epicurus's way of discourse to per-
sons under grievous distempers and excessive pains. Dost
thou hope for any good from the gods for thy piety 1 It
is vanity ; for the blessed and incorruptible Being is not
constrained by either angers or kindnesses. Dost thou
fancy something better after this life than what thou hast
here 1 Thou dost but deceive thyself, for what is dissolved
hath no sense, and that which has no sense is nothing to us.
Ay ! but how comes it then, my good friend, that you bid
me eat and be merry % Why, by Jove,'T3ecause he that
is in a great storm cannot be far off from a shipwreck,
and your extreme dolors will soon land you on death's
strand." ^
1 Plutarch's Morals (Old English Version, London, 1694), ii. 215.
42 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
Some striking and just sentiments Epicurus de-
duced from his principle ; and some that are strik-
ing and not just, but have the merit of an honest
consistency ; for example : " He has the best enjoy-
ment of riches who is above the need of them."
" Poverty conformed to the law of nature is the true
riches." " He who desires to be rich will best ac-
complish that end, not by adding to his stores, but
by diminishing his wants." " To the wise man
things of little value are as fruitful sources of en-
joyment as the most costly." " A past good is
better than a present, because it is no longer subject
to loss." " Pain is a greater evil than disgrace ;
disgrace is no evil unless it occasions pain." " In
ipso dedecore nihil mali nisi sequantur dolores." ^
" Right and wrong are empty names ; wrong-doing
is not an evil in itself, but evil only so far as the
doer of it is liable to be found out and punished,"
— 'H dSiKia ov KaO^ iavrrju KaKOv, aXV iv rw Kar*
viro'^lav (1)6/3(1) el fir) \r)(T€L virep rwv tolovtoov e^e-
(TTTjKOTa^ KoXaara^;? Here the heathen atheist's
philosophy coincides with that of a well-known
Christian moralist, an archdeacon of the English
Church. The only obligation to do right which
Paley acknowledges is that derived from the fear
of punishment and the hope of reward in a future
^ Cicero : Tusculanae Disputationes, ii. 12.
2 Diogenes Laertius, 151.
EPICURUS. 43
state. Between liim and our philosopher it is
simply a question of time.
The strongest motive recognized by Epicurean
ethic, stronger even than the love of pleasure, is
the fear of pain : stronger, because the absence of
pain is esteemed in that system a positive good.
The only use its author could see in government
was protection against evil. Accordingly, he pre-
ferred monarchy to all other forms of government
because it is the strongest. Friendship itself,
which holds so high a place in his theory of life,
was tainted in his conception with this utilitarian
idea of mutual protection.
On the whole, the precepts of Epicurus, though
aiming at pleasure, appear on closer inspection,
as Seneca remarks, rather sad than gay, — " si
propius accesseris, tristia ; voluptas enim ilia ad
parvum et exile revocatur." ^
The Epicureans, like the Stoics, loved to embody
their moral sentiments in the person of an imagi-
nary " wise man," whom they invested with all
the attributes commended by that philosophy.
"The wise man," they said, *' lives, like the gods, a
blessed life, lifted above the power of Necessity and above
the freaks of Chance. He alone has attained to true free-
dom ; for the service of Philosophy is freedom. He alone
is the true friend. He is free from the yoke of supersti-
1 Seneca : De beata vita, c. xiii.
44 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
tiou and free from the fear of death. He is superior to
the pains of the body, for he lives in an element of per-
petual calm. His will is subject to his understanding, and
his understanding is invulnerable to all painful thoughts
and the miserable cares of life ; he keeps them at bay by
the steady contemplation of blessedness past and to come.
He knows moreover that all suffering ends with death,
and will not hesitate, when pain becomes intolerable, of
his own free-will to quit this life, — non dubitat, si ita
melius sit, migrare de vita." ^
It will be seen from this brief sketch how nearly
in some points the Epicurean philosophy coincides
with the Stoic. Both systems agreed in their ideal
of a self-sufticing freedom of mind, an immovable
calmness of soul, an ever-growing indifference to
fortune. Both agreed in the contemplation of a
blessedness consisting neither in sensual delights
nor worldly goods, but in peace of mind. Both
insi«sted on the absolute dominion of reason over
sense and passion. In both systems freedom,
virtue, and blessedness were inseparably con-
nected. The disciples of both were exhorted
to retire from the world and seek refuge in the
realms of thought. But, agreeing so far, they dif-
fered — how wddely ! — in the fundamental idea on
which they based their requirements. The foun-
dation of the Stoic was fortitude and virtue for
virtue's sake ; that of the Epicurean was temper-
ance for the sake of enhanced pleasure.
1 Cicero : De Finibus, i. 19.
EPICURUS. 45
"The Stoic regarded man as belonging to a higher
order, to whose service he was bound, and in serving
whom he might become free ; the Epicurean, whose athe-
istic principles gave no assurance of any such order, was
left without a hold and without a hope beyond the
sensible world." ^
The popular judgment — and in this instance it
is a very correct one — of the value of this system
is expressed in the very word " Epicurean " as com-
monly understood. It is true the common under-
standing does not accurately represent the idea and
purpose of its founder; but it does represent the
natural and inevitable tendency of that philosophy.
The signification which the w^ord has assumed in
popular speech is a testimony and a judgment.
What is it, then, that is popularly understood by
Epicurean ? Nothing lofty, you will say, nothing
heroic, nothing that commands our respect, but
refined self-indulgence, the tasteful, considerate
gratification of those desires which have self for
their end. When we say " Stoic," we mean some-
thing vigorous, manly, noble, sublime ; stern it
may be, but heroic. When we say " Epicurean,"
we mean something soft, luxurious, effeminate,
timid, otiose. Both systems are Socratic in their
origin, — schemes of practical wisdom ; both pro-
^ See Ersch und Gruber, art. Epikouros, to which I am largely
indebted.
46 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
posed to themselves substantially the same prob-
lem. The goal for each was a blessed life, the
highest attainable good. The Stoic conceived it as
ideal virtue ; the Epicurean conceived it as ideal
pleasure. The former sought it in defying harm,
the latter in escaping harm ; the one in the con-
quest of self, the other in self-indulgence.
As a theory of enjoyment, if that were the sum
of a blessed life, the Epicurean philosophy was
subtle and wise. In one sense it may be said that
men seek enjoyment in every pursuit, the hero
and the voluptuary alike ; that is, they seek satis-
faction. But satisfaction how differently conceived
and pursued! What constitutes satisfaction with
one is no satisfaction at all to another. The satis-
faction of Epicurus consisted in spending tranquil
hours of philosophic converse in a garden. The
satisfaction of Vitellius consisted in gorging him-
self with dainties, regardless of expense ; the satis-
faction of St. Simeon consisted in living on the
top of a column too narrow for repose, encoun-
tering without shelter all heats and rigors of the
sky. The satisfaction of Arnold of Winkelried
consisted in making his body a target for Austrian
lances ; the satisfaction of Arnold of Connecticut
consisted in selling his country to the enemy. To
say that pleasure is the supreme good is saying
nothing until pleasure is defined. To define it in
EPICURUS. 47
the Epicurean sense of tranquillity and ease is
to limit human nature by the paltriest bounds ; it
is to strike from the ranks of the wise the great
army of those on whose efforts and sacrifices
human well-being mainly depends, to whose ef-
forts it is due that the Epicurean can enjoy that
ease which constitutes for him the end of life.
Where would the world be at this moment if
the Epicurean philosophy had always and every-
where prevailed ; if everywhere men had consulted
their own ease, and made enjoyment their only
aim ? There must be sacrifice somewhere, and an
unepicurean spirit, to keep the world alive.
But setting aside this objection drawn from the
consideration of the general good, putting social
well-being out of the question, view the matter in
relation to the individual only ; say the individual
has nothing to do with social ends, that his busi-
ness is to take care of himself : is this the best
that man can attain — a life exempt from care and
pain ? Does it satisfy our idea of life and man ?
Suppose that exemption attainable, it surely is not
the best. There is a satisfaction which life con-
ducted on Epicurean principles can never know,
— the satisfaction which springs from success in
some great work or noble endeavor, the satisfac-
tion which lies in the consciousness of having
accomplished something worthy and good. Kepler
48 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
at the close of those labors which determined the
laws of the planetary motions ; Washington resign-
ing his commission at the close of the war of the
Revolution ; Clarkson, after twenty years of un-
ceasing effort, witnessing in the House of Lords
the passage of the bill for the abolition of the
slave-trade, — these and the like of these teach us
the use and the meaning of life.
The tree is known by its fruits. Other schools
of philosophy, whatever the errors with which they
are chargeable, have the merit at least of having
sent forth into the world some great and noble
characters by whom the world has been instructed
and blest. But what, if we except some volumes
of poetry, what has the Epicurean produced that
has earned or deserves the thanks of mankind ?
Out of that garden which bore the inscription,
" Here pleasure is the supreme good," nothing ijet-
ter than the love of pleasure could ever proceed,
nothing better could it ever attract. " But out
of the school of Epicurus," says Plutarch, " and
from among those that follow his doctrine, 1 will
not ask what tyrant-killer has proceeded, nor yet
what man valiant and victorious ni feats of arms,
what lawgiver, what prince, what counsellor, what
governor of the people. Neither will I demand
who of them has been tormented or died for
supporting of right and justice ; but who of all
EPICURUS. 49
these sages has for the benefit and service of his
country undertaken so much as a voyage at sea,
gone of an embassy, or expended a sum of
money." ^
So far and no farther could Athenian atheism
reach with its precepts. Its purest product was
Epicurean wisdom ; and in that there was no
power to lift a man above himself, nothing of the
spirit that overcomes the Avorld, no adequate inter-
pretation, much less satisfaction, of the wants of
man. The school of Epicurus is long since ex-
tinct, but the Epicurean mind survives ; it prevails
at this moment as widely perhaps as in any past
age. Something of the Garden cleaves to our
time. Our very reforms betray it ; our philoso-
phies are steeped in it. Carlyle alone, the Cato
Censor of the century, is uncorrupted by it. Uni-
versal relaxation of discipline, abolition of all
pain, retribution ignored, all strengths and aus-
terities ruled out of life ; softness in legislation
and education, general amnesty of treasons and
rascalities m this world, indiscriminate and uncon-
ditional bestowal of bliss in the next, — behold the
spirit and creed of our day ! As a counterpoise
10 tliis daintiness and dissoluteness of theory and
practice, one is tempted to oppose the bracing-
rigor of the Porch. The world is no garden, and
. 1 Plutarch against Colotes. Old English Version.
4
50 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
life no lullaby of endless blandishments. The indi-
vidual, if he means to grow into a consummate
spirit, must pass through wars and fightings to
inward peace, must struggle up through want and
weakness and bitter pain to light and freedom.
" Mortal that standest on a point of time,
With an eternity on either hand,
Thou hast one duty above all sublime,
Where thou art placed, serenely there to stand.
' T is well in deeds of good, tho' small, to thrive,
'Tis well some part of ill, tho' small, to cure,
'Tis well with onward, upward hope to strive ;
Yet better and diviner to endure."
^^-!?r
,j?n'^
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER, 51
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER.
"\ /FY first example of philosophic atheism was
drawn from the schools of ancient wisdom.
I have spoken of Epicurus, a founder of one of
those schools, a member of the great Socratic
movement which survived the edict of Justinian,
which passed into Christian history through Ara-
bian savans, and spent itself in mediaeval scholas-
ticism. My second example shall be a modern, a
philosopher of this century, a member of the Kan-
tian movement, a name of note in metaphysic, —
Arthur Schopenhauer. I select this German partly
as being the only modern atheist who seems to me
really profound, and partly because of the points
of contrast between him and Epicurus, showing
the range of the atheistic mind. The contrast is
striking. Epicurus was a flat materialist ; Scho-
penhauer an out-and-out idealist. Epicurus was
an optimist; Schopenhauer a pessimist. Epicurus
was sunny-tempered, bland, humane ; Schopenhauer
was a cynic and malcontent. Epicurus gathered
his followers around him in a garden, and invited
the world to partake of his cheer ; Schopenhauer
shut himself up in a German Studierzimmer, and
wreaked with curses on the world his spite at the
62 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
world's neglect of his wisdom. Epicurus despised
and decried all learning ; Schopenhauer was richly,
widely, profoundly learned. Epicurus exhorts us
to make the most of life ; Schopenhauer teaches
that renunciation of the will to live is the true
wisdom. Epicurus lived abstemiously, and taught
that pleasure is man's chief end ; Schopenliauer
lived daintily, and taught that the end of man is
suffering.
Arthur, son of Hcinrich Floris and Johanna
Henrietta Schopenhauer, was born at Danzig, in
East Prussia, an important seaport of the Baltic, on
the 22d of February, 1788. He should have been a
native of England, to which country his father, an
ardent lover of liberty and of English institutions,
had repaired with that intent ; but the ilhicss of
the mother compelled them to return before the
expected birth. It could not be that a Kantian
should be born out of Germany. The name Arthur
was given him with a view to mercantile life ;
it was a name which foreign correspondents would
not need to translate, being in all European lan-
guages the same. A portion of his bojdiood was
spent in France, and a portion in England ; whereby
the foundation was laid of a thorough acquaint-
ance with the languages of those countries, which,
together with Italian, he spoke with fluency in
after years. In spite of his earnest remonstrance
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 53
and avowed preference for the life of a scholar, the
father, himself a merchant, having changed his
residence from Danzig to Hamburg, placed him, at
the age of seventeen, in a counting-room in that
city, and commended him to Senator Genisch for
thorough commercial training. But a better for-
tune, or one more accordant with his wishes,
awaited him. The father died. The widowed
young mother (much younger than her husband),
suddenly discovering in herself a literary vocation,
or, at any rate, embracing one which she had not
dared to indulge while her husband lived, removed
with her daughter Adele to Weimar, then the
Athens of Germany, and entered the career of
authoress. She wrote and published an intermin-
able series of novels and tales. I suppose they
found readers, seeing she persisted to write them.
I remember to have seen the backs of the volumes
in the circulating libraries, long rows of duode-
cimos, — " Romane von Johanna Schopenhauer." I
fancy they are not there now. Arthur, still a
minor, left behind in Hamburg, solicited and finally
obtained permission to study, studiere7i, — what
we call going to college. Like a harrier unken-
nelled, he rushed to books, — Latin, Greek, mathe-
matics. He crammed at Gotha under Doring and
Jacobs, afterward at Weimar under Passow ; and
at the age of twenty-one was matriculated as
54 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
student of medicine at Gottingen, then the first
university in Germany. His life there was stu-
dious, quiet, and somewhat recluse. He is said
to have had but two intimate companions, — one
was the late Baron Bunsen; the other you would
not easily guess : it was Mr. William B. Astor, of
New York, the long-surviving leaf of this strange
trefoil. He afterward studied at Berlin, where he
heard, among other celebrities, Fichte, wlio some-
what disappointed his eager longing. His doctor's
degree — not doctor of medicine, but doctor of phi-
losophy — he sought and obtained at Jena. His
thesis on this occasion, — his first philosophical
work, — was entitled : " Ueber die vierfache Wurzel
des Satzes vom zureichendem Grunde " (" Concern-
ing the Fourfold Root of the Proposition of the
Sufficient Cause"). The sufficient cause is that
whereby anything must rather be than not be ;
according to the formula, " Nihil est sine ration o
cur potius sit quam non sit." This proposition,
according to Schopenhauer, has four roots, — caus-
ality, reason, intuition, will. With the pride of a
young author in his first publication, Schopenhauer
handed a copy to his mother. She, with the insight
of the librarian who assigned a treatise on Hebrew
roots to the department of botany, looking at the
title, was struck with the word Wurzel. She could
make nothing of it but that it was some kind of
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 55
root. " Root ! " she said ; " that is something for
the apothecaries." It was not a very flattering
welcome to a young writer just entering his
philosophical career. But he consoled himself
with thinking that his root would flourish when
not a novel of hers should be extant.
The Hofrathin Schopenhauer gave weekly recep-
tions to the literati of Weimar, by means of which
Arthur made the acquaintance of Goethe, from
whom he received, as he confessed, his second edu-
cation, although the difference in their ages was
nearly forty years. Goethe at this time was smart-
ing with the cold reception given to his Farhen-
leJire, — his theory of colors, — based, in opposition
to Newton, on the assumed homogeneity of light.
Schopenhauer was induced to study optics under
Goethe's guidance, for the sake of a common in-
terest. He adopted the conclusions of his master
respecting the genesis of the so-called physical
colors, but maintained at the same time, with due
independence, that the Farhenlehre was not a com-
plete optical theory ; that should be physiological.
In 1814 he removed to Dresden, where he made
the acquaintance, among other men of note, with
Tieck, the head of the romantic school, and where
he composed his chief work, " The World as Will
and Presentment." As soon as the manuscript was
placed ^1 the hands of the publisher, he started
56 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
on a tour of recreation in Italy, and visited the
memorable places in that comitry, which his knowl-
edge of the language and his general culture ena-
bled him to enjoy as none ever can without those
advantages. This was the brightest page in his
history ; through life he recurred to it with fond
recollection, and softened whenever he spoke of
his Italian tour. The news of the failure of the
mercantile house at Danzig in which his mother
had invested the greater part of her own and
her daughter's property, recalled him to Ger-
many. With characteristic caution, mistrusting
his mother's management, he had previously sepa-
rated his portion of the estate and made his own
investments. He was therefore only so far a loser
by this failure as his hereditary prospects were
concerned. Nevertheless he judged it expedient
to look about for some additional means of main-
tenance ; for though his patrimony, so long as he
enjoyed it without matrimony, sufficed for that end,
some unforeseen accident might deprive him of his
income. The only occu])ation which seemed con-
sistent with his training was that of a university
professor, if such a post could be secured. With
the hope of promotion to the chair just vacated by
the death of Solger, he obtained the venia docendi
in Berlin, and began lecturing on philosophy. But
the venia docendi is accompanied by no salary ; it
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 57
yields no remuneration beyond the fees required
of students who may choose to attend the lectures.
The students did not come in numbers sufficient
to make the thing profitable. Hegel had the field
and the prestige. Who cared to hear philosophy in
Berlin from any but Hegel ? The chair of Solger
was filled by another. Schopenhauer had no fol-
lowing. He went to Italy once more ; then re-
turned to Berlin, and tried lecturing again, with no
better success. It was a bitter disappointment, and
poisoned all his future. Under the cold stone of
that defeat he got " sweltering venom " enough to
last him a lifetime. Meanwhile his great work,
his '' Welt als Wille und Vorstellung," had proved
a dead failure ; it was so much waste paper (jnacu-
latur) on the booksellers' hands. In Germany
it seems to be taken for granted that none but a
university professor can write books of philosophy
or science worthy of notice. The learned world,
the university world, exists, or did then exist, apart
from the general public. Only what that world
produced of a scientific kind it honored ; outside
was the Galilee from which ariseth no prophet.
The charge which Schopenhauer urges of conscious,
wilful, concerted suppression of his name is pure
absurdity. The neglect is sufficiently explained by
preoccupation. The philosophic interest of the time
was monopolized, absorbed, by Hegel ; and though
58 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
Hegel himself had insisted that philosophy is not
any one system, but all systems, his German con-
temporaries and the next generation were some-
how made to believe that with him the books were
closed, the canon complete, the last word spo-
ken. There were some exceptions ; the work was
not absolutely without any recognition. Herbart,
one of the dii majores of philosophy, acknowledged
its distinguished ability ; and Jean Paul, one of
the Olympians of literature, praised its profundity,
though gloomy as the Norway pool on whose dark
depths no sun ever smiles. But on the whole the
book was for the time a failure. The hope of his
life seemed quenched in oblivion. His heart was
shrivelled by the blow. Not only the academic,
but the literary career had failed. Still he lin-
gered in Berlin, nursing his wrath, irresolute, until
one day, the cholera entering the city at one gate,
he made his escape through another, and never
rested till he reached Frankfort on the Maine,
where he established himself as misanthrope for
the remainder of his life, and where he died on the
22d of September, 1860.
One would think that a man just entering on
the forties, with an independent fortune, sound
health, a well-stored mind, extraordinary intellec-
tual powers, and no cares, might manage to lead
a happy and useful life. Seldom in the turns and
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 59
combinations of fortune has any one chanced on so
fair a lot. But in human life the spirit and the
lot are seldom well matched ; or rather, they are
so matched that the chance of happiness is equal
for all. The literary career was not closed, though
he chose to think so. His first attempt had
failed ; so has that of many a man who came to
be famous at last. He had but to try again and '
again. Luck may rule the hour, but merit wins
the final crown ; intellectual overweight tells in
the end. A hearing once obtained, his forgotten
first work would be fished out of the dust-heap and
receive its dues. But Schopenhauer had not the
morale for this ; his morale was defective at the
root. He had neither industry, nor courage, nor
faith, nor patience; nothing wherewith to right
himself after that first defeat. It was a clear case
of a man of exceptional intellect failing from moral
defect ; not, as often happens, from the bondage of
appetite, but from want of heart. Emerson says
our success is through the affections. Schopen-
hauer was a signal illustration of the truth of tliat
remark. There was a root of bitterness in him
which poisoned all the springs of life. He sulked
like a child in a pet. If men would not read, he
would not write; and for twenty years he wrote
nothing. Twenty unproductive years incorporated
in the body of his life ! It must not be supposed
60 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
that all this while he lived a recluse. He made
the most of the good things of this world. He
had* comfortable lodgings, dined every day at the
table d'hote of the HOtel d'Angleterre, where they
have his portrait still hanging, and he carefully
nursed his estate.
He had inculcated as a cardinal point of prac-
tical philosophy the " abnegation of the will to
live ; " but never did mortal cling to life with more
desperate tenacity. He had what Lamb calls '' an
intolerable disinclination to dying." He lived in a
state of perpetual alarm. Fear of small-pox drove
him from Naples ; fear of the cholera drove liim
from Berlin. In Verona he was haunted by the
fear that he had taken poisoned snuff. He never
went to bed without dagger and pistol by his side,
and started at every unusual noise. He took ex-
traordinary precautions against infection, hiding
the mouthpiece of his pipe during his absence from
his chambers, and would never trust himself to the
hands of a barber. Fear of robbery impelled him
to label as medicines the parcels containing his
valuables, or to label them in foreign tongues.
Hints in his will were written in Latin, his ex-
pense-book was kept in English, and his coupons
stowed away in the envelopes of letters.
Though he would not write for the public, it was
impossible for a man so cultured and endowed to
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 61
abstain from books. He read and studied, accu-
mulated a large library, and filled many notebooks
with memoranda and wise remarks.
His discourse could be brilliant when he found
an appreciative ear. Foucher de Careil, a sufficient
judge, celebrates his rare conversational powers.
The guests at the table cVlwte lingered over their
dessert, enchained by the eloquence with which he
dispensed the rich stores of his knowledge. But
sometimes other topics got the floor ; army officers
and young gallants would have it their own way.
Then he would lay down a gold piece by the side
of his plate : the poor should have it if the gentle-
men opposite would start some other topic besides
women and horses.
His character, as sketched by his friend Dr.
Gwinner, is not altogether lovely. A rough cyni-
cism seems to have been its prevailing trait. It is
a relief to know that he gave liberally in the way
of alms, although so careful a manager of his
funds. An ingrained, incorruptible honesty must
be conceded to him. He was not likely under
ordinary temptation to commit a base or bad act ;
nor had he any vices in the common acceptation
of the term. But wrath and bitterness and evil-
speaking were the settled habit of his life. A
misanthrope by profession, he pretended to dis-
tinguish between ixicrdv6pwiro<^ and Karacppovdv-
62 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
6p(07ro<;^ man-hater and man-clespiser, disclaiming
for himself the former, but freely avowing the
latter, — which it seems to me is the greater sin
of the two. Man-despiser he professed to be. We
cannot liate, he said, w^hat we altogether despise.
He even blamed himself for want of thoroughness
in that particular. He had never been able, he
said, to maintain an adequate idea of the baseness
of human nature.
He did not wish to be loved by his fellow-men,
for in order to be loved by them one must be like
them ; which God forbid ! Wliat had he in common
with them ? When the cat is a kitten, she plays
with little paper-balls ; she imagines that they are
alive, and like herself. When she is old, she knows
better, and lets them lie. Such had been his ex*
perience with the bipeds. He was a woman-hater,
and gloried in his celibacy. The so-called " career "
of most young men, he said, ends in their becom-
ing beasts of burden to a woman. The married
man bears the full burden of life, the unmarried
but half. All genuine philosophers had been celi-
bate, — Descartes, Leibniz, Malebranche, Spinoza,
Kant. The ancients are not to be taken into
the account, because women with them occupied a
subordinate position. Moreover, Socrates' matri-
monial experience did not recommend the nuptial
state to scholars. He quotes Petrarch : " Quisquis
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 63
requiem qugeris, feminam cave, perpetuam officinam
litium ac laborum."
To contempt of humankind he added an im-
mense conceit of his own philosophic importance.
He did not hesitate to declare himself the fore-
most philosopher of his time. Indeed he seems to
have regarded himself as surpassing in acumen the
philosophers of all time. ^'I have lifted farther
than any mortal before me," he said, " the veil of
truth ; but I would like to see the man who can
boast of having had a more wretched set of con-
temporaries than I," — meaning Schelling and
Hegel, and the philosophic and learned world of
his day. Kant he professed to hold in high
esteem ; but all subsequent philosophers he treated
with unmeasured contempt. I have alluded to his
charge of a conspiracy to shut him out from public
notice. He actually believed that the university
philosophers were afraid of him, — were afraid that
if he came to be known they would fall at once
into hopeless neglect, and therefore had combined
to suppress him! And how he chuckles at their
defeat when, in his latter years, he began to emerge
a little from his long obscurity ! " Their Caspar
Hauser," he says, " has escaped, in spite of their
machinations." " I am read, and shall continue to
be read ; legor et legarP
His admirer and sycophant, Frauenstadt, has
64 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
filled many pages with Schopenhauer's abuse of
the post-Kantian philosophers, — an interesting
study for those who are curious in the rhetoric of
vituperation.
" 111 the period wliicli intervenes between Kant and
myself, there is no philosophy, nothing but university char-
latanism. . . . Fichte made one great discovery, — that
of the niaiserie of the Germans, in virtue of which, when
any one boldly babbles sheer nonsense, for fear of compro-
mising their intellectual credit they set it down, as un-
fathomable profundity; whereby a philosophic reputation
is soon acquired, which, once established, lasts until some
thinker revises the acts. After Fichte, Schelling improved
the discovery witli great personal advantage. But it was
reserved for Hegel to carry it to its full extent. He made
such thorough use of it that nothing remains for any who
come after. ... To mystify men you have only to say
something of which all they know is that they don't un-
derstand it. Then the Germans especially, who are good-
natured and honest, immediately take it for granted that
the fault is in their own understanding, in which secretly
they have no great confidence ; and their surest way to
conceal the shame of not understanding is to join loudly
in the praise of the unintelligible wisdom, whereby its
authority becomes more and more imposing."
Fichte and Schelling he regards as sufficiently
contemptible ; but the special and chief mark of his
polemic is Hegel, whom he cannot name without
malediction. He finds a fit motto for Hegelian phil-
osophy in "• Cymbeline : " " Such stuff as madmen
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. Q5
tongue and brain not." He sees but one use which
that philosophy can possibly serve. Guardians
sometimes find their wards too intelligent for their
purposes. Let the inconveniently bright youths be
made to study Hegel ; they will soon be reduced
to any required degree of stupidity.
The accusation of charlatanism which Scho-
penhauer urges against Hegel, it must be con-
fessed, is not wholly groundless. He substantiates
the charge by citing passages from the "Encyclo-
padie ; " here is one of them : —
"Essential being (das Wesen), as being that mediates
itself with itself by the negativity of itself, is relation to
itself only as it is relation to another ; that is, immediate
only as something posited and mediated."
And again : —
" Essential being {<:las Wesen) is pure identity and
appearance in itself only as it is negativity relating it-
self to itself; consequently repulsion of itself from itself.
It therefore contains essentially the determination of
difference."
Nothing which Schopenhauer has said in repro-
bation of such stuff is too severe.
" The impudent recklessness of this charlatanism, the real
imiwohitas of such doing, consists," he says, " in putting
together words which present impossible operations of the
intellect, contradictions and absurdities of every kind,
whereby the reader's mind is tortured in the same way
5
66 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
that the body would be if forced to assume positions en-
tirely contrary to its articulations. On the whole, Hegel's
philosophy contains three parts of bare nonsense, and one
part of corrupt notions. Nothing in it is plain but its
purpose, which is to gain the favor of princes by servility
and orthodoxy. The plainness of its purpose contrasts in
a piquant way the obscurity of the presentation ; and, like
Harlequin-out-of-the-egg, there develops itself at the end of
a whole volume of bombastic gallimathias, the precious pet-
ticoat-philosophy which they teach scholars of the fourth
form ; namely, God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the truth
of the Evangelical confession, the error of the Catholic," etc.
Whatever the rights of Schopenhauer's polemic
against the post-Kantians, it is not to be denied
that wrath and hate were its motive-spring. It
was only a part of his controversy with the world
in general, or so much of it, at least, as he could
not subject to or range on his side.
Such was the moral of the man. The wonder is
that wdtli such a moral, with a nature so devoid
of all nobleness and sweetness, of fortitude and
strength, there should have been combined an
intellect so robust and fine ; that such a brain
should have coupled with such a heart. The
fact goes far to prove his own favorite theory of
the purely physical origin and ground of mental
action, and the total disconnection between the
intellectual and moral realms.
As a metaphysical writer Germany has not his
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 67
equal, and no nation, I think, his superior. Less-
ing wrote no purer or more idiomatic German ;
Hume no more translucent English. Like Leib-
niz and Spinoza and Berkeley, he has shown that
the deepest themes wliich can occupy the mind
may be handled in a lucid and readable style.
The contrast with the other Kantians, and espe-
cially with Hegel, is crying. Menzel asks : "• Who,
on reading a work of Hegel, can suppose that any
nation would acknowledge his language for its
own?" Hegel himself prefixes as motto to his
works a line from Sophocles to the effect that
Truth is the strength of discourse, — Ta\7]6h ael
irkeiarov lcr")(yei \o^6v. But truth and discourse
in a philosophic treatise are inseparably connected ;
and when the discourse is involved, perplexed, and
unintelligible, one cannot help feeling that what is
^' attempted to be expressed is not clear to the mind
of the writer. Hegel rejoices in abstractions, en-
tangles himself with them, befogs himself, loses his
way in them, — or causes, at least, his hearers to
lose theirs. He mystifies them, — sometimes, I must
think, wantonly. Abstraction, we all know, is a
necessary operation in metaphysic ; but abstraction
may be wilfully pursued beyond the point of true
perception, beyond the bounds of consciousness ; and
then it becomes a play of words. Hegel's abstrac-
tionism is the principle of infinite divisibility applied
68 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
to thought. The chemist in his analysis is brought
to a stand by fixed bounds. He comes upon final-
ities, whether given in his material or in the lim-
ited capacity of his instruments. But there is no
finality in speculation ; tliere, the analytic process
— the process of abstraction — may be continued
ad. libitum. The university professor has so many
lectures to give : the further he pushes his analysis,
the longer the material will hold out. Hence per-
haps the ductility of certain systems given in the
form of lectures. Hegel seems to have known no
limit to his abstractionism but that of practical
necessity, — the kind of necessity we express by
the saying, " one must draw the line somewhere.'*
In saying this I am by no means insensible to the
real value of Hegel's works. No doubt he was one
of the most acute of modern thinkers. In his at-
tempt to apprehend the absolute and construct the
universe a priori^ he failed, indeed, as they all did ;
but the noble thoughts, the luminous intuitions
with which he has enriched so many fields of in-
vestigation, establish beyond reasonable question
his rank among the magnates of speculative philo-
sophy. But as a writer he is very unsatisfactory,
not to say repulsive ; and, here and there, liable, as
I said before, to the charge of charlatanism, — of
a word-juggle which promises to the eye or the
ear a meaning impossible to appropriate with the
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 69
understanding ; as in the instances I have cited from
the " Encyclopadie." From this vice of infini-
tesimal analysis, of hair-splitting abstruseness, of
nihilistic refinement ; from this compelling of lan-
guage to perform impossible feats, — Schopenhauer
is entirely free. With a clearly defined, intelligible,
presentable thought, and a crystalline, colorless,
and yet singularly vivid and commanding style, he
approaches the great problem which has occupied
the dii majores of philosophy in all time, — the
problem of ontology, the mystery of being, the
origin and ground of the universe of things.
Here am I, and there, confronting me, is the
world in its manifoldness. This is a fact of uni-
versal consciousness. No need to go back of that
for a starting-point. I am conscious of myself and
a world external to myself. Philosophy busies
itself with this fact. We soon come to see that
what we call the world is simply our own impres-
sion of it, or, — using the word in its popular sense
— our idea. Hence the title of Schopenhauer's
principal work, " The World as Will and Idea."
The German word is Vorstellung, which means
literally " representation," — that which is repre-
sented to me, or which I represent to myself. We
might say, " The world as willed and represented,"
or " The world as willed and as it appears ; " but
" Idea " is sufficiently exact, and a less awkward
rendering.
70 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM,
SCHOPENHAUER'S PHILOSOPHY.
We have the idea of a world external to our-
selves, which we suppose in all its phenomena
and forms to correspond with our conception.
Whence have we that idea ? Primarily and ap-
parently through the senses. We see, we hear,
we smell, we feel, the objects that compose the
world of our experience ; but if we diligently con-
sider and analyze all that the senses actually and
ultimately furnish of this experience, we find that
it falls far short of our idea of external things.
What, for example, do we get through the eye ?
Neither form nor distance, but only color and dif-
ferent degrees of light and shade. What do we get
by touch ? Differences of temperature, different
degrees of resistance, a different pressure on the
tactual nerves. All that the senses give us is cer-
tain affections of our nervous system. But these
do not constitute the world of things as it lies in
our experience ; they do not account for that expe-
rience. Clearly, another supplementary agent is
required for that purpose ; that agent is the intel-
lect. We have a brain, weighing on the average
about three pounds. It is the action of that brain,
it is the intellect, that gives us the world of our
idea. The eye sees objects inverted ; the intellect
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 71
sets them upright. The eye sees objects equally
near ; the intellect places them in right perspective.
The eye sees objects double ; the intellect construes
one from the two. The experience of every blind-
born whose eyes have been successfully couched
confirms this statement. But the new-born infant,
whose eyes are sound, arrives at its perceptions in
the same way. Infants at first see only color and
different degrees of light and shade. They have
to experiment a long while, to turn the objects
about and about, to view them in different lights,
to call in the aid of touch, to reason from one
aspect to another, from one sensation to another,
before they can see aright, and distinguish the
distant from the near, the single object from the
medley of objects presented to the eye. That the
intellect in all this business acts unconsciously,
does not alter the fact ; it is the intellect, never-
theless, that does the work. The understanding
is the architect that builds the sensible world of
our experience ; the senses but furnish the raw
material to this great artist.
And this is true of brutes as well as man. In
the lower orders of the brute creation the action
of the intellect is of course less perfect, and the
world which they perceive corresponds with their
limitation ; it is not our world. They may not
even have a brain in the proper sense of that term.
72 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
Mere separate ganglia, little knots of nerves, may
answer their need. Still, in the very lowest stages
of animal nature it is mental action that does the
work. It is this '* that mediates for the dull
worm the existence of its formless and soundless
world."
" With more developed brain and organs of sense, the
world becomes more manifold, richer in objects, until it
reaches its perfect idea in man. But always it is the
same agency, the understanding, that informs the worm,
that prompts the infant to reach after the moon, and that
reveals to Leverrier the existence of an unseen planet.
In these instances the agency differs only in degree. To
the imperfectly organized animal it shows only the crea-
ture's own relation to the world of its perception. In
man it appears as the effort to combine the thousandfold
variety of objects and impressions in one chain of cause
and effect. By means of the same function which acts in
the worm, man, ascending from effect to cause, creates his
mechanics, his astronomy, physics, chemistry, physiology.
By means of the same he learns to view as a whole the
life of humanity, in which causes become motives, and so
deduces from chronicles pragmatic history. Or, proceed-
ing in the opposite direction, from causes to effects, he
invents machines, and on thrones or in cabinets, by com-
mercial speculation or from the orator's rostrum, rules his
kind." 1
It is the merit of Schopenhauer, building as he
did on Kant, to have greatly simplified the method
1 Weigelt : Zur Geschichte der neueren Philosophie, p. 125.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 73
by which that philosopher constructs our idea of
the phenomenal world. In fact, he reduces Kant's
twelve categories — the three respectively of quan-
tity, quality, relation, and modality — to the sin-
gle law of causality, which he identifies with the
understanding itself. This law is the necessary
condition of right perception of the universe ;
therefore it cannot have come to us from without,
it must pre-exist in us prior to all consciousness,
underlying all ; as, according to Kant, those forms
of perception which we call Time and Space must
be antecedent to all experience, inasmuch as they
are the conditions of all experience.
The world of our experience then, the sensible
world, Die Welt ah Vbrstellung, is the product of
the understanding. That which we rightly perceive
or infer is the real. It is folly to ask what things
may be in themselves, independently of our per-
ception. Independently of us they are nothing,
they exist not. Their relation to us, their action
on us, is their reality. What they are for us, that
/ they are.
As the senses are supplemented by the under-
standing, that in turn is supplemented by another
faculty called reason, — the organ of abstract
ideas, in German Begriffe ; literally, comprehen-
sions, conceptions, concepts, because they take
together, or embrace, several particulars in one.
74 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
The understanding deals with actual existences,
reason with abstractions — what the schoolmen
termed " universals." It classifies given existences,
seizes the characteristics common to each kind,
dropping what is merely individual, and thus ob-
tains general or abstract ideas ; for example, the
understanding knows only actual horses, dogs,
men ; reason gives us the idea of a dog in general,
a horse, a man. These abstractions are embodied
in words. It is reason that makes language, for
language consists of abstractions. All words, ex-
' cepting proper names, express abstractions. It is
true we distinguish in language between abstract
and concrete terms. Words expressive of quali-
ties we call abstract ; words expressive of things
we call concrete. Fleetness, we say, is abstract ;
horse and bird are concrete. Brightness is abs-
tract; a star or a candle is concrete. But the
' difference in reality is only a difference in degree.
It is only that the process of abstraction has been
carried farther in the one case than in the other.
Brightness is abstract compared with star; but
star is abstract compared with Sirius or Gamma
,. Lyrge. Fidelity is abstract compared with dog ;
but dog is abstract compared with Pug or Tray.
All language, as consisting of abstractions, is the
product of reason ; for only reason abstracts.
/ The understanding, which furnishes only intuitions,
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 15
and knows only particulars, could never create
speech. Reason is that which distinguishes man
from brute. By means of that faculty, through
the instrumentality of language, we have science,
art, laws, the state, all plans and enterprises in
which men combine for common ends. All these
— all intelligent action whereby humanity differs
from brute nature is founded on abstractions and
mediated by language.
But Schopenhauer denies to reason all intui-
tive power. Herein he differs from Jacobi, who
ascribed to pure reason a function which Kant
had relegated to the practical ; namely, intuitive
perception of supersensible truths. He (Jacobi) is
the real author of that distinction and characteri-
zation respectively of reason and understanding,
— the one the intuitive, the other the discursive
faculty — which now so widely prevails. Schopen-
hauer repudiated all this. The understanding,
according to him, is the intuitive faculty ; but its
intuitions are sensible objects. Reason knows
only abstractions ; but those abstractions must be
based on sensible experience, they must be refer-
rible to actual, known existences at last ; otherwise
they have no validity : as the notes of a bank
have no validity without specie in its vaults. He
denies to reason any function beyond the sphere
of sensible experience, and so consigns the idea of
76 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
God, of a spiritual world, and all kindred ideas, to
the limbo of chima^ras and unrealities. They are
inventions or illusions which philosophy knows
not, with which philosophy has nothing to do.
These three, then, — sense, understanding, rea-
son, — constitute the world of my perceptioUj of
my sensible experience, — die Welt ah Vor^tellung.
The world is my Vorstellung ; is it anything more ?
If not, then where is the difference between our
waking experience and our dreams ? To the
dreamer his dreams are as real as is to the
waking his waking experience. To the madman
his fancies are as true as their perceptions are to
the sane. Is there really no difference between
them beyond the singularity in the one case and
the general agreement in the other ? Is the world
at large but a phantasmagory agreed on ? Has it
no objective existence or ground ? The contrary
is not to be demonstrated if any one shall per-
sist in denying it ; but by common consent such
denial is esteemed insanity. A universal, irresis-
tible persuasion establishes for all sound minds the
fact of an external cause of our subjective expe-
rience — of our perceptions. The only rational
question in this matter concerns not the fact, but
the nature of that cause, the ground of my Vor-
stellung. Schopenhauer finds this ground of all
existence to be the all-present Will. That is what
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 7T
underlies our perceptions and all our experience,
— the sole objective reality. The process by which
he arrives at this conclusion it is unnecessary here
to trace. Its principal moment is the coincidence
of will and perception in our own experience. I
will to raise my hand, I perceive my hand to rise.
Perception and will in this case are identified in
my consciousness. They are different constituents
of one subject, one Ego. Applying the experience
in the case of one Vorstellung to all other Vor-
stellungen, he concludes that every perception,
every perceived existence, has its ground in will,
— it is simply will made manifest. The same
will which, with conscious volition, causes my arm
to rise, or, more precisely, gives me the perception
of the raised arm, — that same will, acting uncon-
sciously^ made my arm, which I perceive, made my
body, which I perceive, made the entire world of
my perception.
The correctness of this inference, by which the
motive power consciously exerted in the voluntary
movements of one's own body is extended to all
perceived movements and appearances external to
one's self, is questionable. I cannot see that the
identity of agency assumed by Schopenhauer — the
identity of my conscious volition with the vis for-
mativa in Nature — is logically established by his
reasoning. If the act of volition by which I raise
78 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
my arm is a phase and a fmiction of the same will
which made the arm, and that will identical with
the universal will, ought not my volition to operate
beyond the limits of my body by virtue of that
identity ? I am confined to my easy chair by gout ;
I see a volume on my shelves which I wish to con-
sult : ought I not, on Schopenhauer's theory, to be
able to make for the nonce an arm sufficiently long
to reach it, or in some way to compel it within my
grasp ? Schopenhauer's assumption is pure as-
sumption, not demonstration ; and it fails to explain
the limitations and conflict of will in our experi-
ence. But grant the correctness of the theory,
which certainly has the merit of simplicity, and we
have the other factor indicated in the title of Scho-
penhauer's work, — the will. The world is pri-
marily my perception, my idea ; on reflection,
inquiring the origin and ground of that perception,
I find it to be also will.
In his representation of the nature and action
of this will, our philosopher exhibits what is most
peculiar, most original, most piquant in his sys-
tem. We are accustomed to think of the action
of the will as accompanied in all cases by con-
scious purpose, by contemplation of the object
willed. Schopenhauer, on the contrary, maintains
that the will, of which the universe is the product,
is a blind, unconscious force, acting with no idea
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 79
of any end to be obtained, and no perception (ex-
cept as human individuals perceive it) of the end
accomplished. Without prevision, without a pur-
pose, the headlong omnipotence works and weaves,
makes suns and planets, makes rocks and trees,
makes tigers and snakes and birds and fishes,
and at last makes man ; and then for the first
time, by means of the human brain, becomes aware
of its action. It is not intelligence that directs
the will, but the will that makes intelligence. It
is something that supervenes, — an ex jyost facto
product. The lower orders of creation require
and receive but a minimum of this commodity.
The world of their perception is merely the supply
of some particular kind of nutriment. So much
of it only they see and know. With the multi-
plied and advanced requirements of the higher
orders comes increase of intelligence. When Na-
ture, or the Universal Will, requires in any of its
creatures the aid of intelligence to satisfy the
wants of that creature, it makes a brain propor-
tioned to those wants; in man, who has intel-
lectual wants as well as physical, it develops a
brain susceptible of ideas. There was no idea,
no reflective intelligence, no perception of the uni-
verse in the power that produced it, until man
arrived. With the birth of man, the blind, uncon-
scious worker received his sight, and, like a som-
80 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
nambulist aroused to consciousness, surveyed with
astonishment the deeds performed in sleep, and
seemed to see an intelligent purpose where in
truth there had been none.
Our philosopher compares the relation between
will and intelligence to a strong blind man who
bears a seeing one on his shoulders. Absence of
consciousness does not prove absence of will. A
necessary movement is still a voluntary one.
Spinoza had said that a stone impelled by me-
chanical force, if conscious, would seem to move
by its own volition ; Schopenhauer adds that the
stone would be right in so thinking. A striking
illustration of unconscious creation he finds in an
Indian myth from the " Mahabarata." Brahma
created Tillotama the most beautiful of women,
and presented her in turn to all the Gods. Siva's
desire to behold her was so great that four faces
were successively developed in him as she made
the tour of the assembly ; Indra's longing was so
intense that his body became all eyes.
Creation, as we apprehend it, creation in the
view of theism, is thought made manifest ; ac-
cording to Schopenhauer it is will without thought.
We are to conceive of it as an infinity of blind
impulses which realize themselves in concrete
forms, — unconscious will everywhere struggling
into being. Will wanted to blaze and shine, and
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 81
it burst into suns. It wanted to realize the light
and heat of those suns, and it became planets revol-
ving around them. It wanted to vegetate, and it
made trees. It wanted to hang from the branches
of those trees and to feed upon their leaves, and
it made the sloth. It wanted to burrow in the
ground, and it made the mole. It wanted to wallow
in the mud, and it made the crocodile. It wanted
to fly, and it made the bird. Among other things,
it wanted to know, and it made man. It wanted
to know more, and it made Plato and Aristotle and
Kant. It wanted to mystify the vulgar, and it
made Hegel. Finally, it wanted to see itself, to
understand thoroughly its own essence and working,
and it became Schopenhauer. Then it saw all
the works that it had made, and — Schopenhauer
being a pessimist — behold, it was very bad !
Such is substantially the story which the uni-
verse tells of itself in the reading of this prince of
atheists. Apart from its atheism, there is some-
thing fascinating in his view of the w^ll in Nature.
Taken out of its atheistic connection, which is not
essential, regarding it not as the whole and final
account of being, but as principle of life in the
phenomenal world, it is a very opportune correc-
tive of that carpenter view of creation which,
under the name of the Argument from Design, has
been made so offensive by theologians of the Paley
6
82 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
and Bridgewater school. A deeper theology has
felt the inadequacy of the carpenter view, and on
grounds of pure theism has propounded something
akin to Schopenhauer's unconscious will. Cud-
worth's Plastic Nature is nearly the same agency,
but conceived as motived and controlled by a
supreme mind, and not as itself supreme.
" It seems not so agreeable to reason," says Cudworth,
" that Nature, as a distinct thing from the Deity, should
be quite superseded or made to signify nothing, God him-
self doing all things immediately and miraculously; from
whence it Avould follow also that they are all done either
forcibly and violently, or else artificially only, and none of
them by any inward principle of their own.
" This opinion is further confuted by that slow and
gradual process that is in the generation of things, which
would seem to be but a vain and idle pomp or a trifling
formality if the agent were omnipotent ; as also by those
dixapTrjixara, as Aristotle calls them, those errors and bun-
gles which are committed where the matter is inept and
contumacious ; which argue the agent not to be irresistible,
and that Nature is such a thing as is not altogether incapa-
ble (as well as human art) of being sometimes frustrated
and disappointed by the indisposition of matter. Whereas
an omnipotent agent, as it could despatch its work in a
moment, so it would always do it infallibly and irresis-
tibly, no ineptitude and stubbornness of matter being ever
able to hinder such a one, or make him bungle or fumble
in anything.
"Wherefore, since neither all things are produced for-
tuitously, or by the unguided mechanism of matter, nor
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 83
God himself may be reasonably thought to do all things
immediately and miraculously, it may well be concluded
that there is a Plastic Nature under him, which, as an infe-
rior and subordinate instrument, doth drudgingly execute
that part of his providence which consists in the regular
and orderly motion of matter ; yet so as that there is also
besides this a higher providence to be acknowledged, which,
presiding over it, doth often supply the defects of it, and
sometimes overrule it, forasmuch as this Plastic Nature
cannot act electively nor with discretion." ^
A philosopher must speak for himself, must
be heard in his own cause, to be fairly judged.
Here is what Schopenhauer says in the nineteenth
chapter of the second book, on the " Primacy of
the Will in Self-consciousness : " —
'' The will, as Dmg an sick [ultimate reality], consti-
tutes the inner, real, and indestructible being of man ; but
in itself it is unconscious. For consciousness depends on
intellect, and intellect is a mere accident of our being. It
is a function of the brain ; and that, together with the
nerves and spinal marrow attached to it, is merely a fruit,
a product, of the rest of the organism, — in fact, a parasite
of that organism ; inasmuch as it does not enter actively
into its innermost mechanism, but serves the ends of self-
preservation only, by regulating its relations to the ex-
ternal world. The organism itself, on the contrary, is the
visibility, the objectivity of the individual will. It is
the image of the will as it represents itself in the afore-
said brain, and therefore conditioned by certain forms of
1 Cudworth : Intellectual System, book i. chap. 3.
84 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
cognition, — time, space, and causality. Accordingly, it
represents itself as something extended, acting by succes-
sion and material ; ^. e., effectively working. . . . We may
say, therefore, that the intellect is the secondary, the organ-
ism the primary, — i. e., the immediate, — manifestation of
the will. The will is metaphysical ; the intellect physical.
The intellect, like its objects, is merely phenomenal ; the
will alone is Ding an sick. In a more symbolic sense,
speaking in similes, will is the substance in man, intel-
lect the accident ; will the matter, intellect the form ;
will heat, intellect light."
From the chapter on " Tlic Objectivation of the
Will ill Irrational Nature," book ii. chap. 3 : —
" In respect of the life of plants, I call attention first of
all to the remarkable first two chapters of Aristotle's Trea-
tise on Plants. The most interesting thing in them, as
is often the case with Aristotle, is his citation of opinions
of earlier and more profound philosophers. Here we find
that Anaxagoras and Empedocles taught truly that plants
derive the movement of their growth from an indwelling
desire, linOvixLa ; and that they even ascribed to them joy
and pain, — consequently sensation. Plato saw in them
only desire ; and that on account of the strong alimentary
propensity manifested by them. Aristotle, on the contrary,
true to his usual method, gliding on the surface of things
and holding by isolated marks and ideas fixed by con-
ventional phrases, maintains that there can be no desire
without sensation ; and this is impossible to plants. But
his confused way of talking shows his embarrassment in
relation to this matter, until, where ideas are wanting, at
the right moment a word occurs to him, ro Op€7mKbv, — a
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 85
faculty of nutriment. This, he says, plants have, in virtue
of the so-called soul, according to his favorite division of
vegetative, sensitive, and intellective soul. But that is a
mere scholastic quiddity, — as much as to say plants are
nourished because they have a faculty of nutrition I A
poor substitute for the deeper investigations of the pre-
decessors whom he criticises ! Here, too, in the second
chapter, we find that Empedocles had even recognized the
sexuality of plants, — which Aristotle again carps at, hid-
ing his ignorance of facts behind general principles : as
that plants cannot have both sexes in one, otherwise they
would be more perfect than animals. Analogous with
this was his rejection of the true astronomical system of
the Pythagoreans. By his absurd princijna, in his books
on the heavens, he i^romoted the prevalence of the Ptole-
maic system, — whereby humanity was deprived of a truth
of the highest importance for two thousand years."
He quotes Treviranus on " The Phenomena and
Laws of Organic Life : " —
" A form of life may be conceived in which the action of
the outer on the inner occasions only feelings of pleasure
and displeasure, and, in consequence of these, desire. Such
is the life of plants."
He then proceeds to say : —
" In fact, that will may exist without cognition is visi-
bly, I might say palpably, evident in the life of plants.
For here we see a decided effort determined by wants
variously modified, and adapting itself to different
circumstances, but obviously without cognition.
" Now although we find the recognition of desire, — i. e.,
86 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
of will, — as the basis of plant-life expressed with greater
or less clearness of conception in all ages, the reference of
the powers of inorganic nature to the same basis is less
frequent as the distance between these and our own being
increases. Indeed the boundary-line between the organic
and the inorganic is the sharpest-drawn in all Nature, and
perhaps the only one which admits of no transition ; so
that the saying, Natura iion facit saltus, seems here to find
an exception. For though many crystallizations exhibit
forms which resemble vegetation, there is yet a funda-
mental difference between even the slightest tissue, the
lowest mould, and all inorganic matter. In inorganic
bodies the essential and permanent — that which consti-
tutes their identity and integrity — is the stuff, the mate-
rial : the unessential, changeable, is the form. With
organized bodies it is precisely the reverse : their life con-
sists in constant change of stuff with permanence of form ;
their essence and identity, therefore, consists, in form.
" On the other hand, it is an essential point of my doc-
trine that the manifestation of will is no more dependent
on life and organization than it is on perception ; conse-
quently, that the inorganic has also will ; that all its not
otherwise explained, essential properties are expressions of
that will. ... In tlie shooting of a crystal we see, as it
were, a setting towards, an attempt at, life, to which, how-
ever, it doe.s not attain because the fluid in which the crys-
tal, like all initial life, consists at the commencement of
that process is not, like that which is destined for life,
enclosed in a skin, and has no vessels in which that move-
ment can propagate itself, nor anything that separates it
from the outer world ; consequently, the momentary move-
ment is arrested by rigidity, and only a trace of it remains
in the crystal."
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 87
In the work entitled "Will in Nature," supple-
mentary to his larger treatise, he cites a vast num-
ber of examples illustrative of the action of the
will in the animal, vegetable, and even the inor-
ganic world. I give one or two under each of
these heads : —
" Besides the organs and weapons, offensive and defen-
sive, in every animal, the will has also armed itself with
an intellect as a means of preservation for the individual
and the species. Therefore the ancients termed the intel-
lect the rjycfxovLKov, the path-finder and leader. The in-
tellect is destined for the service of the will, and is always
exactly conformed to that. Beasts of prey require and
have evidently more of it than the graminivora. The ele-
phant, and to some extent the horse, appear to be excep-
tions. But the astonishing intellect of the elephant was
necessary, because with his two hundred years' life-term,
and small prolification, the will in his case had to provide
for the longer and surer preservation of the individual, and
that in lands abounding in the strongest and most vora-
cious beasts of prey. The horse, too, has a longer lease of
life and fewer offspring than the ruminants ; and being
without horns, tusks, trunk, or any weapon but his hoofs,
he needed more intelligence and greater fleetness to escape
from his enemies. The extraordinary intelligence of the
apes was necessary, partly because of their lengthened
term of life, which extends to fifty years, and their limited
offspring, and partly because they have hands, to employ
which there must be a corresponding degree of under-
standing, and to the use of which they are referred, as well
in the way of self-defence by external weapons — sticks
88 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
and stones — as also in the way of alimentation, dictating
various artificial means, — such as the cracking of nuts with
stones, and the insertion of a stone as wedge into the shell
of the giant mussel, which would otherwise close upon
and wound the hand, and which altogether necessitates a
social and artificial system of robbery, such as the pass-
ing of stolen fruit from hand to hand, the stationing of
sentinels, etc. AVe must add that this intelligence is
peculiar, for the most part, to the youth of the creature,
while the muscular power is yet undeveloped. The young
pongo or orang-outang has in early life a relatively pre-
ponderating brain and much greater intelligence than in
mature age, when developed muscular force comes in to
supply the place of the diminishing intellect. . . . The
will in all these cases is the prius, the intellect the poste-
rius. Beasts of prey do not hunt, nor foxes steal, because
they have superior intelligence ; but because they will to
live by hunting and stealing, they have greater intelli-
gence. ... A singular illustration of our thesis is the
case of the dodo, or Didus ineptus, of the Island Mauritius,
whose species, as is well known, is now extinct. This
creature, as its Latin name indicates, was excessively stu-
pid, — in fact, too stupid to endure ; from which it appears
that Nature for once had gone too far with her lex parsi-
monice, and, as often with individuals, so here with a
species, produced a monster which, as such, could not
survive. "
Under the head of Illustrations from Vegetable
Nature, he cites instances of efforts made by
plants to gain light, or moisture, or needed sup-
port. Potatoes in deep dark cellars have been
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 89
known to send forth shoots twenty feet in length
to reach an aperture in the wall. If a vessel of
water be placed within six inches of certain garden
plants and left over night, they will be found in
the morning to have dipped their leaves in it.
The young convolvulus finds the neighboring
stake, although its position be daily changed. De-
tach the tendril and twine it the other way, and it
will untwist itself and resume its original bent, or
die in the attempt. Duhamel placed some beans
in a cylinder filled with moist earth. In due
time they began to germinate, sending naturally
their plumulee upwards to the light, and their
radiculse downwards into the soil. After a few
days the cylinder was turned to the distance of
a fourth part of its circumference ; then, after an-
other interval, again and still again, until it had
performed an entire revolution. Then the beans
were taken from the earth, and it appeared that
with each change in the cylinder they had changed
their direction in accommodation to it, — the
young shoots striving upwards, the roots down-
wards, until they had formed a perfect spiral.
Frorieps has an essay on the locomotion of
plants. When the soil in wliich they are rooted
is poor, and good soil is near, they drop a twig
into the good soil ; the original plant dies, but
the twig takes root and becomes the plant.
90 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
In the chapter on Physical Astronomy, in which
he traces the action of will in the inorganic world,
he is glad to find confirmation of his doctrine
in a passage in Sir John Herschel's " Outlines
of Astronomy : " —
" All bodies with which we are acquainted, when raised
into the air and quietly abandoned, descend to the earth's
surface in lines perpendicular to it. They are therefore
urged thereto by a force or effort, the direct or indirect
result of a consciousness and a will existing somewhere,
though beyond our power to trace, which force we term
gravity."
Sir John, it seems, was very much censured for
this statement by his reviewer, who, as an English-
man, says Schopenhauer, was first of all concerned
to see that Mosaic tradition took no detriment.
He tl links that the great astronomer had a right
apiJergu in this case ; but, like most empirics, was
entangled with the notion that will is inseparable
from consciousness.
" That will is to be ascribed to the lifeless, the inorga-
nic," he says, " I was the first to maintain. With me will
is not, as the common opinion represents it, an accident of
knowledge, and therefore of life, but life itself is the a^jpear-
ing of will. Knowledge, on the contrary, is truly an acci-
dent of life, and life of matter. But matter itself is only
the perceptibility {Wahrnehmharheit) of the phenomena
of will."
Besides the negative atheism, which consists in
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 91
denying to the Supreme Will — the Creative Power
— intelligence, conscious or unconscious, which
constitutes the distinguishing feature of his phil-
osophy, Schopenhauer's writings contain strong
positive expressions of disbelief in a God. The
most striking which occurs to me is the following
from a chapter on Theism, in a treatise on Religion
in the Parerga and Paralipomena.
" As polytheism is tlie personification of single por-
tions and powers of Nature, so mouotlieism is the person-
iiicatioii of the whole of Nature at one blow. But when
I attempt to imagine myself as standing before an indi-
vidual Being to whom I should say : ' My Creator, once I
was nothing ; but thou hast produced me, so that I am
now something, and, in fact, myself ! ' and as adding, * I
thank thee for this benefit ! ' and, to crown the whole,
as avowing, ' If I have been good for nothing, it is my
fault,' — I confess that, in consequence of my philosophi-
cal and Indological studies, my head has become inca-
pable of enduring such a thought. . . . Whether one
makes an idol of wood, stone, metal, or constructs it from
abstract ideas, it is all the same ; it is idolatry whenever
one has a personal being in view to whom one sacrifices,
whom one invokes, whom one thanks. And, at bottom,
tliere is not much difi'erence between sacrificing one's
sheep or one's inclinations."
The most cursory account of Schopenhauer's
philosophy demands some notice of his ethical
views ; the rather that these, though not the most
essential point in his system, are a characteristic
92 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
feature of the man. Besides, it concerns us to
know that, while Christian and most theistical
writers lay the foundation of morals in the being
of God, and while conversely, according to Kant,
the consciousness of moral obligation assures the
being of God, — an ethical basis may be found,
independently of theism, in the nature of man ;
that morality is not so dependent on theological
belief that the two must stand or fall together.
When Sir Thomas Browne avers that he gives to
the poor not that the hungry may be fed and the
naked clothed, but that God may be obeyed, he
strikes at the root of ethics ; he makes right the
creation of arbitrary will ; he declares in effect
that might makes right. Plowever certain the be-
ing of God, the reality of right is equally certain ;
if indeed we can separate the one from the other.
To base the surer on the less sure, moral obliga-
tion on belief in God, is a flat inversion of the true
philosophic order ; it is standing the cone on its
apex instead of its base. Schopenhauer knows no
God in the ordinary theistic sense ; but the abso-
luteness of moral obligation is as clear to him,
as stoutly maintained by him, as by any preced-
ing ethicist. " To preach morals," he says, "■ is
easy ; to establish the foundation of morals is diffi-
cult." In 184Q the Royal Academy of Sciences in
Copenhagen proposed as the subject of a prize
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 93
essay the true foundation of moral science : " Phil-
osophise moralis fons et fundamcntum ; utrum in
idea moralitatis quce immediate conscientia con-
tineatur et ceteris notionihus fundamentalibus quse
ex ilia prodeant, explicandis quasrenda sunt, an
in alio cognoscendi principio ? " Schopenhauer's
essay on this theme did not receive the prize, and
perhaps did not deserve it ; but it does deserve to
be read for its very great value as a dissertation
at once profound and entertaining, learned and
genial, on a very abstruse subject, — as a clear
exposition of the author's own views, and a worthy
demonstration, if not of the whole ground, at least
of a very important province, of moral science. He
endeavors to answer the question proposed by seek-
ing the true criterion of worth in action. This he
finds in the absence of all egoistic motive, of all
expectation or desire of good to the actor. He
contends for the possibility and the fact of entire
disinterestedness in action.
" It will be conceded to me, I think, that many a one
helps and gives, performs and renounces, without any
other purpose in his heart than that of helping the indi-
vidual whose need he sees. That Arnold of Winkelried,
when he exclaimed : * Triiwen, lieben Eidgenossen, wuttl's
minem Wip und Kinde gedenken,' and then embraced as
many of the enemy's spears as he could gather in his
arms, — had a selfish purpose in so doing, let him believe
who canj I cannot.
94 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
*' Egoism and moral worth mutually exclude each other.
This is true riot merely of acts performed for the present
manifest use and profit of the actor, but of those which look
to any, however distant, advantage to be secured in this
or any other world ; of all in which the actor has in view
his honor, his popular repute, the esteem of this or that
individual, or the sympathy of spectators ; of all in which
the purpose is to maintain a principle from which even-
tually one expects benefit to one's self, — as the principle
of justice, of universal helpfulness ; it is true of all in
which the motive is the expediency of obeying, or the fear
of disobeying, the command of an unknown but superior
power ; it is true of all in which the actor is concerned
to maintain his own high opinion of himself, his dignity
and worth, whether clearly or vaguely conceive^!, and fears
to lose his self-respect, and thereby to sufter hurt to his
pride : it is true, finally, of all by which the actor, accord-
ing to the principles of Wolff, seeks his own perfection.
In short, whatever the object to be gained, so long as the
act in any way respects the weal or woe of the actor, it is
egoistic, and consequently destitute of moral value. Only
when the ultimate end of the act or omission to act regards
directly and exclusively the weal or woe of another, does
that act or omission bear the stamp of moral worth."
Having established this criterion of moral in
action, he is led by it to find in compassion the
supreme virtue and the source of all that properly
deserves that name.
*' If the weal and woe of our fellow-men are to be the
governing motive in action ;. if obedience to that motive
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER, 95
constitutes the moral value of an act, — then it needs that
we identify ourselves with them, that we feel their wants
as our wants, their suffering as our suffering. This is
compassion. In compassion the difference between me
and my brother is lost sight of; he is I, and I am he.
Accordingly, an act is virtuous, has moral value, in propor-
tion as it unifies the actor with his fellow-man, or rather,
according to the measure in which it results from such
unifaction. Why is it that cruelty more than any other
wickedness provokes our wrath 1 It is because it is the
extreme opposite of compassion."
The losing of one's self for and in others ; the
practical negation of any dividing line between me
and my neighbor ; the confounding of meiim and
tuum, in a sense the reverse of that trespassing on
other's rights, which is commonly understood by
the phrase, — this is the essence of Schopenhauer's
ethic. And here his Orientalism and his idealism
come in as metaphysical sponsors and vouchers of
his ethical system. They have taught him that
that distinction of individuals, one from another,
which his moral theory would have us forget, has
in fact no existence for the deeper thought of the
philosophic mind. All men not only behoove to
be pragmatically, but are actually, one. There is
no I and no you, and no he or she, if we go to the
root of being. The seeming plurality is a sensu-
ous illusion, a figment of the brain. '' Wliere-
on," he asks, " depend all plurality and numerical
96 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
difference of beings ? " On space and time ; these
are the true prmcipiu7n individiiationis, the ground
of individuality. But Kant has taught us that
space and time are merely forms of perception ;
they have no existence out of ourselves. And if
time and space are ideal, then plurality is merely
phenomenal ; there is but one being. So taught
the Upanishads of the Vedas ; so taught the Py-
thagoreans, the Eleatics, the Neoplatonists, who
affirmed all souls to be one by reason of the unity
of things. Scotus Erigena, in the ninth century,
endeavored to reproduce this doctrine with the
forms and expressions of the Christian religion ;
Giordano Bruno sealed his faith in it with a pain-
ful death. Spinoza's name is identified with it.
And when in our day Kant had annihilated the
old dogmatism, and the world stood shuddering at
the smoking ruins, Schelling's eclectic philosophy
revived the knowledge of the truth.
The real unity of all being, — individuality an
empty show, — this is the speculative basis of Scho-
penhauer's ethical system. The non-separation, in
practice, of self from others, the merging of self
in others, is the thence-resulting duty and law;
the feeling of compassion proper to human nature
is the inborn voucher of that law ; compassionate
action, self-sacrifice for other's good, is the supreme
virtue.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 97
And this virtue of self-sacrifice, this self-abne-
gation, in addition to its positive import and its
manifestation in philanthropic action, has also its
negative side, in what our philosopher terms abne-
gation of the will to live. This most idiomatic is
also the deepest thing in his system; the most
searching if true, the falsest if false. It is not
brought forward in the "Ethik" proper, but is
much insisted on in the larger work. The fol-
lowing extract from the Supplement to the Fourth
Book illustrates the import of his thought in this
direction : ^ —
"The ancients, especially the Stoics, as also the Peripa-
tetics and Academics, tasked themselves in vain to prove
that virtue suffices to make life happy. Experience cried
aloud against them. The underlying thought in the effort
of those philosophers was the assumption that whoso was
free from fault ought also in justice to be free from suffer-
ing, — that is, to be happy. But the grave and deep
solution of the problem lies in the Christian doctrine, that
there is no justification by works, and that though a man
should practise all justice and philanthropy, — the ayaOou,
the honestum, — he still would not be, as Cicero supposes,
' culpa omni carens ; ' for, as Calderon, far more profound
than those sages, in the light of Christianity, expressed
it, ' el clehto mayor del hombre es haber nacido,' — man's
1 This Supplement, by the way, bears as its motto the signifi-
cant words of the Chinese sage, Lao-tseu-Tao-te-king, in the French
of Stanislaus Julien : " Tous les hommes de'sirent uniquement de
se deUvrer de la mort ; ilsne savent pas se delivrer de la vie."
7
98 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
greatest fault is that he was horn. In consequence of
this primal sin, — - "vvhich must have proceeded from his
will, — man, although he may have practised all tlie
virtues, remains justly exposed to physical and mental
sufferings, and therefore is not happy. But that works
cannot justify, — as Paul and Augustine and Luther teach,
since we are all essentially sinners, and shall be, — is
grounded at last on this : that o'perari seqiiitiir esse, to act
as we ouglit we must also he what we ought. But then
we should need no redemption from our present condition ;
that redemption which not only Christianity, hut Brah-
manism and Buddhism represent as the highest goal ; that
is, we should not need to he something different, something
opposite to what we are. . . . Accordingly, the only real
sin is hereditary sin. This the Christian myth represents
as originating after the hirtli of man, and by fiction im-
putes to him jyer impossibile, freedom of will. But that
it does simply as myth. The innermost kernel and spirit
of Christianity is the same with that of Brahmanism and
Buddhism. They all teach that the human race by its very
existence has incurred a heavy burden of guilt ; only that
Christianity does not, like the elder religions, jDroceed in
this matter directly and frankly, does not squarely impute
the guilt to existence itself, but derives it from the act of
the first human pair. . . . Conformably to what has been
said, existence is to be regarded as an aberration, the re-
turn from which is redemption. It bears throughout this
character. In this sense it is taken by the oldest Sama-
nean religions, and also, although in a circuitous wa}^ by
genuine and original Christianity. Even Judaism, in the
doctrine of the fall of man, — its only redeeming feature,
— contains the germ of this view. Only Greek heathenism
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 99
and Islam are wholly optimistic. "With the Greeks the
opposite tendency found vent in their tragedy ; but Islam,
the newest, is also the worst of all the religions. In
fact no purpose can be assigned as the end of our exis-
tence but the recognition of the fact that it were better
not to exist. This is the weightiest of all truths, wJiich
must therefore be proclaimed. However it may contrast
with the modern European way of thinking, it is neverthe-
less in all unislamized Asia the most universally acknowl-
edged and fundamental truth.
"When we contemj)late the will to live in the whole
and objectively, we have to think of it, in accordance with
what has been said, as laboring under an illusion ; to return
from which, — that is, to renounce all one's hitherto striv-
ing, — is what the religions call self-denial, — ahnegatio sui
ijDsisus. For the will to live is the real self. The moral
virtues, justice and humanity, having, as I have shown,
when genuine, their source in this, — that the will to live,
piercing through the principium individuationis, recognizes
itself again in all its manifestations, — these virtues are
an indication, a symptom, that the will which is manifest
in us is no longer altogether fixed in that illusion, but is
beginning to be undeceived, and, as one might figuratively
express it, is already flapping its wings and preparing for
flight. Conversely, injustice, malice, cruelty, are indica-
tions of the contrary ; that is, of the deepest enslavement
to that illusion.
" The perfect exercise of the moral virtues involves
poverty, manifold privations and sufferings in those who
practise them ; and therefore ascetic, in the narrowest
sense, the renunciation of property, wilful pursuit of
the disagreeable and repulsive, self-torture, fasting, the
100 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
hair-shirt, and mortifications, are justly rejected by many as
superfluous. Justice itself is the hair-shirt, — a source of
constant discomfort to him who practises it ; philanthropy,
which gives away the needful, is a perpetual fasting. This
being the result of the moral virtues, the Vedanta philoso-
phy says rightly, that when true knowledge and, in conse-
quence of that, entire resignation, which is the second
birth, has taken place, the morality or immorality of the
former conversation becomes a matter of indifference.
" Finditur nodus cordis, dissolvuntur omnes dubitationes,
ejusque opera evanescunt, viso supremo illo." ^
In connection with his doctrine of the abnegation
of the will to live, Schopenhauer says : —
" The death of the individual is the ever-repeated ques-
tion which Nature puts to each in turn : ' Have you had
enough 1 Avill you come out of mel' And in order that
this question may be asked the more frequently, therefore
the life of the individual is so short."
In perfect accord with this view, that the will
is the only real and enduring thing in us, whilst
the intellect, which gives us our individual con-
sciousness, is merely a physical incident, Schopen-
hauer denies to the human individual conscious
immortality. Immortality in his view of it belongs
to the unconscious will, the innermost kernel of
our being, not to the conscious individual.
" He will least of all fear to become nothing at death
who has come to know that he is already nothing, and has
1 Sansara, sloca 32.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 101
therefore ceased to feel any interest in his incliviclualit}^ ;
because in him knowledge has, as it were, burned and
consumed the will [to live], so that no desire of individual
existence any longer remains to him."
The following passages from the chapter entitled
" Death and its Relation to the Indestructiblencss
of our Essential Being," may serve to indicate the
drift of his thought on this fascinating topic : —
" If such considerations are calculated to awaken the
conviction that there is something in us which death can-
not destroy, it is only by raising us to a jDoint of view from
which it is seen that birth is not the commencement of our
being. From this it follows that what has been repre-
sented as indestructible by death is not the proper iii-
dividuum. That is something produced by generation,
bearing the j^roperties of father and mother. It is there-
fore merely a variety of the species. As such it can have
only a finite existence. As, therefore, the individual has no
recollection of his existence before birth, he can have as
little of liis present existence after death. Yet every one
places his ego in consciousness : that seems to him bound
up in his individuality ; with the loss of that all that is
proper to him, all that distinguishes him from others, as
this particular individual, appears to perish. His con-
tinued existence without individuality seems to him indis-
tinguishable from that of all being. He sees his ego sink
away. . . But the ego is the dark point in consciousness :
just as the point at which the optic nerve enters the retina
is blind ; as the brain itself is almost without sensation ;
as the body of the sun is dark ; as the eye, whicli sees
all things, sees not itself. Our knowing faculty is turned
102 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
outward ; it has wholly an outward direction ; it is a func-
tion of the brain intended for self-preservation, for seeking
nourishment and the capture of prey. Therefore we know
of this individuum only as it presents itself to external
contemplation. Could the individ.ual bring to his con-
sciousness what he is over and above that, he Avould will-
ingly let his individuality slide ; he would laugh at the
tenacity of his attachment to it ; he would say : ' "What do
I care for the loss of this individual, seeing I have in me the
possibility of countless individuals ? ' he would see that
though no continuation of his individual being awaits
him, he is just as well off without it, inasmuch as he car-
ries within himself a full compensation for the want of it.
It is further to be considered that the individuality of most
men is such a wretched and worthless thing that they
really lose nothing in parting with it. The only thing in
them which may possibl}^ have some value is the universal
human ; and of this the perpetuity is assured to them. In
fact, the stark immutability, the essential limitation of
every individuality, as such, if perpetuated without end,
would by its monotony beget such satiety that in order to
be rid of it one would rather go to nothing. To demand
individual immortality is, properly speaking, to desire end-
less perpetuation of an error. For at bottom every indi-
viduality is a special error ; a misstep ; something which
had better not be ; to come out of which is the true end of
life. In confirmation of this it may furthermore be said
.that most men, — in :^ict all men, — are so constituted that
they would never be happy, to whatever world they might
be transferred ; for just so far as difficulty and trouble were
excluded from that world, they would fall a prey to ennui;
and just so far as provision were made against enmd, they
would fall into difficulties, plagues, and sorrows.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 103
" When an individual experiences fear of death there
appears tins singular and ludicrous phenomenon, — that the
lord of the worlds, Avho fills the universe with his being,
and through whom alone all that is has its being, trembles
and fears to perish and to sink into the abyss of eternal
nothing, — while in truth all is filled with him, and there
is no place in which he is not, and no being in which he
does not live, since it is he that bears existence, not exis-
tence him. Yet it is he who trembles in the individual,
suffering fear of death, a victim of the illusion due to the
principium individuationis, which limits his existence by
that of the dying. This illusion is a part of the heavy
dream in which as will to live he is plunged. . . . What
sleep is to the individual, that death is to the will as Ding
an sick. It could not bear the continuance through eter-
nity of the same doing and suffering with no real profit,
if memory and individuality remained. It casts these off,
— that is Lethe ; and, refreshed by the sleep of death,
appears a new being, —
" ' To new shores lures the new day.'
"We arrive thus at a kind of metena psychosis ; but with
this difference, that not the entire xl/vxv^ ^'^^ ^^^^ cognitive
part, but only the will is included in it. . . . Death is the
great corrective which the will to live, and the egoism
that belongs to it, receives from the course of Nature. . . .
the destruction by force of the ground-error of our being.
We are something that ought not to be, and therefore we
cease to be. ... To sum up all that has been said : Death
is the great opportunity to be no more /. Happy is he
who improves it ! The moment of death is the moment of
liberation ; hence the serenity and peace apparent in the
face of the dead."
104 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
He who is truly resigned will not desire the con-
tinuance of his personality ; he freely renounces
this known existence ; that which is to take its
place is in our view nothing, because our exist-
ence is nothing in relation to that. The Buddhist
doctrine calls it Nirivana ; that is, extinction.
An important point in all ethical systems is
the question of free agency. Are human actions
determined by invincible necessity, or do they, or
can they in any case, originate in absolute freedom
of choice ? Schopenhauer maintains the former.
In an essay which obtained the prize of the Danish
Academy on the Freedom of the Will, he ascribes
freedom to being, but denies it to action. Being
is the manifestation of the one universal will.
That, having nothing behind it, must of course be
absolutely free. But the private will, as exerted
in conscious action, being bounded by the univer-
sal, is of necessity determined by it, and can will
only what lies in the given nature of the individual.
Therefore, the consciousness which men claim to
have of freedom of choice is illusory. Conscious-
ness, limited by the universal will, is not a com-
petent witness in the case ; it does not reach to the
origin of action.
"The self-consciousness of every man tells him dis-
tinctly that he can do what he will ; and as he is capable
of conceiving of entirely opposite acts as willed by him,
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 105
it follows, of course, that he can perform either of those
opposite acts if he will. Hence tlie rude mind, con-
founding things that are very different, concludes that in
a given case a man can ivUl opposite acts, and calls this
freedom of will. But that is not what consciousness
really says. What it says is, that of two opposite acts a
man can do this one if he will, or that one if he will : but
wdiether he can will the one as well as the other in a given
case remains undecided ; that is a matter for deeper
investigation, and lies beyond the power of self-conscious-
ness. . . . Tlie question concerniug free agency is a touch-
stone by which to distinguish profound minds from those
which are superficial, — a boundary stone where these
two classes separate : the former all maintaining that
every act is a necessary consequence of a given char-
acter and motive ; the latter, together with the great
multitude, professing freedom of will. . . . Are two modes
of action possible to a given individual under given condi-
tions, or only one 1 The answer of all deep thinkers is,
' Only one.' . . . All that happens, from the greatest to
the least, happens necessarily. Quidquid fit necessario
fit, . . . Whoever is frightened at these conclusions, has
still something to learn and something to unlearn. Then
he will perceive that they are the richest source of consola-
tion and peace. Our acts are not a first beginning ; noth-
ing new is brought into being by them : by what we do
we only learn what we are."
Whoever has heard of Schopenhauer, or knows
anything about him, knows of his pessimism. By
pessimism is meant the doctrine that things are
as bad as they can be ; that life, as such, is an evil ;
106 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
that for even the most fortunate it is a misfortune
to have been born. As optimism means that the
world is the best possible world, so pessimism
conceives it to be the worst possible. The former
view is a logical consequence of theism, the latter
of atheism. If theism is true, if the world is the
product of a Being of infinite wisdom, power, and
goodness, it must of necessity be the best possible
world. Not the best conceivable, because our con-
ception may ignore the necessary metes and bounds
of finite Nature : we may imagine the advantages
of opposite conditions united in one ; we may ima-
gine tropical and arctic splendors combined, with a
temperature deliciously exempt from excess of heat
or cold : we may imagine all sorts of impossibili-
ties : not the best imaginable, but the best possible.
Schopenhauer, on the contrary, maintains that the
world as we have it is the worst possible world.
Not the worst imaginable ; for we may imagine all
sorts of evils which do not exist : but the worst
possible. Were it worse tlian it is, it could not
subsist ; the evil in it, working destruction, would
overbalance the conservative forces, and universal
ruin ensue. A certain amount of good is essential
to the preservation of life. In the world, as at
present constituted, there is no more good, he
thinks, than is absolutely needed for that end.
This doctrine is evidently a favorite topic. He
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 107
finds a bitter satisfaction in multiplying proofs of
human misery ; he publishes " our woe " with the
zeal of a propagandist. Here is what he says in
the chapter entitled, " Of the Nothingness and
Sorrows of Life : " —
" Awaking into life out of the night of unconscious-
ness, the Will finds itself an individual in a world without
end or bound, among countless individuals, all struggling,
suffering, erring ; and he hurries as through an anxious
dream back into the old unconsciousness. Meanwhile his
wishes are boundless, his demands inexhaustible, and
every satisfied wish gives birth to a new one. No satis-
faction within the possibilities of tins world would suffice
to still his longing or set a final term to his desire. No
satisfaction can fill the bottomless abyss of his heart.
Consider, besides, what kind of satisfactions generally fall
to the lot of man. For the most part nothing more than
the meagre support of life, accomplished with unremit-
ting pains and ceaseless care in the battle with necessity,
with death in prospect. Everything in life advises us
that the pursuit of happiness is destined to be frustrated,
or the end attained to prove an illusion. It has been so
arranged in the constitution of things. In accordance
with this the life of most men is sorrowful and brief.
The comparatively happy are so for the most part only in
appearance ; or, like instances of longevity, they are rare
exceptions, for wdiich provision lias been made, that they
may serve as decoys. Life presents itself as a constant
cheat, in little as in great. What it promised it fails to
perform, or performs only to show how undesirable was
that which we desired. Thus either the wish or the thing
108 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
wished deludes. If it gives, it is only to take away. The
magic of distance shows us paradises which, like optical
illusions, vanish, if we let ourselves be fooled into the
23ursuit of them. Accordingly, happiness is always in the
future, or else in the past. The present is a small black
cloud which the wind drives over a sun-bright surface.
Before and behind all is light ; but always the present
flings a shadow. It is always unsufiicing, the future
uncertain, the past irrevocable. Life with its hourl}",
daily, weekly and j^early, small and great and greater con-
tradictions, with its disappointed hopes, its mishaps frus-
trating all calculation, bears undeniably the stamp of
something that was meant to be bitterness. It is difficult
to understand how men could ever mistake tliis fact, how
they could ever suffer themselves to be persuaded that life
was given to be thankfully enjoyed, and that man was
made to be happy. On the contrary, this perpetual illu-
sion and disenchantment, and the whole pervading quality
of life, shows it designed and devised to awaken in us the
conviction that notliing is worth our striving, driving, and
struggling ; that all goods are vanity, the world in all its
parts bankrupt, and life a business that does not pay, — iu
order that our will may detach itself from it.
" Our life resembles a payment which is doled out to us
in instalments of coppers, and for which, nevertheless, we
are obliged to give quittance. The coppers are days, the
quittance is death. For time at last pronounces sentence
on the value of all that appears in it by annihilating ail.
" ' And justly so ; for all that is brought forth
Deserves to perish : that is all 't is wortli.
T' were therefore better nothing were brought forth.* i
1 Mephistopheles, in Faust.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 109
Thus old age and death, the goal towards which all life is
inevitahly hastening, are the judgment passed by Nature
herself on the will to live, — a judgment which declares
that this will is an efibrt that must frustrate herself.
' What tliou hast willed,' it says, ' ends so ; will something
better.' This, then, is the lesson of life to every man. It
teaches him that the objects of his wishes forever deceive,
waver, and fall, and therefore yield more torment than
pleasure ; until finally the whole ground and bottom on
which they rest breaks through, his life itself is annihi-
lated, and he thence receives the final confirmation of the
truth, that all his willing and striving was a perversity, an
aberration.
" 'Tlien old age and experience, hand in hand,
Lead lura to death, and make him understand.
After a search so painful and so long,
That all his life he has been in the wrong.'
" But let us come to particulars ; for these are the views
in which I have experienced the greatest opposition. I
have first to confirm the assertion made in the text, of the
negative character of all satisfaction, enjoyment, happi-
ness, and the positiveness of all pain.
" We feel pain, but do not feel painlessness. We are
conscious of care, but not of exemption from care ; of fear,
but not of safety. We feel our wishes as we feel hunger and
thirst ; but as soon as the wish is fulfilled it is with that
as it is with the morsel we taste ; when swallowed it ceases
to exist for our consciousness. We miss enjoyments and
pleasures painfully as soon as they are Avithdrawn ; but our
pains when, after a long trial, they cease, are not missed
directly, but only through reflection. For only pain and
privation are capable of being positively felt. These speak
110 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
for themselves ; well-being is merely negative. Hence it is
that we are not conscious of the three chief goods of life, —
health, youth, and freedom, — as long as we possess them,
but only when we have lost them ; and then they are also
negations. That any of the days of our life were happy
we first perceive when they have given place to days of
sorrow. In the measure in which enjoyments multiply,
sensibility diminishes ; the accustomed ceases to be felt
as a good. But, on the other hand, from this very cause,
we become more sensitive to suifering ; for want of the
accustomed is painfully felt. The more pleasant the hours,
the more quickly they fly ; the sadder, the slower, be-
cause pain, not enjoyment, is the positive thing whose
presence makes itself felt. For the same reason, ennui,
not amusement, makes us sensible of time. These two
things prove that our existence is happiest then when we
are least conscious of it ; from wliich^it follows that it were
better not to have it at all. A great and vivid joy is posi-
tively inconceivable without previous need ; for a state of
enduring satisfaction admits of no addition, except per-
haps amusement, or the gratification of vanity. Hence
all poets are compelled to place their heroes in anxious
and painful situations, in order to deliver them therefrom.
Drama and epos universally portray only struggling, suffer-
ing, tortured mortals ; and every novel is a show-box in
which we behold the spasms and convulsions of the tor-
tured human heart. This sesthetic necessity Walter Scott
has naively exposed in the conclusion of ' Old Mortality.*
Quite in accordance with these truths, Voltaire, favored as
he was by nature and fortune, says : ' Happiness is only
a dream, and pain is real ; ' and adds, ' this is the result of
my eighty years' experience. I know nothing for it but to
1
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. Ill
submit and to say to myself, that flies are born to be eaten
by sj^iders, and men to be devoured by sorro\ys {chagrins).^
" Before one pronounces so confidently that life is a
desirable good, a thing to be thankful for, let him calmly
compare the sum of possible joys which a man can have
in a lifetime with the sum of possible sufferings. I
believe the balance will not be difficult to cast. But at
bottom it is quite superfluous to contend whether good or
evil preponderates in life ; the mere existence of evil
decides the matter, since it never can be abolished, and
consequently never neutralized, by any accompanying or
subsequent good. For if it were true that thousands have
lived in happiness and joy, the fact could never cancel the
anguish and death-torments of a single individual. Just as
little can my present well-being cause my past sufferings
never to have been. If, therefore, th3 evil that is in the
world were a hundredfold less than it is, still tlie mere
existence of evil would be sufficient to establish a truth
which may be expressed in different ways, though always
somewhat indirectly, — to wit, that we are not to rejoice
in the existence of the world, but rather to grieve at it ;
that its non-existence would be preferable ; that the world
is something which, all things considered, ought not to be.'
. , . Right beautifid is Byron's statement of this matter :
" * Our Hfe is a false nature ; 't is not in
The harmony of things, this hard decree,
This ineradicable taint of sin.
This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree,
Whose root is earth, wliose leaves and brandies be
Tlie skies whicli rain their plagues on men like dew —
Disease, death, bondage — all the Avoes we see, —
And worse, tlie woes we see not — which throb through
The immedicable soul with heart-aches ever new.'
112 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
" Small incidents have power to make ns perfectly
wretched ; nothing in this world can make ns perfectly
happy. Whatever one may say, the happiest moment of
the happy is the moment of falling asleep ; as the most
unhappy moment of the nnhappy is the moment of
waking.
" If the world were not sometliing that, practically
exi^ressed, ought not to be, it would not be theoretically a
problem. On the contrary, its existence would either need
no explanation, it would be so intelligible in itself that no
one would ever think of wondering or inquiring about it ;
or else the purpose of it would unmistakably present itself.
Instead of that it is an insoluble problem ; the most per-
fect philosophy will always contain an inexplicable some-
thing, like an insoluble element, or like the remainder left
by the irrrtional relation of two quantities. Therefore,
when any one ventures to propound the question why it
were not better that nothing should exist than that this
world should exist, the world will be found not to justify
itself from itself ; no reason, no final cause of its existence
can be found in it by which it could be shown to exist for
its own sake, for its own advantage.
" On the other side it is maintained that life from begin-
ning to end was designed to be a lesson. But to this
every one might answer : ' For that very reason I wish I
had been left in the peace of all-sufficient nothingness,
where I should need no lessons nor anything else.' And if,
in addition to all this, he is told that he must one day give
account of every hour of his life, he, on the contrary,
would be rather entitled to demand an account for having
been transported from that rest into such a questionable,
gloomy, anxious, and painful position. . . . Eor human
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 113
existence, far from having the character of a gift, has
altogether that of a contracted debt. The payment of
that debt appears in the form of the pressing necessities
which life brings, its tormenting wishes and endless suffer-
ing. Generally, a whole lifetime is spent in discharging it ;
and then it is only the interest that is cancelled. The
payment of the capital is death.
" And to such a world, to this arena of vexed and tor-
mented beings, which subsists only by mutual devouring
one of another, so that every voracious animal is the grave
of thousands, and self-preservation a chain of martyr-
deaths ; a world where the susceptibility of suffering in-
creases with increase of knowledge, and reaches its highest
grade in man the higher, the more intelligent he is, — to
such a world it has been attempted to apply the system
of optimism, proving it to be the best possible world.
The absurdity is crying. JS'evertheless the optimist asks
me to open my eyes and look at the world, and see how
beautiful it is in the sunlight, with its mountains, valleys,
rivers, plants, animals, etc. But is the world then a show-
box 1 To be sure, these things are beautiful to look at ; but
to he these things is another matter. Then comes the
teleologian, and praises me the wise arrangement by virtue
of which the planets are prevented from knocking their
heads together, and land and sea are not mixed in a gene-
ral mud-pie, but kept nicely apart ; by virtue of which
everything is not congealed with frost or roasted with
heat, and in consequence of the obliquity of the ecliptic,
there is no perpetual spring, in which nothing would come
to maturity, etc. But these and the like are merely con-
ditiones sine qiiihus non. If there is to be a world at all,
if the planets are to last but so long as it takes a ray
8
114 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
of light from some remote fixed star to reach them. . . .
then, of course, the world must not be so clumsily put
together that its ground-frame would be liable to cave
in. But when we proceed to test the results of the work
so praised, and consider the actors who play their parts on
tliis so durably constructed stage; when we observe how
sensibility is always accompanied with pain, wliich increases
in the measure in which sensibility develops into intelli-
gence, and iiow, keeping pace with intelligence, greed and
suifering are ever more intense, until at last the life of
man is good for nothing but to furnish material for tra-
gedies and comedies, — then verily no one who is not a
hypocrite will be disposed to sound Hallelujahs."
My criticism of Schopenliauer's philosophy must
needs be brief. I desire first of all to express my
hearty appreciation of its merits in one or two
points in which it happily contrasts w4th the sys-
tems of the three best-known of the post-Kantians,
Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and with those of most
other German metaphysicians. Its foremost and
distinguishing merit is that of simplicity. Here
was a man who gave to the w^orld wdiat he saw or
seemed to see ; the others planned and contrived
what to give. He watched and listened, and let the
universe tell him its story ; they cudgelled their
brains to construct a theory of the universe. He
took what came to a thoughtful, if morbid obser-
ver; they went a hunting, and caught airy noth-
ings. He studied facts ; they played with counters
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 115
and mampiilated propositions. The aim they pro-
posed to themselves was to schematize existence.
The schemes are models of dialectic ingenuity ; but
forever the scheme is one, and existence another.
" Grau, Freund, ist alle Theorie,
Und griin des Lebens goldner Bautn."
Finer and finer they wove their abstractions ;
but the warp had no weft. Mistrust the philos-
ophy that begins too far off. Hie Bhodus, hie
saltus. These abstractionists never think they
can do enough in the way of abstraction. The
mathematics, one would say, are sufficiently abs-
tract. But no, the mathematics are still on sen-
suous ground, they occupy themselves with num-
ber and space ; these they must have before they
can begin their work ; they have to postulate a
point or a space. But " Philosophy," says Hegel,
" takes leave of this last vestige of the actual."
In philosophy thought is free for itself ; it re-
nounces both the outer and the inner world. In
philosophy it is not permitted to begin with " There
is, or there are." So these transcendentalists as-
sume for their irov aro) a position outside of the
actual ; and standing on nothing, — which, accord-
ing to Hegel, is identical with Being, — they erect
their paradigm, showing what Being should be, how
begin and proceed ; and having finished the frame,
invite the Actual to take possession. But the Actual
116 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
stays outside ; the refractory universe refuses to be
formulized.
Few writers have given to the world more preg-
nant thoughts and more luminous suggestions than
Hegel in his Aesthetik, his Philosophy of History,
his Philosophy of Religion. But Hegel's metaphysic,
— his system, distinctly so-called, — is a tracery of
frost compared with the life-warm realism of Scho-
penhauer's doctrine. Tlie former erects his elabo-
rate structure on the proposition : Absolute being is
identical with nothing. The latter starts with the
premise : The world is my impression. Which be-
ginning is most likely to lead us to the knowledge
of things ? And the knowledge of things, not
the building of systems, is the business of a true
philosophy.
Closely connected with this earnestness of pur-
pose is the singular perspicuity of Schopenhauer's
theory. There is none of that dialectic agonizing,
so wearisome in Fichte and Hegel ; that anxious
defining for the start, and never getting under
way ; that endless carving, and never serving, —
no mystification, no hair-splitting, no logical antics,
no charlatanism, no word-juggling, but an easy
flow of meaning and demonstration, like the talk
of a man who is full of his material and has not to
create it as he goes. Profound as are the reaches
of his theme, there is no obscurity in his thought
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 117
and no unintelligibleness in his statement. He is
always sure of his ground, always knows what
he means, and leaves no doubt of his meaning in
others.
So much for the form of this philosophy. As to
its contents, its positions, its doctrine, I must also
give it credit for one or two things. No philoso-
pher, I think, has made so clear the connection
between the inner and outer world, the relation of
reason to sense, of thought to thing. No philo-
sopher has so convincingly illustrated the universal
presence and immediate action, in the greatest and
the least, of an unseen Power. His characteriza-
tion of that Power is another matter. No philoso-
pher has more successfully combated materialism
in science, substituting dynamic for mechanic
views of Nature, finding life in the most inert,
and resolving the most fixed into free, spontaneous
action of the universal Will. On the other hand,
he maintains the physical character of the intellect,
— a position new in idealism, and one not likely
to pass unchallenged, but which constitutes an
essential feature of liis system. The intellect, he
insists, is physical, the will metaphysical ; the
human ego the resultant of the two.
In my judgment of this system I separate the
psychological in it from the ontological, — the
world as impression from the world as will. My
118 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
objection relates principally to the latter. The fun-
damental difficulty and falsity which most critics,
I think, must find in it is the inconceivableness
of will without consciousness, without intelligence,
without an idea or purpose to guide its action.
The will in Schopenhauer's system is an empty
abstraction. Will is conceivable only as the act of
one that wills, only as having an agent behind it.
But here is an act without an actor. Precisely
the same difficulty which meets us in Hegel's sys-
tem — that system so scorned by Schopenhauer
— repeats itself in his. Hegel assumed as the Ding
an sicJi, — as the ultimate and absolute thought,
— the Begriff, which unfolds itself in time, and
whose evolution is the universe. But Begriff is
inconceivable without a Begreifender ; a "concept"
supposes an aliquis concipiens. Precisely so will
implies an aliquis volens, and is otherwise as incon-
ceivable as speech without speaker, or love without
lover.
And how explain the first movement of this
will ? In the conscious subject, says Schopenhauer,
it acts by motive ; in the unconscious by irritation.
But how before there was anything to move or to
irritate ? Reason requires being before willing.
Schopenhauer puts willing before being, — the act
before the actor. I can suppose a universe exist-
ing from all eternity, but not a universe that willed
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 119
itself into being, that willed before it was ; or, I
can suppose, and must suppose, an act of voli-
tion before the world was, but not before a willing
power.
This separation of the fundamental Will from
conscious Intelligence and all moral attributes, —
in other words, the atheism of Schopenhauer's sys-
tem, — besides its inherent falsity, is the more to
be regretted as being incidental, arbitrary, not
demanded by logical consistency or any interior
necessity. It is not essential to the system itself,
which, but for this flaw, would be one of the most
rational, consistent, and satisfactory schemes as
yet propounded by speculative philosophy. Apart
from the difficulty of conceiving a blind, uncon-
scious will to have been the origin of a universe in
which there is intelligence, — a supposition which
violates the fundamental principle, that what is in
the effect must be in the cause, — apart from this,
one sees no reason for divesting the universal Will
of intelligence. What is gained by putting asun-
der what human reason from everlasting has joined
together ? Why should not this Power that works
in all and produces all, the aboriginal, sole, endur-
ing reality, — why should it not be intelligent ; why
not conscious ; why not God ? Schopenhauer prides
himself on his discovery of the compound nature
of the human ego. He likens his merit in this
120 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
respect to tliat of Lavoisier. Lavoisier discovered
that water, once regarded as simple, is in fact a
compound substance. So he, Scliopenhauer, claims
to have discovered that the ego^ once supposed to
be one and indivisible, is compounded of two fac-
tors. Will and Intelligence. But the two factors,
though distinguishable in thought, are insepara-
ble in fact. There is never a human ego without
them both. Why suppose them sundered outside
of the human ? Why not suppose them united in
the all-working, infinite Power ? Why not suppose
the all-working, infinite Power to be precisely the
infinite ego of theism ? Then we have a consis-
tent, intelligible system, an adequate cause for
our effect, an effect which truly represents the
cause. It may be objected that conscious intelli-
gence added to will does not relieve the difficulty
of inconceivableness ; that intelhgencc as well as
will can only be conceived as quality or act ; that
that conception would still need an entity, a sub-
stance in which these qualities inhere. I feel the
force of the objection, and can only say that the
difficulty belongs to the nature of the subject.
But why increase the difficulty by adding the in-
conceivableness of a blind, unconscious will as the
origin and ground of intelligent being ? I maintain
that unless we assume the existence from all eter-
nity of a universe in which there are intelligent
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. 121
beings, theism only can explain the fact of existing
intelligence. The effect cannot be greater than
the cause.
I condemn in this philosophy its negation of
individuality. It recognizes no soul, no central
and persistent principle in man which survives all
changes and is indestructible. The phenomenon
of individual consciousness is viewed as the pro-
duct of cerebral action conditioned by each organ-
ism. It is the temporary self-limitation of the
universal Will, which elects to exist for awhile in
tliat form, then leaves and destroys it. The uni-
versal Will alone is real and immortal ; all indivi-
duality is only seeming. This view of man not
only contradicts the inward voice and the common
sense of mankind, but it leaves unexplained the
peculiarity, the separatcness and persistency of
personal types, which are not resolvable into dif-
ferences of expression resulting from differences
of physical condition.
But the grand and fatal objection to the system
is the moral protest it elicits from every unsophis-
ticated mind. I do not arraign its pessimism as
such, its assertion that life is a mistake, existence
an evil, misery the normal condition of man. All
that, though not a necessary consequence, is yet
the natural outcome, of a world without a God.
The objection regards not this or that detail, but
122 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
the fundamental principle from which they result ;
it concerns the whole system as a contradiction of
eternal reason. Reason demands to see its reflec-
tion and antitype in nature. It demands an intel-
ligible motive and a righteous purpose in creation.
It demands a world devised and presided over by
reason, and tending to good, — a world whose source
is love, whose method is wisdom, and whose end is
blessing. Schopenhauer's system flouts these just
expectations, repudiates these sacred claims ; it
mocks the deepest and dearest convictions of the
heart. All worthy beliefs, all high ideals, all noble
aspirations, all cherished hopes, it ruthlessly sets
aside, and leaves us nothing but a blind and pitiless
force, an unreasoning, unreasonable fate, a cease-
less, aimless phantom, dance, in which we are
whirled till we drop and disappear, and others
whirl in our place, — an everlasting funeral pro-
cession of all beings from death to death.
Is it possible that human nature will ever con-
tent itself with Schopenhauer's answer to the
question, — What am I ? and whence ? and why ?
Is it possible that human reason can acquiesce in
a system like this ? Not while a dream of God-
head yet lingers in man's thought ; not while the
heart yet beats to the tune of immortality; not
while the way is open for a better solution of the
problem of life !
CRITIQUE OF PESSIMISM. 123
CRITIQUE OF PESSIMISM AS TAUGHT
BY VON HARTMANN.
DOES good, or evil, preponderate in tlie lot of
man ? Is the human world advancing to mil-
lennial peace, or tending to utter ruin ? Or does
it fluctuate between the two, alternately gaining and
losing in certain fixed proportions, which no lapse
of time, no social adjustments, and no cosmic revo-
lutions can essentially change ? Are Ormuzd and
Ahriman so nearly matched that neither the one
nor the other in endless ages shall acquire supreme
and exclusive sway.
A question old as philosophy, and still awaiting
its final solution, — a solution based on irrefra-
gable proofs, and admitting of no appeal. My aim
at present is not to establish a thesis on the sub-
ject, but to criticise the position of those who main-
tain the doctrine of an ever-growing ascendency of
evil in human life.
Chief among these at present is Eduard von
Hartmann, the last representative of the great
transcendental movement which dates with Kant.
Following in the track of Schopenhauer, with less
124 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM,
originality, but finer perceptions and superior dialec-
tic, Von Hartmann devotes a portion of his " Phil-
osophy of the Unconscious " to the consideration
of the question whether life is a blessing ; whether
existence or non-existence were most to be desired.
After long debate and a wide review of the subject,
he concludes that non-existence is preferable, since
the misery of life in every form is greatly in excess
of its happiness. And this, he thinks, would be
the universal judgment, were it not for certain
illusions which cast their glamour on the mind,
and encourage the belief that life is a good to be
desired. Three stages of illusion he conceives to
be the source of this deplorable fallacy.
The first stage is that in which happiness is
viewed as something whicli has been attained in
this present world, and is therefore attainable still
within the limits of the present life. The second
stage is that in which happiness is believed to be
reserved for some future transmundane state. The
third is that in which happiness is expected to
ensue from the consummation of the world's
progressive development.
Under the first head our philosopher passes in
review all the satisfactions and goods of life, —
health, competence, honor, power, family joys,
science, art, religion. Each of these is subjected
to a rigorous scrutiny : its yield of pleasure is
CRITIQUE OF PESSIMISM. 125
balanced against its inevitable sequence of pain ;
and in each case the result is a minus, depressing
the value of life below the zero of indifference,
and proving that, on the whole, it is a misfortune
to be.
There is nothing original in this conclusion.
Voices many and weighty, ancient and modern,
affirm the same. '' Wherefore I praised the dead,"
says Ecclcsiastes, " more than the living. Yea,
better than both is he that hath not been." Says
Socrates, — or Plato speaking in his name, — " Let
a man compare all the other days and nights of his
life with some night in which he slept without a
dream : how few will he find that were passed so
pleasantly as that ! " Sophocles makes the chorus
in " (Edipus at Colonus " say : " Not to be is the
supreme word ; the next best is that, having been
born, a man should depart as quickly as possible
thither whence he come." Byron repeats the
sentiment in that verse of despair, —
" Count o'er thy days from anguish free,
And know, whatever thou hast been,
' T is something better not to be."
D'Alembert speaks of the " malheur d'etre." Vol-
taire gives it as the result of eighty years' experi-
ence, that suffering is the end of life. Hamlet
thinks that only the dread of something after
death can restrain tlie suicidal hand.
126 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
To these and similar utterances the answer is
plain. They are criticisms, reflections on life ; and
not the spontaneous verdict of life itself, the ver-
dict which a healthy nature pronounces on life as
it passes. I oppose to them the testimony of com-
petent witnesses ; I cite expressions of abounding
joy in being. This from Emerson, yet unknown to
fame, with scant means and a doubtful future :
''Almost I fear to think how glad I am. Give me
health and a day, and I will make the pomp of
emperors ridiculous."
This from Charles Lamb, w^ho had had his full
share of mortal woe : —
" I am in love with this green earth, the face of town
and country, the unspeakable rural solitudes, and the sweet
security of streets, I would set up my tabernacle here.
Sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, and summer
holidnys, and the greenness of fields, and the delicious
juices of meats and fishes, and society, and the cheerful
glass, and fireside conversations, and innocent vanities and
jests."
English literature has no soberer poet than
Wordsworth, — a man whose temperament inclined
to melancholy ; but what a witness to the value
of life who knew
" that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her ; ' t is her privilege
Through all the years of this our life to lead
From joy to joy ; for she can so inform
CRITIQUE OF PESSIMISM. 127
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neitlier evil tongues,
Eash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life.
Shall e'er prevail against us or disturb
Our cheerful faitli that all which we behold
Is full of blessings."
All this the pessimist pronounces a delusion.
Be it so. All reality, so far as the individual is
concerned, is subjective. The value of life for me
is what I find in it. If it yields to my conscious-
ness a preponderance of good, I am justified in my
optimism. We may be deceived as to the ground
of our joy in life, but the joy itself is no delusion.
I concede to the pessimist that pleasure is super-
ficial. Enjoyment plays on the surface of life.
Disturb that surface, mar it at any point, and
straightway the underlying pain obtrudes. And by
what insignificant trifles the surface-joy is dis-
turbed ! In the midst of a happy day let the small-
est, scarcely discernible mote lodge itself in the eye,
let the nerve of a tooth be exposed, and immedi-
ately the day is " o'ercast," enjoyment turns to pain.
I concede to the pessimist that the substance of
life is labor and hardness ; joy is but the sheen
which in normal states it assumes in our conscious-
ness. But observe that life by a law of its own
takes on that sheen. Call it delusion, it is never-
128 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
theless a stated condition, a habit of mind, our
nature's dower. Observe, too, that suicide is by
common consent charged to insanity. In this con-
sent is implied the prevailing conviction that the
good of life exceeds the evil thereof.
Your pessimists, who exhaust their ingenuity in
showing that existence is a failure, creation a mis-
take, and not-to-be the supreme good, have been
swift to secure their portion of the goods of life,
and to all appearance have extracted as much sat-
isfaction therefrom as life is capable of yield-
ing. Schopenhauer, who maintained so stoutly that
true wisdom consists in abnegation of the will to
live, exhibited a quite inordinate disinclination to
dying ; he clung to the life he reviled like the
limpet to the rock.
I return to Yon Hartmann. His first alleged stage
of illusion, the hope of happiness in this present
world, concerns, as we have seen, the lot of the
individual. So does the second, the hope of happi-
ness hereafter in some transmundane state. This
involves the whole question of a future life, — the
discussion of which would far exceed the scope of
this essay. I pass at once to the third illusion,
which respects the future of the human race on
this earth. It consists in supposing that a better
lot awaits mankind in the consummation of the
world's history, when the evils which now afflict
CRITIQUE OF PESSIMISM. 129
society shall one by one be done away. Von
Hartmann believes in no such result. He main-
tains that vice and misery, so far from abating,
are on the increase, and will continue to increase.
Theft and fraud and false dealing, in spite of the
penalties attached to them, are becoming ever
more frequent. The basest selfishness rends
asunder the holiest bonds of family and friend-
ship whenever it comes in collision with them ;
and only the severer punishments decreed by the
state repress the more atrocious crimes of ruder
ages. These too immediately break forth, reveal-
ing the innate brutality of human nature, wherever
the bands of law and order are relaxed, as in the
Polish revolution and in the closing year of the
American civil war. He anticipates a time when
theft and illegal fraud will be despised as vulgar
and clumsy devices by the more adroit rogues,
who will know how to bring their crimes against
property into harmony with the letter of the law ;
and so on to the end.
On the other hand, he endeavors to show that the
agencies at work for the melioration of the social
condition, — science, art, discoveries and inventions,
improved agriculture, increased facilities of com-
munication, steam, railroad, telegraph, — inasmuch
as they create as many wants as they satisfy, leave
the net result of human weal unchanged. Medical
9
130 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
art advances, but cannot keep pace with the swifter
progress of chronic disease. Agricultural and me-
chanical improvements, as fast as they increase
the means of support, promote the growth of popu-
lation, which, on the Malthusian principle, is forever
outstripping them. With the growth of population
come all the inevitable ills which excess of pop-
ulation entails. Political science can yield but
negative results. Suppose the perfect state were
realized, the political problem solved, we should
have only the frame, not the filling. Men do not
live to govern themselves, but govern themselves to
live. Looking in other directions for possible com-
pensation, he foresees that the satisfactions of in-
tellect and taste derived from science and art will
diminish with the necessary, inevitable, and ever-
growing degradation of science and art which
must ensue from the dilettantism which is every-
where supplanting genius. And as for the conso-
lations of religion, — what will become of them
when belief in the truths of religion, as must inevi-
tably happen with the progress of intellectual cul-
ture, has died out ? In fine, as with the progress
of human development, riches and luxury increase,
there will be a corresponding increase in the sensi-
bility of the nervous system, and thence of neces-
sity an excess of sensible pain over sensible pleasure.
With the dying-out of the old illusions there will
CRITIQUE OF PESSIMISM. 131
come intense consciousness of the poverty of life,
of the vanity of most of its joys and aspirations.
Not only will there be increase of misery, but —
what is more to the purpose — increase of the con-
sciousness of misery. . . . The history of the indi-
vidual will repeat itself in the history of the race.
As the individual in childhood lives in the present ;
then, as youth, revels in transcendental ideals ;
then, as man, seeks fame, possession, practical
knowledge ; and, finally, in old age, having come
to perceive the vanity of all things, longs only for
peace, and lays his weary head to rest, — so with
the human race. There are evident signs of senes-
cence, he thinks, in the human race. Who can
doubt that after a period of mighty, virile activity,
there will come to mankind an old age, when,
living on the fruits of the past, they will enter on
a period of ripe contemplation, and, embracing
in one view all the sorrows, so wildly stormed
through, of their past career, will comprehend the
utter vanity of tlie once-proposed aims of their
striving. But observe, he says, the difference
between the race and the individual. Senile
humanity will have no heirs to whom it may
bequeathe its accumulated wealth, no cliildren,
no grandchildren, the love of whom might solace
its decline. Then, with the sublime melancholy
commonly witnessed in men of genius and the
132 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
intellectually elevated among the aged, humanity
will hover as it were a transfigured spirit over its
own body, and, like (Edipus, in anticipation of the
peace of non-existence, will feel the sorrows of
being as it were the sorrows of another, not its
own, — will no longer know passion, but only com-
passion with itself. This is that heavenly serenity,
that divine repose which breathes in Spinoza's ethic,
where the passions are swallowed up in the abyss
of reason, because they have been clearly and in-
telligibly grasped in ideas. But suppose this
state of dispassionateness reached ; suppose pas-
sion to be transfigured into compassion with one's
self : it does not therefore cease to be sorrow.
Even freedom from pain mankind grown old will
not have attained; pure spirit they will not have
become. In spite of weakness and decrepitude,
they must still toil on in order to live, and yet
will not know for what end to live. Outgrown
their illusions, they will have nothing more to
expect from life. Convinced at last of the folly
of all their striving, they will come to despair of
happiness, and only long for absolute painlessness,
for annihilation, for Nirvana.
When, following Yon Hartmann, I reached this
conclusion, there came to my thought the curse
which Faust thunders against the world, with
all its illusive joys and hopes, and I seemed to
CRITIQUE OF PESSIMISM. 133
hear the wail of the spirits in response to that
curse, —
" Woe ! woe !
Destroyed it thou hast,
The beautiful world ;
With the blow of thy fist
Into ruin hast hurled.
Sadly we the lost surrender. '
Fairer now,
Earth's son, in splendor
Rarer now,
Oh, recreate it !
In thine own bosom build it again ! "
This, then, is the view of human destiny pro-
pounded by the latest soothsayer of the transcen-
dental line ; this is the philosophy taught in a
work which passed through seven editions in as
many years, — a philosophy which evidently rests
on a pathological foundation. To the question,
" Is life worth living ? " it was wittily answered :
" That depends on the liverT One can hardly help
suspecting an unsound condition of body affecting
mental vision in a writer who solemnly predicts
the moral ruin of mankind on the ground of cer-
tain existing imperfections and wrongs. Were I
dealing with a theist, I should say that our idea of
God implies the preponderance and growth of good
in all the worlds. But Von Hartmann is not a
theist, although the " All-Eine," the central intelli-
gence of his system, supposed to act with infallible
134 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
wisdom, is a great advance on the blind Will of
Schopenhauer's philosophy ,i a nearer approach to
the God of theism. Putting out of view, then, the
idea of infinite wisdom, power, and love presiding
over and guiding the world's history, I oppose
to tlie pessimist view this weighty consideration,
overlooked by Yon Hartmann, that moral power
is in its very nature cumulative, an ever-increasing
quantity. Material force, as Des Cartes, I think,
was the first to point out, is a constant quantity.
So much and no more of it there has been since
the first impulsion given to the matter of which
the world is composed. All the forces now at
work in the world — correlated one with another,
as science teaches — are propagations in all direc-
tions of that primal impact. In one form or ano-
ther it survives, and can never cease and never
increase. Given an access of it in one, and there
is a proportionate diminution of it in another. If
you increase the speed of your engine, you diminish
your supply of heat ; if you overtax your brain,
you reduce the vitality of other organs.
But moral force is cumulative ; its exercise in
1 Von Hartmann was too acute not to see that will without a
concept of the thing willed is an absurdity. Strange that his own
substitute of a seeing and understanding, though unconscious,
Will should be represented as infallibly wise only in adaptation of
means to ends while wholly irrational in its end, — a world
of preponderant evil.
CRITIQUE OF PESSIMISM. 135
one form by one individual not only does not lessen,
but increases, its supply in another. If A puts
forth his moral power in an act of self-sacrifice, his
supply of that force is not exhausted, but rather
increased thereby ; and B, who witnesses and pro-
fits by that sacrifice, experiences in himself an
accession of moral life. We may trace, I think, the
growth of that life through all the ages of human
history. In primitive man it is found at its min-
imum. The savage state has feeble perceptions of
the moral law : it is a state of comparative inno-
cence ; since where there is no law there is no sin,
but a very immoral state. The moral sense is re-
stricted to good faith with friends and allies, and
avoidance of flagrant trespass on others' rights.
As civilization advances, society, imperilled by
individual licence, protects itself with laws, and
promotes social ends with exactions and require-
ments which make life more complex, but also
more moral. Acts which before were performed
without scruple become crimes. By these prohibi-
tions and requirements the moral sense is educated.
Gradually the stringency of obligation is transferred
from the civil statute to the private conscience.
With increase of population and increase of luxury,
it is true, demoralizing influences set in; and when
these become excessive they disorganize society
and subvert the state, as has happened in one and
136 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
another country in the course of the world's
history. But humanity rallies, it recovers itself,
it takes warning from the past; the moral senti-
ment reacts on these corruptions ; it strives and
succeeds to keep the corrupting tendencies in
check. Gradually moral capital is accumulated ; is
vested in public opinion, in memories, books, and
institutions, and furnishes a guaranty against
future dissolutions of the civil bond. For want of
this capital ancient states, Assyria, Greece, and
Rome, went down ; by means of it modern states
subsist, and have, so far as internal agencies are
concerned, an indefinite lease of life. Evil is self-
limited and self-destructive ; the good in human
nature is self -conserving and self-increasing. If
modern society is more compact, and rests, as it
evidently does, on a firmer basis than did society
in ancient time, it is to be inferred that society is
more moral now than then, and that increase of
moral power affords a presumption of further
increase from age to age. Yon Hartmann insists
that egoism, however it may change its face and
methods, has lost nothing of its virus with tlie
lapse of time. I maintain, on the contrary, and
think it can be shown, that " altruism," or care for
others, care for the common weal, is gradually
making head against egoism. And herein I find a
refutation of the pessimist view of human destiny.
CRITIQUE OF PESSIMISM. 137
For society, I repeat, subsists by moral force ; and
increase of that force in the shape of care for the
commonweal guarantees, in the absence of any
physical derangement of the globe, the growth of
social well-being in all coming time.
Another consideration which suggests itself in
opposition to the pessimist theory, is the fact of
the timely appearance, at certain points in the
world's history, of exceptional individuals, whose
word and life have been a healing and reviving
power in the world. I waive the idea of what is
called divine interposition in such phenomena.
Regarding them simply as historic facts, I see in
them proofs of a self-renewing power in human
nature, and the promise, as human need may re-
quire and social exigencies prompt, of similar revi-
vals in time to come. Whatever opinion we may
have formed of Christianity, its origin, its present
status, its future prospects, no faithful student of
history will deny that the Christian movement did
impart to human society a moral leaven which
served to regenerate the world by reinforcing those
saving agencies of faith and love whose loss is
disintegration and moral death. The same may
be said of each successive reformation which has
reproduced the Christian idea in subsequent time.
The experience of the past seems to warrant the
presumption that social and moral necessities will
138 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
always elicit a remedial power from the unex-
plored depths and incalculable forces of the hu-
man soul, and that when things are at the worst
redemption is near.
Add to this that some of the worst evils which
afflict society are accidental, not inherent in the
nature of man or the nature of things, but super-
induced by vicious custom, and are likely to find
their remedy at last in a truer perception of their
nature and law, and the application of social sci-
ence to the sources whence they spring. For
example, one of the greatest enemies to social
well-being in this country at present is the abuse
of alcoholic stimulants, drunkenness, which brutal-
izes its victim, poisons the springs of family life,
and constitutes a source so prolific of pauperism
and crime. Philanthropy has labored in vain to
abolish this evil by legislative action forbidding
the supply, instead of seeking, by discovery of
its cause, to obviate the demand. So long as the
demand continues, in spite of legislation, the sup-
ply will be found. I cannot believe that the mis-
chief of intemperance, wide-spread and deep-seated
as it is, is past correction, if once its nature be
rightly understood, and scientific treatment invoked
for its cure. And what a load of misery will be
lifted from the world, what a melioration of the
social climate, prophetic of better years and finer
CRITIQUE OF PESSIMISM. 139
growths, will be achieved with the extirpation of
this vice !
In fine, the pessimist view, thongh a natural
accompaniment of atheism, is not a necessary fruit
of even that dreary stock. Human nature itself,
without the supposition of a God ; human nature
as manifest in history and interpreted by rea-
son, — pleads against it, and furnishes, I think, its
sufiicient refutation.
But whilst I am forced by these considerations
to cast the horoscope of human life more auspi-
ciously than our German pessimist draws it, I
admit an element of truth in his philosophy which
may temper the extravagance of superficial optim-
ism, and tinge with soberer hues the vulgar vision
of the " good time coming." Von Hartmann him-
self, in an essay subsequent to his main work,
from which I have quoted, vindicates the doctrine
of pessimism against the charge of presenting an
altogether comfortless and discouraging view of
life. He argues that self, as expressed in the will,
is the source of all our woes ; that since moral
perfection, or the supreme good, consists in or
requires the entire surrender of self, the pessimis-
tic view, which promotes that surrender, by expos-
ing the futility of all our wishes and the grief that
is born of the private will, is stimulating, bracing,
140 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
It is true that self is the source of the greater
part of human misery ; but equally true it is that
the highest satisfaction has its origin there. Ex-
tinguish self, and we escape the pangs of disap-
pointment, the unsatisfied longing, the frustrate
effort, the misery of wounded pride, of ingratitude
and neglect ; but we also miss the stimulus of a
noble and sanctified ambition. Moral elevation
does not guarantee happiness in the vulgar sense
of that word ; but neither does material prosperity
assure it. Suppose that prosperity consummated
the world over for all men ; make earth a paradise ;
drive want from the face of it, and ignorance and
vice ; let competence be secured to all ; build pala-
ces for hovels ; let climate be attempered by art
to perpetual blandncss ; let there be no forced
tasks, no chiding of the laggard will, no painful
bracing up of the dissolute mind, but only duties
which in^'ite, and work which is play, — fashion a
world after your own heart ; and know that a day
in that world will have the same proportion of joy
and pain that a day has in this. Our joys and our
sorrows spring from the same root ; in cultivating
the one we cultivate the other also. There is a
root of bitterness in human life which no change of
circumstance and no improvement in the outward
condition can eradicate. And perhaps if we rightly
understood the constitution and the wants of man
CRITIQUE OF PESSIMISM. 141
we should not wish it eradicated. It is the bitter
oil in the kernel that gives the peculiar flavor to
the fruit. That remnant of bitterness in the lot
of man, so far from depreciating the value of
human life, enhances its significance by supplying
the needful tonic without which the spirit would
rest and rust in sluggish contentment with the
present, and, ceasing to aspire, would forfeit the
prize of its higher calling. The end of man is
not enjoyment, but discipline, education, growth,
effective service. Given a lot of unbroken ease,
and life would not be worth living.
I
MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
"Nun soil ich gar von Haus zu Haus
Die losen Blatter alle sammeln." — Goethe.
LIFE AND CHAEACTER OF AUGUSTINE.
'T^HE formation of the Christian Church in the
-^ early ages of its history was a process in-
volving many elements besides Christianity proper,
as represented in the Gospels.
Jewish cabalism, Greek and Roman polytheism,
Alexandrian mysticism, Persian dualism, Indian
gymnosophism, are among the confluents which
emptied their tributary streams into this provi-
dential river, and became coefficients of a faith
whose triumphs are owing in part to its having
appropriated all that was vital in foregone and
contemporary creeds and rites.
And not only did the Church inoculate itself
with ideas from without ; it also absorbed into its
system and transubstantiated into its own kind,
by " the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus,"
the blood and temper of many climes. The dream-
ing Oriental, the volatile Greek, the practical Ro-
man, the impetuous Goth, the fiery African, are
all represented in its organism.
10
146 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
To the last-named country the Church is in-
debted for three, at least, of its greater lights, —
Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine. The first distin-
guished by his moral purism ; the second by his
stout defence of Episcopal authority ; the third by
his theology and his great example.
Saint Augustine, whose life and character I now
propose to discuss, has become identified with an
influence far exceeding that of his compatriots, and
coextensive with the Christian Church. The morals
of Christendom refused to adopt the stern require-
ments of the eloquent Montanist ; its ecclesiastical
polity soon transcended the views of the fervid Car-
tliaginian. But the doctrine of the Bishop of Hippo
has survived the decline of the Papacy ; has repro-
duced itself in the formularies of Protestantism ;
has been transplanted from the Old World to the
New by the fostering care of the Puritans, and
constitutes to this day the staple of American
theology. Since the days of the Apostles no
Christian ecclesiastic has exerted such sway or
obtained such following.
Externally, the life of Saint Augustine was less
eventful than those of most men of note in his
time, — that maelstrom of history, which tossed
individuals and nations like foam-flakes in its
boiling eddies. The deep interior being of the man
was very imperfectly expressed in his fortunes,
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 147
and had no correspondent developments in his
external history. He was one of those whose life
is a continual drawing from the circumference
to the centre.
Tagaste, an obscure corner in the north of
Africa, not far from the site of old Carthage, is
illustrated by the birth of the greatest of the
Fathers. Its historic insignificance, although
mentioned by Pliny, excludes it from the ancient
maps. Cellarius, the most faithful of geographers,
ignores it ; French soldiers under General Randon,
in 1844,1 for the first time, perhaps, since the
Yandals, uncover its site ; and Spruner, the latest
authority, has noted its locality in that part of
what is now Algeria, where Algiers and Tunis
join. The 13th November, 354, is the date of his
birth. Cast amid humble conditions, the great-
est of earthly blessings was vouchsafed to his
childhood, — a pious mother, whose dearest wish
was to see the son of her affections safely folded
in the bosom of the Catholic Church. Her life
was breathed in prayers for this end; and the
strongest human influence which Augustine expe-
rienced was the prayers of Monica. Gratefully
conscious of her agency in securing so able a de-
fender of the faith, the Church has raised to
" sainted seats " the " Elect Lady," whom filial
1 Poujoulat : Histoire de Saint Augustin.
148 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
gratitude had already canonized. Few worthies
in the Christian calendar have earned more dearly
their title to be there. The name of Monica sug-
gests the impersonation of all feminine and Chris-
tian graces. We figure to ourselves a form and
face such as the Pre-Raphaelites would have loved
to paint, with as much of spirit as flesh and blood
can take up, and as little of flesh and blood as
an earth-inhabiting spirit can make itself visible
by. With a brute of a husband, passionate at
home and unfaithful abroad, and three children,
of whom at least one gifted but turbulent boy was
a source of ceaseless anxiety ; with a feeble body
and a sensitive spirit ; with small means and large
requirements ; with little wit, great cares, and, as
her conscientious nature conceived them, awful
responsibilities, — the burdened soul had fainted
within her unless she had ''believed to see the
goodness of the Lord." But she believed, and did
not faint. She administered with untiring dili-
gence her arduous economy, and tended her little
flock, and still clung to the horns of the altar.
She encountered her stormy husband with gentle-
ness for wrath, and soft persuasion for ingratitude
and sin. She waited and wept, and hoped and
suffered, and still hoped. The substance of her
life was sorrow, and the form of it was prayer;
the spirit of it love, and the strength of it patience,
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 149
and the grace of it meekness. Hers was the pure
soul which an elder poet compares to a '' drop of
Orient dew," which, lighting on a flower,
" Scarce touching where it lies,
But gazing hack upon the skies,
Shines with a mournful light
Till the warm sun pities its pain,
And to the skies exhales it back again."
Her pious wishes, long deferred, were fulfilled
at last. Her husband, who had lived in profession,
as in character, a Pagan, solicited and received
before his death the regenerating water of Chris-
tian baptism. And at last, after thirty long years
of watching and weeping, her favorite, Aurelius,
with whose second birth, as he tells us, she had
travailed more sorely than with his first, was like-
wise united to Christ through the baptism of the
Catholic Church. Her mission was accomplished
when this son of her tears, disengaged from the
enemy's tares, and bound in a fair church-sheaf,
was now at length fit for the garden of the Lord,
— a consummation to which (unconsciously to her-
self and to him) she had contributed more than
all the persuasions of Ambrose, and all the refine-
ments of his own dialectic mind.
woman, great is thy faith ! loving, sad,
and patient Monica ; long suffering, late rewarded !
150 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
Who more entitled than thou to sit in sainted
seats? Who more than thou ever strove and
prayed ? Who has so nobly illustrated the media-
torial office of woman, sliowing how, as it is
written,
" The ever womanly
Draweth us on 1 "
Young Augustine mixed at school and at play
with the boys of Tagaste ; and, if eminent at all
among his companions, was not distinguished by
any saintly tendencies. The saint in him was
latent, dormant; the boy was patent, and wide
awake.
The boy loved play, and found study a weari-
ness of the flesh. Greek was his aversion ; the
circus and the theatre his delight. A sportive
boyhood might not portend any lack of manly
virtue. Of graver import are the fibbing and
thieving which those " Confessions " of his reveal.
All this he repents in after years with a penitence
almost morbid, and scarcely consistent with the
Augustinian theory of human nature, which, by
denying to man, unrenewed by superadded and
exotic grace, not only goodness, but the faculty
of goodness, might seem to preclude all occasion
of remorse. With especial compunction he recalls
the robbery of a pear-tree, committed in a spirit
of juvenile frolic, with some of his associates. In
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 151
the excess of his self-condemnation he refines
upon his guilt, and, dissecting the act with retro-
spective analysis, finds more of evil in the heart
of it tlian appears on the face. Why should he
steal his neighbor's pears ? He had better pears
of his own at home. It could not have been for the
sake of the fruit, which was not eaten. It must,
therefore, have been the love of sin as such, — the
mere delight in evil, — which prompted the act.
" Behold my heart, God ! let my heart tell thee
what it sought when gratuitously evil, having no temp-
tation to ill but the ill itself. . . . What, then, did
wretched I so love in thee, thou theft of mine, thou deed
of darkness ? . . . Fair were those pears ; but not them
did my wretched soid desire. For I had store of better,
and I gathered them only that I might steal. For when I
gathered them I flung them away ; my only feast therein
being my own sin, which I was pleased to enjoy. For
if aught of those pears came within my mouth, what
SAveetened it was sin."
We cite the passage as equally characteristic of
the boy and the man : the act itself, of the boy ;
the reflection upon it, of the man. The boy, head-
long, impetuous, thoughtless, vicious: the man,
regenerate, holy, God-seeking, but self-dissecting,
morbid. A healthy feeling would have wrought
a more perfect self-forgiveness. A healthy judg-
ment would distinguish between youthful love of
152 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
fun indulged to vicious excess, and love of evil
as such.
There is in all men something immovable and
immutable, — an individuality common to the child,
to the youth, and the man, — a backbone of the
character which remains unaltered through all the
revolutions that sweep over the heart and through
all the vicissitudes of life. We may change our
opinions, our habits, our pursuits, our tastes; we
may change from heedless to earnest, from sen-
sual to moral, from godless to devout : but we
cannot change the radical innermost self. We bear
not the root, but the root us. Religion may alter
the expression of the character, but not the type ;
may convert the worldling into a saint, but not
one individual into another. There is a ground
which survives through all the metamorphoses of
nature and of grace. As it was in childhood, it
remains in old age ; as birth delivered it to this
world, death will hand it over to the next. We
find in Augustine the child one quality, at least,
which especially distinguishes Augustine the man,
— ambition. The same passion, which, sanctified
by heavenly grace, engendered the pure and noble
aspirations of his riper years, inspired also the
literary labors of his youth, and was manifest
even in the boy, in scorn of inferiority, in love
of boyish distinction, in eager efforts to excel in
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 153
games ; for which end, as he tells us, he often
had recourse to trickery and deceit. Ambition
is a quality indifferent in itself. Its character
depends on the qualities with which it is asso-
ciated ; on the course it adopts ; the direction
given it ; the objects at which it aims. Side by
side with this quality in Augustine there was
early developed a principle of life by which it
was refined and ennobled, and consecrated to the
highest ends. That principle was love of God —
or not so much love, at present, as a certain
vague desire and aspiration — the dawn of that
future passionate striving and longing after God
which breathes from every page of the " Confes-
sions," and which, after his conversion, expressed
itself in all the tenor of his life. If ever a human
soul, in the words of the Psalmist, panted after
God, the soul of Augustine did surely so pant.
From earliest childhood, when his only petition
was to be saved from chastisement at school,
through all the aberrations of his youth, the idea
of God was familiar to his thoughts, and the want of
God was the secret of his heart. Many a devout
soul has found its private experience expressed
by him in those words, often echoed and often
huitated, — words which a well-known Moravian
hymn has fitly paraphrased, — " Inquietum est cor
nostrum donee requiescat in te."
154 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
" My heart is pained ; nor can it be
At rest till it finds rest in Thee."
On one occasion, while yet a child, when sudden
illness threatened his life, he expressed a desire to
be baptized. The necessary arrangements were
made ; but the danger passed, and his mother
deferred the salutary rite, thinking, he says, " the
defilements of sin would, after that washing, bring
greater and more perilous guilt." This too sub-
jective view of baptism he condemns.
*' Why does it still echo in our ears on all sides : ' Let
him alone — let him do as he will; for he is not yet
baptized ' 1 But in the matter of bodily health no one
says, Let him continue to be wounded, for he is not yet
healed. How much better, then, I had been healed at
once."
At school, in the neighboring city of Madaura,
he distinguished himself by his proficiency. His
childish impatience of mental labor had already
begun to yield to the rising visions and dawning
promise of the intellectual world. He returned
to Tagaste, and remained a year in his father's
house, preparatory to entering the university at
Carthage. It was his sixteenth year, — equivalent
to the twentieth of colder climes. At this early
period of his life he began to plunge, without re-
serve, into sensual pleasures, and suffered all the
billows of lust and passion to go over his soul.
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 155
His father died ; and with him the means of
collegiate education would have failed, had not
the liberality of a friend of the family supplied
the defect. He went to Carthage, — the chief
university of Africa, — and there devoted himself,
with all tlie ardor which a passionate thirst for
knowledge could inspire in such a nature, to va-
rious branches of letters and science ; above all,
to the study of rhetoric.
The high schools of learning are seldom schools
of morality. It is oftener folly than wisdom
which gives the tone to society where young
men are thrown together, without the restraint
of their natural guardians, and away from the in-
fluence of home. The ancient universities seem
not to have differed in this respect from those
of modern time. Life at Carthage was the same
thing as life at Heidelberg, or Halle, or Oxford,
or other academic cities of modern Europe, not to
speak of institutions nearer home. Augustine, with,
whom love of pleasure was second only to love of
knowledge, was not likely to mend his manners
among the turbulent youths assembled there.
The vicious indulgences commenced at Tagaste
were continued on a larger scale, with no other
check than the intellectual life which now de-
veloped itself with ever-increasing intensity. He
became a member of the noisiest of college
156 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
clubs, — one of those associations which universi-
ties often develop, under one or another name, —
a club which rejoiced in the name of " The De-
structives." Its character is sufficiently indicated
by that appellation. Augustine joined these riot-
ers more for the sake of popularity and the
dashing renown which, in such communities, at-
taches to such a life, than for any sincere enjoy-
ment they afforded him. His better soul recoiled
from their orgies and the graceless associates
with whom they connected him. He appears to
have freed himself soon, entirely or in part, from
this sordid communion.
As a refuge from coarser diversion, he frequented
the theatre, where the enjoyment, if equally empty,
was more sedate. In after life he criticises this
passion for theatrical amusement in that half-quer-
ulous, half-argumentative tone which characterizes
so much of the " Confessions."
" Stage-plays also carried me away, full of images of
my miseries and of fuel to my fire. Why is it that
man desires to be made sad, beholding doleful and tragic
things, which yet he himself would by no means suffer ?
... I, miserable, then, loved to grieve, and sought out
what to grieve at ; and that acting best pleased me and
attracted me most veliemently which drew tears from
me. What wonder that, a lost sheep straying from thy
flock, and impatient of thy keeping, I became infected
with disease 1 "
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 157
It was during his residence at Carthage that
Augustine connected himself with the sect of the
Manicheans, — a flourishing heresy of early Chris-
tendom, and one which then divided with the
Arians the contempt and abhorrence of the Cath-
olic Church. For even at that early period the
Catholic Church was a powerful and compact body
amid the formations of the Christian world. For
a century past it had been shaping its doctrine,
defining its position, and eliminating all that would
not conform to its tests. The moment Christianity
began to cool, like the igneous vapor of which
it is supposed that the worlds were formed, it
began to part and divide. The several fragments
formed themselves into separate bodies, or isms,
and the principal fragment called itself catholic,
apostolic, and assumed peculiar and divine author-
ity. Not to be a Catholic, in the judgment of
this Church, was not to be a Christian. To be
out of the pale of that organization was to be out
of the fold of Christ. When, therefore, the good
Monica learned that her son had joined the ranks
of a sect, she mourned over him with a sorrow
far exceeding anything she had hitherto suffered
on his account. All his previous aberrations and
excesses seemed to her trivial compared with this
act of revolt, as she deemed it, against the author-
ity of the Church. She argued — not unreasonably
158 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
from her point of view — that heresy was worse
than irreligion ; that the soul of her child was
more imperiled, his chance of salvation more seri-
ously impaired, by false doctrine than by unbelief.
So many an orthodox mother in these days would
rather her child should be without faith and with-
out any tincture of religious life, and confess no
Christ and know no God, than adopt the views
of another sect. And if Christianity were a sys-
tem of dogmas instead of a dispensation of grace
and truth ; if salvation were the product of opin-
ion, and the form of faith more essential than
the fact of faith, — then, certainly, a state of indif-
ference and unbelief would be preferable to a
Christian confession without the pale of ortho-
doxy, because more receptive ; as a vacuum is
more receptive than a solid, and a fallow field
a better condition for the planter than a forest.
The mothers are right from their point of view.
Their error lies in connecting salvation with opin-
ion, and in limiting the grace of God to certain
confessions. Yet, even here, in its very exclu-
siveness, the early Church seems to have been
guided by divine instinct, and followed uncon-
sciously the leading of that Spirit whose organ
it was, and whose foolishness is wiser than human
wisdom. The student of history must see that
Christianity, — i. <?., the principle of divine life
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 159
introduced into the world by Jesus Christ, — could
not have survived the agony of time, the storm
and rack which followed, the dismemberment of
the Roman Empire ; could never have descended
to us; that it must have been dissipated, if not
extinguished, in the flood of Gothic migrations, —
had it not been committed to a compact, vig-
orous body, able to resist and retain. What
the Church then wanted was strength — organic
strength ; and that it could not have without
exclusiveness. Although in the formation of it
many foreign elements, as I have said, were
embodied, it had need to define itself sharply
against the unlimited, and unconditional influx of
ideas and beliefs from without, in order to pre-
serve its identity and to perfect its strength. It
had to be exclusive to maintain its own. It could
not be liberal without being loose, and in constant
danger of dissolution. A strong body must have
a sharp and rigorous outline. That which does
not withstand, says Coleridge, cannot stand.
The Manichees professed to be Christians. But
with this profession they incorporated a system of
philosophy derived from Manes or Mani, a Persian
philosopher of the third century, who claimed
to be the Paraclete, or " Comforter " promised
by Christ to his disciples. It would lead us too
far from our theme to attempt so much as an
160 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
outline of that philosophy. Its distinguishing
feature, characteristic of Persian thought, was
dualism. That is, in addition to a self -existent,
eternal Good, — the God of the Christians, — it
maintained a self-existent, eternal Evil. This
Evil is embodied in matter, identical with it ; but
still an active agent, a Prince of Darkness, for-
ever warring against the Good. The Manichees
carried this dualism into human nature. They
held that man has two souls, — a good and an
evil ; the one the offspring of God, the other
the child of the Devil. The system, in short, is
the Magian or Zoroastrian doctrine, modified by
Christian ideas. Its details are curious, combin-
ing much that is significant and much that is
sublime, with puerile vagaries, grotesque conceits,
and intolerable platitudes. If we separate what
is purely theological in it from tlie ontological
and anthropological fantasies in which it is im-
bedded, we shall find it perhaps as near to the
mark of gospel truth as Augustinian Christian-
ity. Its moral code was rigorous to a fault ; so
rigorous that only a portion of those who received
the doctrine of Manes were able to comply with
it. Accordingly, there were two classes of Mani-
cheans, — the " Auditors," to whom greater liberty
was allowed in practice than the canon allowed
in theory ; and the " Elect," who constituted a
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 161
higher grade, and were bound to a stricter life.
The Latter were required to mortify the flesh in
all directions. They ate no animal food, and drank
no wine, subsisted on herbs and fruits, and often
fasted entirely. They lived celibate, in rigor-
ous sexual seclusion. They held no property, but
renounced whatever they possessed on entering
the order, and, wedded to lifelong poverty, were
supported entirely by eleemosynary aid. The life
even of the Auditors was in many respects more
strict than that of the Catholics : and so far
as the negative part of morality is concerned,
appeared to advantage beside that of the Church.
The radical vice of the system was its ration-
alistic character. Whatever of Christian truth
there was in it was so plighted and confused
with philosophic speculation as to lose entirely
the evangelic simplicity and authority which dis-
tinguish the original Word from all the fabrics
of vain curiosity. It was not a religion, but a
speculation ; it put theory before gospel, and
Manes before Christ.
Monica grieved, even to anger. She could tol-
erate the libertine, but not the heretic. A bishop
whom she consulted on the subject, once himself
a Manichean, reassured her. She would have him
argue the matter with Aurelius. But the wise
man knew better than to grant her request. He
11
162 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
knew how little is gained in such cases by dis-
putation. He bade her take heart, and employ
no means but prayer for his conversion. The
boy would come right at last. It was impossible
that the son of so many tears should be eter-
nally lost. She was further consoled by a vision,
which assured her that where she was there her
son should be also. Augustine, to whom she re-
lated the circumstance, would have put a differ-
ent interpretation upon it : Monica was to turn
Manichean. She indignantly repelled the suppo-
sition. '' The vision said not that I should be
where you are, but that you should be where I
am." He was more impressed with the answer
than with the vision.
Our saint had now completed his academic
course, in which one book, especially, had stirred
his soul with profound effect. It was a work of
Cicero, now lost, entitled " Hortensius," — a trea-
tise of philosophy, commending not this or that
school, but the search after absolute wisdom.
The soul of Augustine was regenerated by it.
He refers to it in the " Confessions " as the date
of a new consciousness, — a marked and decisive
moment in his mental being. "This book altered
my affections, and turned my prayers to th}^-
self, Lord, and made me have other purposes
and desires. Every vain hope at once became
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 163
worthless to me, and I longed, with an incredi-
bly burning desire, for an immortality of wis-
dom, and began now to arise, that I might retm^n
unto thee." One thing he missed in the splendid
Roman — the name and idea of Christ. " That
name," says his French biographer, " the son of
Monica had imbibed from his mother's breast;
and across all the tempests of his young heart
the name of Jesus Christ had remained, a divine
perfume." ^
He embraced the profession of rhetor^ or pub-
lic speaker and teacher of the arts of speech. The
choice was characteristic. It was that profession
of all others which yielded the readiest rewards
to ambition. It afforded scope for literary cul-
ture, yet brought him continually before the pub-
lic, and linked him with the living world. No
profession, however, is more dangerous- to the
souls of them that practise it than that of public
speaker, — a profession whose success depends on
dexterity of tongue, on the turn of a phrase ; on
plausibility, not wisdom, nor intellectual or moral
worth. It endangers that which is most vital in
man, and the loss of which is most fatal, — his
sincerity. It is not a favorable indication of the
state of the Roman Empire at that time that the
public speaker had grown into such repute ; that
1 Poujoulat.
164 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
the calling of the rhetor had become so generally
popular ; that the grave, old, taciturn Roman
had grown loquacious. '' Given," says Carlyle,
"a general insincerity of mind for several gen-
erations, you will certainly find the talker estab-
lished in the place of honor, and the doer hidden
in the obscure crowd. All men devoutly pro-
strate, worshipping the eloquent talker, and no
man knows what a scandalous idol he is ; out of
whom, in the mildest manner, like comfortable,
natural rest, comes mere asphyxia and death ever-
lasting. Probably there is not in nature a more
distracted phantasm than your commonplace, elo-
quent speaker."
Augustine himself, in after years, appears to
have taken this view of his profession, which he
satirizes with an irony as bitter as Carlyle him-
self could wish: "In those days I taught rhetoric,
and, overcome by cupidity, made sale of loquacity.
. . . And Thou, Lord, from afar perceivcdst me
stumbling in that slippery course, amid much
smoke, emitting some sparks of faithfulness."
As rhetor, then, behold him established in his
native city of Tagaste, and occupying with good
success that slippery path ; not a mere talker,
indeed, but a teacher of talk.
In his twenty-second year, young, lively, enthu-
siastic, at once a glowing idealist, a dreamer of
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 165
romantic dreams, and a gay, gallant, polished man
of the world, he was just the person to attract
pupils, and bind them to him with passionate
devotion.
And he did attract them. His lifelong connec-
tion with his friend and pupil Alypius began
at the lecture-room in Tagaste.
The school flourislied, the rhetor prospered; but
a great affliction now befell him, and embittered
his brief success. A beloved friend, a companion
of his boyhood, bound to him by affinity of tastes
and pursuits, by early association and all that
nourishes youthful friendship, was struck down
by death. In the insensibility of a fever they
had administered to him the rite of baptism.
Augustine, who had been converting him to Mani-
cheism, made sport of the ceremony. But his
friend, in a lucid interval, with an independence
he had never before exhibited, bade him forbear.
It was no Manichean speculation that could com-
fort him in that extreme. And so he died in the
simple faith of the Church. The soul of Augus-
tine was dissolved in boundless sorrow. " My
heart," he says, " was utterly darkened, and what-
ever I beheld was death. My birthplace was a
torment to me, and my father's house a strange
unhappiness." He lived to repent this inordinate
grief; and in one of the most eloquent passages
166 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
of his autobiography condemns the love which
cleaves to the finite with such mad devotion. No
English version can do justice to the terseness
of the original, — a terseness of which only the
Latin is capable. " Happy he who loves thee,
and the friend in thee, and the enemy because
of thee. He alone loses no dear one, to whom
all are dear in Him who is never lost. And who
is he but our God, — the God that made heaven
and earth, and who fills them by the act of crea-
tion. Thee no one loses but he who dismisses
thee. And he who dismisses thee, whither can
he go, or whither flee, but from thee complacent
to thee irate ? "
The city was a desert in which this void had
opened and where this shadow lay. He removed
to Carthage, where a wider and richer field was
open to his ambition. He had already attained
to public honors', had contended for literary prizes,
and received " agonistic garlands " from " procon-
sular hands." He now, in his twenty-sixth or
twenty-seventh year, composed a work on the
Beautiful and the Fit, — "I think two or three
books. Thou knowest how many, Lord, for
it is gone from me, I know not how." His life
at this period was devoted to study — indefati-
gable in its assiduity and wide in its range, but
probably more discursive than profound. Yet he
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 167
boasts, with a good deal of complacency, to God,
of having mastered Aristotle's predicaments with-
out teacher or guide. Meanwhile his own predica-
ments, what with the ill-manners of Carthaginian
youths and tiie unquenchable fire in his bosom,
were getting daily more intolerable, and finally
drove him from Carthage across the sea to the
fore-appointed goal of his spiritual quest.
There was one name which must, in those days,
have filled the provincial mind with wonder and
longing above all others. Rome, even then, with
Byzantium for the capital of the East, and Milan
the seat of the Augusti of the West, was still a
synonyme for empire. It was still a name which
outweighed the world, comprising more and 'greater
memories than any secular name that was named
of men. It was still the urbs Kar e^o'^^rjv. Who-
ever uttered it enunciated in one word a thousand
years of power and glory. Our rhetor was not
insensible to these attractions. The Avorld's me-
tropolis drew him to new and nobler triumphs ;
and, revolving his future course, like Saint Paul,
he concluded within himself : " 1 must also see
Rome." The difficulty was in escaping from
Monica, who vehemently opposed his design ; but,
if he would go, insisted on accompanying him.
She feared to trust him away in the Avide, wicked,
Manichean world, where " grievous wolves " lay in
168 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
wait to devour him. She had followed him to the
sea-shore, suspecting his intent. But he persuaded
her to pass the time in a neighboring chapel, while
he waited the embarkation of a friend who was
to sail with the midnight breeze. She spent the
night in prayer that he might stay ; and all the
while his vessel was cleaving the seas on the ^ings
of the southwest. And when morning dawned
there lay some leagues of Mediterranean waves be-
tween mother and son : he to her a speck on the
blue waste ; she to him a cloud in the horizon.
It was deftly, but not well done. " And I lied
to my mother (and such a mother ! ), and escaped.
For this, also, thou hast mercifully forgiven me,
preserving me, thus full of execrable defilements,
from the sea, for the waters of thy grace."
His stay in Rome was brief, and embittered by
sickness of body as well as the old unrest. His
professional success was marred by the graceless
habit which the Roman students had, of quitting
the classes before the end of the course, leaving tlie
tuition-fees unpaid. " These also," he says pathe-
tically, "' my heart hated." When, therefore, the
prefect of the city was applied to by the author-
ities of Milan to send them a rhetorician at the
public cost, Augustine petitioned for the post, and
obtained it through the influence of Manichean
friends. To Milan he went, unconscious of the
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 169
good which awaited him there, in that city of his
new birth, — the native city of his inner-man, —
where, out of the body of death, the soul was to
lift itself into nevniess of life. His mother now
joined him, having braved all the perils of the way,
that she might, if possible, interpose her influence
between him and perils more dreaded than those
of land or sea.
His state of mind at this period was one of pre-
dominant scepticism. He despaired of finding the
absolute truth. His faith in Manicheism had long
been shaken by the inability of its teachers, and
especially of the celebrated Faustus, whom he had
encountered at Carthage, to resolve the objections
which had arisen in his mind respecting some
parts of the system. Bat no new doctrine had yet
replaced that system in his belief. Platonism, —
or rather the modification of it by the New Acad-
emy which had had such influence on the Greek
Fathers, and through them on the early Church —
took possession of his mind, and kindled there, as
he says, an incredible glow {incredibile incendimyi) ;
but without satisfying his heart, which craved,
unknown to himself, a religion instead of philos-
ophy, and authority instead of speculation. He
was just in the state to receive the impression of a
nature more powerful than any he had yet been
subjected to.
170 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
The bishopric of MihT^n was at this time vested
in a man whose praise was in all the churches of
the West, — a man who combined in beautiful
harmony the spiritual potentate with the tender
shepherd ; the practical counsellor, worldly-wise,
with the holy man of God ; the liturgical artist
with the faithful preacher, — a man who could
rebuke emperors and comfort poor old women as
well, — the fancy-type of the true ecclesiastic.
What August-dried fields are to September show-
ers, the soul of Augustine was to the preaching of
Ambrosius, whose very name seemed a happy pre-
sage of immortal food. The first effect of this
prelate's discourses was to open to him the Scrip-
tures. On the Old Testament especially, which
to Augustine had always been a sealed book, it
poured a flood of light, interpreting typically those
passages which had been most repulsive to his
taste, — with a liberal disregard, it must be con-
fessed, of the literal import. He began the study
of Paul's Epistles ; which, though never entirely
comprehended, filled his whole soul, displacing
the sages of Alexandria. His mind was now set
in the direction of the Catholic Church. But a
great moral gulf remained to be overcome, and
a moral revolution to be accomplished, before
he could attain to reconciliation with God in
Christ. He was still far estranged from God by
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 171
abhorrent desires and averted life. He was practi-
cally an eudeemonist, given to sensual pleasures to
such a degree that only, he confesses, the fear of
a judgment to come, implanted in his childhood,
restrained liim from the vilest excesses. The Epi-
curean philosophy, as a practical system, was the
one he would prefer, could he only ignore a future
retribution.
The slave of libidinous passion, honestly desir-
ing to shake off that yoke, he turned his thoughts
to marriage as a way to escape. His mother, who
also saw in wedlock a refuge from lawless indul-
gence, seconded his views on this subject with
great eagerness, and joyfully took upon herself the
task of discovering an eligible match. The under-
taking proved less easy than her alacrity had
figured it. The fastidious exigence of Augustine
had embarrassed it with hard conditions. Monica
thought him, as we say, " too particular." He
denied the charge. He did not expect perfection,
but he never could think of marrying a woman
who did not at least possess these four qualifi-
cations : 1st, she must be beautiful ; 2d, good-
tempered ; 3d, cultivated ; 4th, she must have
property. These were his four " predicaments,"
as rigorously determined as Aristotle's ten. The
number of females in whom these four conditions
could be united, was limited. But after much
172 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
seeking, and inquiring, and advertising, to the
effect that " a teacher of rhetoric, recently from
Carthage, aged thirty, intending to marry, would
receive proposals," a damsel was found whom
mother and son agreed in thinking an unexcep-
tionable party, but whose friends, considering her
extreme youth, exacted a space of two 3'ears before
they would give her in marriage. Meanwhile he dis-
missed the mother of his son Adcodatus, between
whom and himself an unritual connection had
subsisted for twelve or thirteen years, and who had
accompanied him from Carthage. The unhappy
woman, who loved him with devoted affection,
was sent back, like Hagar, to Africa, only, as it
shamefully turned out, to make room for another
similar connection pending the intended marriage.
The blackest spot in Augustine's history is this
passage. But the time was at hand when the
grace of God was to triumph over lust and passion
in that sin-bound soul.
We come to the story of Augustine's conversion.
From the time of his arrival in Milan many con-
senting influences had tended to that result. The
way was prepared. His moral sense had been
roused ; his conscience convicted of sin ; his heart
desired the needed change ; he longed to be delivered
from the bondage of corruption. To will was
present; but how to perform that which is good
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 173
was not yet found. " For as the needle of a com-
pass," says Taylor, "when it is directed to its
beloved star, at the first addresses wavers on either
side, and seems indifferent in its courtship of the
rising or declining sun, and when it seems first
determined to the north, stands awhile trembling,
as if it suffered inconvenience in the fruition of its
desires, and stands not still in full enjoyment till
after, first a great variety of motions, and then an
undisturbed posture, — so is the piety and so is the
conversion of a man wrought by degrees and sev-
eral steps of imperfection. At first our choices are
wavering, convinced by the grace of God, and yet
not persuaded, and then persuaded, but not re-
solved, and then resolved, but deferring to begin."
It needed an impulse from without to polarize
the wavering will, and precipitate the new creation.
That impulse came, as it often does, in the carri-
age of a trifling occasion. He was sitting in deep
dejection with his friend Alypius, whose interior
state resembled his own. A countryman of theirs,
Pontitianus, an officer of rank in the army and a
zealous Christian, entered the room, and was sur-
prised at seeing on the table, instead of some
classic or Manichean author, a copy of Paul's Epis-
tles. Pie began a religious conversation, in the
course of which he told of Anthony, the eremite,
who had followed literally the command of Christ
174 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
to the rich young man, to sell all that he had and
give to the poor, and then to follow him ; also of
two friends of his, on the eve of marriage, who,
reading the story of that sacrifice, had renounced
their betrothed and given themselves to God.
Augustine received the narration as an admoni-
tion to himself; and when their friend was de-
parted, he exclaimed to Alypius : " What suffer
we ? What is this ? Do you hear ? The unlearned
arise, and take the kingdom of heaven by force ;
and we, witli our heartless learning, behold we
wallow in flesh and blood ! Are we ashamed to
follow, because they preceded, and not ashamed
7iot to follow at least ? " He seized the volume of
Paul's Epistles and rushed into the garden adjoin-
ing the house. " I raved in my spirit," he says,
" indignant, with stormiest indignation, that I did
not enter into thy will and covenant, my God,
though all my bones cried aloud to me to enter.
But thither goes no one with chariots, or with
ships, or with feet. ... To go thither, and to
arrive there, is nothing else but to will to go ;
but to will it bravely and wholly. . . . And thou,
Lord, didst stand by me in my hidden parts, with
severe pity and duplicated lashes of fear and
shame, that I might not relapse, and the feeble
and slender cord be broken that yet remained,
but recover strength and more strongly bind me.
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 175
And I said to myself, Do it now ! Do it now !
And while I spoke I all but entered into thy will.
I almost did it, and did it not. And still I strug-
gled. And there wanted but little, and I was there ;
and a little less. Now, now, I could touch — I
could lay hold. And I was not there, and I did
not touch, nor lay hold ; hesitating to die unto
death and to live unto life." So raged the conflict
in Augustine's breast. At one time his pleasant
vices plucked him by his " fleshly garment," and
asked him if he meant to abandon them forever ;
if after that moment he would never more know
pleasure. Then again the " chaste dignity of con-
tinence " beckoned, and showed him multitudes of
youths and maidens and people of every age who
had lived a pure and virgin life. That continence,
" not sterile, but fruitful mother of joy, — chil-
dren begotten of thee, Lord, her spouse." "Why
standest thou on thyself," she said, " and findest
no footing ? Throw thyself upon him, and fear
not ; he will not stand from under, and let thee
fall." And still he hesitated. He turned his eye
inward, and shuddered as he looked, through the
rifts of passion, down into the unsunned depths of
his breast — into hideous gulfs of bottomless guile
— into weltering abysses of insatiate lust, and
saw the hells opened — hell underneath hell — in
his darkling, selfish heart. Then, by contrast,
176 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
came glimpses of the Christian's heaven. He saw,
in the jewelled splendor of its mystic foundations,
the golden city, and the nations of them that are
saved, walking in the light of it, and the river of
life ever welling. He heard the Spirit and the
Bride say "- Come ! " and he felt that it needed but
an effort of the will to obey the call, to come and
take up his everlasting rest. And when he found
himself incapable of that effort, still cleaving to
the flesh, a tempest of despair broke loose in his
soul, and gushed in fierce torrents from his eyes.
He cast himself on the ground in the utter aban-
donment of helpless woe. It was the death-agony
of the carnal will, dying to self and sin. And
he lay as one dead, his only last thought :
" Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me
from the body of this death?"
"Tolle.lege! Tolle, lege!'' "Take and read!"
sang the voice of a child at play in some neighbor-
ing house. Like a call from heaven, it struck the
ear of the prostrate penitent. " Take and read ! "
Yes ! he will read. In the Scripture help may be
found. For what else was Scripture given, but to
succor such as he ? He unrolled the codex which
lay by his side, — the Epistles of Paul, in the Latin
version, — and resolved that the words on which
his eye first lighted should decide his purpose and
determine his destiny. They were these : " Put
SAINT AUGUSTINE. Ill
ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provi-
sion for the flesh in your desires." ^ He found the
passage providentially adapted to his condition.
Witli awe he perceived that God had spoken to his
soul. And he, that was in the grave, heard his
voice, and came forth unto the resurrection of life.
The old man had dropped from him like grave-
clothes ; corruptible had put on incorruption. He
stood there a new creation — his purpose irrevoca-
bly fixed — his will subdued by victorious grace ;
and now, through grace, victorious. The needle
was turned to its beloved star, and suffered no
" inconvenience in the fruition of its desires."
The moral nature, self-determined with elective
polarity, pointed Godward, its axis parallel with
that of the moral creation — the law of liberty.
His purpose of marriage was abandoned; he
resolved to live celibate : for so the ascetic spirit
of the time required that all should live who would
follow Christ to the uttermost with practical obe-
dience. He renounced his profession and with-
drew from public life, intending to devote himself
to theological studies and the service of Christian
truth. He was now thirty-two years of age ; and,
if spared to complete the normal term of human
existence, might look forward to many years of
profitable labor.
1 According to the Vulgate.
12
178 * MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
Seldom has a man at that period of life had
such a future unrolled before him. Never did
man more nobly redeem the promise of his future
with his life and works.
The space I have occupied with the forming-
period in Augustine's history precludes a full exhi-
bition of his ecclesiastial, episcopal life, and leaA^es
but little room for a critical estimate of the author,
the theologian, and the man. To complete the
biographical outline, the following data must suf-
fice. The interval between his conversion and his
baptism, spent partly at Cassiciacum, — the coun-
try-seat of a friend, — and partly at Milan, was
given to philosophic and literary labors, and pro-
duced the treatise " Contra Academicos," directed
against the sceptics of the Neoplatonic school ;
with several other works, of minor importance,
on grammar, rhetoric, mathematics, music, and
immortality, — of which the last two only were
completed and have survived. If these writings
possess but little philosophical value, they show
at least the prodigious intellectual uberty of the
man. It seems to have been his desire, before
entering the Church, to wind up his accounts with
secular philosophy, and to gather and preserve the
fruits of his past intellectual life. At the Easter
celebration in 387 he received from Ambrose the
waters of baptism, and was made a member of
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 179
the body of Christ. He soon after departed, with
his mother and son, for Africa. At Ostia, on the
way, Monica died. " For one thing only have I
wished to live," said slie in her last moments, " that
I might see thee a Catholic Cliristian. God hath
blessed me beyond measure in this. Why should
I yet linger?" With this event terminates the
historical part of the " Confessions," published in
the year 400. For what else we know of Augustine
we are chiefly indebted to his friend Possidius.
After the deatli of his mother he spent some
months in Rome, where he wrote two works
against the Manicheans. In the autumn of 388
he returned to Africa, to his native Tagaste,
sold the property inherited from his father, and
gave the proceeds to the poor ; reserving only so
much as might suffice for the bare necessities of
life. Here he lived three years with his friends
Alypius and Evodius, acquired great reputation
for his sanctity and wisdom, and Avrote various
works, — polemic, dogmatic, philosophic. In 392
he was called to the office of presbyter at Hippo
Regius, the modern Bona; and in 395, in his
forty-first or forty-second year, on the death of
Valerius, the former incumbent, he was appointed
bishop of that see, — an office which he held until
his death, displaying in it all the executive ability
required of Christian bishops in an age when the
180 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
bishop, like Melchizedec, united, in one office,
monarch and priest, and when the destinies of
society and the future of humanity were com-
mitted chiefly to the shepherd-kings of young-
Christendom. With the dignity and power of a
sovereign, he lived the life almost of a pauper,
so simple his habits, so abstemious his vegetable
fare. He was virtually bishop, not only of Hippo,
but of Africa, — in fact, of the entire West ; the
leading mind of the Latin Churcli. His activity
was directed in part to the inner, organic polity
and well-being of the Church, and partly to literary
labors ; most of all to the refutation and extermi-
nation of the heretics who threatened the integrity
of its doctrine, — Manicheans, Pelagians, Donatists.
Toward the latter especially he exhibited impla-
cable severity ; seconding, if not originating, the
fierce persecutions of that sect by the Emperor
Honorius, and thereby precipitating the calamity
which, soon after, overwhelmed the African Church,
and finally extirpated Christianity from the very
field which he himself had tilled with such suc-
cess. In 428 came Genseric with his Vandals, —
summoned and aided by the vengeful Donatists,
— took possession of the land, and laid waste the
churches of the Catholic faith. Says Gibbon : —
" The conquest of Africa was facilitated by the active
zeal or the secret favor of a domestic faction. The wanton
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 181
outrages against the churches and the clergy of which
the Vandals were accused, may be fairly imputed to the
fanaticism of their allies ; and the intolerant spirit whicli
disgraced the triumph of Christianity contributed to the
loss of the most important province of the West."
Hippo Eegiiis was besieged ; but before it fell,
the fleshly citadel of its bishop was stormed and
carried by the arch-Vandal who spares neither
Donatist nor Catholic, heretic nor saint. After
a ten days' illness spent in prayer and penance
— with the penitential psalms affixed, for con-
venience, to the wall by his bedside — on the
28th of August, 430, he laid down the burden of
his seventy-five years, and passed victorious on
from life to life. His vacant bishopric had no suc-
cessor. Africa fell into the hands of Genseric.
That cherished jewel of the Roman Empire, " spe-
ciositas totius terras florentis," sparkled a while
in the diadem of the Vandal. A century passed ;
Belisarius seized and set it in the crown of Jus-
tinian. Another century, and Omar mounted it
in the ring of the caliphate. The Greek sup-
planted the Vandal, the Saracen supplanted the
Greek ; Africa was blotted out from the map of
Christendom. But Christian Africa had produced
one fruit, whose fragrance escaped the desolations
of the sword, and whose seed has survived the
dissolutions of time. In Moorish Bona, to this
182 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
day, the memory of Augustine endures, as that of
the Gheber saint who taught the religion of the
Son of Mary before the birth of Mohammed. In
many a New England Sunday-school, to this day,
the unconscious catechumen receives, from his
Orthodox Catechism, the hereditary burden of
Augustinian theology.
As an author and a man of letters, Saint Augus-
tine occupies a place which belongs to no other
of the Fathers of the Church. Less learned than
Justin Martyr or Gregory of Nazianzen among
the Greeks, than Jerome among the Latins ; less
profound than Origen ; less forcible than Chrys-
ostom, and not more eloquent than Lactantius,
— he is yet the only one of them all who has
acquired an extra-ecclesiastical reputation, the
only one who is anything more than a name to the
common run of educated laity, who possesses a
literary fame independent of Church authority or
calendar renown. As an author he is charac-
terized, first of all, by immense fecundity. Set-
ting aside the quality of his writings, in the mere
matter of uberty he ranks among the wonders in
that kind, and may be classed with Lope de
Yega, Voltaire, G. P. R. James, and other mon-
sters of the pen. One shudders at the sight of
those ponderous six folios, which yet do not con-
tain all his writings. Some have been recently
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 183
added to the number by Cardinal Mai from the
unpublished manuscripts of the Vatican.^ Others,
it is said, remain to l)e added. Possidius speaks
of a thousand and thirty essays ; but confesses that
all were not known to him. It would seem to
be the work of a life only to read what that
enterprising pen has traced. In fact the read-
ing might prove perhaps the more difficult task
of the two.
Bohringer divides these productions into nine
classes, — philosophic, apologetic, polemic, dogma-
tic, exegetic, ascetic, homiletic, autobiographic, and
the Retractations.
For the general reader, the '^ Confessions," the
" Meditations and Soliloquies," and the " City of
God," are the most attractive, and perhaps the
most important, as revealing — especially the two
former — the interior life of the man. The " City
of God " belongs to the class apologetic. This most
celebrated of Augustine's works deserves particu-
lar notice. Its aim was to vindicate the Christian
Church against the accusations of pagan conserva-
tives, who ascribed the calamities wliich had come
upon the Roman Empire to the dereliction of the
ancient faith. It was early in the fifth century
that Alaric swept the land with his devastating
hosts. The city of Rome had felt the sharpness
1 Schaff.
184 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
of the Gothic sword, and suffered such spoiling as
never before since the Gallic invasion in the time
of Camillus. The heathen mind imputed these dis-
asters to vacant temples and forbidden rites, with
which Christian emperors and a recreant people
had offended the tutelary numina of ancient Rome,
Saint Augustine rebuts the charge, commemorates
the evils experienced by the Romans before the
introduction of Christianity, exposes the vices of
the old religion ; then traces the two great poli-
tics or lines of civilization which, since the be-
ginning of the world, have proceeded in parallel
developments, — the worldly and the spiritual ; the
terrene city and the city of God. The latter has
ultimated in the Christian Church. The Church of
Christ is the City of God, including all the right-
eous, from Abel downward. This city, at the expi-
ration of the sixth day of human history, then in
progress, on the seventh shall put on the heavenly
state ; the dead being raised, the living transfi-
gured, and all made partakers of one felicity.
'' This seventh day," he says, " will be our Sab-
bath, whose end will be no evening, but a Lord's
day, as it were an eighth day everlasting. Then
we shall rest, and we shall see ; we shall see, and
we shall love ; we shall love, and we sliall praise.
This is what will be in the end Avithout end. For
what other end to us than to reach the kingdom of
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 185
which there is no end ? " In connection with this
design, the work embodies much valuable historic
and philosophic knowledge ; in fact, is a kind of
compendium of philosophy and history, as well
as of Christian doctrine. The author concludes
with this morally and rhetorically characteristic
period : —
" I seem to myself, with the help of God, to have paid
the debt of this great work. May they pardon me to
whom it is too much, and they to whom it is too little.
And let them to whom it is sufficient, in their congratu-
lations tijank not me, but God with me. Amen."
As a stylist, Augustine is chiefly distinguished
by impetuous fervor. Not the fervor of profound
thought, but the fervor of lively passion, — the
flashing of that fiery nature which procured for
him, in the old pictorial representations, the sym-
bol of the flaming heart. This fascinating warmth
conveys at first an impression, or awakens an
expectation, of eloquence, which further acquain-
tance does not fully sustain, and which is fre-
quently marred by an over-curious, artificial diction,
abounding in puns, assonances, antitheses, and all
sorts of tricks and quibbles, which provoke, at last,
the impatient criticism of Lorenzo : " Oh, dear dis-
cretion ! how his words are suited." The language
of devotion in the "Meditations " is often striking,
and even sublime ; but often, too, it degenerates
186 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
into puerile conceits and endless repetition of ver-
bal paradoxes. " Thou, Lord, fillest heaven and
earth, bearing all things without burden, filling
all things without inclusion ; ever acting, yet ever
at rest ; gathering, though Thou needest nothing ;
seeking, though Thou wantcst nothing ; loving
without heat ; jealous, although secure ; repent-
ing, and not grieving ; angry, and yet tranquil."
And so on, to the end of the chapter. A great
reader, he was yet singularly deficient in solid
learning. His acquaintance with Greek was so
slight that, strange as it may seem, there is reason
to doubt if he even read the New Testament in the
original. Acute and penetrating, seldom profound,
or profound only in sentiment, not in thought ;
as a controversialist nimble and adroit, a skilful
wrangler, not a powerful logician, — he is often
unfair toward his opponents, especially the Mani-
chees, whose philosophy, notwithstanding he was
tinctured to the last with its leading idea, he never
fully fathomed. When hard pushed he dodges
the point at issue, extricates himself with a
sophism, or evaporates in a generality. But no
weak point in his adversary's case escapes him,
and no chance of a home-thrust is ever suffered to
go by. When Manes exhorts to repentance, he
triumphantly asks the Manichees which soul it is
that repents, the good, or the bad ? If the bad.
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 187
then it is not bad, seeing that it can repent ; if the
good, what need of repentance ? Fancy and under-
standing, wit and reflection, were more developed
in him than the higher faculties of imagination
and reason. He saw nothing in the dry light
of pure intellect, but everything steeped in pas-
sion. As a writer, on the whole, he is subtle,
ingenious, captivating, rather than satisfactory or
strong.
Augustine's significance in dogmatic theology is
so momentous, his agency in the history of Chris-
tian dogma so immense, that a separate essay
would be needed to exhibit him in this relation.
One or two critical suggestions are all that our
limits will allow. He was resolutely and rigor-
ously Catholic. Christianity with Jiim was, once
for all, identified with the Catholic Clinrch. The
idea of a possible Christianity outside of that
communion he would not tolerate. Every attempt
in that kind he attacked with implacable zeal.
Notwithstanding the tenderness professed for the
erring in that well-known passage quoted by
Locke, he warred against heretics, and especially
Donatists, with furious hostility ; and, unhappilj^,
lent the sanction of his great name to swell the
black list of Christian persecutors. Starting with
the false assumption that truth is something objec-
tive, to be appropriated with the understanding or
188 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
conquered by the will, and failing to find what he
sought in Manes or in Plato, the idea that God
must have instituted some infallible method, or
repository of truth, first turned his attention to
the Catholic Church ; and once received into its
bosom, so entirely did he surrender himself to its
dictates, that he expressly declares he would not
believe the gospel itself, except the authority of the
Church impelled him to do so. It is worthy of
note, that the Catholic Church, while honoring him
with a place in her calendar, has not rewarded
his devotion to her doctrinal authority with a like
devotion to his. Doctrinally, he stands in closer
relations with the Protestant Church than with the
Catholic, whose prevailing tendency has been Pela-
gian, and therefore anti-Augustinian. His views
of man, of sin, of grace and predestination, ever
coldly received and faintly acknowledged by his
own communion, did not blossom into popular
favor until the Reformers of the sixteenth century
revived the African theology.
In spite of his war against the Manichees, he
remained to the last unconsciously, but virtually
and essentially, Manichean in his theory of hu-
man nature. This opinion, which I had formed
on a partial acquaintance, I find corroborated
by others more deeply versed than myself in his
works, though stoutly denied by his biographer
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 189
Poujoulat, and denied by himself in his contro-
versy with Julian, who had charged it upon him.
His anti-Manicheism had led him to deny the sub-
stantiality and self-existence of evil, which he justly
defines as privation, not substance. But his doc-
trine of human nature, converting Paul's rhetoric
into logic, substantizes sin, and thus reproduces in
altered form the Manichean theory of two natures
and souls. What the good and evil principle are
in the doctrine of Manes, that nature and grace
are in the doctrine of Augustine ; nature in man,
antecedent to conversion, being wholly and only
evil.
The Eastern Church had developed the doctrine
of triune divinity ; the Western, in the person of
the Bishop of Hippo, developed the doctrine of
humanity. What Athanasius is to the Christology
of the Church, that Augustine is to its anthropol-
ogy. That system of views which, in substance,
was reproduced and rearranged by Calvin in the
sixteenth century, and is known to us familiarly
as Calvinism, is the doctrine represented by our
saint, its earliest systematic expositor, exhibited
most fully in the controversy with Pelagius, where
we see it contrasted with the opposite system. In
this controversy, the imputation of Adam's sin and
Christ's sinlessness, predestination, human inabil-
ity, total depravity, the unnaturalness of goodness,
190 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
and the consequent absence of it in all but Catholic
Christians, and the consequent damnation of all
unbaptized, whether infants or adults, are as-
serted with undoubting consequence. It is not my
purpose to discuss these views, nor is this the
place for such discussion. I will only say that the
system of Augustine appears to me tainted with
two essential defects. The first is its fatal Mani-
cheism. It recognizes but two agents, but two in-
telligences, in the universe, — God and the Devil.
Man disappears, human nature is annihilated.
Humanity is not a middle term between those
two, but only a medium for the manifestation of
God or the Devil. Man unbaptized and uncon-
verted is nature, ^. e., evil ; man converted and
baptized is a manifestation of grace, ^. e., God.
My other objection to it is that it makes all good-
ness in man exotic, not native, and thereby de-
stroys the obligation of goodness and impairs our
interest in it. Goodness is not the legitimate pro-
duct of human nature, the fruit which it yields,
or should yield, under proper cultivation by divine
aid, but something which God, by an arbitrary act,
affixes to it, displays in it, or performs upon it,
— not natural, but preternatural, or even contra-
natural. It is something which man has no call to
cultivate, because no power to produce.
If only the divine plant, once imported, could
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 191
be naturalized and propagate itself in the soil of
this world ; if only the tree, once grafted, would
continue to produce the heavenly fruit. But no ;
every ratable stem in the garden of humanity —
every tree whicli the Lord accepts — is an exotic,
a stranger on exhibition, whose very roots, if you
examine them, are set in a tub of foreign mould.
Every instance of goodness which the Augustinian
can allow to be such is an apple of Paradise hung
by a thread of grace on a tree of Sodom, and liung
there, not to fructify and bless to future genera-
tions the surrounding waste, but to make it b}' con-
trast more accursed. Grant man as depraved as
you will, short of absolute incapacity for good,
inherent in his nature and vitiating and transmu-
ting the fundamental constitution of liim, so that
humanity in its constitutive, radical type, has come
to be congenerous with hell ; but grant at least a
germ, a capacity, of good. Leave us, at least, the
idea of man as a kind distinct from that of devil.
Place the action of the Spirit within the plant, and
not without it. Make the act of grace to consist
in fertilizing the soil, in tilling, showering, graft-
ing (if you please) the tree ; not in eradicating, not
in supplanting, not in transferring an abnormal
fruit of grace to a graceless stem. If goodness
and man" belong to each other by destination and
design, there must be some normal relation, some
192 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
natural affinity, between them. Then the natural
man and the spiritual are not distinct in kind,
but different epochs of one being, different stages
of one life. All which is spiritual in man is natu
ral in its root, and all which is truly natural in
man is capable of spiritual fruit.
It is easy to interpret, from his own experience,
the views of a man in whom so vast a change had
been wrought by grace, and who might seem to
himself — contrasting the present with the past —
to have become, in his new career, the medium of
a spirit not his own. But let us confess that, with
all his eminent graces and gifts, there was not in
Augustine that calm intuition, that patient delibe-
ration and cautious judgment, which alone can give
weight to authority, or certify soundness of opinion
in matters of faith. The value of a man's conclu-
sions on one point is rightly estimated by the prac-
tical judgment, or want of judgment, which he
manifests on others ; and who, at this day, can
receive with implicit reliance, or receive without
grave deductions, the opinions of one who solemnly
testifies to numerous miracles, and among them
three resurrections from the dead, performed within
his knowledge by contact with the tomb of a saint ?
If I have seemed in these strictures less than
just to the honored Father whose portraiture I
have essayed, it is not, I trust, from want of
SAINT AUGUSTINE. 193
abilit}^ or will to discern and acknowledge his qual-
ity and claims ; it is not from any want of rever-
ence for the saint or delight in the man. Precious
to me, as to any, that great memory. I admire
the mighty energy which bore the eartlily accidents
and name of Augustine. I honor the laborious
and unwearied devotion to Christ and t\\Q Church
which knew no pause and asked no reward but the
rest that remaincth for the people of God. I re-
vere the steadfast virtue which, by grace abound-
ing, could trample at once on lusts long indulged,
and walk unswerving, in the teeth of such passions,
the elected path of ascetic abnegation. To me, as
to all Christendom forevermore, the name of Au-
gustine stands for a spiritual fact of holiest import.
Had nothing survived of him but the story of his
life, that alone would be a heritage of price to the
world. The real import of the man, stripped
of all accidents, lies in his conversion. A conver-
sion more satisfactory and complete, with such an-
tecedents, on such a level of intellectual life, the
annals of religion do not record. Here is a man
who was dead and lived again ; who, past the
bloom and pliancy of life, but still in the heat of
its passions and fiercest .carnal demands, having
lived for thirty years to the flesh, a selfish volup-
tuary, — on a day, in an hour, turned right about
in the path he was treading ; and ever after, with
13
194 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
his back to the world and his face toward God,
for forty long years, made every day of his life the
round of a ladder by which he climbed into glory.
The life which contains that fact, is it not a
benediction to all generations ? The Church which
inscribes that life on her annals, shall she not re-
cord it with the prefix of saint ? But what then ?
Because of the saint shall we not see the limita-
tions of the man ? Or worse, because of the limi-
tations of the man shall we refuse to acknowledge
the saint ? A saint he was, if ever mortal deserved
that name ; but, for all that, a very imperfect
man. Humanity is more than any saint, than all
saints. It includes them all, it transcends them
all. Humanity's calendar is never full ; and the
holiest in it serve us best when they point to
something higher than themselves.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM Vfi^{.EIBNIZ. 195
I-
:'ii
GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ.
[From the Atlantic Monthly, June, 1858.]
nPHE philosophic import of this illustrious name,
after suffering temporary eclipse from the
Critical Philosophy, with its swift succession of
transcendental dynasties, has within the last half
century emerged into clear and respectful recog-
nition, if not into broad and effulgent repute. In
divers quarters the attention of scholars has re-
verted to the splendid optimist whose adventur-
ous intellect left nothing unexplored, and almost
nothing unexplained.
Voltaire pronounced him " le savant le plus uni-
versel de I'Europe ; " but characterized his metaphy-
sical labors with the somewhat equivocal compliment
of " metaphysicien assez delie pour vouloir recon-
cilier la theologie avec la metaphysique." ^
Germany, with all her wealth of erudite celebri-
ties, has produced no other who fulfils so com-
pletely the type of the Gelehrte, — a type which
differs from that of the savant and from that of the
1 " On sait que Voltaire n'ainiait pas Leibniz. J'imagine que
c'est le chre'tien qu'il de'testait en lui." — Ch. Waddington.
196 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
scholar, but includes them both. Feuerbach calls
him " the personified thirst for Knowledge ; " Fred-
eric the Great pronounced him an "Academy of
Sciences ; " and Fontenelle said of him that " he
saw the end of things, or that they had no end."
It was an age of intellectual adventure into which
Leibniz was born, — fit sequel and heir to the age
of maritime adventure which preceded it. We
please ourselves with fancied analogies between
the two epochs and the nature of their discoveries.
In the latter movement, as in the former, Italy
took the lead. The martyr Giordano Bruno was
the brave Columbus of modern thought, — the first
who broke loose from the trammels of mediaeval
ecclesiastical tradition, and reported a new world
beyond the watery waste of scholasticism. Cam-
panella may represent the Yespucci of the new
enterprise ; Lord Bacon its Sebastian Cabot, — the
" Novum Organum " being the Newfoundland of
modern experimental science. Descartes was the
Cortes, or shall we rather say the Ponce de Leon,
of scientific discovery, who, failing to find what he
sought, — the Principle of Life (the Fountain of
Eternal Youth), — yet found enough to render his
name immortal and to make mankind his debtor.
Spinoza is the spiritual ^lagalhaens, who, emerging
from the straits of Judaism, beheld
" Another ocean's breast immense, unknown."
GOTTFRIED WILIIELM VCN LEIBNIZ. 197
Of modern thinkers he was
" the first
That ever burst
Into that silent sea."
He discovered the Pacific of philosophy, — that
theory of the sole Divine Substance, the All-One,
which Goethe in early life found so pacifying to
his troubled spirit, and which, vague and barren
as it proves on nearer acquaintance, induces at
first, above all other systems, a sense of repose in
illimitable vastness and immutable necessity.
But the Yasco de Gama of his day was Leibniz.
His triumphant optimism rounded the Cape of
theological Good Hope. He gave the chief impulse
to modern intellectual commerce. Full freighted,
as he was, with Western thought, he revived the
^ forgotten interest in the Old and Eastern World,
and brought the ends of the earth together. Cir-
cumnavigator of the realms of mind, wherever he
touched he appeared as discoverer, as conqueror,
as lawgiver. In mathematics he discovered or
invented the Differential Calculus, — the logic of
transcendental analysis, the infallible method of
astronomy, without which it could never have com-
passed the large conclusions of the '' Mccanique
Celeste." In his '' Protoga^a," published in 1693,
he laid the foundation of the science of Geology.
From his observations as Superintendent of the
198 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
Harz Mines, and those which he made in his sub-
sequent travels through Austria and Italy ; from
an examination of the layers, in different localities,
of the earth's crust, — he deduced the first theory,
in the geological sense, which has ever been pro-
pounded, of the earth's formation. Orthodox Luth-
eran as he was, he braved the theological prejudices
which then, even more than now, affronted scien-
tific inquiry in that direction. ^' First among
men," says Flourens, " he demonstrated the two
agencies Avhich successively have formed and re-
formed the globe, — fire and water." In the region
of metaphysical inquiry he propounded a new and
original theory of Substance, and gave to phil-
osophy the Monad, the Law of Continuity, the
Pre-established Harmony, and the Best Possible
World.
Born at Leipsic in 1646, — left fatherless at the
age of six years, — by the care of a pious mother
and competent guardians, young Leibniz enjoyed
such means of education as Germany afforded at
that time, but declares himself, for the most part,
self-taught. ^ So genius must always be, for want
of any external stimulus equal to its own impulse.
1 "Duo mihi profuere mirifice (quae tamen alioqui ambigua,
et pluribus noxia esse solent), primum quod fere essem oi»To5i5a/c-
Tos, alterum quod quaererem nova in unaquaque scientia."
— Leibnit. : Opera Philosoph. (Erdraann, p. 162.)
GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ, 199
No normal training could keep pace with his abnor-
mal growth. No school discipline could supply
the fuel necessary to feed the consuming fire of
that ravenous intellect. Grammars, manuals, com-
pends, — all the apparatus of the classes, — were
only oil to its flame. The master of the Nicolai-
Schule in Leipsic, his first instructor, was a steady
practitioner of the martinet order. The pupils
were ranged in classes corresponding to their civil
ages — their studies graduated according to the
baptismal register. It was not a question of fac-
ulty or proficiency, how a lad should be classed
and what he should read, but of calendar years.
As if a shoemaker should fit his last to the age
instead of the foot ! Such an age, such a study.
Gottfried is a genius, and Hans is a dunce ; but
Gottfried and Hans were both born in 1646 : con-
sequently, now, in 1654, they are both equally fit
for the Smaller Catechism. Leibniz was ready for
Latin long before the time allotted to that study
in the Nicolai-Schule ; but the system was inex-
orable : all access to books cut off by rigorous
proscription. But the thirst for knowledge is
not easily stifled, and genius, like love, " will find
out his way."
He chanced, in a corner of the house, to light on
an odd volume of Livy left there by some student
boarder. What could Livy do for a child of eight
200 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
years, with no previous knowledge of Latin and
no lexicon to interpret between them ? For most
children, nothing. Not one in a thousand would
have dreamed of serious grappling with such a
mystery. But the brave Patavinian took pity on
our little one, and yielded something to childish
importunity. The quaint old copy w^as garnished,
according to a fashion of the time, with rude wood-
cuts, having explanatory legends underneath. The
young philologer tugged at these until he had
mastered one or two words. Then the book was
thrown by in despair, as impracticable to further
investigation. Then, after one or two weeks had
elapsed, for want of other employment, it was
taken up again, and a little more progress made.
And so by degrees, in the course of a year, a con-
siderable knowledge of Latin had been achieved.
But when, in the Nicolai order, the time for this
study arrived, so far from being pleased to find his
instructions anticipated, or welcoming such prom-
ise of future greatness ; so far from rejoicing in
his pupil's proficiency, the pedagogue chafed at
the insult offered to his system by this empiric
antepast. He was like one who suddenly discovers
that he is telling an old story where he thought to
surprise with a novelty ; or like one who under-
takes to fill a lamp, which, being (unknown to
him) already full, runs over, and his oil is spilled.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ. 201
It was " oleum perdidit " in another sense than the
scholastic one. Complaint was made to the guar-
dians of the orphan Gottfried of these illicit visits
to the tree of knowledge. Severe prohibitory mea-
sures were recommended ; which, however, judicious
counsel from another quarter happily averted.
At the age of eleven, Leibniz records tliat he
made, on one occasion, three hundred Latin verses
without elision between breakfast and dinner. A
hundred hexameters, or fifty distichs, in a day, is
generally considered a fair 2^ensum for a boy of
sixteen at a German gymnasium.
At the age of seventeen he produced, as an acad-
emic exercise, on taking the degree of Bachelor of
Philosophy, his celebrated treatise on the Principle
of Individuality, " Dc Principio Individui," — the
most extraordinary performance ever achieved by
a youth of that age ; remarkable for its erudition,
especially its intimate knowledge of the writings
of the Schoolmen, and equally remarkable for its
vigorous grasp of thought and its subtle analysis.
In this essay Leibniz discovered the bent of his
mind, and prefigured his future philosophy, in the
choice of his theme and in his vivid appreciation
and strenuous positing of the individual as the
fundamental principle of ontology. He takes No-
minalistic ground in relation to the old controversy
of Nominalist and Realist, sidinor with Abelard and
202 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
Roscellin-and Occam, and against St. Thomas and
Dmis Scotus. The principle of individuation, he
maintains, is the entire entity of the individual,
and not mere limitation of the universal, whether
by '' Existence " or by " Hcecceityr ^ Jolui and
Thomas are individuals by virtue of their inte-
gral humanity, and not by fractional limitation
of humanity. Dobbin is an actual positive horse
(^Entitas totd). Not a negation, by limitation, of
universal equiety (^Negatio'). Not an individuation,
by actual existence, of a non-existent but essential
and universal horse (^Existentia). Nor yet a horse
only by limitation of kind, — a horse minus Dick
and Bessie and the brown mare, etc. (^Hoecceitas) .
But an individual horse, simply by virtue of his
equine nature. Only so far as he is an actual com-
plete horse is he an individual at all (^Per quod
quid est, per id unum numero est). His individu-
ality is nothing superadded to his equiety ( Unum
sujyra ens nihil addit reale). Neither is it anything
subtracted therefrom (^Negatio non j^otest pi^odu-
cere accidentia individualia') . In fine, there is and
can be no horse but actual individual horses
(^Essentia et existent ia non possunt separari).
1 " Aut enim principiura individuationis i^oniinr entitas tola, {\)
aut non tota. Non totam aut negatio exprimit, (2) aut aliquid
positivum. Positivura aut pars physica est, essentiara termin-
ans, existentia, (3) aut metaphysica, speciem terniinans, hcecceitas.
(4) . , . Pono igitur : omne individuum sua tota entitate individ-
uatur." — De Princ. Indiv. 3 et 4.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ. 203
This was the doctrine of the Nominalists, as it
was of Aristotle before them. It was the doctrine
of the Reformers, except, if we remember rightly,
of Huss. The University of Leipsic was founded
upon it. It is the current doctrine of the present
day, and harmonizes well with the current Mate-
rialism. Not that Nominalism in itself, and as
Leibniz held it, is necessarily materialistic,, but
Realism is essentially antimaterialistic. The Real-
ists held with Plato, — but not in his name, for
they, too, claimed to be Aristotelian, and pre-emi-
nently so, — that the ideal must precede the actual.
So far they Avere right. This was their strong
point. Their error lay in claiming for the ideal an
objective reality, an independent being. Concep-
tualism was only another statement of Nominalism,
or, at most, a question of the relation of language
to thought. It cannot be regarded as a third issue
in this controversy, — a controversy in which more
time was consumed, says John of Salisbury, " than
the C^sars required to make themselves masters
of the world," and in Avhich the combatants, hav-
ing spent at last their whole stock of dialectic
ammunition, resorted to carnal Aveapons, pass-
ing suddenly, by a A^ery illogical r,2etabasis, from
" uniA^ersals " to particulars.
Both parties appealed to Aristotle. By a singu-
lar fortune, a pagan philosopher, introduced into
204 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
Western Europe by Mohammedans, became the
supreme authority of the Christian world. Aristo-
tle was tlie Scripture of the Middle Age. Luther
found this authority in his way, and disposed of it
in short order, devoting Aristotle without cere-
mony to the Devil, as " a damned mischief-making
heathen." But Leibniz, whose large discourse
looked before as well as after, reinstated not only
Aristotle, but Plato, and others of the Greek philo-
sophers, in their former repute : " Car ces anciens,"
he said, " etaient plus solides qu'on ne croit." He
was the first to turn the tide of popular opinion in
their favor.
Not Avithout a struggle was he brought to side
with the Nominalists. Musing, when a boy, in the
Rosenthal, near Leipsic, he debated long with him-
self, — " Whether he would give up the Substantial
Forms of the Schoolmen." Strange matter for
boyish deliberation ! Yes, good youth, by all means
give them up ! They have had their day. They
served to amuse the imprisoned intellect of Chris-
tendom in times of ecclesiastical thraldom, when
learning knew no other vocation. But the age
into which you are born has its own problems, of
nearer interest and more commanding import.
The measuring-reed of science is to be laid to the
heavens, the solar system is to be weighed in a
balance ; the age of logical quiddities has passed,
GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ. 205
the age of mathematical quantities has come.
Give them up ! You will soon have enough to do
to take care of your own. What with Dynamics
and Infinitesimals, Pasigraphy and Dyadik, Mo-
nads and Majesties, Concilium J^gyptiacum and
Spanish Succession and Hanoverian cabals, there
will be scant room in that busy brain for Sub-
stantial Forms. Let them sleep, dust to dust,
with the tomes of Duns Scotus and the bones of
Aquinas !
The " De Principio Individui " was the last trea-
tise of any note in the sense and style of the old
scholastic philoso]:)hy. It was also one of the last
blows aimed at scholasticism, which, long under-
mined by the Saxon Reformation, received its coup-
de-grace a century later from the pen of an English
wit. Says the author of " Martinus Scriblerus," —
" Cornelius told Martin that a shoulder of mutton was
an individual ; whicli Crainbe denied, for he had seen it
cut into commons. ' That's true,' quoth the tutor; 'but
you never saw it cut into shoulders of mutton.' ' If it
could be/ quoth Crambe, ' it would be the loveliest indi-
vidual of the University.' When he was told that a sub-
stance was that which is subject to accidents, ' Tlien
soldiers,' quoth Crambo, ' are the most substantial people
in the world.' ^'either would he allow it to be a good
definition of accident that it could be present or absent
without the destruction of the subject, since there are a
great many accidents that destroy the subject, as burniug
206 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
does a house and deatli a roan. But as to that, Cornelius
informed him that there was a natural death and a logical
death ; and that though a man after his natural death was
incapable of the least parish office, yet he might still keep
his stall among the logical predicaments. . . . Crambe
regretted extremely that Substantial Forms, a race of
harmless beings which had lasted for many years and had
afforded a comfortable subsistence to many poor philoso-
phers, should now be hunted down like so many wolves,
without the possibility of retreat. He considered that it
had gone much harder with them than with the Essences,
which had retired from the schools into the apothecaries'
shops, where some of them had been advanced into the
degree of Quintessences. He thought there should be a
retreat for poor Substantial Forms amongst the gentleman-
ushers at court ; and that there were, indeed, substantial
forms, such as forms of prayer and forms of government,
without which the things themselves could never long
subsist."
Arrived at maturity, Leibniz rose at once to clas-
sic eminence. He became a conspicuous figure, he
became a commanding power, not only in the intel-
lectual world, of which he constituted himself the
centre, but in part also of the civil. It lay in the
nature of his genius to prove all things, and it lay
in his temperament to seek rap2)ort with all sorts
of men. He was infinitely related. Not an indi-
vidual of note in his day but was linked with him
by some common interest or some polemic grapple ;
not a savan or statesman with whom Leibniz did
GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ. 207
not spin, on one pretence or another, a thread of
communication. Europe was reticulated with the
meshes of his correspondence. " Never," says Vol-
taire, " was intercourse among philosophers more
universal ; Leibniz sei^vait a Vanimer.'''' He writes
now to Spinoza at the Hague, to suggest new
methods of manufacturing lenses ; now to Ma-
gliabecchi at Florence, urging, in elegant Latin
verses, the publication of his bibliographical dis-
coveries ; and now to Grimaldi, Jesuit missionary
in China, to communicate his researches in Chinese
philosophy. He hoped by means of the latter to
operate on the Emperor Cham-Hi with the Bya-
dik ; 1 and even suggested said Dyadih as a key to
the cipher of the book '' Ye Kim," supposed to con-
tain the sacred mysteries of Fo. He addresses
Louis XIV., now on the subject of a military ex-
pedition to Egypt (a magnificent idea, which it
needed a Napoleon to realize), now on the best
method of promoting and conserving scientific
knowledge. He corresponds with the Landgrave
of Hesse-Rheinfels, with Bossuet, and with Madame
Brinon on the Union of the Catholic and Protes-
tant Churches, and with Privy-Counsellor von
Spanheim on the Union of the Lutheran and
1 A species of binary arithmetic, invented by Leibniz, in which
the only figures employed are and I. — See Kortholt : G. G.
Leibuitii Epistolas ad Diversos, letter xviii.
208 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
Reformed ; with Pere cles Bosses on Transiibstanti-
ation, and with Samuel Clarke on Time and Space ;
with Remond de Montmort on Plato, and with
Franke on Popular Education ; with the Queen of
Prussia (his pupil) on Free-will and Predestina-
tion, and with the Electress Sophia, her mother
(in her eighty-fourth year), on English politics;
with the cabinet of Peter the Great on the Slavonic
and Oriental languages, and with that of the Ger-
man Emperor on the claims of George Lewis to
the honors of the Electorate ; and finally, with
all the mvans of Europe on all possible scientific
questions.
Of this world-wide correspondence a portion re-
lated to the sore subject of his litigated claim to
originality in the discovery of the Differential Cal-
culus, — a matter in which Leibniz felt himself
grievously wronged, and complained, with justice,
of the treatment he received at the hands of his
contemporaries. The controversy between him and
Newton respecting this hateful topic would never
have originated with either of these illustrious
men, had it depended on them alone to vindicate
their respective claims. Officious and ill-advised
friends of the Englisli philosopher, partly from mis-
guided zeal and partly from levelled malice, pre-
ferred on his behalf a charge of plagiarism against
the German which Newton was not likely to have
GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ. 209
urged for himself. '- The new Calculus, which
Europe lauds, is nothing less," they suggested,
" than your fluxionary method, which M. Leibniz
has pirated, anticipating its tardy publication by
the genuine author. Why suffer your laurels to
be wrested from you by a stranger ? " Thereupon
arose the notorious Commereium Uj^istoUcum, in
which Wallis, Fatio de Duillier, Collins, and Keill
were perversely active. Melancholy monument of
literary and national jealousy ! AVeary record of a
vain strife ! Ideas are no man's property. As well
pretend to ownership of light, or set up a claim to
private estate in the Holy Ghost. The Spirit blows
where it lists. Truth inspires whom it finds. He
who knows best to conspire with it has it. Both
philosophers swerved fi'om their native simplicity
and nobleness of soul. Both sinned and were
sinned against. Leil)niz did unhandsome things,
but he was sorely tried. His heart told him that
the right of the quarrel was on his side, and the
general stupidity would not see it. The general
malice, rejoicing in aspersion of a noble name,
would not see it. The Royal Society would not
see it, nor France, until long after Leibniz's death.
Sir David Brewster's account of the matter, accord-
ing to the German authorities, Gerhardt, Guhrauer,
and others, is one-sided, and sins by aupjwesslo veri^
ignoring important documents, particularly Leib-
14
210 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
niz's letter to Oldenburg, August 27, 1676. Ger-
liardt has published Leibniz's own history of the
Calculus as a counter-statement.^ But even from
Brewster's account, as we remember it (we have it
not by us at this writing), there is no more reason
to doubt that Leibniz's discovery was independent
of Newton's than that Newton's was independent
of Leibniz's. The two discoveries., , in fact, are
not identical ; the end and application are the
same, but origin and process differ, and the Ger-
man method has long superseded the English.
The question in debate has been settled by su-
preme authority. Leibniz has been tried by his
peers. Euler, Lagrange, Laplace, Poisson, and
Biot have honorably acquitted him of plagiarism,
, and reinstated him in his rights as true discoverer
; _c)f the Differential Calculus.
The one distinguishing trait of Leibniz's genius,
and the one pre-eminent fact in his history, was
what Feuerbach calls his irokvirpay^oarvvr]^ which,
being interpreted, means having a finger in every
pie. We are used to consider him as a man of let-
ters ; but the greater part of his life was spent in
labors of quite another kind. He was more actor
than writer. He wrote only for occasions, at the
instigation of others, or to meet some pressing
1 Historia et Origo Calculi Differentialis, a G. W. Leibnitio
conscripta.
GOTTFRIED WILIIELM VON LEIBNIZ. 211
demand of the time. Besides occupying himself
with mechanical inventions, some of which (in par-
ticular his improvement of Pascal's Calculating
Machine) were quite famous in their day; be-
sides his project of a universal language, and his
labors to bring about a union of the churches ;
besides undertaking the revision of the laws of the
German Empire, superintending the Hanoverian
mines, experimenting in the culture of silk, direct-
ing the medical profession, laboring in the promo-
tion of popular education, establishing academies
of science, superintending royal libraries, ransack-
ing the archives of Germany and Italy to find
documents for his history of the House of Bruns-
wick, a work of immense research, ^ — besides
these and a multitude of siniilar and dissimilar
avocations, he was deep in politics, German and
European, and was occupied all his life long with
political negotiations. He was a courtier, he was
a diplo77iat ; Avas consulted on all difficult matters of
international policy ; was employed at Hanover, at
Berlin, at Vienna, in the public and secret service
of ducal, royal, and imperial governments, and
charged with all sorts of delicate and difficult com-
missions, — matters of finance, of pacification, of
1 Anales Imperii Occidentis Brunsvieensis. Leibniz succeeded
in discovering at Modena the lost traces of that connection between
the lines of Brunswick and Este which had been surmised, but
nut proved.
212 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
treaty and appeal. He was Europe's factotum. A
complete biography of the man would be an epit-
ome of the history of his time. The number and
variety of his public engagements were such as
would have crazed any ordinary brain. And to
these were added private studies not less multi-
farious. " I am distracted beyond all account,"
he writes to Vincent Placcius. " I am making ex-
tracts from archives, inspecting ancient documents,
hunting up unpublished manuscripts : all this to
illustrate the history of Brunswick. Letters in
great number I receive and write. Then I have so
many discoveries in mathematics, so many specula-
tions in philosophy, so many other literary obser-
vations, which I am desirous of preserving, that I
am often at a loss what to take hold of first, and
can fairly sympathize in that saying of Ovid, ' 1 am
straitened by my abundance.' " ^
His diplomatic services are less known at pres-
ent than his literary labors, but were not less
esteemed in his own day. When Louis XIV., in
1688, declared war against the German Empire, on
the pretence that the Emperor was meditating an
invasion of France, Leibniz drew up the Imperial
manifesto, which repelled the charge and trium-
phantly exposed the hollowness of Louis' cause.
Another document, prepared by him at the solici-
1 luopem me copia facit.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ. 213
tation, it is supposed, of several of the courts of
Europe, advocating the claims of Charles of Aus-
tria to the vacant throne of Spain, in opposition to
the grandson of Louis, and setting forth the in-
jurious consequences of the policy of the French
monarch, was hailed by his contemporaries as a
masterpiece of historical learning and political wis-
dom. By his powerful advocacy of the cause of
the Elector of Brandenburg he may be said to have
aided the birth of the kingdom of Prussia, whose
existence dates with the commencement of the last
century. In the service of that kingdom he wrote
and published important state papers ; among them
one relating to a point of contested right to which
recent events have given fresh significance : " Traitd
Sommaire du Droit de Frederic I. Roi de Prusse a
la Souverainete de Neufchatel et de Yallengin en
Suisse."
In Vienna, as at Berlin, the services of Leibniz
were subsidized by the state. By the peace of
Utrecht the House of Hapsburg had been defeated
in its claims to the Spanish throne, and the foreign
and internal affairs of the Austrian Government
were involved in many perplexities which, it was
hoped, the philosopher's counsel might help to un-
tangle. He was often present at the private meet-
ings of the cabinet, and received from the Emperor
the honorable distinction of Kaisei'lichcr Hofrath,
214 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
in addition to that which had previously been
awarded to him, of Baron of the Empire. The
highest post in the gift of Government was open
to him, on condition of renouncing his Protestant
faith, which, notwithstanding his tolerant feeling
toward the Roman Church, and the splendid com-
pensations which awaited such a convertite, he
could never be prevailed upon to do.
A natural, but very remarkable, consequence of
this manifold activity and lifelong absorption in
public affairs was the failure of so great a thinker
to produce a single systematic and elaborate work
containing a complete and detailed exposition of
his philosophical, and especially his ontological,
views. For such an exposition Leibniz could find
at no period of his life the requisite time and
scope. In the vast multitude of his productions
there is no complete philosophic work. The most
arduous of his literary labors are historical compi-
lations made in the service of the state. Such
were the " History of the House of Brunswick,"
already mentioned, the " Accessiones Historiae,"
the " Scriptores Rerum Brunsvicensium Illustrati-
oni inservientes," and the " Codex Juris Gentium
Diplomaticus," — works involving an incredible
amount of labor and research, but adding little to
his postumous fame. His philosophical studies
after entering the Hanoverian service, which he
GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ. 215
did in his thirtieth year, were pursued, as he tells
his correspondent Placcius, by stealth ; that is, at
odd moments snatched from official duties and
the cares of state. Accordingly, his metaphysical
works have all a fragmentary character. Instead
of systematic treatises, they are loose papers, con-
tributions to journals and magazines, or sketches
prepared for the use of friends. They are all oc-
casional productions, elicited by some external
cause, not prompted by inward necessity. The
" Nouveaux Essais," his most considerable work
in that department, originated in comments on
Locke, and was not published until after his death.
The " Monadology " is a series of propositions
drawn up for the use of Prince Eugene, and was
never intended to be made public ; and probably
the " Theodicee " would never have seen the light
except for his cultivated and loA^ed pupil, the Queen
of Prussia, for whose instruction it was designed.
It is a curious fact, and a good illustration of the
state of letters in Germany at that time, that Leib-
niz wrote so little — almost nothing of importance
— in his native tongue. In Erdmann's edition of
his philosophical works there are only two short
essays in German ; the rest are all Latin or French.
He had it in contemplation at one time to establish
a philosophical journal in Berlin, but doubts, in
his letter to M. La Croye on the subject, in what
216 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
language it sliould be conducted : " II y a quelque
terns que j'ay pense a un journal de Savans qu'on
pourroit publier a Berlin, mais je suis un pen en
doute sur la langue. . . . Mais soit qu'on prit le
Latin ou le Francois/' ^ etc. It seems never to
have occurred to him that such a journal might
be published in German. That language was then,
and for a long time after, regarded by educated
Germans very much as the Russian is regarded at
the present day, — as the language of vulgar life,
unsuited to learned or polite intercourse. Frederic
the Great, a century later, thought as meanly of its
adaptation to literary purposes as did the contem-
poraries of Leibniz. When Gellert, at his request,
repeated to him one of his fables, he expressed his
surprise that anything so clever could be produced
in German. It may be said in apology for this ne-
glect of their native tongue, that the German schol-
ars of that age would have had a very inadequate
audience, had their communications been confined
to that language. Leibniz craved and deserved a
wider sphere for his thoughts than the use of the
German could give him. It ought, however, to be
remembered to his credit^ that as language in gen-
eral was one among the numberless topics he in-
vestigated, so the German in particular engaged
at one time his special attention. It was made the
1 Kortholt : Epistolse ad Diversos, vol. i.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ, 217
subject of a disquisition which suggested to the
Berlin Academy in the next century the method
adopted by that body for the culture and improve-
ment of the national speech. In this writing, as
in all his German compositions, he manifested a
complete command of the language, and imparted
to it a purity and elegance of diction very uncom-
mon in his day. The German of Leibniz is less
antiquated at this moment than the English of
his contemporary, Locke.
LEIBNIZ'S PHILOSOPHY.
The interest to us in this extraordinary man —
who died at Hanover, 1716, in the midst of his
labors and projects — turns mainly on his specu-
lative philosophy. It was only as an incidental
pursuit that he occupied himself with metaphysic,
yet no philosopher since Aristotle — with whom,
though claiming to be more Platonic than Aristo-
telian, he has much in common — has furnished
more luminous hints for the elucidation of metaphy-
sical problems. The problems he attempted were
those which concern the most inscrutable, but to
the genuine metaphysician most fascinating, of all
topics, — the nature of substance, matter and spirit,
absolute being ; in a word, Ontology. This depart-
ment of metaphysic, the most interesting, and,
218 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
agonisticallif,'^ the most important branch of that
study, has been deliberately, purposely, and, with
one or two exceptions, uniformly avoided by the
English metaphysicians, so-called, with Locke at
their head, and equally by their Scottish succes-
sors, until the recent " Institutes " of the late Pro-
fessor of St. Andrew's. Locke's " Essay concerning
the Human Understanding," a century and a half
ago, diverted the English mind from metaphysic
proper into what is commonly called Psychology,
but ought of right to be termed Noology^ or " Phil-
osophy of the Human Mind," as Dugald Stewart
entitled his treatise. This is the study which lias
usually taken the place of metaphysic at Cam-
bridge and other colleges. We well remember our
disappointment when, at the usual stage in the col-
lege curriculum, we were promised " metaphysics,"
and were set to grind in Stewart's profitless mill,
where so few problems of either practical or theo-
retical importance are brought to the hopper, and
where, in fact, the object is rather to show how the
upper millstone revolves upon the nether (reflec-
tion upon sensation), and how the grist is conveyed
to the feeder, than to realize actual metaphysical
flour.
Locke's reason for repudiating ontology is the
1 That is, as a discipline of the faculties, — the chief benefit to
be derived from any kind of metaphysical study.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ. 219
alleged impossibility of arriving at truth in that
pursuit, — " of finding satisfaction in a quiet and
sure possession of truths that most concern us,
whilst we let loose our thoughts into the vast ocean
of being." ^ Unfortunately, however, as Kant has
shown, the results of noological inquiry are just as
questionable as those of ontology, whilst the topics
on which it is employed are of far inferior moment.
If, as Locke intimates, we can know nothing of
being without first analyzing the understanding, it
is equally sure that we can know nothing of the
understanding except in union with and in action
on being. And excepting his own fundamental
position concerning the sensuous origin of our
ideas, there is hardly a theorem, in all the writings
of this school, of prime and vital significance. The
school is tartly, but aptly, characterized by Professor
Ferrier : —
" Would people inquire directly into the laws of thought
and of knowledge by merely looking to knowledge or to
thought itself, without attending to what is known or what
is thought of 1 Psychology usually goes to work in this abs-
tract fashion ; but such a mode of procedure is hopeless,
— as hopeless as the analogous instance by which the wits
of old were wont to typify any particularly fruitless under-
taking; namely, the operation of milking a he-goat into
a sieve. Ko milk comes, in the first place, and even that
the sieve will not retain ! There is a loss of nothing twice
1 Essay, book i. chap. 1, sect. 7.
220 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
over. Like the man milking, the inquirer obtains no milk
in the first place ; and, in the second place, he loses it, like
the man holding the sieve. . . . Our Scottish philosophy,
in particular, has presented a spectacle of this description.
Reid obtained no result, owing to the abstract nature of
his inquiry ; and the nothingness of his system has escaped
through all the sieves of his successors." ^
Leibniz's metaphysical speculations are scattered
through a wide variety of writings, many of which
are letters to his contemporaries. These Professor
Erdmann has incorporated in his edition of the
Philosophical Works. Besides these we may men-
tion, as particularly deserving of notice, the " Medi-
tationes de Cognitione, Veritate et Ideis," the
''Systeme Nouveau de la Nature," "De Prim^
Philosophise Emendatione, et de Notione Substan-
tise," "Reflexions sur I'Essai de rEntendement
humaiii," " De Rerum Originatione Radicali," " De
ipsa Natura," " Considerations sur la Doctrine d'un
Esprit universel," " Nouveaux Essais sur I'Entcn-
dement humain," " Considerations sur le Principe
de.Vie." To these we must add the " Theodicee "
(though more theological than metaphysical) and
the " Monadologie," the most compact philosophi-
cal treatise of modern time. It is worthy of note
that, writing in the desultory, fragmentary, and
accidental way he did, he not only wrote with
1 Institutes of Metaphjsic, p. 301.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ. 221
unexampled clearness on matters the most abs-
truse, but never, that we are aware, in all the
variety of his communications, extending over so
many years, contradicted himself. No philosopher
is more intelligible, none more consequent.
In philosophy Leibniz was a Realist. We use
that term in the modern, not in the scholastic,
sense. In the scholastic sense, as w^e have seen,
he w^as not a Realist, but from childhood up, a
Nominalist. But the Realism of the schools has
less affinity with the Realism than with the Ideal-
ism of the present day.
His opinions must be studied in connection with
those of his contemporaries.
Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, and Leibniz, the four
most distinguished philosophers of the seventeenth
century, represent four widely different and cardi-
nal tendencies in philosophy, — Dualism, Idealism,
Sensualism,^ and Realism.
Descartes perceived the incompatibility of the
two primary qualities of being, thought and ex-
tension, as attributes of one and the same (created)
substance. He therefore postulated two (created)
substances, — one characterized by thought with-
out extension, the other by extension without
thought. These two are so alien and so incon-
1 We regret the necessity of using a word which is oftener used
in a bad sense very different froiu the one here intended.
222 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
gruous that neither can influence the other, or deter-
mine the other, or any way relate with the other,
except by direct mediation of Deity (the doctrine
of Occasional Causes). This is Dualism, — that
sharp and rigorous antithesis of mind and mat-
ter which Descartes, if he did not originate it,
was the first to develop into philosophic signifi-
cance, and which ever since has been the prevail-
ing ontology of the Western world. So deeply has
the thought of that master mind inwrought itself
\ into the very consciousness of humanity !
Spinoza saw that if God alone can bring mind
and matter together and effect a relation between
them, it follows that mind and matter, or their
attributes, however contrary, do meet in Deity ;
and if so, what need of three distinct natures ?
What need of two substances besides God, as sub-
jects of these attributes ? Retain the middle term
and drop the extremes, and you have the Spinozan
doctrine of one (uncreated) substance, combining
the attributes of thought and extension. » This is
Pantheism, or objective idealism, as distinguished
from the subjective idealism of Fichte. Strange
that the stigma of atheism should have been affixed
to a system whose very starting-point is Deity,
and whose great characteristic is the igyioration
of everything but Deity, insomuch that the pure
and devout Novalis pronounced the author a God-
GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ. 223
drunken man, and Spinozism a surfeit of Deity. ^
Naturally enough, the charge of atheism comes
from the unbelieving Bayle, whose omnivorous
mind, like the anaconda, assisted its enormous de-
glutition with a poisonous saliva of its own, and
wdiose negative temper makes the " Dictionnaire
Historique " more Morgue than Valhalla.
Locke, who combined in a strange union strong
religious faith with philosophic unbelief, turned
aside, as we have seen, from the questions which
had occupied liis predecessors ; knew little and
cared less about substance and accident, matter
and spirit ; but set himself to investigate the nature
of the organ itself by wdiich truth is apprehended.
In this investigation he began by emptying the
mind of all native elements of knowledge. He
repudiated any snpposed dower of original truths
or innate or connate ideas, and endeavored to show
how, by acting on the report of the senses and
personal experience, the understanding arrives at
all the ideas of wdiich it is conscious. The mode
of procedure in this case is empiricism ; the result
with Locke was sensualism, — more fully developed
by Condillac ^ in the next century. But the same
1 Let us not be misunderstood. Pantheism is not Theism,
and the one substance of Spinoza is very unlike the one God of
theology ; but neither is the doctrine Atheism in any legitimate
sense.
'^ Essai sur I'Origine des Connaissances humaines.
224 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
method may lead, as in the case of Berkeley, to
immaterialism, falsely called idealism. Or it may
lead, as in the case of Helvetius, to material-
ism. Locke himself would probably have landed in
materialism, had he followed freely the bent of
his own thought, without the restraints of a cau-
tious temper, and respect for the common and tra-
ditional opinion of his time. The " Essay " discov-
ers an unmistakable leaning in that direction ; as
where the author supposes, —
" We shall never be able to know whether any mere
material being thinks or no ; it being impossible for us, by
the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to
discover whether Omnipotency has not given to some
systems of matter fitly disposed a power to perceive and
think ; ... it being, in respect of our notions, not much
more remote from our comprehension to conceive that God
can, if he pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of think-
ing, than that he should superadd to it another substance
with a faculty of thinking, since we know not wherein
tliinking consists, nor to what sort of substances the
Almighty has been pleased to give that power, which
cannot be in any created being but merely by the good
pleasure and bounty of the Creator. For I see no con-
tradiction in it, that the first thinking eternal Being
should, if he pleased, give to certain systems of created,
senseless matter, put together as he thinks fit, some degrees
of sense, perception, and thought."^
With such notions of the nature of thought, as
1 Book iv. chap. 3, sect. 6.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ. 225
a kind of mechanical contrivance that can be con-
ferred outright by an arbitrary act of Deity, and
attached to one nature as well as another, it is
evident that Locke could have had no idea of
spirit as conceived by metaphysicians, or no be-
lief in that idea, if conceived. And with such
conceptions of Deity and Divine operations, as con-
sisting in absolute power dissociated from abso-
lute reason, one would not be surprised to find
him asserting that God, if he pleased, might make
two and two to be one, instead of four ; that math-
ematical laws are arbitrary determinations of the
Supreme Will ; that a thing is true only as God
wills it to be so, — in line, that there is no such
thing as absolute truth. The resort to " Omnipo-
tency " in such matters is more convenient than
philosophical ; it is a dodging of the question, in-
stead of an attempt to solve it. Divine ordina-
tion — Alo^ 8' ereXeiero j3ov\r) — is a maxim which
settles all difficulties ; but it also precludes all in-
quiry. Why speculate at all, with this universal
solvent at hand ?
The '' contradiction " which Locke could not see
was clearly seen and keenly felt by Leibniz. The
arbitrary will of God, to him, was no solution. He
believed in necessary truths independent of the
Supreme Will ; in other words, he believed that
the Supreme Will is but the organ of the Supreme
15
226 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
Reason : '' II ne faut point s'imaginer que les
v^rites eternelles, etant dependantes de Dieu, sont
arbitraires et dependant de sa volonte." He felt,
with Descartes, the incompatibility of thought
with extension, considered as an immanent quality
of substance, and he shared with Spinoza the unific
propensity which distinguishes the higher order of
philosophic minds. Dualism was an offence to
him. On the other hand, he differed from Spinoza
in his vivid sense of individuality, of personality.
The pantheistic idea of a single, sole being, of
which all other beings are mere modalities, was
also and equally an offence to him. He saw well
the illusoriness and unfruitfulness of such a uni-
verse as Spinoza dreamed. He saw it to be a vain
imagination, a dream-world, " without form, and
void," nowhere blossoming into reality. The phil-
osophy of Leibniz is equally remote from that of
Descartes on the one hand, and from that of Spi-
noza on the other. He diverges from the former
on the question of substance, which Descartes
conceived as consisting of two kinds, one active
(thinking), and one passive (extended)^ but which
Leibniz conceives to be all and only active. He
explodes Dualism, and resolves the antithesis of
matter and spirit by positing extension as a con-
tinuous act instead of a passive mode ; substance
as an active force instead of an inert mass ; matter
GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ. 227
as substance appearing, communicating, — as the
necessary band and relation of spirits among them-
selves.i
He parts company with Spinoza on the question
of individuality. Substance is homogeneous ; but
substances, or beings, are infinite. Spinoza looked
upon the universe, and saw in it the undivided
background on which the objects of human con-
sciousness are painted as momentary pictures.
Leibniz looked, and saw that background, like
the background of one of Raphael's Madonnas,
instinct with individual life and swarming with
1 The following passages may serve as illustrations of these
positions : —
"Materia habet de se actum entitativum." — De Princip. Indiv.
Coroll. i.
" Dicam interim notionem virium seu virtutis (quam Germani
vocant Kraft, Gain la force), cui ego explicandae peculiarem Djna-
mices scientiam destinavi, plurimum lucis afferre ad veram notio-
nem substantias intelligendam." — De Primoi Philosoph. Emtndat. et
de Notione Sahstantue.
" Corpus ergo est agens extensum ; dici poterit esse substantiam
extensam, modo teneatur omnem substantiam agere, at omne agens
substantiam appellari. . . . Patebit non tantum mentes, sed etiam
substantias omnes in loco, non nisi per operationem esse. " — De
Vera Method. Phil, et TheoL
" Extensionem concipere ut absolutum ex eo forte oritur quod
spatium concipimus per modum substantias." — Ad Des Bosses Ep.
xxix.
" Car I'etendue ne signifie qu'une repetition ou multiplicite con-
tinuee de ce qui est repandu." — Extrait d'une Leitre, etc.
"Et Ton pent dire que retendue est en quelque la^on a I'es-
pace comme la dure'e est au tems." — Exam, des Pnnctpes de
Malebranche.
228 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
intelligences which look out from every point of
(space. Leibniz's universe is composed of Monads,
'that is, units, individual substances or entities,
i having neither extension, parts, nor figure, and,
I of course, indivisible. These are " the veritable
\atoms of nature, the elements of things."
The monad is unformed and imperishable ; it has
no natural end or beginning. It could begin to be
only by creation ; it can cease to be only by anni-
hilation. It cannot be affected from without, or
changed in its interior by any other creature. Still,
it must have qualities, without which it would not
be an entity. And monads must differ one from
another, or there would be no changes in our expe-
rience ; since all that takes place in compound
bodies is derived from the simples which compose
them. Moreover, the monad, though uninfluenced
from without, is changing continually ; the change
proceeds from an internal principle. Every monad
is subject to a multitude of affections and rela-
tions, although without parts. This shifting state,
which represents multitude in unity, is nothing
else than what we call Perception^ which must be
" La nature de la substance consistant a inon avis dans cette
tendance reglee de laquelle les phenomenes naissent par ordre." —
Lettre a M. Buij/e.
" Car rien n'a mieux marque la substance que la puissance
d'agir." — Rcponse aux Objections du P. Land.
" S'il n'y avait que des esprits, lis seraient sans la liaison neces-
saire, sans I'ordre des terns et des lieux." — The'od., sect. 120.
:w
\
GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ. 229
carefully distinguished from Appercejytion, or con-
sciousness. And the action of the internal prin-
ciple which causes cliange in the monad, or a
passing from one perception to another, is Apj^e-
tition. The desire docs not always attain to the
perception to which it tends, but it always effects
something, and causes a change of perceptions.
Leibniz differs from Locke in maintaining that
perception is inexplicable and inconceivable on
mechanical principles. It is always the act of a
simple substance, never of a compound. And " in
simple substances there is nothing but perceptions
and their changes." ^ He differs from Locke, fur-
thermore, on the question of the origin of ideas.
This question, he says, " is not a preliminary one
in philosophy, and one must have made great pro-
gress to be able to grapple successfully with it."
" Meanwliile, I think I may say that our ideas, even
those of sensible objects, viennent de notre propre
fond. ... I am by no means for the tabula rasa
of Aristotle ; on the contrary, there is to me some-
thing rational (quelque chose de solide) in what Plato
called reminiscence. Nay, more than that, we have
not only a reminiscence of all our past thoughts, but
we have also a p)resentiment of all our thoughts." ^
Mr. Lewes, in his " Biographical History of Phil-
1 Monadology, 17.
2 Reflexions sur I'Essai de I'Eatendement humain.
230 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
osopliy," speaks of the essay from Tvhich these
words are quoted as written in " a somewhat
supercilious tone." We are unable to detect any
such feature in it. That trait was wholly foreign
from Leibniz's nature. " Car je suis des plus
dociles," he says of himself in this same essay.
He was the most tolerant of philosophers. " Je
ne meprise presque rien." " Nemo est ingenio
minus quani ego censorio." " Mirum dictu : probo
pleraque quae lego." " Non admodum refutationes
quserere aut legere soleo."
To return to the monads. Each monad, accord-
ing to Leibniz, is, properly speaking, a soul, inas-
much as each is endowed with perception. But in
order to distinguish those which have only percep-
tion from those which have also sentiment and
memory, he will call the latter sow?s, the former
monads or entelechies. ^ Tlie naked monad, he
says, has perceptions without relief, or " enhanced
flavor;" it is in a state of stupor. Death, he
thinks, may produce this state for a time in ani-
mals. The monads completely fill the world ; there
1 Entelechy {ivTeXex^ia) is an Aristotelian term, signifying activ-
ity, or more properly, perliaps, self-action. Leibniz understands
by it something complete in itself (^x*"' ''"^ eVreAes). Mr. Butler,
in his " History of Ancient Philosophy," lately reprinted in this
country, translates it " act." " Function," we think, would be a
better rendering (see W. Archer Butler's " Lectures," Last Series,
lect. 2). Aristotle uses the word as a definition of the soul.
" The soul," he says, " is the first entelechy of an active body."
GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ. 231
is never and nowhere a void, and never complete
inanimateness and inertness. The universe is a
plcnu7n of souls. Wherever we behold an organic
whole (iinum per se), there monads are grouped
around a central monad to which thc}^ are sul^or-
dinate, and which they are constrained to serve so
long as that connection lasts. Masses of inorganic
matter are aggregations of monads, without a re-
gent, or sentient soul (tinum per accidens). There
can be no monad without matter, that is, without
society, and no soul without a body. Not only the
human soul is indestructible and immortal, but
also the animal soul. There is no generation out
of notliing, and no absolute death. Birth is expan-
sion, development, growth ; and death is contrac-
tion, envelopment, decrease. The monads which
are destined to become human souls have existed
from the beginning in organic matter, but only as
sentient or animal souls, without reason. They
remain in this condition until the generation of the
human beings to which they belong, and then
develop themselves into rational souls. The dif-
ferent organs and members of the body are also
relatively souls which collect around them a num-
ber of monads for a specific purpose, and so on ad
infinitum. Matter is not only infinitely divisible,
but infinitely divided. All matter (so called) is
living and active. "Every particle of matter may
232 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
be conceived as a garden of plants or as a pond
full of fishes. But each branch of each plant, each
member of each animal, each drop of their humors,
is in turn another such garden or pond." ^ The
connection between monads, consequently the con-
nection between soul and body, is not composition,
but an organic relation, — in some sort a sponta-
neous relation. The soul forms its own body, and
moulds it to its purpose. This hypothesis was
afterwards embraced and developed as a physiolo-
gical principle by Stahl. As all the atoms in one
body are organically related, so all the beings in
the universe are organically related to each other
and to the All. One creature, or one organ of
a creature, being given, there is given with it the
world's history from the beginning to the end.
AH bodies are strictly fluid ; the universe is in
flux.
The principle of continuity answers the same
purpose in Leibniz's system that the single sub-
stance does in Spinoza's ; it vindicates the essen-
tial unity of all being. Yet the two conceptions
are immeasurably different, and constitute an im-
measurable difference between the two systems,
considered in their practical and moral bearings,
as well as their ontological aspects. Spinoza ^
1 Monadol. 67.
2 See Helferich : Spinoza und Leibniz, p. 76.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ. 233
starts with the idea of the Infinite, or the All-
One, from which there is no logical deduction of
the individual ; and in Spinoza's system the indi-
vidual does not exist except as a modality. But
the existence of the individual is one of the primor-
dial truths of the human mind, the foremost fact
of consciousness. With this, therefore, Leibniz
begins, and arrives, by logical induction, to the
Absolute and Supreme. Spinoza ends where he
begins, in pantheism ; tlie moral result of his sys-
tem, Godward, is fatalism, — manward, indifferen-
tism and negation of moral good and evil. Leibniz
ends in theism ; the moral result of his system,
Godward, is optimism, — manward, liberty, personal
responsibility, moral obligation.
He demonstrates the being of God by the neces-
sity of a sufficient reason to account for the series
of things. Each finite thing requires an antece-
dent or contingent cause. But the supposition of
an endless sequence of contingent causes or finite
things is absurd ; the series must have had a
beginning, and that beginning cannot have been a
contingent cause or finite thing. " The final rea-
son of things must be found in a necessary sub-
stance in which the detail of changes exists
eminently Qne soit qu'ejiiinement^^ as in its source;
and tliis is w^hat we call God." ^ The idea of God
1 Monadol. 88.
234 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
is of such a nature that the being corresponding
to it, if possible, must be actual. We have the
idea; it involves no bounds, no negation, con-
sequently no contradiction. It is the idea of a
possible, therefore of an actual.
" God is the primitive Unity, or the simple original Sub-
stance of which all the creatures, or original monads, are
the products, and aj^e generated, so to speak, hy continual
fulgurations from moment to moment, hounded hy the recep-
tivity of the creature, of whose existence limitation is an
essential 'condition." ^
The philosophic theologian and the Christian-
izing philosopher will rejoice to find in this pro-
position a point of reconciliation between the
extramundane God of pure theism and the cardi-
nal principle of Spinozism, the immanence of Deity
in creation, — a principle as dear to the philosophic
mind as that of the extramundane Divinity is to the
theologian. The universe of Spinoza is a self-exis-
tent unit, divine in itself, but with no Divinity be-
hind it ; that of Leibniz is an endless series of units
from a self-existent and divine source. The one is
an infinite deep, the other an everlasting flood.
The doctrine of the Pre-estahlished Harmony^
so intimately and universally associated with the
name of Leibniz, has found little favor with his
critics, or even with his admirers. Feuerbach
1 Monadol. 47.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ. 235
calls it his weak side, and thinks that Leibniz's
philosophy, else so profound, was here, as in other
instances, overshadowed by the popular creed ; that
he accommodated himself to theology as a highly
cultivated and intelligent man, conscious of his
superiority, accommodates himself to a lady in his
conversation with her, translating his ideas into
her language, and even paraphrasing them. From
this view of Leibniz, as implying insincerity, we
utterly dissent. 1 The author of the " Theodicee"
was not more interested in philosophy than he was
in theology ; his thoughts and his purpose did
equal justice to both. The deepest wish of his
heart was to reconcile them, not by formal treaty,
but in loving and condign union. We do not, how-
ever, object to an esoteric and exoteric view of the
doctrine in question ; and we quite agree with Feu-
erbach that the phrase preetahlie does not express
a metaphysical determination ; it is one thing to
say that God, by an arbitrary decree from ever-
lasting, has so predisposed and predetermined every
motion in the world of matter that each volition of
1 See, in connection with tliis point, two admirable essays by
Lessingr. — the one entitled : Leibniz on Eternal Punishment; the
other : Objections of Andreas Wissowatius to the Doctrine of the
Trinit}-. Of the latter tlie real topic is Leibniz's Defensio Trini-
tatis. Tlie sliarp sighted Lessing:, than whom no one has ex-
pressed a greater reverence for Leibniz, emphatically asserts
and vigorously defends the philosopher's orthodoxy.
236 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
a rational agent finds in tlie constant procession of
physical forces a concurrent event by which it is
executed, but which would have taken place with-
out his volition, just as the mail-coach takes our
letter, if we have one, but goes all the same when
we do not write, — this is the gross, exoteric view,
— and a very different thing it is to say that the
monads composing the human system and the uni-
verse of things are so related, adjusted, accommo-
dated to each other and to the whole, each being
a representative of all the rest and a mirror of
the universe, that each feels all that passes in the
rest, and all conspire in every act,i more or less
effectively, in the ratio of their nearness to the
prime agent. This is Leibniz's idea of pre-estab-
lished harmony, which perhaps would be better
expressed by the term " necessary consent."
" In the ideas of God each monad has a right to demand
that God, in regulating the rest from the commencement of
things, shall have regard to it ; for since a created monad
can have no physical influence on the interior of another,
it is only by this means that one can be dependent on an-
other." " The soul follows its own laws, and the body fol-
lows its own ; and they meet in virtue of the pre-established
harmony which exists between all substances, as represen-
tatives of one and the same universe. Souls act according*
1 In this connection Leibniz quotes the remarkable saying
of Hippocrates, Su/uTrj/ota iravTo., — the universe breathes together,
conspires. Monadol. 61.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ. 237
to the laws of final causes by appetitions, etc., bodies act
according to the laws of efficient causes or the laws of
■ motion ; and the two kingdoms, that of efficient causes and
i that of final causes, harmonize with each other." ^
The Pre-established Harmony, then, is to be re-
garded as the philosophic statement of a fact, and
not as a theory concerning the cause of the fact.
But, like all philosophic and adequate statements,
it answers the purpose of a theory, and clears up
many difficulties. It is the best solution we know
of the old contradiction of free-will and fate, —
individual liberty and a necessary world. This
antithesis disappears in the light of the Leibnitian
philosophy, which resolves freedom and necessity
into different points of view and different stages of
development. The principle of the Pre-established
• Harmony was designed by Leibniz to meet the
difficulty, started by Descartes, of explaining the
conformity between the perceptions of the mind
and the corresponding affections of the body, since
mind and matter, in his view, could have no con-
nection with, or influence on, each other. The
Cartesians explained this correspondence by the
theory of occasional causes^ that is, by the interven-
tion of the Deity, who was supposed by his arbi-
trary will to have decreed a certain perception or
sensation in the mind to go with a certain affection
1 Monadol. 78, 79.
238 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
of the body, with which, however, it had no real
connection. " Car il " (that is, M. Bayle) " est
persuade avec les Cartesiens modernes, que les
idees des quahtes sensibles que Dieu donne, selon
eux, a Tame, a I'occasion des mouvemens du corps,
n out rien qui represente ces mouvemens, ou qui
leur ressemble ; de sorte qu'il etoit purement arbi-
traire que Dieu nous donnat les idees de la cha-
leur, du froid, de la lumierc, et autres que nous
expdrimentons, ou qu'il nous en donnat de tout-
autres a cette meme occasion." ^ If the body was
exposed to the flame, there was no more reason,
according to this theory, why the soul should be
conscious of pain than of pleasure, except that God
had so ordained. Such a supposition was shoclving
to our philosopher, who could tolerate no arbitrari-
ness in God, and no gap or discrepancy in Nature,
and who, therefore, sought to explain, by the na-
ture of the soul itself and its kindred monads, the
correspondence for which so violent an hypothesis
was embraced by the Cartesians.
It was in his character of theosopher that he
obtained in the last century his widest fame. The
work by which he is most commonly known, by
which alone lie is known to many, is the '' Theodi-
c^e," — an attempt to vindicate the goodness of
1 Theodicee, partie ii. 340.
GOTTFRIED WILIIELM VON LEIBNIZ. 239
God against the cavils of unbelievers. He was one
of the first to apply to this end the cardinal princi-
ple of the Lutheran Reformation, — the liberty of
reason. He was one of the first to treat unbelief,
from the side of religion, as an error of judgment,
not as rebellion against rightful authority. The
latter was and is the Romanist view. The former
is the Protestant theory, but was not then, and is
not always now, the Protestant practice. Theol-
ogy then was not concerned to vindicate the reason
or the goodness of God. It gloried in his physical
strength, by which he would finally crush dissen-
ters from orthodoxy. Leibniz knew no authority in-
dependent of Reason, and no God but the Supreme
Reason directing Almighty Good-will. The philo-
sophic conclusion justly deducible from this view
of God, let cavillers say what they will, is Optim-
ism. Accordingly, Optimism, or the doctrine of
the best possible world, is the theory of the " The-
odicee." Our limits will not permit us to analyze
the argument of this remarkable work. Bunscn
says : '' It necessarily failed, because it was a not
quite honest compound of speculation and divin-
ity." 1 Few at the present day will pretend to be
entirely satisfied with its reasoning ; but all who
are familiar with it know it to be a treasury of
wise and profound thoughts and of noble senti-
1 Outlines of the Philosophy of Universal History, vol i. chap. 6,
240 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
merits and aspirations. Bonnet, the naturalist,
called it his "Manual of Christian Philosophy;"
and Fontenelle, in his eulogy, speaks enthusiasti-
cally of its luminous and sublime views, of its
reasonings, in which the mind of the geometer is
always apparent, of its perfect fairness towards
those whom it controverts, and its rich store of
anecdote and illustration. Even Stewart, who was
not familiar with it, and who, as might be ex-
pected, strangely misconceives and misrepresents
the author, is compelled to echo the general senti-
ment. He pronounces it a work " in which are
combined together in an extraordinary degree the
acuteness of the logician, the imagination of the
poet, and the impenetrable yet sublime darkness of
the metaphysical theologian." The italics are ours.
Our reason for doubting Stewart's familiarity with
the " Theodicee," and with Leibniz in general, is
derived in part from these phrases. We do not
believe that any sincere student of LeilDuiz has
found him dark and impenetrable. Be it a merit
or a fault, this predicate is inapplicable. Never
was metaphysician more explicit and more intel-
ligible. Had he been disposed to mysticize and to
shroud himself in '' impenetrable darkness," he
would have found it difficult to indulge that pro-
pensity in French. Thanks to the strict regime
and happy limitations of that idiom, the French is
GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ. 241
not a language in which philosophy can hide itself.
It is a tight-fitting coat, wliich shows the exact
form, or want of form, of the thought it clothes,
without pad or fold to simulate fulness or to veil
defects. It was a Frenchman, we are aware, who
discovered that " the use of language is to con-
ceal thought ; " but that use, so far as French is
concerned, has been hitherto monopolized by
diplomacy.
Another reason for questioning Stewart's famil-
iarity with Leibniz is his misconception of that
author, which we choose to impute to ignorance
rather than to wilfulness. This misconception is
strikingly exemplified in a prominent point of Leib-
nitian philosophy. Stewart says : " Tlie zeal of
Leibniz in propagating the dogma of Necessity
is not easily reconcilable with the hostility which
he uniformly displays against the congenial doc-
trine of Materialism." i Now it happens that
" the zeal of Leibniz " was exerted in precisely the
opposite direction. A considerable section of the
" Theodicee " (34-75) is occupied with the illus-
tration and defence of the Freedom of the Will.
It was a doctrine on which he laid great stress,
and which forms an essential part of his system ; ^
1 General View of the Prog, of Metaph. Eth. and Polit. Phil.,
p. 75. Boston, 1822.
2 "Nuniquam Leibnitio in mentem venisse libertatera velle
16
242 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
in proof of which, let one declaration stand for
many : " Je suis d' opinion que notre volonte n'est
pas seulement exempte de la contrainte, mais
encore de la necessite." How far he succeeded in
establishing that doctrine in accordance with the
rest of his system is another question. That he
believed it and taught it is a fact of which there
can be no more doubt with those who have studied
his writings, than there is that he wrote the works
ascribed to him. But the freedom of will main-
tained by Leibniz was not indeterminism. It was
not the indifference of the tongue of the balance
between equal weights, or that of the ass between
equal bundles of hay. • Such an equilibrium he
declares impossible. " Get equilibre en tout sens
est impossible." Buridan's imaghiary case of the
ass is a fiction "qui ne sauroit avoir lieu dans
I'univers." ^ The will is always determined by
motives, but not necessarily constrained by them.
This is his doctrine, emphatically stated and zeal-
ously maintained. We doubt if any philosopher,
equally profound and equally sincere, will ever find
evertere, in qua defendenda quam maxime fuit occupatus, omnia
scripta, precipue autem TheodicEea ejus, clamitant." — Kortholt,
vol. iv. p. 12.
1 Leibniz seems to have been of the same mind with Dante :
" Intra duo cibi distant! e moventi
D' un modo, prima si morria di fame
Che liber' uomo r un recasse a' denti."
Farad, iv. 1.
GOTTFRIED WILIIELM VON LEIBNIZ. 243
room in his conclusions for a greater measure of
moral liberty than the " Theodicee " has conceded
to man. " In respect to this matter," says Arthur
Schopenhauer, " the great thinkers of all times are
agreed and decided, just as surely as the mass of
mankind will never see and comprehend the great
truth, that the practical operation of liberty is not
to be sought in single acts, but in the being and
nature of man." ^ Leibniz's construction of the
idea of a possible liberty consistent with the pre-
established order of the universe is substantially
that of Schelling in his celebrated essay on this
subject. We must not dwell upon it, but hasten
to conclude our imperfect sketch.
The ground idea of the " Theodicee " is expressed/
in the phrase, "Best possible world." Evil is ai
necessary condition of finite being ; but the end I
of creation is the realization of the greatest possi-1
ble perfection within the limits of the finite. The
existing universe is one of innumerable possible
universes, each of which, if actualized, would have
had a different measure of good and evil. The
present, rather than any other, was made actual,
as presenting to Divine Intelligence the smallest
measure of evil and the greatest amount of good.
This idea is happily embodied in the closing
1 Ueber den Willen in der Natur., p. 22. Frankfurt a. M.,
1854.
244 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
apologue, designed to supplement one of Laurentius
Yalla, a writer of the fifteenth century. Theodo-
rus, priest of Zeus at Dodona, demands why that
god has permitted to Sextus the 'evil will which
was destined to bring so much misery on himself
and others. Zeus refers him to his daughter
Athene. He goes to Athens, is commanded to
lie down in the temple of Pallas, and is there vis-
ited with a dream. The vision takes him to the
Palace of Destinies, which contains the plans of all
possible worlds. He examines one plan after ano-
ther ; in each the same Sextus plays a different
part and experiences a different fate. The plans
improve as he advances, till at last he comes upon
one whose superior excellence enchants him with
delight. After revelling awhile in the contempla-
tion of this perfect world, he is told that this is
the actual world in which he lives. But in this
the crime of Sextus is a necessary constituent ; it
could not be what it is as a whole, were it other
than it is in its single parts.
Whatever may be thought of Leibniz's success in
demonstrating his favorite doctrine, the theory of
Optimism commends itself to piety and reason as
that view of human and divine tilings which most
redounds to the glory of God and best expresses
the hope of man ; as the noblest, and therefore the
truest, theory of divine rule and human destiny.
THE MONADOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. 245
We recall at this moment but one English writer
of supreme .mark who has held and promulged, in
its fullest extent, the theory of Optimism. That
one is a poet. The " Essay on Man," with one or
two exceptions, might almost pass for a paraphrase
of the '' Theodicee ; " and Pope, with characteristic
vigor, has concentrated the meaning of that trea-
tise in one word, which is none the less true, in the
sense intended, because of its possible perversion,
— " Whatever is is right."
THE MONADOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ.
[From the French.]
1. The Monad, of which we shall here speak,
is merely a simple substance entering into those
which are compound ; simple, that is to say, with-
out parts.
2. And there must be simple substances, since
there are compounds ; for the compound is only a
collection or aggregate of simples.
3. Where there are no parts, neither extension,
nor figure, nor divisibility is possible ; and these
Monads are the veritable Atoms of Nature, — in
one word, the Elements of things.
4. There is thus no danger of dissolution, and
246 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
there is no conceivable way in which a simple
substance can perish naturally.
5. For the same reason, there is no way in which
a simple substance can begin naturally, since it
could not be formed by composition.
6. Therefore we may say that the Monads can
neither begin nor end in any other way than all
at once ; that is to say, they cannot begin except
by creation, nor end except by annihilation ; where-
as that which is compounded, begins and ends by
parts.
7. There is also no intelligible way in which a
Monad can be altered or changed in its interior by
any other creature, since it would be impossible to
transpose anything in it, or to conceive in it any
internal movement — any movement excited, direc-
ted, augmented, or diminished within, such as may
take place in compound bodies, where there is
change of parts. The Monads have no windows
through which anything can enter or go forth. It
would be impossible for any accidents to detach
themselves and go forth from the substances, as
did formerly the Sensible Species of the school-
men. Accordingly, neither substance nor accident
can enter a Monad from without.
8. Nevertheless Monads must have qualities,
otherwise the}" would not even be entities ; and if
simple substances did not differ in their qualities,
THE MONADOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. 247
there would be no means by which we could
become aware of the changes of things, since all
that is in compound bodies is derived from simple
ingredients ; and Monads, being without qualities,
would be indistinguishable one from another,
seeing also they do not differ in quantity. Conse-
quently, a plenum being supposed, each place could
in any movement receive only the just equivalent
of what it had had before, and one state of things
would be indistinguishable from another.
9. Moreover, each Monad must differ from every
other, for there are never two beings in nature
perfectly alike, and in wliich it is impossible to
find an internal difference, or one founded on some
h) trinsic denomination.
10. I take it for granted, furthermore, that every
created being is subject to change, — consequently,
the created Monad ; and likewise that this change
is continual in each.
11. It follows, from what we have now said,
that the natural changes of Monads proceed from
an internal principle, since no external cause can
influence the interior.
12. But, besides the principle of change, there
must also be a detail of changes, embracing, so
to speak, the specification and the variety of the
simple substances.
13. This detail must invofve multitude in unity
248 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
or in simplicit}^ : for as all natural changes proceed
by degrees, something changes and something
remains; and consequently there must be in the
simple substance a plurality of affections and
relations, although there are no parts.
14. This shifting state, which involves and re-
presents multitude in unity, or in the simple
substance, is nothing else than what we call Per-
ception, which must be carefully distinguished from
apperception.) or consciousness, as will appear in
the sequel. Here it is that the Cartesians have
especially failed, making no account of those per-
ceptions of which we are not conscious. It is this
that has led them to suppose that spirits are the
only Monads, and that there are no souls of brutes
or other Entelecliies. It is owing to this that they
have vulgarly confounded protracted torpor with
actual death, and have fallen in with the scholastic
prejudice, which believes in souls entirely separate.
Hence, also, ill-affected minds have been confirmed
in the opinion that the soul is mortal.
15. The action of the internal principle which
causes the change, or the passage from one percep-
tion to another, may be called Appetition. It is
true, the desire cannot always completely attain to
every perception to which it tends, but it always
attains to something thereof, and arrives at new
perceptions.
THE MONADOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. 249
16. We experience in ourselves the fact of multi-
tude in the simple substance when we find that
the least thought of which we are conscious in-
cludes a variety in its object. Accordingly, all
who admit that the soul is a simple substance are
bound to admit this multitude in the Monad ; and
Mr. Bayle should not have found any difficulty in
this admission, as he has done in his Dictionary
(art. Rorarius).
17. Besides, it must be confessed that Percep-
tion and its consequences are inexplicable by me-
chanical causes ; that is to say, by figures and
motions. If we imagine a machine so constructed
as to produce thought, sensation, perception, we
may conceive it magnified — the same proportions
being preserved — to such an extent that one
might enter it like a mill. This being supposed,
we should find in it on inspection only pieces
which impel each other, but nothing which can
explain a perception. It is in the simple sub-
stance, therefore, — not in the compound, or in
machinery, — that we must look for that phenome-
non ; and in the simple substance we find nothing
else, — nothing, that is, but perceptions and their;
changes. Therein also, and therein only, consist'
all the internal acts of simple substances.
18. We might give the name of Entelechies to
all simple substances or created Monads, inasmuch
250 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
as there is in them a certain completeness (perfec-
tion), (^exovcro to eVreXe?). There is a sufficiency
(^avrdpKeia) which makes them the sources of their
own internal actions, and, as it were, incorporeal
automata.
19. If we choose to give the name of soul to all
that has perceptions and desires, in the general
sense which 1 have just indicated, all simple sub-
stances or created Monads may be called souls.
But as sentiment is something more tlian simple
perception, I am willing that the general name of
Monads and Entelechies shall suffice for those
simple substances which have nothing but percep-
tions, and that the term souls shall be confined to
those whose perceptions are more distinct, and
accompanied by memory.
20. For we experience in ourselves a state in
which we remember nothing, and have no distinct
perception, as when we are in a swoon, or in a pro-
found and dreamless sleep. In this state the soul
does not differ sensibly from a simple Monad ; but
since this state is not permanent, and since the soul
delivers herself from it, she is something more.
21. And it does not by any means follow, in that
case, that the simple substance is without percep-
tion, — that, indeed, is impossible, for the reasons
given above ; for it cannot perish, neither can it
subsist without affection of some kind, which is
THE MONADOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. 251
nothing else than its perception. But where there
is a great number of minute perceptions, and
where nothing is distinct, one is stunned, as Avhen
we turn round and round in continual succession
in the same direction ; whence arises a vertigo,
which may cause us to faint, and which prevents
us from distinguishing anything. And possibly
death may produce this state for a time in animals.
22. And as every present condition of a simple
substance is a natural consequence of its antece-
dent condition, so its present is big with its future.
23. Then as, on awaking from a state of stupor,
we become conscious of our perceptions, we must
have had perceptions, although unconscious of
them, immediately before awaking. For each per-
ception can have no other natural origin but an
antecedent perception, as every motion must be
derived from one which preceded it.
24. Thus it appears that if there were no distinc-
tion — no relief, so to speak — no enhanced flavor
in our perceptions, we should continue forever in a
state of stupor; and this is the condition of the
naked Monad.
25. And so we see that Nature has given to ani-
mals enhanced perceptions, by the care which she
has taken to furnish them with organs which col-
lect many rays of light and many undulations of
air, increasing their efficacy by their union. There
252 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
is something approaching to this in odor, in taste,
in touch, and perhaps in a multitude of other senses
of which we have no knowledge. I shall presently
explain how that which passes in the soul represents
that which takes place in the organs.
26. Memory gives to the soul a kind of consecu-
tive action which imitates reason, but must be dis-
tinguished from it. We observe that animals,
having a perception of something which strikes
them, and of which they have previously had a sim-
ilar perception, expect, through the representation
of their memory, the recurrence of that which was
associated with it in their previous perception,
and incline to the same feelings which they then
had. For example, when we show dogs the cane,
they remember the pain which it caused them, and
whine and run.
27. And the lively imagination which strikes
and excites them arises from the magnitude or
the multitude of their previous perceptions. For
often a powerful impression produces suddenly the
effect of long habit, or of moderate perceptions
often repeated.
28. In men, as in brutes, the consecutiveness of
their perceptions is due to the principle of memory,
— like empirics in medicine, who have only prac-
tice without theory. And we are mere empirics in
three fourths of our acts. For example, when we
THE MONADOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. 253
expect that the sun will rise to-morrow, we judge
so empirically, because it has always risen hitherto.
Only the astronomer judges by an act of reason.
29. But the cognition of necessary and eternal
truths is that which distinguishes us from mere
animals. It is tliis which gives us Reason and
Science, and raises us to the knowledge of our-
selves and of God ; and it is this in us which we
call a reasonable soul or spirit.
30. It is also by the cognition of necessary
truths, and by their abstractions, that we rise to
acts of reflection, which give us the idea of that
which calls itself " I," and which lead us to con-
sider that this or that is in us. And thus, while
thinking of ourselves, we think of Being, of sub-
stance, simple or compound, of the immaterial, and
of God himself. We conceive that that which in
us is limited, is in him without limit. And these
reflective acts furnish the principal objects of our
reasonings.
31. Our reasonings are founded on two great
principles, that of Contradiction^ by virtue of which
we judge that to be false which involves contradic-
tion, and that to be true which is opposed to, or
which contradicts, the false.
32. And that of the Sufficient Reason^ by virtue
of which we judge that no fact can be real or exis-
tent, no statement true, unless there be a sufficient
254 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
reason why it is thus, and not. otherwise, although
these reasons very often cannot be known to us.
33. There are also two sorts of truths — those of
reasoning and those of fact. Truths of reasoning
are necessary, and their opposite is impossible ;
those of fact are contingent, and their opposite is
possible. When a truth is necessary, we may dis-
cover the reason of it by analysis, resolving it into
simpler ideas and truths, until we arrive at those
which are ultimate.^
34. It is thus that mathematicians by analysis
reduce speculative theorems and practical canons
to definitions, axioms, and postulates.
35. And, finally, there are simple ideas, of which
no definition can be given ; there are also axioms
and postulates, — in one word, ultimate ^ ^:)?'mc/p?es,
which cannot and need not be proved. And these
are " Identical Propositions," of which the opposite
contains an express contradiction.
36. But there must also be a sufficient reason
for truths contingent or truths of fact, — that is,
for the series of things diffused through the uni-
verse of creatures, — or else the process of resolv-
ing into particular reasons might run into a detail
without bounds, on account of the immense variety
of the things of nature, and of the infinite division
of bodies. There is an infinity of figures and of
1 Primitifs.
THE MONADOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. 255
movements, present and past, which enter into the
efficient cause of my present writing ; and there is
an infinity of minute inclinations and dispositions
of my soul, present and past, which enter into the
final cause of it.
37. And as all this detail only involves other
anterior or more detailed contingencies, each one
of which again requires a similar analysis in order
to account for it, we have made no advance, and
the sufficient or final reason must be outside of
the series of this detail of contingencies,^ endless
as it may be.
38. And thus the final reason of things must
be found in a necessary Substance, in which the
detail of changes exists eminently as their source.
And this is that which we call God.
39. Now this Substance being a sufficient rea-
son of all this detail, which also is everywhere
linked together, they^e is hut one God,, and this
Crod suffices.
40. We may also conclude that this supreme
Substance, wdiich is Only ,2 Universal, and Neces-
sary, — having nothing outside of it which is inde-
pendent of if, and being a simple series of possible
beings, — must be incapable of limits, and must
contain as much of reality as is possible.
41. Whence it follows that God is perfect, per-
1 That is, accidental causes. 2 Unique.
1
256 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
fection being nothing but the magnitude of positive
reality taken exactly, setting aside the limits or
hounds in that whicli is limited. And there, where
there are no bounds, — that is to say, in God, —
perfection is absolutely infinite.
42. It follows, also, that the creatures have their
perfections from the influence of God ; but they
have their imperfections from their proper nature,
incapable of existing without bounds ; for it is by
this that they are distinguished from God.
43. It is true, moreover, that God is not only
the source of existences, but also of essences, so
far as real, or of that whicli is real in the possible ;
because the divine understanding is the region of
eternal truths, or of the ideas on which they de-
pend, and witliout him there would be nothing real
in the possibilities, and not only nothing existing,
but also nothing possible.
44. At the same time, if there be a reality in
the essences or possibilities, or in the eternal
truths, this reality must be founded in something
existing and actual, consequently in the existence
of the necessary Being, in whom essence includes
existence, or with whom it is sufficient to be pos-
sible in order to be actual.
45. Thus God alone (or the necessary Being)
possesses this privilege, that he must exist if pos-
sible ; and since nothing can hinder the possibility
THE MONADOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. 257
of that which inckides no bounds, no negation,
and consequently no contradiction, that alone is
sufficient to establish the existence of God a priori.
We have likewise proved it by the reality of eternal
truths. But we have also just proved it a posteriori
by showing that, since contingent beings exist,
they can have their ultimate and sufficient reason
only in some necessary Being, who contains the
reason of his existence in himself.
46. Nevertheless, we must not suppose, with
some, that eternal verities, being dependent upon
God, are arbitrary, and depend upon his will, as
Descartes, and afterwards M. Poiret, appear to have
conceived. This is true only of contingent truths,
the principle of which is fitness, or the choice of
the best; whereas necessary truths depend solely
on his understanding, and are its internal object.
47. Thus God alone is the primitive Unity, or
the simple original substance of which all the
created or derived Monads are the products ; and
they are generated, so to speak, by continual ful-
gurations of the Divinity, from moment to moment,
bounded by the receptivity of the creature, of whose
existence limitation is an essential condition.
48. In God is Power, which is the source of
all ; then Knowledge, which contains the detail of
Ideas ; and, finally, Will, which generates changes
or products according to the principle of optimism.
17
258 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
And this answers to what, in created Monads, con-
stitutes the subject or the basis, the perceptive and
the appetitive fa cult v. But in God these attributes
are absolutely infinite or perfect, and in the cre-
ated Monads or in the Entelechies (or j^erfectiha-
hiisy as Hermolaus Barbaras translates this word),
they are only imitations according to the measure
of their perfection.
49. The creature is said to act externally in so
far as it possesses perfection, and to suffer from
another (creature) so far as it is imperfect. So
we ascribe action to the Monad so far as it has
distinct perceptions, and passion so far as its
perceptions are confused.
50. And one creature is more perfect than an-
other in this : that we find in it that which serves
to account a jjriori for what passes in the other ;
and it is therefore said to act upon the other.
51. But in simple substances this is merely an
ideal influence of one Monad upon another, which
can pass into effect only by the intervention of
God, inasmuch as in the ideas of God one Monad
has a right to demand that God, in regulating the
rest from the commencement of things, shall have
regard to it; for since a created Monad can have
no physical influence on the interior of another,
it is only by this means that one can be dependent
on another.
THE MONADOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. 259
52. And hence it is that actions and passions
in creatures are mutual ; for God, comparing two
simple substances, finds reasons in each which
oblige him to accommodate the one to the other.
Consequently that which is active in one view is
passive in another, — active so far as what we
clearly discern in it serves to account for that
which takes place in another, and passive so far
as the reason of that which passes in it is found
in that which is clearly discerned in another.
53. Now as in the ideas of God there is an
infinity of possible worlds, and as only one can
exist, there must be a sufficient reason for the
choice of God, which determines him to one
rather than another.
54. And this reason can be no other than fit-
ness, derived from the different degrees of perfec- |
tion which these worlds contain, each possible ^
world having a claim to exist according to the
measure of perfection which it enfolds,
bb. And this is the cause of the existence of that
Best which the wisdom of God discerns, which his
goodness chooses, and his power effects.
56. And this connection, or this accommodation
of all created things to each, and of each to all,
implies in each simple substance relations which
express all the rest. Each, accordingly, is a liv-
ing and perpetual mirror of the universe.
260 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
57. And as the same city viewed from different
sides appears quite different, and is perspectively
multiplied, so, in the infinite multitude of simple
substances, there are given, as it were, so many
different worlds, which yet are only the perspec-
tives of a single one, according to the different
points of view of each Monad.
58. And this is the way to obtain the greatest
possible variety with the greatest possible order, —
that is to say, the way to obtain the greatest pos-
sible perfection.
59. Thus this hypothesis (which I may venture
to pronounce demonstrated) is the only one which
properly exhibits the greatness of God. And this
Mr. Bayle acknowledges when in his Dictionary
(art. Borarius) he objects to it. He is even dis-
posed to think that I attribute too much to God,
that I ascribe to him impossibilities ; but he can
allege no reason for the impossibility of this uni-
versal harmony, by which each substance expresses
exactly the perfections of all the rest through its
relations with them.
60. We see, moreover, in that which I have just
stated, the a priori reasons why things could not
be other than they are. God, in ordering the
whole, has respect to each part, and specifically to
each Monad, whose nature being representative, is
by nothing restrained from representing the whole
THE MONADOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. 261
of things ; although, it is true, this representation
must needs be confused, as it regards the detail of
the universe, and can be distinct only in relation to
a small part of tilings, that is, in relation to those
which are nearest, or w hose relations to any given
Monad are greatest. Otherwise each Monad would
be a divinity. The Monads are limited, not in the
object, but in the mode of their knowledge of the
object. They all tend confusedly to the infinite, to
the whole ; but they are limited and distinguished
by the degrees of distinctness in their perceptions.
61. And compounds symbolize in this with sim-
ples. For since the world is a plenum., and all
matter connected ; and as in a ^jlenum every move-
ment has some effect on distant bodies, in propor-
tion to their distance, so that each body is affected
not only by those in actual contact with it, and
feels in some way all that happens to them, but
also through their means is affected by others in
contact with those by which it is immediately
touched, — it follows that this communication ex-
tends to any distance. Consequently, eacli body
feels all that passes in the universe, so that he who
sees all, may read in each that which passes every-
where else, and even that which has been and
shall be, discerning in the present that which is
removed in time as well as in space. Ilvfiiriwiec
Traz/ra, says Hippocrates. But each soul can read
262 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
in itself only that which is distinctly represented in
it. It cannot unfold its laws at once, for they
reach into the infinite.
62. Thus, though every created Monad represents
the entire universe, it represents more distinctly
the particular body to which it belongs, and whose
Entelechy it is ; and as this body expresses the
entire universe, through the connection of all mat-
ter in a plenum, the soul represents also the entire
universe in representing that body which especially
belongs to it.
63. The body belonging to a Monad, which is its
Entelecliy or soul, constitutes, with its Entelechy,
what may be termed a living (thing), and, with
its soul, what may be called an animal. And the
body of a living being or of an animal is always
organic; for every Monad, being a mirror of the
universe, according to its fashion, and the universe
being arranged with perfect order, there must be
the same order in the representative, — that is, in
the perceptions of the soul, and consequently of the
body according to which the universe is represented
in it.
64. Thus each organic living body is a species of
divine machine, or a natural automaton, infinitely
surpassing all artificial automata. A machine
made by human art is not a machine in all its
parts. For example, the tooth of a brass wheel
THE MONADOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. 263
has parts or fragments which are not artificial to
us ; they have nothing which marks the machine
in their relation to the use for which the Avheel is
designed ; but natural machines — that is, living
bodies — are still machines in their minutest parts,
ad infinitum. This makes the difference between
nature and art ; that is to say, between the divine
art and ours.
Qb. And the Author of Nature was able to
exercise this divine and infinitely wonderful art,
inasmuch as every portion of nature is not only
infinitely divisible, as the ancients knew, but is
actually subdivided without end ; each part into
parts, of which each has its own movement.
Otherwise it would be impossible that each por-
tion of matter should express the universe.
QQ. Whence it appears that there is a world of
creatures, of living (things), of animals, of En-
telechies, of souls, in the minutest portion of
matter.
67. Every particle of matter may be conceived
as a garden of plants or as a pond full of fishes.
But each branch of each plant, each member of
each animal, each drop of their humors, is in
turn another such garden or pond.
68. And although the earth and the air embraced
between the plants in the garden, or the water
between the fishes of the pond, are not themselves
264 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
plant or fish, they nevertlieless contain such, but
mostly too minute for our perception.
69. So there is no uncultured spot, no barren-
ness, no death in the universe — no chaos, no con-
fusion, except in appearance, as it might seem in
a pond at a distance, in which one should see a
confused motion and swarming, so to speak, of the
fishes of the pond, without distinguishing the fishes
themselves.
70. We see, then, that each living body has a
governing Entelechy, which in animals is the soul
of the animal. But the members of this living
body are full of other living bodies, — plants, ani-
mals, — each of which has its Entelechy, or regent
soul.
71. We must not, however, suppose — as some
who misapprehended my thought have done — that
each soul has a mass or portion of matter proper
to itself, or forever united to it, and that it conse-
quently possesses other inferior living existences,
destined forever to its service. For all bodies are
in a perpetual flux, like rivers ; their particles are
continually coming and going.
72. Thus the soul does not change its body ex-
cept by degrees. It is never deprived at once of
all its organs. There are often metamorphoses in
animals, but never metempsychosis, — no transmi-
gration of souls. Neither are there souls entirely
THE MONADOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. 265
separated (from bodies), nor genii without bodies.
God alone is wholly without body.
73. For which reason, also, there is never com-
plete generation nor perfect death, — strictly con-
sidered, — consisting in the separation of the soul.
That which we call generation is development
and accretion ; and that which we call death is
envelopment and diminution.
74. Philosophers have been much troubled about
the origin of forms, of Entelechies, or souls. But
at the present day, when by accurate investigations
of plants, insects, and animals, they have become
aware that the organic bodies of nature are never
prbduced from chaos or from putrefaction, but
always from seed, in which undoubtedly there had
hQQu d, preformation, — it has been inferred that not
only the organic body existed in that seed before
conception, but also a soul in that body, — in one
word, the animal itself, — and that, by the act of
conception, this animal is merely disposed to a
grand transformation, to become an animal of
another species. We even see something approach-
ing this outside of generation, as when worms be-
come flies, or when caterpillars become butterflies.
75. Those animals of which some are advanced
to a higher grade by means of conception, may be
called spermatic; but those among them which
remain in their kind — that is to say, the greater
266 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS,
portion — are born, multiply, and are destroyed,
like the larger animals, and only a small num-
ber of the elect among them pass to a grander
theatre.
76. But this is only half the truth. I have con-
cluded that if the animal does not begin to be in
the order of nature, it also does not cease to be
in the order of nature, and that not only there is
no generation, but no entire destruction, — no death,
strictly considered. And these a 2?osteriori conclu-
sions, drawn from experience, accord perfectly with
my principles deduced a priori, as stated above.
77. Tlius we may say, not only that the soul
(mirror of an indestructible universe) is inde-
structible, but also the animal itself, although its
machine may often perish in part, and put off or
put on organic spoils.
78. These principles have furnished me with a
natural explanation of the union, or rather the con-
formity, between the soul and the organized body.
The soul follows its proper laws, and the body
likewise follows those which are proper to it, and
they meet in virtue of the pre-established harmony
which exists between all substances, as representa-
tions of one and the same universe.
79. Souls act according to the laws of final
causes, by appetitions, means and ends ; bodies act
according to the laws of efficient causes, or the
THE MONADOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. 267
laws of motion. And the two kingdoms, that of
efficient causes and that of final causes, harmonize
with each other.
80. Descartes perceived that souls communicate
no force to bodies, because the quantity of force
in matter is always the same. Nevertheless, he
believed that souls might change the direction of
bodies. But this was because the world was at
that time ignorant of the law of nature which
requires the conservation of the same total direction
in matter. Had he known this, he would have hit
upon my system of pre-established harmony.
81. According to this system, bodies act as if
there were no souls, and souls act as if there were
no bodies ; and yet both act as though the one
influenced the other.
82. As to spirits, or rational souls, although I
find that at bottom the same principle which I have
stated — namely, that animals and souls begin
with the world and end only with the world —
holds with regard to all animals and living things,
yet there is this peculiarity in rational animals,
that although their spermatic animacules, as such,
have only ordinary or sensitive souls, yet as soon as
those of them which are elected.^ so to speak, arrive
by the act of conception at human nature, their
sensitive souls are elevated to the rank of reason
and to the prerogative of spirits.
268 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
83. Among other differences wliicli distinguish
spirits from ordinary souls, some of which have
already been indicated, there is also this : that souls;
in general are living mirrors or images of the uni-
verse of creatures ; but spirits are, furthermore,
images of Divinity itself, or of the Author of
Nature, capable of cognizing the system of the
universe, and of imitating something of it by archi-
tectonic experiments, each spirit being, as it were,
a little divinity in its own department.
84. Hence spirits are able to enter into a kind
of fellowship with God. In their view he is not
merely what an inventor is to his machine (as God
is in relation to other creatures), but also what a
prince is to his subjects, and even what a father
is to his children.
85. Whence it is easy to conclude that tlie as-
sembly of all spirits must constitute the City of
God, — that is to say, the most perfect state pos-
sible, under the most perfect of monarchs.
86. This City of God, this truly universal mon-
archy, is a moral world within the natural ; and it
is the most exalted and the most divine among
the works of God. It is in this that the glory
of God most truly consists, which glory would be
wanting if his greatness and his goodness were
not recognized and admired by spirits. It is in
relation to this Divine City that he possesses, prop-
THE MONADOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. 269
erly speaking, the attribute of goodness, whereas his
wisdom and his power are everywhere manifest.
87. As we have established above, a perfect har-
mony between the two natural kingdoms, — the one
of efficient causes, the other of final causes, — so it
behooves us to notice here also a still further har-
mony between the physical kingdom of nature and
the moral kingdom of grace, — that is to say,
between God considered as the architect of the
machine of the universe, and God considered as
monarch of the divine City of Spirits.
88. This harmony makes all things conduce to
grace by natural methods. This globe, for exam-
ple, must be destroyed and repaired by natural
means, at such seasons as the government of spirits
may require, for the chastisement of some and the
recompense of others.
89. We may say, furthermore, that God as arch-
itect contains entirely God as legislator, and that
accordingly sins must carry their punishment with
them in the order of nature, by virtue even of the
mechanical structure of things, and that good
deeds in like manner will bring their recompense,
through their connection with bodies, although this
cannot, and ought not always to, take place on the
spot.
90. Finally, under this perfect government there
will be no good deed without its recompense, and
270 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
no evil deed without its punishment ; and all must
redound to the advantage of the good — that is to
say, of those who are not malecontents — in this
great commonwealth, who confide in Providence
after having done their duty, and who worthily
love and imitate the Author of all good, pleasing
themselves with the contemplation of his perfec-
tions, following the nature of pure and genuine
Love, which makes us blest in the happiness of the
loved. In this spirit, the wise and good labor for
that which appears to be conformed to the divine
will, presumptive or antecedent, contented the
while with all that God brings to pass by his secret
will, consequent and decisive, — knowing that if
we were sufficiently acquainted with the order of
the universe we should find that it surpasses all
the wishes of the wisest, and that it could not be
made better than it is, not only for all in general,
but for ourselves in particular, if we are attached,
as is fitting, to the Author of All, not only as the
architect and efficient cause of our being, but also
as our master and the final cause, who should be
the whole aim of our volition, and who alone can
make us blest.
IMMANUEL KANT. 271
IMMANUEL KANT.
nr^HE number is small of writers in any line,
notably in that of metapliysic, of whom it
can be said that the intellectual status of their
nation and mankind would be other than it is, had
they never written. In this small number we must
reckon Kant, who, with a mind incomparably more
robust, has been to the nineteenth century what
Descartes was to the seventeenth, and what Locke
was to the eighteenth.
A tradition wdiich, though vouched by no con-
temporary documents, has been commonly received,
ascribes to Kant a Scotch descent. The professor
is said to have been the first Avho altered the
spelling of the name from C to K. Those who
are curious in the matter of national traits may
please themselves with finding the source of the
critical philosophy in the dialectic proclivities
of the Scottish blood, as witnessed in Duns, the
subtlest of the schoolmeii, and Hume, the subtlest
of sceptics.
Immanuel Kant was born at Konigsberg, a
university city in East Prussia, on April 22, 1724.
272 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. '
Pious parents — the father a saddler by trade —
intended their boy for the service of the Church.
With this destination in view he was sent to the
Collegium Fridericianum, a preparatory school, and
afterwards matriculated as a student of theology
in the university. He is said to have preached
a few times in the churches of the neighboring
villages ; but an early developed habit of inde-
pendent thought and a craving for intellectual
freedom repudiated the mental and ecclesiastical
conditions of the clerical office as he found it.
The pietism wliich tlien prevailed, and in the spirit
and fashion of whicli he had been educated, both
at home and at school, — pietism as distinguished
from piety, — found no response in his nature ; and
when the alternative presented itself of the church
and spiritual bondage on the one hand, or a secu-
lar calling with freedom of thought on the other,
he could not hesitate between the two. The stern
conscientiousness which that very pietism and his
strict bringing up had nurtured in him, sanctioned
the choice of the secular way. He devoted himself
to the business of teaching and of authorship. He
was thoroughly equipped and furnished for his
work. The years of preparation in school and
university had been profitably spent. In the Frid-
ericianum he had not only acquired a perfect mas-
tery of the Latin, in which several of his treatises
IMMANUEL KANT. 273
are written, but a thorough acquaintance with the
classics, whom he loves to quote. At the univer-
sity he learned all that was then known in mathe-
matics and physics. Like all great metaphysicians,
he was a great mathematician as well.
The height of his ambition was to fill a profes-
sor^s chair in the university of his native city.
But many years elapsed before this dream was
fulfilled. Nine of them were spent in the humble
office of private tutor in different families, the last
of which, that of Count Kayserling, introduced him
to the best society in Konigsberg. In 1755 he was
able to defray the expense of the degree of Magis-
ter Philosophiag, wliich included the privilege of
lecturing in the philosophical department of the
university, and the chance of promotion whenever
a vacant professorship should offer. He lectured
first on mathematics and physics, then on logic and
metaphysic, then on moral philosophy, on natural
theology, and physical geography. His lectures,
thanks to a mind well stored with various knowl-
edge, and a wide intellectual horizon, were popu-
lar, in spite of the pimy figure and feeble voice
of the lecturer. They were largely attended by
hearers outside of the academic pale. Russian
officers quartered in Konigsberg during the Seven
Years' War manifested a special interest in the
course on physical geography.
18
274 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
Naturally shy, and lecturing without notes, he
was apt to be embarrassed when anything unusual
occurred. A peculiar costume in one of the assem-
bly would put him out. His custom was to fix his
eye on some individual who sat near, and to speak
as if addressing him alone. On one occasion, it is
said, the individual addressed chanced to have a
button wanting on his coat ; the lecturer's eye was
fascinated by the hiatus : and tliis trivial circum-
stance so confused him that with difficulty he
struggled through the hour.
The first professorship which fell vacant was
awarded to an elder magister. It was precisely
the one which Kant had coveted, the professorship
of logic and metaphysic. The next vacancy Avhich
occurred was that of professor of poetry. It was
offered to Kant, with but slight regard, it would
seem, to any internal vocation on the part of the
nominee. Had nothing more been required than
to lecture on the nature, history, and laws of poe-
try, a fitter candidate could not have been found.
But the office involved the necessity of writing
poems to order, occasional poems on the birthdays
of the royal family, and other events of the. year,
which Kant conceived to be somewhat out of the
line of his calling. He ^^as more at home with
the ancient poets than with the modern. Among
the latter his favorites were Haller, whose scientific
IMMANUEL KANT. 275
attainments promised sound thought, if nothing
else, and Pope, whose principal poem bore in its
title a recommendation to the philosophic essay-
ist. At length, in 1770, the incumbent of the
coveted professorship was transferred to another,
and Kant was called to the vacant place, with
a salary of four hundred thaler. ^ At the age
of forty-six, having already declined invitations,
with ampler emoluments, from other universities,
in favor of his native city, he took the chair of
logic and metaphysic in the university of Konigs-
berg, and held it until his death, in 1804, at the
age of eighty.
Of so remarkable a man, — one of the great-
est of German births, confessedly the foremost
thinker of modern time, — one desires to know
something of the person and manner of being, as
vouched by cotemporary witnesses.
A puny figure, scarce five feet high, thin and
meagre to the last degree, an ample forehead, an
elegantly shaped nose, well-opened, meditative eyes,
whose expression was contradicted by thick lips
suggesting delight in the pleasures of the table,
composed the exterior semblance of this king of
men. In the Walhalla at Regensburg his bust
1 This was afterwards increasea to six hundred and twenty ;
and out of tliis small income, plus the profits of his works, he
managed to save 21,530 thaler for his heirs.
21b MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
appeared to me on a cursory view the most insig-
niricant in that august assembly of German wor-
thies, to none of whom was he second in majesty
of mind.
Stronger in no man was the sense of personal
independence. Not to forfeit that independence by
})ecuniary obligation, through the poverty and amid
the struggles of early manhood, was a problem
which demanded heroic self-denial. Kant endured
the ordeal with stern resolution, never allowing
himself an unnecessary expenditure, never accept-
ing a pecuniary favor, and never owing a penny.
When the pinch of poverty appeared in his gar-
ments, his friends would gladly have replenished
his wardrobe ; but he repelled the offer, and con-
tinued to wear his threadbare coat until his own
earnings could procure him a new one. He
exemplified the practical philosophy enjoined in
Emerson's couplet : —
" The sources wouldst thou stop of every ill,
Pay every debt as if God brought the bill."
Next to keeping out of debt, and partly in order
to that, was the pressing obligation to keep himself
in working order. So fragile a body required the
uttermost care to prevent its becoming a helpless
incumbrance instead of a serviceable tool. This
he clearly discerned in early life, and governed
himseK accordingly. With some knowledge of
IMMANUEL KANT. 277
anatomy, he studied his physical constitution as a
pathological problem, and erected on that study
a system of hygiene whose main points were to
strengthen what was weak by temperance and ex-
ercise, and to ignore what was incurable. A nar-
row chest induced a sense of oppression at the
heart wliich no mechanical appliance would relieve,
and which tended to melancholy and hypochondria.
Since the cause could not be removed, the effect
must be guarded against ; and this he accomplished
by foi-ce of will, by steadfastly refusing to dwell
on it, to recognize it in his thought. He wrote a
treatise, suggested and illustrated by his own expe-
rience, on the power of the mind by mere determi-
nation of the will to master morbid feelings. In
that essay he relates how by the exercise of his
will he overcame a chronic cougli of long standing,
how he forced himself to breathe through the nose,
how he broke up a habit of wakefulness, and com-
pelled sleep by compulsory adjournment of mental
action. There was never perhaps a more remark-
able instance of a body preserved by the mind,
of life prolonged by will. With such a physique a
weak-minded or less intellectual man would have
died before the age of thirty ; Kant kept himself
living to the age of eighty.
Uniformity of life was one, and a very essential,
factor in this result. Mechanically regular in all
278 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
his habits, he rose every morning, winter and sum-
mer, at five, and went to bed at ten. The time
from five to seven was spent in stndy, — the cup of
coffee on which he broke his fast not interrupting
his work. From seven to nine he lectured, from
nine to one he wrote. At one he dined ; if possi-
ble, always with invited guests. The dinner was
no hasty repast, but a well-considered, deliberate
affair, occupying never less than two hours. This
was his season of recreation, when he " gave to
pleasure all his mighty mind." His varied infor-
mation, his wealth of anecdote, his inexhaustible
humor, were called into play for his own refresh-
ment and the entertainment of his guests.
That he was a bachelor goes without saying.
Such a mind must be free from domestic cares. It
ought, however, to be said that, as a brother, he
was a true and generous friend to his sisters, aiding
them with counsel and money according to their
need. Punctually at four o'clock in the summer,
and half-past three in the winter, he donned his
cocked hat, girded on his sword, the appendage then
of tlie gentleman, seized his rattan, and started for
a walk in the suburbs, in a path still named for
him " the philosopher's walk." It was said that
the burghers on the route set their timepieces by
him as he passed. An hour was spent in walk-
ing up and down the Mall, in which he avoided
IMMANUEL KANT. 279
companionship, in order that the full benefit of the
exercise might lose nothing by the tax of conver-
sation. The walk being ended, the time -which
remained until candle-light was spent in social
converse or in meditation, and then, until bed-
time, in reading and preparation for the next day's
lectures.
This programme he maintained for thirty years,
until advanced age necessitated abridgment of the
hours of labor. Any break in this routine lie felt
as a calamity. On one occasion, returning from
the daily wallv, he was met by a nobleman of
his acquaintance driving a smart span of horses,
and was courteously invited to take a seat in
his phaeton. Obeying a momentary impulse of
friendly acquiescence, the philosopher complied ;
and repented too late, when the spirited conduct
of the beasts, and wliat seemed to him their exor-
bitant speed, suggested to his inexperience visions
of a broken neck and an end of philosophizing.
The drive was a long one ; a friend residing at a
distance from the city had to be visited ; and when
at length our professor was set down, late in the
evening, at his own door, thoroughly demoralized
and vexed with himself, he hastened to inscribe for
future guidance, in his diary, as a life-maxim, never
to mount a vehicle which he had not himself hired,
and of which he had not the control. This rule,
280 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
once established, no power on earth could tempt
liim to violate.
Perfect quiet he found to be essential to his
mental operations ; no train of thought could be
carried on without it. Noises of all kinds were an
abomination to him ; he repeatedly changed his
lodgings to escape them. In one street, along the
Pregel, it was the noise of the marine. The " yo-
heave-oh " of the seamen, however it might speed
their craft, prevented his from getting fairly under
way. In his next settlement a neighbor's cock
was addicted to much crowing. Instant in season
and out of season, the bird defied him. He offered
to purchase it at any price ; but the owner would
not part with it, and Kant was obliged to leave.
He finally purchased a small tenement in the
neighborhood of the Castle, away from the din of
the city ; and there he thought himself safe. But
the city jail was inconveniently near ; and when the
windows were open, the singing of psalms, in which
the prisoners were encouraged to engage for their
edification, aroused in the solitary student quite
other feelings than those which dictated the sacred
melodies. In a letter to his friend the burgo-
master, who had ex officio the oversight of such
institutions, he protested against these stentorian
devotions, in which he detected an unsanctified
purpose, and expressed his belief that the souls
IMMANUEL KANT. 281
of the convicts would take no detriment if their
voices were modulated to the customary pitch with
which religious- households in the city conducted
their spiritual exercises. The nuisance was abated ;
but another annoyance, of the opposite sort, he had
to suffer, from bands of music which played for
occasional parties in the neighborhood. It was
this experience, perhaps, that led him to charac-
terize music as an " obtrusive art." Any change
in his surroundings acted with disturbing force on
his thoughts. In his evening meditations he was
helped by fixing his eye on some stationary object ;
it prevented the wanderhig of the mind. A cer-
tain tower, the Lobenicht tower, visible from his
study window, had served him in this capacity.
The distance was exactly suited to his eye, and he
often spoke with satisfaction of the aid he had
found in it ; but the poplars in his neighbor's yard
grew, and shut out the friendly object. For want
of it his ratiocination halted ; and who can say
what precious conclusions the world would have
lost, had not his neighbor kindly consented to lop
the tall trees in the interest of philosophy ?
It was not from any want of social sympathy
that he lived a bachelor, nor from any aversion to
women, whose conversation he enjoyed so long as
they abstained from learned topics ; but simply be-
cause there seemed to be no jdace in his life-plan
282 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
where a wife would fit. In one of his table-talks,
when the conversation turned on the duties of
women, Kant expressed his higli estimate of femi-
nine influence, and spoke of virtues to be cultivated
and faults to be avoided. " A woman," he said,
" should be like the church clock, she should have
an open countenance, and be punctual in her habits ;
but, on the other hand, she should not, like the
church clock, tell the public all she knows." Again,
" she should be like the snail, domestic ; but not like
the snail, carry all her property on her back."
A well-meaning, pragmatical clergyman of his
acquaintance urged him to marry, and wrote for
his special edification a treatise setting forth the
propriety of wedlock as being, according to Scrip-
ture, an honorable estate, and well pleasing in the
sight of God. Kant thanked him civilly for his
advice, and remained celibate. He had turned the
matter over in his thoughts. There was one occa-
sion when he seriously debated with himself the
question of the dual economy. There came to
Konigsberg, on a visit to her friends, a young and
comely widow, who manifested a special pleasure
in his society, and to whom he was strongly at-
tracted. But a question of conscience gave him
pause. Was he justified, with his limited means,
in undertaking the pecuniary burden of wedlock ?
And while he was measuring his income with the
IMMANUEL KANT. 283
probable expense of a family, tbe widow gave her-
self, for better or worse, to a less deliberate wooer.
But Kant was the best of friends, helpful with purse
as well as counsel, where help was needed.
One of his intimates was an Englishman by the
name of Green. Their first encounter was ill-
omened, and threatened life-long enmity. It was
at the breaking out of the American War of Inde-
pendence. Even in that remote corner of Ger-
many our revolt was the topic of the day. Kant
embraced with ardor the American side ; and on
one occasion, at a party where Green, then un-
known to him, was present, he was defending with
great animation the action of the Colonies, when
the Englishman started up and declared in a tow-
ering passion that he considered the gentleman's
remarks as an insult to his country, and conse-
quently to himself as the representative of that
country, for which he demanded satisfaction. The
philosopher kept his temper; and, disclaiming any
disrespect to Eugland, argued the question on gen-
eral principles with such calmness and good sense,
and such thorough mastery of the case, that Green
was ashamed of his heat, and begged Kant's par-
don. At parting they shook hands, and desired
each other's nearer acquaintance. The acquain-
tance soon ripened into close friendship, wliich
lasted through life. Green was a notable char-
284 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
acter, a man after Kant's own heart. To the
sturdy independence and self-poise of an English-
man he seems to have united an exceptional
intelligence. It is said that Kant consulted him
even on questions of philosophy, and submitted his
works to his friend before sending them to the
press. A common friend of the two was the bank-
director Ruffmann ; and associated with these was
a fourth, who was also an Englishman, or rather
a Scotchman, Motherby. The four were in the
habit of spending some portion of their afternoons
together at the house of Green. Jachmann, one of
Kant's biographers, gives an amusing account of
these meetings. First, Kant, returning from his
daily walk, would enter Green's room, and, finding
him asleep in his easy chair, would sit down by his
side and begin to brood over some metaphysical
problem, until he also fell asleep. Then came Ruff-
maun, and seeing the situation, composed himself
in like manner for an afternoon nap ; until, finally,
Mot]ierl)y, according to appointment, joined the trio
and waked them up ; after which they engaged in
conversation until seven. The hour of separation
was so punctually observed that dwellers on the
street would say : ^' It is seven o'clock ; Professor
Kant has just come from Green's ! "
I have spoken of Kant as he was in his prime.
The habits of his manhood were greatly modified
IMMANUEL KANT. 285
in his latter years by the creeping infirmities of
age. A rigorous hygiene could bring him to his
eightieth birthday ; but no hygiene could stave off
the labor and trouble which the Hebrew moralist
assigns to the eighth decade of our mortality. As
life drew near to its close, the hours of rest were
prolonged, the hours of labor were abridged. For
some time before his death he had been forced to
forego his customary recreations as well as his
formal tasks. His eyesight failed him, one eye
having already lost its speculation in his better
days. His limbs refused their office ; he fell in
w^alking, and he fell when he stood. Of his last
year the greater portion w^as spent in bed.
One satisfaction alone, one luxury, remained to
him, and that he indulged without stint, — the
luxury of kindness. The savings from his annual
income, to wdiich, after he became famous, were
added the profits of his works, had in the course of
years, under the skilful handling of his financial
friend, Green, amounted to what in those days, for
a scholar especially, was a handsome property. Of
this he gave yearly a sum nearly equal to the
Avhole of his stipend in charity. Next to his poor
relatives, the persons assisted by him were chiefly
indigent students and families, once comfortable,
whom mischance had deprived of the means of
support. One of the last sayings recorded of him
286 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
is that he would be grateful to any one who would
put liuTi in the way of doing a kind deed.
With the beginning of February, 1804, his vital-
ity declined with so rapid an ebb that friends were
daily expecting to hear of his decease ; yet when,
on the 12th of that montli, the final event was
announced, the community through all its ranks
experienced a shock such as probably no other
death had caused within the memory of men then
living. Kant was the cherished jewel of the city
and the land.
" It seemed beyond tlie common lawful sway
Of death and nature o'er our kind,
That such a one as he sliould pass away,
And aught be left behind."
Reverent thousands flocked to his obsequies ; his
knell was rung from every tower ; students, the
pupils of his pupils, formed a guard of honor
around his bier. The University mourned her
greatest son, and in due season called her chil-
dren together from far and near to celebrate his
praise.
I have said that Kant was made Professor of
Logic and Metaphysic in 17T0, at the age of forty-
six. Bevond the walls of Koni2:sberQ^ he was but
little known until, in 1781, he gave to the world
the work which drew to him the regards of the
IMMANUEL KANT. 287
learned in all the dominions of Germany. Even
of this, the most important of his works, the
*' Kritik dor rcincn Vernunft," the renown was
not a rapid growth. Important as it proved to
be in the end, it may almost be said to have been
stillborn. Though known to a few who knew
the author from his previous writings, nine years
elapsed before it conquered for itself a wide repute.
In Germany, more perhaps than in any other
country, the universities decide the claims and
fortunes of philosophic writings, and the uni-
versities were long in discovering the immense
signilicance of this audacious work ; but when
discovered, the intelligence spread with electric
rapidity, until all the universities were aglow with
it, and adopted the '' Kritik " as the basis or the
text of their philosophic teaching. And — what
is remarkable — the Catholic universities were no
whit behind, but in many cases led the Protestant
in this reform. Wiirzburg, Mainz, Heidelberg, In-
goldstadt, Erfurt, Bamberg, vied with Halle, Jena,
Erlangen, Leipsic, Gottingen, Marburg, and Gies-
sen. And so it came to pass that, when verging
on threescore and ten, Kant found himself sud-
denly raised from merely local honors to the
pinnacle of national fame.
I shall not undertake a complete exposition of
the Kantian philosophy, nor presume to pass judg-
288 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
meiit upon it. The most I can do is to indicate its
starting-point and some of its fundamental posi-
tions. The title " Critical Philosophy," embracing
" Kritik der reinen Vernunft," " Kritik der prak-
tischen Vernunft," and " Kritik der Urtheilskraft/'
must be interpreted — especially as regards the
first of these treatises — with reference to the so-
called dogmatic philosophy of Wolff, which had
possession of the field when Kant began his labors,
and in part also to the scepticism of Hume, which
appeared as the legitimate outcome of the sensuous
philosophy of Locke.
Christian Wolff, born 1679, was the first German
philosopher who wrote in the German language,
and thereby secured to himself a constituency
beyond the circle of professional scholars. He
made philosophy a popular interest, and his own
philosophy the accepted doctrine of his time.
Erdmann calls him the creator of German phil-
osophical diction. In Halle, where he occupied a
chair in the university, and where the novelty of
philosophy in German drew large audiences, tlie
bigotry of the theological faculty, and their influ-
ence with the civil authority, procured, in 1723, an
edict from Frederick William, then king of Prus-
sia, by which Wolff was not only deposed from
office, but commanded, on pain of the gallows, to
leave the country within forty-eight hours. He did
IMMANUEL KANT. 289
not wait the expiration of that term, but fled imme-
diately to Marburg, in Hesse-Cassel, seat of the
earliest Protestant university, to which he had
previously received a call, and where the persistent
machinations of his orthodox persecutors were
defeated by a more liberal and enlightened govern-
ment. Meanwhile in Prussia his works were con-
fiscated ; imprisonment for life decreed for all who
should harbor them. With the accession of Fred-
erick II. religious bigotry lost the support of the
temporal power, the edict of banishment was re-
voked, and Wolff returned to Halle, where, rein-
stated in his former professorship, he spent the
remainder of his days ; but where, it is said, he did
not recover his former popularity, having nothing
new to offer, and being unable to compete with
younger talent. The interest in him ceased with
the persecution of his enemies ; and when a com-
mission, appointed for the purpose, had pronounced
his philosophy safe, it somehow lost its attraction
for the curious youth of the university.
Wolff's system is eclectic, based mainly on that
of Leibniz, advancing nothing new in the way of
first principles, but only modifying the doctrines of
his predecessors. It was termed the '' dogmatic
philosophy," as building, on certain assumed pre-
mises, a system of doctrine concerning all topics
of philosophic inquiry, correctly enough reasoned.
19
290 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
were only the foundations secure. Kant, in the In-
troduction to the second edition of tlie " Kritik der
reinen Ycrnunft," praises his method, calls hira the
greatest of dogmatic philosophers, and says he has
shown us by his procedure what is the true, safe
course of metaphysic, had it only occurred to him
to first prepare the ground by critical examination
of the organ of metaphysic, that is, of pure reason
itself. This defect of the dogmatic philosophy it is
the aim of the critical philosophy to supply.
On the other hand, Hume, antipodal to Wolff,
— Hume, the arch-sceptic, assuming, after Locke,
tliat all our conclusions, the whole body of our
knowledge, is directly or indirectly the product of
the senses, had called in question the validity of
that knowledge, by showing that our inferences
from sensuous experience rest solely on mental
habit, and not on demonstration or any ground of
pure reason ; that we have no valid reason for sup-
posing that the same antecedents will always be
followed by the same results, or like conditions
by like consequences, according to an assumed
law of cause and effect. Because the sun has risen
hitherto at stated intervals, we have no reason for
supposing that therefore it will rise to-morrow, or
that because heavy bodies, unsupported, have used
to fall to the ground, they will therefore continue
to do so. The belief in such continuance may
IMMANUEL KANT. 291
answer all practical purposes, but it furnishes no
basis of metaplij^sical science. We have no right
to speak of causation ; all we know is succession of
events. This scepticism, which struck at the root
of all knowledge, Kant endeavored to meet by con-
troverting the fundamental position of Locke and
his followers as to the origin of our ideas. He
impugned the genetic order affirmed by that phil-
osophy. So far from being true that mental per-
ceptions are derived from sensuous experience, he
maintained, on the contrary, that sensuous experi-
ence is conditioned by the mind. Hume had said
that our ideas are copies of sensible impressions.
Kant said. No ! Sensible impressions themselves
are the product of ideas, that is, of forms of
thought inherent in the mind. It has hitherto
been assumed that cognition must conform to its
objects ; but all attempts to determine anything
concerning them a priori by means of concepts
have been nullified by this presumption. Let us
therefore see whether in metaphysical problems
we may not succeed better by assuming that
objects conform to our cognitions.
Objects conform to our cognitions ? What does
that mean ? It means that our cognition deter-
mines the objects we perceive ; in other words,
determines our perceptions. If our cognitions were
different, the supposed objects would be different.
292 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
On what, then, does cognition depend ? It depends
on the constitution of the mind. If we see things
thus or thus, it is because our minds are thus or
thus constituted, with such and such laws and
modes of action. The vulgar notion is that our
senses by their immediate action give us the ob-
jects we perceive, precisely as we perceive them ;
that is found to be an error. The senses give us
no perceptions, but only sensations, simple or com-
plex. How, then, do we get our perceptions of an
external world ? The understanding manipulates,
if I may use the term in this connection, the given
sensations according to certain ideas, laws, and
modes of working inherent in its constitution,
which Kant calls Categories ; of which there are
tAvelve. By these it distinguishes, defines, mea-
sures, arranges, and so creates the perceptions,
which are vulgarly supposed to be transcripts of
external objects, but which, in fact, are the product
of our own minds. What may be tlie character of
the objects themselves, says Kant, independently
of our perceptions, we can never know. We know
only our manner of perceiving them ; that manner
is peculiar to us, and may not be the same in other
beings. Though we attain to the uttermost clear-
ness in our perceptions, they bring us no nearer to
the nature of things as they are in themselves ; we
only attain to more perfect knowledge of our own
IMMANUEL KANT. 293
sensuous capacity, under the conditions of space and
time, which have their origin in ourselves. There
are two factors in our cognition which perhaps
have a common, unl^nown root, — sensibility and
understanding. The former furnishes the objects
of our knowledge ; the other thinks them into
shape, — i. e., shapes them into concepts. The un-
derstanding has no faculty of seeing things ; sensi-
bility has no power of thinking them : only when
the two combine in brotherly union is cognition
effected, and from cognition experience.
In maintaining that we know nothing, and can
know nothing, of things without us as they exist
in tliemselves, was Kant an - Idealist ? Not in
the sense of Berkeley. He earnestly disclaims the
charge of such idealism. " Never," he says, " has
it entered my mind to doubt the existence of
things without us, but only whether the sensuous
presentation of things gives us any true knowledge
of things as they are in themselves." The second
edition of the " Kritik " contains a '' Refutation of
Idealism," in which the author maintains that the
existence of things external to us is absolutely
necessary to any definite consciousness of our own
existence. The experiential consciousness of my
own existence is itself only an indirect one ; that
is, possible only by means of external experience.
Again, in the " Prolegomena to every Future
294 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
Mctapliysic," he thus distinguishes between his own
position and that of the Idealists. He says : —
" The allegation of all Idealists is contained in this
formula : All cognition through the senses and through
experience is mere appearance ; truth is to be found only
in the ideas of the pure understanding and pure reason.
The principle, on the contrary, which governs my formal,
or better, critical, idealism, is that all cognition from pure
understanding, or pure reason alone, is mere appearance,
and that truth is to be found oidy in experience."
The distinction is a very subtle one, and a critic
might object that to deny that Ave see the real
thing is after all a kind of idealism. Berkeley him-
self admits external reality. There is something
distinct from ourselves which causes us to see
things, — i. e., gives us ideas of an external
world ; that something is God, who impresses these
ideas on the mind. According to Kant, there are
things which furnish the ground of our percep-
tions ; but what they are we can never know.
We do not perceive them., but only our own
Vorstellungen.
This is the doctrine of the first part of the " Kri-
tik der reinen Yernunft." Its outcome is that all
knowledge originates in experience ; but experience
is something of which our own understanding is
the principal factor.
The second part is occupied with the examination
IMMANUEL KANT. 295
of those ideas and beliefs which transcend the
reach of sensible experience. Here our philoso-
plier, with that uncompromising-, inexorable logic
which procured for him the sobriquet of " Der
Alleszermalmende," " The All-to-pieces-crushing,"
proceeds to show that pure reason can never, by
legitimate exercise of its function, establish the
reality of those objects which lie l)eyond the reach
of experience, — God, immortalit}', an infinite uni-
verse. Its legitimate office is to promote complete-
ness in the action of the understanding as applied
to the series of phenomena, to extend indefinitely
the use of experience. Its practical use is, by
means of its ideas (God, immortality, etc.), to gain
room for moral principles outside of actual knowl-
edge. This may explain the inborn transcendental
aspiration of human reason. This transcenden-
tal aspiration has for its objects three ideas, — a
psychological, a cosmological, and a theological ;
the idea of the soul as an independent, self-existent,
continuous, indestructible entity ; the idea of an
infinite cosmos, and the idea of an extramundane,
personal God.
In relation to the first, the attempt to verify it
logically results in sophisms. All that is affirmed
of the soul is based on the proposition, '' I am."
This of itself means nothing ; it is simply a neces-
sary form of presentation, a consciousness which
29G MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
attends all our thinking, as condition or substra-
tum. Nothing is represented by this " I," to which
^\Q refer all our thinking, nothing of which, inde-
pendently of the contents of our thought, we can
form the least conception. We go about it with
our reasoning in a perpetual circle ; we make use
of the idea itself to determine what it is. The " I "
cannot get outside of the " I " to judge of it. The
question concerning the nature of this something,
which is unthinkable except by itself, is nuga-
tory, seeing that it lies outside of all possible
experience.
/ In relation to the second, or cosmological, idea,
reason entangles itself with insoluble contradic-
tions, or Avhat Kant calls " antinomies." He enu-
merates four propositions, of which the affirmative
and the negative are equally true and equally false ;
i. e., equally capable of demonstration and of re-
futation. 1. The world had a beginning in time,
and is bounded in space. On the contrary, the
world is witliout beginning, and without bounds.
2. All matter consists of simples, and of com-
pounds formed of these simples. On the contrary,
there is no simple, but all matter is infinitely divi-
sible. 3. Causation according to natural laws is
not the only cause from which the phenomena of
the world are derived ; they require for their expla-
nation the supposition of a free, ^. e., an uncaused,
IMMANUEL KANT. 297
cause. On the contrary, there is no freedom ;
everything in the world is the product of natural
laws. 4. In the series of world-causes there is an
absolutely necessary Being. On the contrary, there
is no necessary being, either in or without the world,
to which its origin is to be ascribed. From these
contradictory propositions, each of wdiicli is equally
defensible on the ground of concepts furnished by
the understanding, and equally beyond the reach
of experience, it is inferred that the cosmological
questions involved in them are indeterminable by
pure reason.
And now, finally, in relation to the third, the
theological idea, it is shown that Reason transcends
her legitimate office when, from the notion of an
All-Perfect, — the sum of all possibility, — she pro-
ceeds to infer the existence of an object correspond-
ing to that notion, which we call God, and demands
that this creation of human thought shall be ac-
cepted as an actually existent Being, given us prior
to, and independent of, our thought.
From this brief account of its main points, it ap-
pears that the aim of Kant's critique is to demon-
strate the impossibility of acquiring by legitimate
use of reason any knowledge of things beyond
the reach of experience. And Kant himself con-
fesses that "- the chief, and pei'haps the only, use of
a philosophy of pure reason is a negative one. It
298 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
is not an organon for extending, but a discipline for
limiting ! Instead of discovering truth, its modest
function is to guard against error."
Are we to infer from the result of his Kritik
that Kant intended to deny or to call in question,
or that, as a man, he disbelieved those fundamental
truths which, as a philosopher, he pronounces inde-
monstrable ? The conclusion does not seem to me
authorized by what we know of Kant from other
sources. His object was to combat the dogmatism
of the current philosophy, whicli had reared an
elaborate system, a showy edifice, on insufficient
foundations, — theological assumptions which, how-
ever valid in religion, are inadmissible in philoso-
phy until logically verified. To say that a doctrine
is not proved is a very different thing from saying
that the doctrine is not true.
In the second edition of the '' Kritik," which fol-
lowed the first after an interval of six years, the
author made important changes, omitting a portion
of the old matter, and inserting new. The ten-
dency of these changes is conservative, and sug-
gests a retractation of the bolder positions of the
original work. Schopenhauer, though an ardent
admirer of Kant, ascribes them to senile timidity,
fear of incurring the censure, perhaps the persecu-
tion, of civil authority. Frederick the Great, the
defender of religious liberty, had died; and his
IMMANUEL KANT. 299
successor, a very different spirit, was known to look
with disfavor on all that militated against the
traditional faith. That Kant was influenced by
this consideration I am unwilling to believe. That
during the six years his views may have undergone
some modification is not improbable. In the Intro-
duction to his second edition he excuses the nega-
tions of his " Kritik " with these remarkable words :
'^ Iliad to give up hioivledge in order to make room
for faithr And in his next great work, the " Kri-
tik der pratkischen Vernunft," he says that Pure
Reason, in her practical endeavor, — /. e., the en-
deavor to establish moral obligation, — is compelled
to assume God and immortality, in order that her
purely moral precepts may commend themselves
as something more than crotchets of the brain ;
and so he seems to give back to practical reason
what he had taken from speculative. If moral
obligation presupposes God and immortality, then
the certainty of the latter is vouched by that of
the former.
Heinrich Heine, after his fashion, represents this
latter treatise as a resuscitation of the deism which
the former treatise had put to death. He asks : —
" Did Kant undertake tliis resuscitation, not merely on
account of old Lampe [Kant's servant, who needed a
God], but also on account of the pohce ? Or did he
really act from conviction % Did he destroy the proofs of
300 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
the existence of God merely to show us how bad it is to
be without a God 1 In that case he acted as wisely as
my Westphalian friend, who smashed all the street-lamps
on the Grohnde Street in Gottingen, and then, standing
there in the dark, preached to us a long sermon on the
practical necessity of streetdamps, which he had theo-
retically destroyed, only to show us that we could see
nothing without them."
The " Kritik der praktischeu Yernunft," embra-
cing the " Griindlegung ziir Metaphysik der Sitten "
(Foundation of the Metapliysic of Morals), contains
Kant's ethical system, of which the distinguishing
feature is its absolutism. He insists on the auton-
omy of the will. The will must be governed by
no motive but the categorical imperative ; it must
determine itself in conformity with the moral law,
irrespective not only of any gain to the actor, but
of all personal considerations, of all consequences
that are to ensue from our action. For example,
we must do good to others, not for the sake of
others, but for the. sake of the good we are com-
manded to do. " Act as if the maxim of your
action could by your will become a universal law
of nature." In the " Tugendlehrc " (Doctrine of
Virtue), which is given as a separate treatise, but
properly forms a part of his ethical system, he lays
down the law that ethical duties are not to be esti-
mated by our (supposed) ability to satisfy the law,
IMMANUEL KANT. 301
but, on the contrary, moral ability is to be estimated
by tlie law which commands categorically, conse-
quently, not according to the empirical knowledge
we have of mankind as they are, but according to
the rational knowledge of mankind as they should
be, conformably to the idea of humanity. In other
words, duty is not to be measured by ability, but
ability by duty. I can, because I must.
Next to the two works which have been named,
— the " Kritik of Pure Reason," and the " Kritik
of Practical Reason," — the best known, and per-
haps of all Kant's writings the most approved, is the
" Kritik der Urtheilskraft " (Critique of the Faculty
of Judging). This treatise consists of two parts.
The first discusses aesthetic judgments, or the prin-
ciples of taste ; the second treats of teleological
judgments, or judgments which affirm design in
the forms and relations of organic life. The
design which we find in nature, he maintains, is
nothing inherent in the objects, but only our way
of looking at them, — a necessity of the human
mind to impute design where it sees fitness in the
relation of part to part. Kant has written notliing
more original and incisive than this treatise.
Schelling says of one of its sections ^ that " never
1 The seventy-sixth : " Concerning that Peculiarity of tlie
Human Understanding wliich enables us to form the Idea of
Purpose in Nature."
302 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS,
perhaps were so many profound thoughts crowded
into so few pages."
Among the more important of Kant's works be-
sides the three which have been mentioned, are his
physical and geographical treatises ; his ••' Logic ; "
his " Only Possible Demonstration of the Being
of God ; " his " Religion within the Bounds of
Reason ; " his " Philosophy of History ; " and his
" Anthropology." All these bear the stamp of his
peculiar genius, — rich in original thought, and pro-
foundly suggestive ; but I must content myself with
simply naming them.
I have indicated some of the positions of the
Kantian philosophy. The net result and value of
that philosophy it is not my intention to discuss.
I will only observe that the value of any system of
metaphysic must be sought, not in positive addi-
tions to human knowledge, not in revelations of
unquestionable truths, discoveries which no subse-
quent criticism shall overthrow, but in the impulse
it gives to thought, in the light it throws on the
deepest questions of the soul, in the prospect it
opens of new fields of inquiry. Some of Kant's
doctrines, and notably that of space and time as
connate forms of perception, and of certain con-
cepts as given forms of thought antecedent to all
experience, are rejected by later and more exhaus-
tive psychology : but many of his views still hold
IMMANUEL KANT. 803
their place, and his spirit still lives ; the movement
which he inaugurated is still in progress.
The noble army of metaphysicians to Avliom Ger-
many has given birth since the appearance of the
^' Critique of Pure Reason," and which no nation
can match with so numerous and bright an array,
including Fichte, Fries, Reinhold, Krause, Schel-
ling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and many more, are
Kant's spiritual offspring, and own the lineage
of that master mind. The nature of the influence
he exerted on German literature outside of the
province of philosophy proper, it is difficult to
define ; but the fact of that influence is unmistaka-
ble. It is due not so much to any doctrine of his
teaching, as it is to the lift which he gave to the
national mind. Schiller, it is well known, was a
zealous student of Kant, and owed to that study
the direction of his thought as expressed in his
philosophical essays. In a letter inviting Kant to
contribute to the " Horen " he says : " Accept, in
conclusion, the assurance of my liveliest gratitude
for the beneficent light which you have kindled in
my mind, — a gratitude which, like tlie gift on
which it is grounded, is without bounds and imper-
isliable." Jean Paul wrote in 1788 to his friend Yo-
gel : " For Heaven's sake purchase for yourself two
books : Kant's ' Grundlegung zu einer Metaplw-
sik der Sitten,' and Kant's ' Kritik der praktischen
804 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.'
Yernunft.' Kant is not so much a light of the
world as he is a whole beaming solar system at
once." Goethe confesses his indebtedness to the
" Kritik der Urtheilskraft " for a very joyful
epoch of his life ; and in answer to a question of
Eckermann, " Whom do you regard as the greatest
of modern philosophers ? " he answered, " Kant,
beyond all doubt. He is also the one whose doc-
trine has shown a continuing efficacy, and has
penetrated most deeply our German culture. He
has influenced you too, although you have never
read him. Now you do not need to read him, for
you already possess what he could give you."
Wilhelm von Humboldt, one of the finest spirits
of his day, bears this testimony : —
" Kant undertook and accomplished the greatest work
that perhaps the philosophy of reason ever owed to a single
individual. . . . Vastness and power of imagination are
in him associated with acuteness and depth of thought.
How mucli or how little of the Kantian philosophy has
maintained itself to this day, or will maintain itself in
time to come, I do not assume to decide. But three
things remain as witnesses of the glory he has conferred
on his nation, and the service he has rendered to specula-
tive thought. Somewhat that he has demolished will
never assert itself again ; somewhat that he has founded
will never perish ; and — what is most important — he
has established a reform to which few in the history of
philosophy can be compared. ... It was not so much
IMMANUEL KANT. 305
philosophy that he taught, as the way to pliilosophize.
He did not so much communicate new discoveries as he
lighted the torch of independent search. Thus he has
given rise to systems and schools more or less divergent
from his own. And this is characteristic of the lofty
freedom of his spirit, that he was able to start other
j^hilosophies, which also, in perfect freedom, work on for
themselves in self-created ways."
20
306 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
IRONY.
[From the " Atlantic Monthly," October, 1870.]
T:;^ MANUEL SWEDENBORG, reviving a doc-
■^^ trine of Origen, professed to have discovered
in the sacred writings of tlie Hebrews this peculiar-
ity, distinguishing it from other literatures, that,
besides what the authors seem to say, — above or
beneath the obvious meaning of the terms em-
ployed, — they say something else and very dif-
ferent. If the Swedish theosopher is right in this
view of them, the Hebrew Scriptures excel in the
quality of irony. Not that the writers themselves
" palter with us in a double sense." The writers
themselves are supposed to be unconscious of
the trailing mystery accompanying their earnest
speech. But a spirit more subtle than the writer,
lurking behind the pen, plays liide-and-seek with
the reader. It sounds odd to speak of the Bible as
the literature of irony, but, according to this view,
it possesses that quality in an eminent degree.
For the essence of literary irony consists in the
^' something behind," a spirit, a meaning, not wholly
expressed in the literal sense of the writing.
" Irony of the spirit '•' we may term this species.
IRONY. 807
The Irony of Passion. — The principle of irony
must have a deep foundation in human nature,
so universal is its manifestation, so diverse and
opposite the moods of mind that in it find their
fit expression. Joy, sorrow, love, hate, — all iro-
nize. It is the native idiom of all passion which
thus ekes out its imperfect utterance by drawing
on its opposite. Excessive joy, no less than grief,
finds vent in tears, and is ready to die of its own
fulness. " If it were now to die," says Othello,
" 'T were now to be most happy ; for I fear,
My soul hath her content so absolute,
That not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate."
On the other hand, overwhelming sorrow, no less
than joy, disposes to mirth. Hamlet, stunned with
grief and rage by the recent revelations of his
father's ghost, summons his companions with the
" Hillo, ho, ho, boy ! come, bird, come ! " of the fal-
coner, and confides to Horatio, on promise of the
strictest secrecy, the astounding fact that " there 's
ne'er a villain in all Denmark, but he 's an arrant
knave." The backwoodsman, when, returning from
his day's work, he finds that his vrhole family have
been murdered by the Indians, says, " It 's too
ridiculous ! " and laughs, and dies.
Love delights in minifying, and even disparaging,
terms of endearment, and often teases by way of
808 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
blandishment: "Excellent loretch! . . . but I do
love thee." And often intense hatred borrows the
vocabulary of praise.
Irony as Satire. — Irony, as commonly under-
stood, is criticism by contraries. Emphasis is
given to the real thought of the speaker by con-
trast with the thought professed ; as when, in
answer to Dalila's complaint that
" In argument with men a woman ever
Goes by the worse, whatever be her cause,"
Samson Agonistes retorts,
" For want of words, no doubt, or lack of breath."
A favorite kind of rhetorical irony is that of
warning cloaked as pretended recommendation.
Hoffmann's serious admonition to stage-managers
and scene-shifters, after the model of Swift's advice
to servants, is a happy instance. The writer warns
them that poets and actors have complotted to de-
ceive honest people and make them believe that
what they witness on the stage is actual events and
persons, much to the prejudice of their understand-
ings and their peace of mind ; that consequently
they, the managers and scene-shifters, are in duty
bound, so far as in them lies, to frustrate this-
nefarious design, and to counteract the intended
illusion.
" To this end, let them occasionally insert the wrong
scene or drop the wrong curtain. In a scene representing
IRONY. 309
a gloomy cave, let a little piece of the saloon behind appear,
so that when the prima donna bewails in touching strains
her cruel imprisonment, the spectator may listen undis-
turbed, knowing that the machinist has only to ring the
bell, and the gloomy prison will disappear, and the friendly
saloon take its place. A very good device is, suddenly, in
the midst of a lugubrious chorus, at the very moment of
intensest interest, to let fall, as if by accident, a drop-
scene, separating the actors, so that a portion of those in
the background shall be cnt off from their interlocutors
in the proscenium. ... I remember," he says, " seeing
this measure employed with great effect, although with
some incorrectness in the application, in a ballet. The
•prima ballerina was executing a beautiful sola. Just as
she was pausing for a moment in a splendid attitude, and
while the spectators, crazy with delight, were shouting and
clapping, the machinist suddenly let foil a drop-scene
which shut her off from public view. But unfortunately
the drop-scene was a drawing-room with a great door in
the middle, and before one was aware, the resolute danseuse
came hopping through the door, and continued her sola.
See to it, therefore, that your drop-scene on such occasions
has no door." ^
English literature, second to none in humorous
satire, has many choice bits of rhetorical irony.
The following is from Martinus Scriblerus on the
Art of Sinking in Poetry : —
" When I consider, my dear countrymen, the extent,
fertility, and populousness of our Lowlands of Parnassus,
the flourishing state of our trade, and the plenty of our
1 Der volkommene Maschinist, in Hoffmann's Fantasiestucke.
810 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
manufactures, there are two reflections which administer
great occasion of surprise, — the one that al] dignities
and honors should be bestowed upon the exceeding few
meagre inhabitants of the top of the mountain ; the other
that our own province should have arrived to that great-
ness it now possesses without any regular system of laws.
As to the first, it is with gn-eat pleasure that I have observed
of late the gradual decay of delicacy and refinement among
mankind, who are become too reasonable to require that
we should labor with infinite pains to come up to the
taste of these mountaineers, when they, without any, may
condescend to ours. But as Ave now have an unquestion-
able majority on our side, I doubt not but we shall be
shortly able to level these highlanders, and procure a
further vent for our own product, whicli is already so
much relished, encouraged, and rewarded by the nobility
and gentry of Great Britain. . . , Furthermore, it were
great cruelty if all such authors as cannot write in the
other way were prohibited from writing at all. Against
this I draw an argument from what seems to me an un-
doubted physical maxim, that poetry is a natural or morbid
secretion of the brain. As I would not suddenly stop a
cold in the head, or dry up my neighbor's issue, I would
as little hinder him from necessary writing. It may be
afiirmed with great truth, that there is hardly any human
creature past childhood, but at one time or other has had
some poetical evacuation, and no doubt was much the
better for it in his health. ... I have known a man
thoughtful, melancholy, and raving for divers days, who
forthwith grew wonderfully easy, lightsome, and cheerful
upon the discharge of the peccant humor, in exceeding
purulent metre. . . . From hence it follows that a sup-
IRONY. 311
pression of the very worst poetry is of dangerous conse-
quence to the state. ... It is, therefore, manifest that
mediocrity ought to be allowed, yea, indulged, to the good
subjects of England."
Irony, as a mode of satire, describes a wdde and
rich province of letters, — a province embracing
not a few of the choicest spirits, and some of the
most genial compositions, of all time. Here shine
the names of Lucian, Erasmus, Cervantes, Rabelais,
Butler, Voltaire, Swift, Heine.
But literature has other ironies than that of
satire. Writers of loftier aim and graver tone
than those I have named have found their advan-
tage in this fascinating element. Bishop Thirl-
wall, in a paper contributed to the " Philological
Museum," discusses the irony he professes to find
wdiere certainly one would not suspect it, — in the
tragedies of Sophocles. But the irony in that case
is not a trait of the poet's mind, it inheres in the
subject-matter of his fables ; it is the irony of
Fate in the fortunes of Ajax, of (Edipus, and Phil-
octetes which he depicts. The irony I have in
view is purely subjective. But how shall I define,
how discriminate from satire on the one hand, and
superficial badinage on the other, — how identify,
under forms so various, the subtle spirit which I
seem to detect in writers wdio else have scarce
anything in common ? I select for examples two
312 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
poets as remote from each other in the bent of
their genius as can well be found, — Milton and
Goethe.
In Milton's prose, though largely satirical, the
element of irony is not conspicuous. His poetry,
which is not satirical, is steeped in it. It consti-
tutes, I think, the peculiar charm of his verse.
Take the " Hymn to the Nativity." The poet treats
the Gentile divinities as actually existing perso-
nages ; and that, not in the way of poetic machi-
nery, as other Christian poets have sometimes
done, but because the position he assumes in this
poem is properly outside of all religions. He looks
upon their conflict as Homer's gods behold the
conflict of the Greeks and Trojans, not indeed with
indifference, for he is celebrating the triumph of
the Christian cause, yet not exactly as a Christian
believer. His position is that of an outsider. He
sings the victory, but not as personally concerned
in it, except as his sympathy goes with the victor.
The Gentile divinities are as real to him as the
new-born God wlio puts them to flight ; but they
have had their day, they must yield to the incoming
era of the new dispensation.
*' Nor all the Gods beside
Longer dare abide ;
Not T\-pbon huge, ending in snaky twine;
Our Babe, to sliow his Godhead true,
Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew."
IRONY. 313
The irony here consists in the poet's aloofness
from Ills theme, suggesting an arriere-pensee^ and
leaving a gap between it and the thought ex-
pressed, of which the reader must supply the miss-
ing link. In conversing with works of genius, we
feel the difference between those in which the
writer is sunk in his theme, and goes wholly out in
it, and those in which he seems to stand apart
from his own creations, as if toying with them and
with us. The difference is no test of poetic merit ;
the creative power may be greater in the former
case than in the latter. It is only a difference of
intellectual reaction, a difference in the reach of
conscious thought, — a fuller waking, albeit the
waking of a genius less robust.
The charm of that something beyond, that cir-
cumfused aura of reserve which constitutes the
essence of irony, I find in the greatest perfection
in Goethe. Of all writers he impresses me most
with the feeling of a double self. He is not, like
most of his cotemporaries, subjective, but objec-
tive in his creations. His individuality is not put
forward as in Byron, in Schiller, in Richter, even
in Wordsworth, but studiously kept in the back-
ground. But the reader is made conscious of that
background, of a thought in reserve, wdiich is the
real Goethe, behind the thought expressed, which
314 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
is also the real Goethe as well. Even in his Auto-
biography, where the topic is self, he contrives to
get behind that self ; now object, now subject, now
both. The very title is a stroke of irony, — " Fic-
tion and Truth." In the opening chapter he
gravely recounts the astrological aspects which
auspicated his nativity ; he gives us his horoscope
as if it were an essential part of the history. Did
Goethe, then, believe in astrology ? No. Did he
mean to satirize that belief ? No. Is he jesting ?
Yes, and no. Is he in earnest ? No, and yes. The
reader may take it as he pleases. This is what
another, reflecting on that birth, might find, astro-
logically expressed, in the fortunes awaiting the
man-child who was dropped upon this earth-ball
in Frankfort on the Main on the 28th of August,
1749.
In the " Conversations of German Emigrants "
the " Old Man," who had previously narrated two
moral stories of the deepest practical significance,
promises the company a tale that shall " remind
them of nothing and of everything;" and tlms
introduces that wonderful composition which Ger-
man critics have denominated '' The Tale," distin-
guishing it from everything else in that line.
Here the ironical in Goethe's genius reaches its
climax. The thing remains to this day an un-
solved problem, and in all likelihood will ever
IRONY. 315
remain so. Whether the author really meant any-
thing more by it than to entertain the reader with
a magic-lantern of incongruous images, and, if so,
what that meaning is, are matters of conjecture.
The sphinx is dumb, and gives no sign. Carlyle,
who tried his teeth on it, calls it " one of the nota-
blest performances produced for the last thousand
years, wherein more meaning lies than in all the
literature of our century." Novalis doubtless had
Goethe in his mind when he wrote that " the gen-
uine Miilirehen is prophetic, an absolutely necessary
presentation, and the author of such a one a seer of
the future." It seems to be taken for granted by
those who have studied it that in some way it
figures the past and future of humanity ;i but as
to the import of separate parts, there is no agree-
ment, and can be no certainty. It was meant that
there should be none. Irony, throned on that
monument, smiles an eternal smile in the face of
Hermeneutic.
In the " Faust," where the subject-matter itself is
the irony of life, the irony in the treatment is less
apparent ; scarcely at all in the first part, and only
here and there, as in the visit to the " Mothers,"
in the second.
Goethe, like Milton in the " Nativity," assumes
1 A recent writer, Baumgart, limits the interpretation to the
future of Germany.
316 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
in some of his pieces a position external to reli-
gion ; but with this distinction, that Milton, though
standing poetically aloof, pays reverent tribute to
the Christian faith, whose fervent disciple he is,
whilst Goethe's attitude is sometimes that of poe-
tic indifference, and sometimes leans to heathen
views.
In the lines addressed to his noble and devout
friend, the Fraulein von Klettenberg, he makes use
of the expression, referring to a picture of tlie
Saviour in her room : " The God who suffered for
you." He says in his Autobiography : —
" When in these stanzas, as sometimes on other occa-
sions, I represented myseff as an outsider, a stranger, or
even a heathen, she did not object ; on the contrary, she
assured me that she hked me better so than when I made
use of Christian terminology, in the application of which,
she said, I never succeeded. Indeed it was a common
thing for me, when I read to her -the missionary reports,
which she always enjoyed hearing, to take the part of the
Gentiles against the missionaries, and to venture to prefer
their former estate. She remained ever friendly and gen-
tle, and seemed to have no anxiety on my account, nor to
be at all concerned about my salvation."
In the poem inscribed " To Coachman Kronos,"
in which he likens his ideal of life to a day's drive
in a stage-coach, finding nothing in Christian ima-
gery that suited his mood, he draws on pagan ideas
to celebrate a glorious ending : —
IRONY. ' 317
" Drunk with tlie sun's last ray, —
A sea of fire in my foaming eye, —
Wliirl me, dazzled and reeling,
Into Hell's nocturnal gate.
Sound, coachman, thy horn !
With clatter and echoing tramp
Let Orcus know we are coming,
That the host may be at the door
To give us friendly reception."
In the piece entitled " Great is Diana of the
Ephesians," he takes part with the silversmith
against the Apostle. He describes with artistic
sympathy an aged goldsmith at work in his atelier,
fashioning with pious care, as taught by his father,
figures for the girdle of the loved goddess : —
" When all at once he hears so loud,
Like a rushing wind, in the street a crowd ;
And a talk there is of a God unseen —
Behind man's foolish brow they ween —
More worthy far than the Being here
In whose breadth the Godhead we revere.
The master listens, nor listens long ;
His boys may run to see the throng ;
He files away, nor heeds the sound.
His goddess adorning with deer and hound,
And trusts that his fortune it may be
To represent her worthily.
If any one think otherwise.
Let him do as seemeth good in his eyes ;
But to injure our craft if he presume,
A shameful end shall be his doom."
In that most weird and tragic of all ballads, an-
cient or modern, " The Bride of Corinth," where
318 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
recent Christianity and expiring polytheism are
brought into conflict, he enlists our sympathies in
favor of the ancient faith. The spectre bride com-
plains that she is left desolate ; all her family have
turned Christian : —
" All tlie gods, the gay, withdrew their blessing,
Fled the house, nor longer here abide ;
One alone in heaven, unseen, confessing,
And a Saviour on the cross who died.
We no longer here
Offer lamb nor steer ;
Human victims have their place supplied."
One must not infer from such utterances that
the wise and poised seer liad any sympathy with
disorganizing radicalism. The contrary is evident
from the piece entitled " The Neologians : " —
" I met a young man, and I asked his trade.
It is my endeavor and hope, he said,
To earn enough before I die
A snug little yeoman's farm to buy.
I praised his intent and bade him God speed !
And much I hoped he might succeed,
When I learned that he had from his dear papa,
And also from madam, his mamma,
Baronial estates of the amplest kind.
That is what I call an original mind."
Goethe's irony is due in part to his social posi-
tion, to reaction against conventional limitations,
and in part to hatred of philistinism and pedantry.
Suspicious of systems, in an age of philosophical
IRONY. 319
and political doctrinaires ; appealed to on this
hand and that for a verdict on things human and
divine ; a disbeliever in violent revolutions, yet
living in the midst of them ; charged with indiffer-
ence to human weal because he chose to promote
it by doing his own work in his ow^n way, and
refused to lend himself to any faction, — he found
in irony his sure palladium against the assaults of
those w^ho could neither convince nor comprehend
him. His " Coptic Song " is an indication of the
method he sometimes saw fit to adopt : —
"COPTIC SONG.
" Leave to the learned tlicir vain disputations,
Strict and sedate let the pedagogues be ;
Ever the wise of all ages and nations
Nod to each other and smile and agree :
Vain the attempt to cure fools of their folly,
Children of wisdom abandon it wholly ;
Fool them and rule them, for so it must be.
" Merlin tlie old in his tomb ever shining,
Where as a youngling I heard him divining,
Similar counsel confided to me :
Vain the attempt to cure fools of their folly,
Children of wisdom abandon it wholly ;
Fool them and rule them, since fools they will be.
" Mountains frequented by Indian adorers,
Crypts the resort of Egyptian explorers,
All that is sacred confirms the decree :
Vain the attempt to cure fools of their folly,
Children of wisdom abandon it wholly ;
Fool them and rule them, for so it should be."
320 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
One sees how the irony so marked in Goethe as
a writer had its root in an inborn or inbred irony
of character ; and this suggests a separate branch
of our subject.
Irony in Character. — There are characters in
history in whom this trait predominates to such
an extent as to constitute them a class by them-
selves. Socrates, whose elpcovela, so baffling to
Thrasymachus and the Sophists, perhaps originated
our use of the term ; Diogenes, rolling his tub in
mockery of the preparations for the Sicilian war ;
Augustus, choosing a sphinx for his seal ; Julian
the Apostate, Frederick the Second of the Hohen-
stauffen, Abelard, Leo the Tenth ; among writers,
Machiavelli, Erasmus, Gibbon, — are different
types of this wide variety.
Such characters are apt to appear at the meet-
ing-point of the old and the new, when faith in an old
religion or institution or custom is on the decline,
and numbers are arrayed against it, as in the be-
ginning of the Christian era against polytheism,
and in the sixteenth century against the Church of
Rome. Such periods develop three distinct types
of character in relation to old and new, — first, the
destructive radical, who wishes to abolish the old,
the sooner and more completely, the better ; second,
the believing and conscientious conservative, who
clings to it with unswerving devotion ; and third,
IRONY. 321
between these two a class of men, embracing often
the best culture and largest thought of the time
(of men, I say, not often of women, — they are
usually afliancecl to one or the other side), who
are not in full sympathy with cither direction.
They see ])igotry, stupidity, antiquated error, on
one side, and they also see vulgar adventure, pruri-
ency, and shallowness on the other. They fully
apprehend whatever is true in the new ideas, and
do them full justice in their private thought ; but
they also find meanings in the old which those
who renounce it do not perceive, and which give it
a right to be. At the same time they feel that the
forms which embody those meanings are outgrown,
that much in the old is obsolete and will not ally
itself with a vigorous future. They are nominally
in it, but cannot heartily embrace it. As little can
they lend themselves to the turbulent and vulgar
new. They fancy they see all there is in both
interests, and a good deal more besides. Now,
whether it is native irony of character that dictates
this position, or whether the position develops the
irony, it is here that irony is most at home. An
ironical treatment of the claims of both parties is
the natural resource of one who feels himself
raised above either, and is equally indifferent to
both. The author of the essay on the " Irony of
Sophocles," already referred to, remarks : '' There
21
322 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
is always a slight cast of irony in tlie grave, calm,
respectful attention impartially bestowed by an
intelligent judge on two contending parties who
are pleading their causes before him with all tlie
earnestness of deep conviction and excited feel-
ing." He sees '' that the right and the truth lie
on neither side exclusively ; . . . both have plausi-
ble claims and specious reasons to allege, though
each is too much blinded by prejudice and passion
to do justice to the views of his adversary." This
is the position I have in view. The ironist speaks
sometimes in the spirit of one party, and sometimes
of the other, but always with that mental reserve,
that arrilre-penhee in which the essence of irony con-
sists. From which it appears that irony of charac-
ter is the negative and polar antithesis of moral
enthusiasm. All the advantages are wanting to it
which moral enthusiasm gives. The ironist is not
an eloquent man. Eloquence supposes earnest ad-
vocacy ; but earnest advocacy is denied to him. He
is not advocate, but judge. That man will never
pow^erfully sway the popular mind who sees both
sides. On the other hand, the earnest advocate
can never move him, the ironist. There is no
intellectual rapport between him and the popular
speaker, in whom is no reserve. He comes to
despise eloquence, seeing behind the fervid out-
pouring nothing more than the sentiment of the
IRONY. 323
hour, and noting how the cup is emptied with the
speech.
From want of moral enthusiasm it woukl not be
always safe to infer want of faith in humanity, or
want of interest in human weal. The ironist may
believe that natural growth, not violent change, is
the way to accomplish that end, and that every
attempt to anticipate the natural course of events
retards the growth of good. You may carry your
pet measure ; but what if you lose more than you
gain by it ? Abolish one evil, and you start anotlier.
Luther, when he saw what a wide door of abuse
the Reformation had opened, said, with a sigh, that
attempting to reform mankind was like trying to
seat a drunken man on horseback : you help him
on one side, and lie tumbles on the other. More-
over, the ironist may think that human destiny
follows a prescribed course, which all our fussing,
our conventions and legislation, cannot further or
change, but only perhaps embarrass and delay. By
shaking the tree you do not ripen the fruit, but
may cause it to fall untimely to the ground.
Goethe thought that Luther had put back for
centuries the cause of human progress. The error
here lies in not perceiving that these very agita-
tions are a part of the prescribed course ; that
Luther and Protestantism were not a wilful inter-
polation, but a necessary product of the time ; that
324 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
whatever was put back by it was put back divinely ;
that you cannot break the continuity of history,
beino; yourself but one of the links.
The ironies thus far discussed are intellectual
and moral traits ; their common element is re-
serve, or the thought behind. By a subtle associ-
ation, not easily defined, the term is applied to
phases of life in which this element does not
appear, and where the irony is not in the thought,
but in the fact.
Irony in Tldigion. — The history of religion
exhibits ironies whose point consists in a glaring
contradiction of theory and practice, or a conflict
of faith and will. When the Emperor Frederick
the Second visited Jerusalem, after a treaty with
the Sultan Kameel, which gave that city, under
certain conditions, to the Christians, the Emir
Schems-Eddin was charged to see that no of-
fence was given to the Christian sovereign by
the Moslem in the practice of their religion. It
chanced that the muezzin, who called the faithful
to prayer, was, during that visit, to have read,
as the lesson for the day, a verse of the Koran
whicli denied the divinity of Christ. To meet the
difficulty the Emir suppressed the ceremony alto-
gether. The Emperor, who cared little for the
dogma, was more disappointed at missing an
IRONY. 325
observance he was curious to witness, than gratified
with the compliment paid to his rehgion, — which
compliment, however, he returned by sharply re-
buking a Christian soldier who had just entered
the mosque of Omar with a copy of the Gospels.
And thus the two religions, in theory bound to
urge their own doctrine, denied it in the persons of
their chief representatives, bandying compliments
with reciprocal disclaimers, and exemplifying what
may be called the irony of faith.
Ancient polytheism sometimes betrayed its hol-
lowness by ludicrous revulsions of distrust or
ill will.
The Emperor Augustus had lost two fleets in
two successive naval engagements. To signalize
his displeasure with the god of the sea, he forbade
the image of Neptune to be borne with those of
other gods in the next triumphal procession.
Suetonius relates that when the people of Rome
heard of the death of their favorite, Germanicus,
they rushed into the temples and punished the
gods with stoning. This putting of your god on
his good behavior, treating him according to the
good or evil fortune experienced by the worship-
per, is a part of that profound insincerity, or
rather of that latent fetichism, which characterizes
the vulgar religion under all dispensations. The
principle of fetichism is the practice of religion as
a charm to secure good fortune.
326 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
Plutarch reports of the infamous Sulla, that,
being in imminent danger of defeat in a battle
before the gates of Rome, he took from his bosom
a little golden image of P3^thian Apollo, and, kiss-
ing it, said : " Pythian Apollo, who hast given
Cornelius Sulla the victory in so many engage-
ments, hast thou at last brought him to the gates
of Rome, there to perish ignominiously with his
fellow-citizens ? " The petulance of this heathen
prayer is paralleled by many a Christian remon-
strance, addressed to the Christian's God, in like
emergencies. Robert the Monk, the chronicler of
the First Crusade, relates that Guy, the brother of
Bohemond, in the terrible disaster which befell
the army of Godfrey at Antioch, cried : " Almighty
God, where is your virtue ? If you are omnipotent,
wliy do you permit these things ? Who will ever
be a soldier of yours, or a pilgrim again ?"
The irony which mixes belief with unbelief, cal-
culation with devotion in religion, seems to have
reached its perfection in Louis the Eleventh of
France, whose devout intercourse with his favorite
saints, or rather with their images stuck in liis
hat, Sir Walter Scott has so effectively portrayed.
Another sort of religious irony is the well-known
travesty indulged by the Church of the Middle Age
of her own most solemn rites. This enormity pre-
vailed in various forms, in all of which mocking
IRONY. ii-i
of religion was the leading idea. There was the
Feast of Asses, in which an ass covered with
sacerdotal robes was led into the church, and a
mass performed before him, with burlesque cere-
monies and hideous music. There was the Glutton
]\Iass, when the people went to church to cram
themselves with meat and drink. Another variety
of sacrilegious pastime was the election and in-
stallation of the '' Pope of Fools," or " Lord of
Misrule." On these occasions the rioters would
disguise themselves in grotesque costumes, turn the
church into a hunting-ground, play at dice upon
the altars, and commit every conceivable extrava-
gance. The clergy, it would seem, not only tolera-
ted, but encouraged, these fooleries. In fact, it was
the irony of the Church herself, the Nemesis of
faith, religion resenting its own sanctities.
The Irony of Fate. — In a different, and not alto-
gether legitimate, sense, the word " irony " is used
to characterize certain disasters and tragedies of life.
We speak of the irony of fate. The phrase is ap-
plied to events which have a retributory character,
and in which the retribution, from its fitness and
unexpected congruity, looks like design ; events in
which, independently of any relation of cause and
effect, a conscious Nemesis appears to have ad-
justed the occurrence to the person concerned.
Saul, in Hebrew history, having driven out the
328 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
witches from Israel, is constrained at last to con-
sult one himself, and from her conjuration learns
his doom ; Julius Caesar, having conquered Pom-
pey at Pharsalus, falls at the base of Pompey's
statue ; Dion, who
" Overleaped the eternal bars,
And following guides whose craft holds no consent
With aught that breathes the ethereal element,"
caused the assassination of Heraclides, perishes
by the hands of assassins ; Boniface the Eighth
meets his fate through the instrumentality of 8ci-
arra Colonna, whose house he had spoiled ; Robes-
pierre ends his career with the guillotine, to which
he had sent so many of his fellow-citizens; Napo-
leon the First, who tried so hard to shut up
England in her own island, is shut up by England
in an island himself ; South Carolina, to make
slavery sure, breaks with the Union, and by that
means loses her slaves.
The retribution in these cases takes the form
of moral compensation ; but there are turns and
contradictions in human destiny, not to be cla.^scd
as moral retributions, which equally illustrate the
irony of fate. In a certain town in Massachusetts,
founded by Puritans who fled from prelacy, the
burial-ground which contains their bones now
affords a convenient pathway to a flourishing
Catholic church.
IRONY. 329
The Irony of Nature. — We began with the irony
of spirit ; let us round the swift synopsis with a
glance at the ironies of Nature.
As such I reckon, for one thing, the close reserve
with which Nature baffles the scrutiny of science,
and hides from curious eyes the final secret of
her births. From time immemorial the inscruta-
ble mother has been playing a game of inverted
blind-man's-buff with her inquisitive children. She
bandages their eyes, and bids them catch her if
they can. Her explorers chase her hither and
thither, but their eyes are holden that they should
not know her. When any one thinks he has caught
her, it is only a part of her drapery which she
yields to his clutches, never herself. " Science,"
says the Persian myst'c, "puts her finger in her
mouth, and cries because the mystery of being will
not reveal itself." The pliysiologist searches for
the secret of life. Wliat is it that discriminates
animated from inanimate being? Function. In
the lowest as in the highest, in the rhizopod as in
the angel, it is function that distinguishes life from
death. But where is the functionary ? Where
sits the performer who plays the many-stringed
or the one-stringed instrument ? No dissection
could ever show. What becomes of him when the
instrument stops ? No observation could ever re-
port. Performer and performance are indistin-
330 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
guishably one. Between the instrument played
and the instrument suddenly stopped there is no
perceptible difference, except the fact of ability or
inability still to perform. Yet is the difference
infinite between life and death. The ontologist
searclies for the primal substance. Behind all the
wrappers that envelop it, beneath all the acts that
represent it, he would stand face to face with the
ultimate fact. Is it matter ? — with microscope and
knife and crucible he interrogates sensible forms ;
is it spirit ? — with unsparing analysis he interro-
gates consciousness : and finds himself at last, in
whatever direction he seeks, after all liis probing,
face to face with — nothing. And "nothing" is
the answer with which the irony of Nature re-
sponds alike to physicist and metaphysician when
the search transcends the prescribed bound. The
Ixion of Greek mythology is an ever-fit sym-
bol of all endeavors to lay hold of the absolute.
Ixion is in love with Juno, the queen of the empy-
rean ; he thinks to embrace her, and embraces a
cloud. Transcendentalism experiences the same
illusion, and experiences something of Ixion's pen-
alty of endless rotation, forever traversing the
same cycle, from spirit to matter, and round to
spirit again, on the wheel to which her serpentine
subtleties have bound her.
" Tortos Ixionis angues
Immanemque rotam."
IRONY. 331
Philosophy chases ; Nature hides, forever inviting,
forever baffling, investigation. " Nature," wrote
Goethe, in the midst of his researches, *' we are
surrounded and clasped by her, unable to step
out of her, and unable to go farther into her.
Unbidden and unwarned, she takes us up into her
circling dance, and whirls herself forth with us
until we are exhausted and sink from her arms.
. . . We live in the midst of her, and are strangers
to her ; she converses Avith us unceasingly, and
never betrays her secret. We act upon her con-
tinually, and yet have no power over her. She
lives altogether in her children ; and the mother,
where is she ? "
A deeper irony lurks in the swift termination
with which Nature limits all beauty, satisfaction,
life.
All beauty resides in surfaces merely ; it is con-
stituted by lines and angles, of which the least
disturbance dissipates the vision. All natural
beauty is a phantasmagory, an unreal mockery,
to which a sentiment in the soul of the beholder
gives all its effect. The glories of sunset, the
witchery of rose and gold that lures like the gates
of heaven, — what is it but vibrations of an invisi-
ble ether struggling through moisture and made
visible by impediment ? Obstruction in the object,
abstraction in the subject, explains the whole
332 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
secret of the gorgeous cheat. The moon-silvered
expanse of ocean seen from your balcony at New-
port or Nahant, — a vision that draws the soul from
the body and laps it m elysium, — what is it but a
remnant of that setting sun received second-hand
and mixed with unsavory brine ?
The moon on the wave is beautiful, and beauti-
ful the landscape bathed in its light. But en-
counter that orb at dead of night on a desolate
road, when past the full, just risen above the hori-
zon and level with your eye, gibbous, lurid, por-
tentous, — what irony glares in it I what a tale it
tells of a blasted, worn-out, ruined world !
All human beauty is but skin deep, and scarcely
that. A little roughening of the cuticle will mar
the fairest face and change beauty to hideousness.
What fearful irony leers upon us from the human
skull ! This was the head, this the divine counte-
nance, of some Helen, some Aspasia or Cleopatra,
some Agnes of Meran or Mary of Scotland, on
wdiose eyelids hung the destinies of nations, for
whose lips the lords of the earth thought the
world well lost, from whose lineaments painters
drew their presentment of the Queen of Heaven.
How was this cruel metamorphosis wrought ? Sim-
ply by stripping off the surface. The miraculous
bulb was peeled, a layer of tissue removed, and
behold the grinning horror I " Get you to my
IRONY. 333
lady's chamber ; tell her, let her paint an inch
thick, to this favor she must come."
The saying of the poet, " A thing of beauty is a
joy forever," is true only when predicated of the
image in the mind and of intellectual contempla-
tion. The beauty of things is a phantom, the
enjoyment the senses have of it a slippery illusion.
A beautiful phenomenon is actually seen but for a
moment. A little while, and, though present to
the eye, it is seen no more, as a strain of music
ceases to be heard when unduly prolonged. Only
the thought survives the image in the mind. As
mere sensation, the enjoyment of beauty is fleeting,
like all our enjoyments, — the more intense, the
more evanescent. It is a bitter irony of Nature
that, while grief may last for days and months, all
pleasure is momentary. The best that life yields in
that kind is an equilibrium of mild content, a poise
between joy and pain. Disturb that equilibrium
by dropping a sorrow into tlie scale, and long time
is required to restore the balance. Disturb the
equilibrium by adding a new joy, and how soon
the beam is straight ! We get used and indifferent
to our joys ; we do not get used to our pains. And
yet Nature can bear a greater accession of sorrow
than of pleasure. Strange to say, the heart will
sooner break with joy than grief. On the plane of
physical experience there are painful sensations
334 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
which beyond a certain point of aggravation are
fatal, as the strain of the rack has sometimes
proved ; and there are pleasurable sensations which
would be fatal if greatly intensified or prolonged.
But note this curious fact, that before the limit of
endurance in the latter case is reached, the pleas-
ure turns to pain, — which shows how limited is
physical enjoyment. Bodily pain, on the contrary,
never breaks into any falsetto of pleasure, but
keeps "due on" its dolorous road, till anguish
deepens into death.
Of mental emotions, joy in itself is more fatal
than sorrow ; the only reason why men oftener
pine to death than rejoice to death, is because
occasions of extreme grief are more frequent than
occasions of excessive joy.
" If ever," says Faust in his bargain with
Mephistopheles, — " if ever I shall say to the pass-
ing moment, ' Tarry, thou art so beautiful,' then
you may lay fetters on me, and I will gladly go to
perdition."
" Le bonheur," says Yoltaire, " n'est qu'un reve,
et la douleur est reelle ; il y a quatre-vingts ans
que je I'eprouve."
Meanwhile Nature pursues her course, regard-
less alike of joy and grief. No sympathy has she
with sad or gay, no care to adjust her aspects with
our experience, her seasons with our need, or to
I
IRONY. 335
match with her sky the weather in the soiih She
smiles her blandest on the recent battle-field, where
the hopes of a thousand homes lie withered ; and
she smites with her tornadoes the ungathered har-
vest in which the bread of a thousand homes has
ripened. She refuses a glint of her sunlight to
the ship befogged on a lee shore, and pours it in
full splendor on the finished, irreparable wreck.
Prodigal of life, she is every moment teeming with
births innumerable ; and still the drift of death
accumulates on the planet. This earth of our
abode is all compact of extinct creations, every
creature on it a sarcophagus of perished lives,
every existence purchased and maintained by sum-
less deaths. The outstretched landscape refulgent
in the bright June morning, dew-gemmed, vocal
with the ecstasies of welcoming birds, suggestive
of eternal youth, is a funeral pageant, a part of the
fatal procession which takes us with it as we gaze.
The fresh enamel laid on by the laughing Hours,
the festive sheen, the universal face of joy, " the
bridal of the earth and sky," when analyzed turns
to a thin varnish spread over mould and corrup-
tion. And amid the myriad-voiced psalm of life
that makes the outgoings of the morning glad, is
heard, if we listen, the sullen ground-tone of
mortality with which Nature accompanies all her
music.
336 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
Out of all these glooms into which we have
strayed, and out of the ironies of Nature and life,
there is no escape by the avenues of thought, but
only by turning from thought to deed. The social
and moral . activities for those who live in them
neutralize or else compensate these intellectual
sorrows, and keep the importunities of Momus in
check. It belongs to the moral sentiment, or
rather it belongs to the morally regenerate will,
to create for itself a world into which no irony
can enter but the blessed irony of God, the reserve
which is not limitation and negation and death,
but yea behind yea, and life upon life. Love is
the anointing of the eyes which transfigures Ere-
bus itself into yea, or makes it invisible. Every
really good deed, every genuine act of self-sacrifice,
is immortal, a birth from the heart of the Divine ;
the everlasting morning is in it, the gates of hell
are powerless, and Mephistopheles leers in vain.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FETICHISM. 337
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FETICHISM.
[From the Uuitarian Review, March, 1881.]
TTMERSON in one of his poems complains
^ that —
"Things are in the saddle,
And ride mankind."
The saying is true in other senses than that of the
exigence of material interests, which is what the
poet intended by it.
Mankind, the world over, in divers ways are rid-
den by " things," possessed by them, enthralled by
them. Nor is it always a preponderant material-
ism that imposes this thrall. Materialism is not
the normal faith of human kind, but an aberration.
There are philosophers who ignore the agency of
spirit in phenomenal nature, and there are world-
lings wlio rest in sensual satisfactions, or satisfac-
tions derived from material values ; but naturally
man is more spiritualist than materialist, and there
is an interest in things, and an action of things on
the mind, which attests the supremacy of spirit in
human life. Every thing was first a thought, and
only thinking makes things.
The savage, groping after Deity, makes a god of
22
338 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
some object which tradition or his own fancy has
consecrated, — a block, an elephant's tooth, a mis-
shapen stone, a tree struck by lightning, — things
which possess no virtue or value but what they de-
rive from his thought. These are instances of that
creature-worship which constitutes a stage of re-
ligion in the savage mind. Is the savage then a
materialist ? Are these homages proof of that
utter want of a spiritual sense which vulgar opin-
ion ascribes to him ? On the contrary, they attest
an overruling spiritualism, which refuses to see in
what we call matter mere inert substance, or in
brutes mere animated dust, but feels itself, even
there,- confronted by a conscious and an awful
Presence. The savage feels his littleness and help-
lessness in view of the great outside, — the Not-me,
which everywhere surrounds him. Awed by the
overweight of visible Nature, he divines the pres-
ence of an invisible Power. In his attempt to lay
hold of this Power, he fails to disengage it from
the visible All which embodies it. He seems to
himself to catch its aspect, here and there, in some
object which strikes him as possessing peculiar
significance, which individualizes, so to speak, the
all-present mystery, and thrusts it on his fancy or
his fear.
This is religion in — I will not say its earliest,
for that is a disputed point — but religion in its
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FETICHISM. 839
crudest state. Yet how near to the pantheism of
some of the most cultured and profoundest minds !
We call it Fetichism, — a term introduced by De
Brosses, who coined it from the Portuguese fetisso^
an amulet, or charm. T\\q fetisso is not necessarily
a god ; but the tribes most addicted to the use of
these things are those with whom creature-worship
chiefly prevails.
Fetichism is the worship of things, of brute crea-
tures, animate or inanimate, — worship of them,
not for their material value, or any use which they
serve, but for the demon's sake supposed to reside
in them. All this is so foreign to our conception
of Godhead, so abhorrent from all our traditions, as
to seem almost a wilful aberration. Theologians,
possessed with the notion of man's declension from
primitive reason, find here a confirmation of that
hypothesis. Accordingly, fetichism has become a
term of reproach. It stands in the popular appre-
hension for something monstrous and utterly vile,
as contrasted with the uses of revealed religion.
But these are not the test by which it should be
judged. Let it rather be compared with the stark
irreligion, the crass sensualism of either savage or
civilized man. I wish to place it in a more favor-
able light, to emphasize its better side.
Fetichism is not materialism. It is one of the
first proofs of a spirit in man akin to the divine,
340 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
that he can thus invest inferior, and even inanimate,
creatures with the attributes of Deity. That man,
himself the image of Godhead, can see divinity in
stocks and stones, can adore the superhuman in a
crocodile or the stump of a tree, attests the vitality
of the God-seeking instinct, which, for want of
direction, in the absence of the true light, is driven
to make a god of such objects as these, laying hold
of whatever by accident of mood or association has
hit its dim presentiment with a fancied air of,
supernaturalness.
In a more advanced stage of humanity fetichism
sometimes assumes a different character. Where
it does not rise into symbolism, it may sink into
sensualism, mechanical converse with idols, like
the terajjhhn which Rachel abstracted from her
father Laban, or like the gods which Birmingham
is said to manufacture for the use of the Hindoos.
But the fetichist proper, the creature-worshipping
savage, is no sensualist, is no materialist. He sees
spirit everywhere. The whole external world to
liim is magical, demoniacal. Every senseless ob-
ject is informed with life. He has not yet learned
to distinguish between person and thing. All is
person that happens to attract his special regard.
I find here proof of an inborn spiritualism, or
call it idealism, or immaterialism, which shows itself
wherever human nature is found in its aboriginal
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FETICH ISM. 341
simplicity. The savage is reproduced iii every
child. The child beats the inanimate object that
gave him pain. Theoretically, he knows that
the hurt was not willed by the thing that hurt ;
but passion outruns thought, and, acting on an
earlier, hylozoic conception, endows the senseless
offender with sense and purpose. Scarcely the
mature man represses resentment at the misbeha-
vior, seemingly wilful, of the matter he deals with,
wdien wood or metal baffles his shaping hand. He
w^ould not seriously tax the elements with unkind-
ness, but the sudden gust wdiich plucks his hat
from his head, or turns -his umbrella inside out, af-
flicts him with almost a sense of personal malice ;
so instinctively do men associate will with motion,
and person with w^ill. Language itself bears wit-
ness of this tendency in such phrases as "- the
freaks of the lightning," " the wind bloweth where
it listeth," and in our personification of sun, and
moon, and ships.
Caspar Hauser, the Bavarian youth, who, reared
in solitude and darkness, with no instruction until
his eighteenth year, was then thrust upon the
world, physically full-grown, but intellectually an
infant, is a perfect example of this simplicity of
the natural man, which knows no Cartesian dual-
ism in nature, but sees volition and spirit in all
things. '' He believed," says Feuerbach, "• every
342 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
motion which he witnessed in any object to be
spontaneous. If a sheet of paper was blown by
the wind, he thought it had run away from the
table by an imi3ulse of its own. He believed that
the tree of its own will moved its leaves and its
branches. The tree to him was a sensitive being ;
and the boy who struck its trunk with a stick pro-
voked his anger for giving it pain. He conceived
that the balls of a bowling-alley ran voluntarily
along the boards, and that, when they stopped, it
was because they were tired." It was deemed ex-
pedient to treat this young man at first as a child.
Some toy horses were given him to play with. He
could not believe that they were not living crea-
tures. He held his bread to them ; and when his
keeper tried to make him understand that they
could not eat, he pointed to the crumbs which
stuck in their mouths as proof that they did. One
of the horses had no bridle. He made a bridle for
it, and spent two days in trying to persuade it to
open its mouth to receive the bit. " From this and
other circumstances," says his biographer, " it ap-
peared that in his infantile soul ideas of animate
and inanimate, organic and inorganic, natural and
artificial, were entirely confused."
The intellectual condition of the savage resem-
bles that of Caspar Hauser, as described in Feuer-
bach's sketch. He sees volition, conscious life,
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FETICHISM. 343
personality, — what wonder if Deity also ! — in
inanimate things.
Advancing humanity soon outgrows this illusion.
Yet watch a little girl at play with her doll, and
see in the nursery, in the bosom of civilization, an
example of that deep instinct of personification
which passionate contemplation of an object, with
suspended reason, elicits, and which forms the
fundamental principle of fetichism.
It needs for this end no elaborate carving or
painting, no porcelain puppet from the toy-shop.
Take a roll of cloth, arrange it into a rude simili-
tude of the human figure, make at one end with a
stroke of the pen two circles with central dots for
the eyes, an angle for the nose, a straight line for
the mouth, — a rag baby, — and give it to the
child. Straightway she endows it with life ; she
passionately caresses it, converses with it, credits
it with consciousness and moral idiosyncrasies,
comforts it under imaginary sorrows, rewards its
good behavior, punishes its faults, and is incon-
solable when the iconoclast brotlier, in a spirit of
mischief, lays violent hands on her pet.
Beyond the walls of the nursery, and past the
illusions of childhood, there are moods of the adult
mind when inanimate forms exert a magical influ-
ence. Proteus, Glaucus, Arcadian Pan, in Greek
mythology, owed their origin, I guess, to visions
344 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
by the sea-shore and in the solitudes of the forest,
in which rocks and surf and gnarled trees seemed
to simulate the human form. Wordsworth, in his
" Peter Bell," has depicted with psychological fidel-
ity the fascination exercised by external objects on
a rude and depraved nature : —
"The moon uneasy looked, and dimmer;
The broad blue heavens appeared to glimmer,
And the rocks staggered all around."
There is a kind of fetichism — another form of
the empire of things — which, without personifying
inanimate objects, gives them a factitious value,
irrespective of external grace or any intrinsic
worth, — a value derived from personal or historic
association.
You have a cane, a walking-stick of quite ordi-
nary aspect. Apart from its history it has no
market value. But suppose it once belonged to
the poet just named, was cut by Wordsworth's
own hand from the banks of Yarrow, accompa-
nied him in his rambles through Westmoreland
and Cumberland, supported his steps in climbing
Skiddaw and in pacing the shores of Derwent-
water and Winandermere, — would you exchange
it for the smartest stick from the shop ? Ordina-
rily, things are valued for the gratification they
afford, or may be the means of affording, to the
senses. But here is a class of values in which the
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FETICHISM. 345
senses have no share, giving proof of a radical
idealism in human natm-e which it is comforting
to til ink of.
Mr. Horace Furness, the learned Shakspearian,
has a pair of gloves, nowise remarkable for beauty
of workmanship or convenience of wear, — plain
buff-leather gauntlets, — which he permits to be
seen only through a glass case, protecting them
from the touch of profane hands. We respect
the jealous care bestowed on these garments when
we learn that they once belonged to Shakspeare.
Garrick so received them ; and from Garrick down
the tradition is sure.
We need to distinguish between fetichism and
symbolism. Both are homage paid to things ; but
in the one case it is the thing itself, for its own
sake ; in the other it is the thing in its represen-
tative capacity, as sign of something else. In
fetichism it is the individual, in symbolism it is
the species, that counts. In fetichism the iden-
tical object admits of no substitute ; in symbolism,
so the form be preserved, the individual object is
of no importance. The Romanist bows to the
cross without asking what its material or whence
it came. The form is all that he considers ; any
other cross would do as well. But if this par-
ticular cross has belonged to some saint, or has a
history which consecrates it beyond the common,
346 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
then it is not only symbol, but fetich. To the
patriotic mind the national flag is sacred, not for
the rag's sake, but for what it represents ; and
patriotism is not offended if, when this particular
flag is past service, it is burned and another hoisted
in its place. But if this individual flag is associated
with some hard-fought field or some famous and
beloved captain, then, however tattered and torn,
it is zealously preserved, and becomes a national
fetich forevermore.
A familiar fetichism is the passion for auto-
graphs of distinguished men. We are brought
near to the heroes of our homage by the contem-
plation of their self-written characters. They hold
us in mortmain by a tenure which strengthens
with age. Near a thousand dollars have been paid
for an autograph of Shakspeare. A handy clerk
will trace you the sixteen or seventeen letters pre-
cisely in the style of the master ; nay, they may be
photographed with such exactness that no micro-
scope can detect the difference between the copy
and the original : but the writing has comparatively
no value. Fetichism insists on the actual thing,
as if some mysterious effluence from the writer's
hand had passed into it and charged it with talis-
manic power.
Saint Paul is supposed to have been an indiffer-
ent chirographer, employing a scribe in most of his
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FETICHISM. 347
letters to the churches. But that to the Galatians
was written with his own hand, and in it he seems
to refer to his ungainly manuscript : Ihere iT7]\LK0i^
rypdjjbfxaa-Lv eypayfra. Suppose we had that identical
Epistle, preserved by some wondrous chance, and
now first brought to light and offered for sale !
One can imagine the competition which such an
offer would provoke among the libraries of Chris-
tendom. One can hardly imagine the sum which
the British Museum would be willing to pay for
such a prize.
Collections of virtuosi in all kinds foster a
fetichism proper to themselves. The poorest pic-
ture which Titian's own hands could be proved to
have painted, the merest daub of his yet unprac-
tised brush, so its genuineness could be authenti-
cated beyond question, would fetch more in the
market than a perfect copy of his greatest work,
or perhaps than any masterpiece of contemporary
art. An acquaintance of mine, whom fortune had
blessed with more wealth than judgment, showed
me, in a gallery containing some excellent paint-
ings, a few on which he set especial value, and for
which, as purporting to be the works of old mas-
ters, he had paid exorbitant prices. Not one of
them intrinsically was worth the frame in which it
hung. Such glamour ugliness takes from a name.
I thought of the Tradrj/jLara, the passion-pictures,
348 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
of early Christendom, which escaped the reform-
ing hand of the Isaurian, while my friend re-
counted to me the evidence of their genuineness, —
the old story of impoverished nobles forced to part
with their ancestral treasures.
The fetichism of devotion has been a power in
history. It saved Rome at the loYv^cst ebb of her
fortunes from utter extinction. " Like Thebes, or
Babylon, or Carthage," says Gibbon, " the name of
Rome might have been erased from the earth if tlic
city had not been animated by a vital principle
which again restored her to honor and dominion.
A vague tradition was embraced that two Jewish
teachers — a tent-maker and a fisherman — had
formerly been executed in the circus of Nero ; and
at the end of five hundred years their genuine or
fictitious relics were adored as the palladium of
Christian Rome." Whatever may be thought of
the style and spirit of this passage, so character-
istic of the great historian, it is certain that the
life, the continued existence, of Rome in her de-
cline depended on the strong attraction of the
sacred relics, which drew Christian pilgrims from
all parts of the world to the citadel of their faith.
The bones of the martyrs could work their mira-
cles only on the spot ; but a vigorous traffic was
carried on in iron filings from the chains with
which it was claimed that Paul and Peter had been
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FETICHISM. 349
bound. Pope Gregory I. subsidized the lucrative
trade b}^ his official declaration that these frag-
ments of iron possessed healing virtues equal to
those of tlie bones of the martyrs; which Gibbon
thinks quite probable. Some of the principal cities
of antiquity were protected by the faith of their
citizens in some fetich which constituted their pal-
ladium. It was the quest of a fetich, the " Holy
Grail," which inspired the most romantic adven-
tures of chivalry. It was the exhibition of a fetich,
the sacred lance, that delivered the Christian host
miprisoned within the walls of Antioch.
It used to be said that there were in Europe
pretended pieces of the true cross enough to build
a seventy-four. Suppose one actually possessed a
fragment of the wood on which Jesus hung, —
assured, if such a thing were possible, by incontro-
vertible evidence, — what virtue would there be in
that bloclc above any other piece of timber of the
same dimensions and fibre ? And yet what price
would be deemed by Christian zeal too great for
such a relic ? A very respectable kind of fetichism
is that, — more respectable, I think, than the utili-
tarianism which acknowledges no value in things
beyond their material capabilities.
Scarcely a household but has its fetich, — some
piece of ancestral furniture, a chair, a dish, a
trinket, — some heirloom whose value is not in
350 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
itself, but in the story that goes with it. The be-
reaved mother preserves in some secret receptacle
a lock of the hair of the child that died in infancy.
The sight of it " wounds " her
*' With a grief
Whose balsam never grew ; "
but she has treasured it none the less through all
these years, and still treasures it with that pious
fetichism of the heart which defies philosophy, and
w^hich it is better to know no philosophy than to
be without.
In religion fetichism marks the lowest grade of
spiritual life. It was a great and decisive step in
human progress when visible gods were exchanged
for invisible, when Powers took the place of Things,
and the hymns of the Rig-Veda lifted the soul from
the veneration of natural objects to the adoration
of Nature herself as manifest in her elemental
forces, — water, wind, and fire. Of this worship
a reminiscence survives in our personification of
Nature as a female divinity, — a bit of heathenism
which Christian theism is fain to tolerate.
But fetichism itself, as I have endeavored to
show, is not that brutal arrest in mere sensualism
which theological prejudice is wont to figure it.
In fetichism itself there is a kindling of the spirit.
If " the heathen in his blindness bows down to
wood and stone," it is because he has the God-idea
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FETICHISM. 351
in his mind, and surmises Deity in wood and stone.
1 have more sympathy with him than with the sci-
entist who can find no Deity anywhere, but only
molecules and blind force. All fetichism is inter-
esting ; for in all fetichism there is precisely that
refusal to rest in the visible object, that faculty of
seeing something more in it than the senses cog-
nize, which differences the spiritual man from the
sensual. It is not the block as such that makes
the fetich, but tlie block plus the unknown behind
it. There are those to whom the thin.gs they con-
verse with are final. A rose is a rose, a brook is
a brook. There arc others for whom these things
are informed with ideal import. There are those
to whom sunrise and sunset, with their crimson
draperies, are material phenomena, whose signifi-
cance is quite exhausted when science has ex-
l»lained their cause. There are others to whom
sunrise and sunset are the greetings and farewells
of a coming and departing God. There are those
who see in amethyst and emerald bits of quartz or
silex stained with chromium or peroxide of iron,
worth so much a carat as they come from the
hands of the lapidary. There are others to whom
these gems are hints and foregleams of the New
Jerusalem.
The secret of fetichism is that, as Mr. Longfellow
naively says, " things are not what they seem." In
852 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
all fetichism there is idealism, in all there is piety ;
not indeed of the highest type, but still piety that
deserves our respect. " Things are in the saddle."
Some of them have a right to their saddle by vir-
tue of the faith which placed them there, and the
strong prescription of the ages gone that have kept
them there. Venerable to me are the great world-
fetiches which for centuries have ridden, and still
ride, so large a portion of mankind. Venerable is
the Kaaba with its stone, the oldest visible object
of worship, in which Islam adores the heirloom of
an elder faith. A^enei-able is the house of the Vir-
gin, which angels transported from Nazareth and
delivered at Loretto. Venerable are the lip-worn
bronzes of Rome. Venerable are the sacred bones
of the Three Kings which liave wandered so far, and
find rest at last in the city of Cologne. What care
1 that historically these things are not what their
votaries claim ? They have a history of their own,
which is quite authentic and commands my hom-
age. Where devotion has knelt for ages I do not
care to criticise. Criticism has its rights ; but if
criticism had full sway, the world would be shorn
of half its sanctities. If criticism had full sway, no
epic would ever have been sung, no gospel written,
and no religion have established itself on tlie eartli.
It should move our admiration to see what awful-
ncss faith can impart to dead matter, or what the
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FETICHISM. 353
senses esteem as such. In the view of the higher
philosophy there is no dead matter, but only forces
in equilibrio, — temporary arrest of motion. The
penetrating eye of Leibniz saw something in bod-
ies which Descartes, who separated matter and
spirit, could not see, — something beside extension
and even prior to extension. Ever memorable say-
ing, — " Imo extensione prius " ! Fetichism sees
in bodies and gives to bodies an added something
which no ontology can state and no analysis de-
tect, — something impalpable, imponderable, insep-
arable, untransferable, — something whose value
increases with the lapse of time, — something by
virtue of which they are precious as rubies, and
without which they are vile as the ground we
tread on.
23
354 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS,
GENIUS.
[From the " Atlantic Monthly," I'ebruary, 1868.]
'TPHE finest spirits of all time concur in ascrib-
"^ ing their best effects to a higher power.
The genial flow of successful production registers
itself in our consciousness, as a special grace be-
yond the command of the private will. The expe-
rience of every true artist, of everj^ great poet,
prophet, discoverer, of every providential leader of
his time, attests the action of an alien force tran-
scending the calculated efforts of the mind, and
working the surprises of art and life.
This latent and reserved power in man the
Greeks called Aaificov (daemon). Plutarch, in his
gossiping discourse on the diemon of Socrates, re-
ports the vision of one Timarchus, who descended
into the cave of Trophonius to consult the oracle
on the subject. He there saw spirits which were
partly immersed in human bodies and partly ex-
terior to them, shining luminously above their
heads. He was told that the part immersed in
the body is called the soul, but the external part
is called daemon. Every man, says the oracle, has
" GENIUS. 855
his daemon, whom he is bound to obey ; those who
implicitly follow that guidance are the prophetic
souls, the favorites of the gods. Goethe, in his
oracular way, speaks of the demonic in man as a
power lying back of the will, and inspiring certain
natures with miraculous energy. He disclaims this
power for himself, yet in his Autobiography rep-
resents the poetic faculty dwelling in him as some-
thing beyond his control, — as a kind of obsession.
It is this involuntary, incalculable force that con-
stitutes what we call genius. The word was origi-
nally synonymous with the AuI/jlcov of the Greeks.
It denoted a guardian power beyond the conscious-
ness and above the will of the individual, — a
power which determined and controlled his ac-
tion, but over which he had no control. It is
comparatively a recent use to speak of genius as a
quality of mind ; a power possessed by, instead of a
power possessing. We still make use of the phrase
" good genius " in the sense of guardian spirit.
Genius is the higher self, and common to all
men. What, then, distinguishes men of genius, so
called, from the rest of mankind ? We may sup-
pose that the higher self is more active in some
than in others, or that it finds more docile sub-
jects. Or we may suppose that its quality differs
with different individuals. I only contend that
genius is not a special faculty which he who has
356 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
it emploj'S at will, as the painter his brush or the
sculptor his chisel, but the higher nature, the man
of the man.
It is not, however, of genius as a psychological
principle, but of genius as an intellectual phenome-
non, — of genius as manifested in science, art, life,
— that I wish to speak.
So yiewed, its great and distinguishing charac-
teristic is orighiality. In the etymology of the
word lies the sense of productive force, and in
vulgar opinion it stands for originating power. In
science it appears as discovery and invention, al-
ways as newness. It is tlic mediator between the
known and the unknown, the possible and impos-
sible. In science, as in nature, there is always
a leap from stage to stage. The beginning of the
animal is not the organic sequent of tlie vegetable
kingdom, nor the viviparous animal of the ovipa-
rous, nor man of the chimpanzee. At each stage
there is a lift between successive orders, a break
in the sequence where plastic Nature interpolates
a new thought ; and the j^rcesens numen makes the
bridge from kind to kind. The history of intellec-
tual genesis exhibits similar interpolations. The
succession between old and new, in science and
art, is not a mechanical sequence, but a lift and a
leap. The transition from stage to stage is not
the measured increment of an arithmetical series.
GENIUS. 857
but a mediation of originating genius. Genius is
the bridge-builder, the pontifex maximus, in the
passage from period to period in science and art.
Such a bridge was built by Kepler for the sci-
ence of astronomy, which, after the pregnant con-
jecture of Copernicus, had come to a stand in the
sixteenth century. Tycho Brahe had accumulated
at his observa^tory a mass of facts which he wanted
the wit to apply to further progress, still maintain-
ing, in spite of Copernicus, the earth's immobility.
Kepler saw these facts ; and in his productive im-
agination they immediately germinated into new
discoveries. A discrepance of eight minutes be-
tween the position of Mars as noted by Brahe and
that which it should have had as calculated by the
Copernican hypothesis, suggested to him the ellipse
as the true orbit of planetary motion. With this
discovery, to which he added that of the equal
areas in equal times of the radius vector^ and the
true proportion of the times of revolution to the
distances of the planets from the sun, he inaugu-
rated the new era in astronomy. Kepler's " Three
Laws " are the three arches of the bridge by which
the sublimest of the sciences crossed the gulf from
the Ptolemaic to the modern system.
In later time, when Laplace by victorious arith-
metic had solved the portentous problems of the
Mecanique Celeste^ and reduced to order the seem-
358 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
ing irregularities of the heavenly bodies, — when
every planet but one was exactly timed in sidereal
horology, — when even the revolution of distant
Saturn was computed to the day, the hour, the very
second, of his arrival at the home station after an
annual journey of nearly thirty earthly years, —
Uranus alone defied arithmetic, and refused to
conform to the time set down for him on the
heavenly dial. No calculus could fix this extreme
member of the spheral school, no equation could
dispose of his rebellious eccentricity. " What ails
the refractory planet ? " asked the star-timing sen-
tinels of science at their watch-posts. There was
a chasm between Uranial and cis-Uranial astron-
omy. A bridge was needed to span that gulf.
"Who will build the bridge from Saturn to Uranus ?
Tlien said Leverrier, " That bridge must be a
planet." And he set himself to work to construct
a planet. It must be of such and such dimensions,
it must be at such and such distances from the
sun and other planets, it must have such and such
periods of rotation and revolution. And now, gen-
tlemen at the sentinel-posts of science, your bridge
is ready ; and if at a certain hour of a certain
night you will turn your telescopes on a certain
quarter of the heavens, you will see a planet which
was never yet noted by terrestrial eye. And the sen-
tinels pointed their tubes, and saw Neptune emerge
GENIUS. 359
from the upper deep, and respond with ray serene
to the searching interrogatory of his brother orb.
But before the problems of the Mecanique Celeste
could be solved, a higher arithmetic was required
than any known to ancient science. The methods
employed by the old astronomers were not appli-
cable to these new exigencies. A bridge was
needed between the old computation and the new
problems. That bridge was furnished by Leibniz,
the mathematical genius of the seventeenth cen-
tury. He examined the methods then in use for
determining the values of unknown and variable
quantities, and found that by considering number
as continuous, and of gradual growth, the process
might be simplified, and the values of unknown
quantities ascertained by equations established be-
tween their derivatives, instead of directly between
themselves. The result was the infinitesimal calcu-
lus, — the serviceable tool without which astronomy
could not have achieved its greatest triumphs.
Richer than science itself in illustrations of origi-
nating genius is the application of science to art.
Art is the issue to which science necessarily tends.
As spirit cannot remain spirit in unconditioned ab-
straction, but is bound to precipitate itself in mate-
rial creations, so knowledge rushes into life, and
science hastens to realize itself in art. In wliat-
ever department of scientific inquiry, however
360 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
remote from practical life, a new fact is discov-
ered, the genius of humanity will sooner or later
translate that fact into use.
In 1820 a Danish professor, in the midst of a
lecture on electricity, was suddenly seized with
a thought which so overwhelmed him that he
straightway closed his delivery, adjourned with
Ms class from the lecture-room to the laboratory,
there to test his idea by a practical experiment.
The experiment demonstrated that the electric
current is accompanied by a magnetic circulation,
and exerts, under certain conditions, a determin-
ing influence on the direction of tlie magnetic
needle. In a word, he discovered electro-magnet-
ism. Twelve years later, an American artist re-
turning from Europe hears a fellow-passenger in
the home-bound packet-ship recount some experi-
ments with the electro-magnet recently witnessed
in Paris. He conceives the idea that the rapid
transmission of electricity might be turned to ac-
count in the communication of intelligence. After
several fruitless experiments, he succeeds in con-
structing a machine by which the action of the
electro-magnet on a lever puts in motion an iron
pen, and deposits marks which, used as equivalents
of alphabetic signs, produce on paper an intelli-
gible record. Another twelve years, and a message
is sent from Baltimore to Washington by this
GENIUS. 361
miraculous agent. Meanwhile the pregnant idea has
fructified abroad ; lightning has become a medium
of communication between the capitals of Europe ;
England builds a colossal steamship, which having
miscarried in every other enterprise, and conju-
gated in her brief history all the moods and tenses
of failure, serves at last a providential purpose in
threading the Atlantic with an insulating cable
which binds the hemispheres in social converse.
In less than fifty years from the date of Oersted's
experiment, the Old World is wired to the New ;
continent converses with continent by electro-
magnetism. At this rate, how long will it be be-
fore the whole earth, girdled round and round with
electric lines of intelligence, shall repair the disas-
ter of Babel, and have all her children united once
more in conscious communication ?
One more illustration of the many which suggest
themselves. Tliere has grown up of late an art
which, though strictly mechanical in its methods,
is nearly allied to beautiful art in its products, and
surpasses beautiful art in its faithful rendering of
nature, — the art by which the sun is made to copy
and fix the pictures he paints on the eye. When
we gaze on a beautiful or beloved object which
time and distance must soon remove, the desire
arises to have what is next to the object itself, —
the " counterfeit presentment " that sliall repro-
862 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
ducG the image when the original is withdrawn.
The frolic grace of childhood, the radiant bloom
of youth., are charms which the swift years are
hastening to obliterate. The fond parent whose
house these visions of beauty bless is anxious to
preserve in the impress what he cannot retain in
the life. The tourist bound for distant lands, in-
tending protracted absence, would fain leave behind
some image of himself that may represent him in
the home circle, and take with him the images of
his beloved. The same tourist bound for home
desires some memorial that shall reproduce for
liim in after years the scenes and wonders of for-
eign lands. The painter's art may, to some ex-
tent, supply these wants for such as are able to
command its service. But the products of pencil
and brush are luxuries not accessible to all. A
cheaper artist has been secured for these occasions.
The same celestial limner that painted the origi-
nals is engaged by modern invention to repeat the
picture in miniature and portable form. Photog-
raphy answers the demand of unerring accuracy in
the product, with the smallest cost in the process.
The history of this invention illustrates the oppor-
tuneness of genius in the application of science to
art. The art of photography was impossible until
chemistry, the most recent of the sciences, had
discovered the physical fact on which it is based.
GENIUS.
No sooner was the fact discovered than genius was
ready to appropriate and translate it into use. It
was near the close of the last century that Senebier,
investigating the laws of vegetable processes, dis-
covered that the light of the sun is required to
enable the leaves of plants to fix the carbon and
disengage the oxygen of the earth's atmosphere.
Subsequent experiments, suggested by this discov-
ery, established the fact that the violet rays of the
prismal spectrum and those which bound it on
the outer side possess the property of blackening
chloride of silver. To ordinary minds there was
no particular significance in this fact, no relation
to pictorial art. But the genius of Daguerre came
in contact with it. He saw in it the germ of a
new and wondrous invention ; saw in it the possi-
bility of pictures painted by the light, — copies of
its own originals, — and gave us in the photograph
a bridge of triumph from the laboratory to the
easel. By means of this invention, which renders
with impartial fidelity every trait in nature and art,
the tourist brings home the lands he visits, in his
portfolio. Venice and Rome, Switzerland and the
Rhine, are sold at the print-shops, and Europe may
be seen without the inconvenience of sea-sickness.
In beautiful art, as in mechanical, the mark of
genius is still originality. And here this trait is
364 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
most conspicuous in the great transitions by which
art passes from its rude and elementary stages to
its full development, — transitions which culminate
in some marked individual, who bursts the trammels
of convention, and leads his age by one decisive
step from bondage to freedom. Such a deliverer
was Praxiteles when he set before his countrymen
the daring novelty of the Cnidian A^enus, proclaim-
ing the complete beauty of the human form, and
proving that beauty undraped and unadorned, to
the eye of the -spirit, is sufficient covering. Such
a deliverer was Leonardo, who emancipated art
from the bonds of Umbrian spiritualism, and in-
staurated simple humanity in the schools of Italy.
Next to originality, the most distinctive charac-
teristic of genius is a right proportion between the
productive and regulative forces of the mind. A
certain exceptional amount of intellectual vigor
being presupposed, what most distinguishes minds
of the first from those of a lower order is that due
command of their powers which precludes all wild-
ness and excess, and secures for their works the
crowning grace of proportion. The mind of man,
like the planet he inhabits, and like all the great
agencies of nature, is bipolar. It has its positive
pole and its negative, — antagonist forces, which,
for want of a better designation, we will call
GENIUS. 365
Imagination and Reflection. Imagination is the
positive force, reflection the negative ; imagination
creates, reflection limits and defines. The one
gives the stuff, the other the form. Imagination,
although the most exalted of the intellectual pow-
ers, is also the most universal. It is the first
faculty which the infant exercises, and the last to
become extinct in old age. Its universality is seen
in dreams. The clown dreams as well as the poet ;
and the dreams of either are just as poetic at one
time, and just as absurd at another. Dreaming is
an act of pure imagination, attesting in all men a
creative power which, if it were available in wak-
ing, would make every man a Dante or a Shak-
speare. Our night-history is a series of poetic
compositions, each one of which, however absurd
as a whole, contains perhaps some one passage or
trait which would make the fortune of a work of
art. But though the raw capacity is universal, the
trained faculty is peculiar. Out of this unorgan-
ized prose imagination the conscious artistic power
must develop itself, like the winged bird from the
senseless Qgg. The artist differs from the common
man not so much in the amount of mind possessed
as in the amount taken up into consciousness.
Imagination alone does not constitute genius.
There may be an excess of that element, un-
balanced by the regulative powers. " ]\Ien of
366 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
unbounded imagination," ssljs Dryden, " often want
the poise of judgment." In actual life that excess
produces, or rather constitutes, insanity, — a phe-
nomenon very similar to that of dreaming. The
maniac, like the dreamer, is taken out of his true
position in space and time ; but the reason of the
disturbance is not the same in both. In the maniac
the imagination, owing to some morbid action of the
brain, overrules the impressions derived through
the senses ; in the dreamer the predominance of
the imagination arises from the torpid state of the
sentient organs. The dreamer is a madman qui-
escent ; the madman is a dreamer in action.
In intellectual efforts the excess of imagination
over the negative faculty shows itself in over-
strained and fantastic productions, in poetic " am-
bition that o'erleaps its sell." Phaeton, in the
Greek myth, borrows the sun-chariot, but, unable
to guide the steeds, is hurried away by them to his
own destruction. There are Phaetons in every
walk of life, — men of great capacity and vast am-
bition, who fail in serious undertakings for lack, as
we say, of " judgment," that is, of negative power.
They are carried away by great conceptions which
they are unable to manage and bring to successful
execution. They have the positive element of gen-
ius, imagination, but want reflection, — that reac-
tion of the mind on its own forces which fixes their
GENIUS. 367
limits and binds them with law and form. Unlim-
ited force is force without effect. The sun's rays
would be powerless without the refracting and re-
flecting planets, which oppose their denser spheres
to the prodigal efflux. The planets Avould fly
asunder and be dissipated in nebulae without the
centripetal force, which negatives their eager striv-
ing for limitless expansion. The vegetable growths
of the earth would exhaust themselves in rank ex-
cess of leaf and stalk, and never ripen into fruit,
were it not for the concentrative power which
checks this overgrowth, and, reducing the volume
for the sake of the product, collects the luxuriant
juices of the plant into edible pulp and marrow.
What the centripetal power is to the planet, what
concentration is to the plant, that reflection is to
the mind, — the power which sets bounds, which
corrects and defines, which moulds and perfects
and renders available the raw material of im-
agination.
For want of this negative power unbalanced
minds become the victims of their own ideality.
Like the magician's apprentice in Goethe's deep
fable, they are drowned by the spirits they evoke.
As artists, as poets, they often astonish, but never
satisfy. They lacerate the soul with over-excite-
ment ; but genius is alwa3's self-possessed. The
masters in art know how to lay as well as to sum-
368 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
mon ; they command the spirits they conjure, and
dismiss them promptly when their work is done.
«' In die Ecke
Besen ! Besen !
Seid's gewesen \"
They never harrow with excessive emotion. What-
ever horrors their subject may bring, the general
harmony is not disturbed. If they summon Furies,
as in the " Eumenides " and in " Macbeth," they put
music in their mouths and a solemn measure in
their feet. If they picture deeds of violence, as
in " Othello," they half envelop them in their own
deep shadows. They " use all gently ; " " in the
very torrent, tempest, and whirlwind " of their
" passion " they " acquire and beget a temperance
that may give it smoothness." AVhether dealing
with elemental fury or wielding the lightnings of
vengeance, they never transgress the severe boun-
dary line of beauty, and " o'crstep not the modesty
of nature." With the grandest themes they com-
bine the most diligent details ; for genius is quite
as apparent in elaboration as in conception. It
has not only to create the soul of a work, but to
mould, part by part, the body that soul is to in-
habit. The flow of thought and feeling, when
tending to issues the most tremendous, must be
guided with studied care and measured strokes
through subtleties the most perplexing, — through
GENIUS. 369
the marble folds of tangled serpents to Laocoon
struggles, through difficult flesh-tints and ana-
tomical processes to miracles of pictured passion,
through rhytlimic cadences to Aias' rage and Faust's
despair. In works like these, where passion gives
soul to art, and art gives form to passion, true
genius unites intense fervor with intenser calm,
the fiercest glow of conception with the utmost so-
briety of judgment. However imagination may soar,
reason must hold it in clieck. However passion
may seethe and foam, a reconciling thought must
span the tumult, as the rainbow spans Niagara.
Genius should be carefully discriminated from
talent, with which it is apt to be confounded. Tal-
ent sometimes culminates into the altitude of gen-
ius, but is never at home on those august heights.
It is the forced hyperbole of the rocket, not the
easy swell of the Alps. Talent is some one faculty
unusually developed ; genius commands all the fac-
ulties. The one is a distinct quality ; the other, the
entire man. Talent manufactures ; genius creates.
From a summer full of roses and berries talent
concocts its essences and preserves ; but genius is
the summer itself, which grows the roses and ber-
ries of its own fecundity. Talent is phenomenal, —
a spectacle which wx contemplate as something for-
eign and external ; but genius makes us a party to
24
370 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
its doings, — it carries us with it like the course
of things. Works of talent are accidental ; they
might not have happened, or might be other than
they are, without seriously affecting the issues of
life. But works of genius seem a necessity of
nature, — as if they could not be other than they
are, and could not but have been. I can as easily
imagine Italy or England left out of the map of
Europe, as I can the " Divina Commedia " or " Ham-
let " expunged from the world's literature. Talent
egotizes, and is always remindhig you of itself ; it
is always conscious. But genius, sufficient to itself,
never seems to know what it does. Like nature,
it informs its creations with a spirit everywhere
present, but nowhere egoistically prominent. Like
nature, it works with equal ease and equal satis-
faction in the highest and the lowest, and never
seems in one thing more than another to take
either pleasure or pride. It performs trifles w4th
an air which makes them seem great, and per-
forms wonders with an air which makes them seem
trifles. With equal hand it dispenses thunder-bolts
and thistle-down ; thinks as much of the robin's
note as it does of the ocean's roar, as much of the
daisy in the rock-cleft as it does of the cataract by
whose spray it is nourished. It makes the most
refractory problems seem absurdly easy, so adroit
the simplicity with which it handles them; as
GENIUS, 371
men of great muscular strength make the bodies
they lift seem divested of their gravity. We won-
der less at the ready solution than we do at our
own stupidity, which failed to discover it. As in
the story of Columbus and the Qgg^ while school -
learning ponders and plods, genius, with easy
assurance, marches straight to the goal.
What somnambulism is to ordinary sleep, that
genius is to ordinary waiving, — a conscious clair-
voyance, as somnambulism is an unconscious one.
It is a higher waking; it dissolves the dream-band,
which in ordinary men interposes between the
subject and the object, lifts the heavy lid, and in-
forms with new and sincere perceptions the quick-
ened sense. Something of prophetic insight is
proper to it. When Copernicus propounded the
soli-central hypothesis, astronomers objected that
if his position were correct, Venus ought to have
phases lilvc the moon. Copernicus, nothing abashed,
admitted the inference, but immediately added
that if men should ever come to see Venus more
distinctly, they would find that she had phases.
This was before the invention of the telescope.
When that instrument was given to science, one
of its earliest fruits was the discovery of the phases
of Venus. The composition of the diamond was
conjectured by Newton on theoretic grounds, be-
fore it was ascertained by Lavoisier ; and Goethe,
372 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
in his " Morphology," anticipated some of the lead-
ing discoveries of modern science.
Genius, in close rapport with nature, discovers
new expressions in tlie old familiar face of things,
and so enlarges the vocahulary of metaphor. Until
Shakspeare spoke of moonlight sleeping, the pe-
culiar expression of a lunar reflection had never
been exactly defined. Now that the word has be^en
spoken, we wonder that any other could ever have
been applied to it. "Who," says Coleridge, '' has
not a thousand times seen snoAv fall upon water ?
Who has not watched it with a new feeling from
the time wdien he read Burns' s comparison of sen-
sual pleasure to
' Snow that falls upon a river, —
A moment white, then gone forever ' 1 "
Above all, genius is humane. It esteems noth-
ing common or unclean ; it is no respecter of
persons. In politics it is oftenest found on the
side of the people, as against exclusive and pre-
scriptive rights. Talent is exclusive, because con-
ventional. Holdino: not of original nature, but of
custom, it exaggerates the artificial distinctions
wiiich custom has established. Genius absolves
from the ban of convention ; i t restores to com-
mon life its sacred rights. Wherever it appears,
humanity is renewed.
GENIUS. 373
I have spoken of genius as manifest in science
and art ; but these are by no means its exchisive
province. Its characteristics are nowhere more
conspicuous than in action. There are deeds which
bear its stamp as unmistakably as the masterpieces
of art. When Themistocles, by a ruse, cuts off the
retreat of the Allies, provokes the enemy's attack,
and risks the destinies of Greece on a single battle;
when Caesar confounds Pompey at Pharsalus with
a fourth cohort ; when William of Normandy scut-
tles the ships which have brought him and his
counts from the coast of France, shutting up his
expedition within the alternative of victory or
death; when Arnold von Winkelried at the battle
of Sempach breaks the Austrian line by gathering
the enemy's lances in his arms ; when Cromwell
with a stamp of his foot dissolves the Long Par-
liament "for the glory of God and the good of
the people ; " when Israel Putnam at Reading baf-
fles the British dragoons by urging his horse over
the impracticable precipice ; when Napoleon I. with
forced marches crosses the Alps and surprises the
Austrians on the plains of Lombardy, — I discern
in those acts a power akin to that which makes
the greatness of Kepler or Michael Angelo.
Is it asked to what individuals on the roll of
fame the praise of genius is especially due ? The
374 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
question is one which craves liberal handling. It
will not bear a peremptory answer. It is a ques-
tion on which no one likes that another should
dogmatize. The number is small of those to whom
all will accord the foremost rank in their Valhalla.
The stars of first magnitude in the intellectual fir-
mament are soon catalogued. Some dozen names
from Homer to Goethe are all that three thousand
years of Indo-Germanic culture have inscribed
among the dii majores of poetry ; a few more in
science, and as many in the plastic arts.
To an American jealous of national fame the
question presents itself,. What is our part and lot
in this matter ? What have we that may vie with
the splendid examples of the Old World ?
The bane of American genius is popularity, the
pursuit and the tyranny of the popular vote.
Without the popular vote no American is great or
blest. Our heaven is an elective privilege ; not
to be popular is tlie American hell. So the cus-
tom of the ballot extends its sway over letters
and art ; no standard of success is acknowledged
but a numerical one. So many readers, so many
copies sold, so much merit : as if intellectual pre-
eminence, like political, could be conferred by the
ballot-box ! The writer will never prosper with
that prosperity which the genuine artist desires,
GENIUS. 375
who has the fear of the majority before his eyes,
or thinks more of his readers' judgment than his
own. The best works are never popular.
As to the influence of foreign models, which is
thought by some to act unfavorably on native
genius, I can see no hindrance in that direction.
European art can no more extinguish ours than
the old European could preclude the new, or
Sophocles extinguish Schiller. Other minds are
to native genius but so much nature, one among
the many ingredients in the common soil from
which by its own elective chemistry it draws its
life.
There is a periodicity in the world of mind as
in the world of material nature. Epochs of cre-
ative power recur at certain, as yet incalculable,
intervals in the course of time. Every zone re-
ceives in its turn the full illumination of the sun
of history. No doubt this nation will have in its
turn, as others before it have had, its golden age
of intellectual glory. And when that age arrives,
the American poet or prophet or sage who shall
worthily represent the mind of this continent will
find his place prepared for him by more com-
manding antecedents, his work reinforced by
ampler resources, than ever yet fell to the lot of
genius.
376 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
THE LORDS OF LIFE.
'T^WO factors co-operate in every organized be-
ing to make it what it is. All animated
nature, including man, is the product of the two.
We will call them Idea and Accident.
By Idea I mean the interior principle in each
subject, the proper self of the individual, the dis-
tinctive type of the kind.
By Accident I mean whatever in any way affects
the development, modifies the property, or deter-
mines the manifestation of the individual or the
kind.
I use the word idea in the original Platonic
sense of a theorem, or forma formans, prescril)ing
and enduing i\\Q forma formata in Nature's kinds, —
the ultimate law of its being.i
In works of human art, design, that is, an idea of
what is to be, must precede and direct creation. A
house is not built without a plan. Can we suppose
1 " Lord Bacon, the British Plato, describes the laws of the ma-
terial universe as the ideas in nature. ' Quod in natura naturata
lex, in natura naturante idea dicitur.' " — Coleridge: Church and
State.
THE LORDS OF LIFE. 377
it otherwise in Nature's laboratory ? Must not idea
there also precede production ?
The Hebrew poet understood this ; he platonizcd
by anticipation when he wrote : " Thine eyes did
see my substance while yet unformed. In thy
book were all things written while as yet there
was , none of them."
It is the fault of the doctrine of " evolution," as
commonly presented, in its application to vegetable
and animal organisms, that it makes no account of
this agency ; it does not recognize the plastic func-
tion of ideas, although heredity, on which it insists,
is nothing else. It knows, or it emphasizes, but
one function in Nature, — accident ; it sees in
man, brute, and plant only what time and circum-
stance have made them.
But when we observe how like in Nature pro-
duces like, how always the acorn brings forth the
oak, and never willow or ash, the lion a lion, and
not a bear ; when we mark the continuance, age
after age, of certain types, which are only ideas
stamped on stuff, — we must admit, I think, that
ideas are controlling factors in the universe of
things. The production of like by like is intelli-
gible only on this supposition ; otherwise it would
be only occasional, accidental.
Ideas are the forms of creatures present to the
creative mind prior to the actual existence of those
378 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
creatures. Creation, or evolution, is the embodiment
and presentation of those ideas to the finite mind.
Ideas are motives which act from within out-
ward ; accidents are motives which act from with-
out inward. Ideas belong to science ; accidents to
history.
In what proportion do these factors combine in
human life ? What is their comparative influence
on human destiny ?
It is often affirmed that circumstances make the
man ; that character and destiny are the product of
influences that have acted on us from without ; that
we are what those influences have made us, and
could not, with such motives, have been other than
we are ; that had circumstances been different we
should have developed differently, it might have
been better, or it might have been worse. We
might have figured as heroes of history or as saints
of the Church ; or we might, as evil-doers and
felons, have incurred the reprobation of mankind.
It is the fault of circumstance that we are not
Washingtons or Howards ; it is the favor of acci-
dent that we are not Borgias and Robespierres.
The poet's fancy could suppose in a clodhopper
of Stoke-Pogis a possible Milton.
This view of man overlooks the element of indi-
viduality, or makes individuality itself an accident.
If all that before our birth contributed to make us
THE LORDS OF LIFE. 379
what we are ; if pre-natal as well as post-natal in-
fluences are to be reckoned as circumstance, — then
it is unquestionably true, or rather, it is an identi-
cal proposition, that circumstances make the man ;
for then circumstances are the man.
I understand by circumstance external surround-
ings, local and social conditions ; and to these
must be conceded, no doubt, an immense influence
on human destiny.
Consider the influence of locality on the intellec-
tual and moral life. The highest culture, the sci-
ences and arts, have their geographical limits. A
narrow belt of earth — the strip included between
the twentieth and the sixtieth degree of north lati-
tude — comprises all the great lights of tlie world's
history. And among the nations embraced in those
limits, what differences, what inequalities, according
as climate and topographical peculiarities — a little
more heat, a little more cold, mountains and sea —
have moulded the genius and cast the lot ! How
different the European of the North and the Euro-
pean of the South, Protestant Sweden and Catholic
Spain ! How unlike the Swiss mountaineer and
the maritime Dutch !
Then note the action of social appointments on
individual lives — the influence of family, church,
education, vicinage, example. How mighty these
agencies for good or for evil ! Family : the charac-
380 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
ter of tne parents, their social status, their exam-
ple, — how inevitably these act on the child in that
plastic period when the soul is responsive to every
impression, when everything that comes in contact
with it leaves its mark. Who will predict for the
child of the low-lived and vicious the career we ex-
pect for the offspring of the high-fortuned, the
noble and refined ? Who for the gamin^ the waif
of the street, the lot we prognosticate for the well-
to-do citizen's well-nurtured hope ?
Bodily constitution, health, and disease : who can
measure the influence of these, or guess how deeply
they may enter into the life of the soul? how far
physical accident may sway the will and shape the
life?
Other influences, unknown, incalculable, come in
for their share in the casting of every lot. Every
circumstance, every accident to which human na-
ture is subjected, will have its influence for good
or evil.
But are these influences fatal ? Do they alone
decide man's destiny ? A child is this moment
cast upon the world, —
" Ut sffivis projectus ab undis
Navita : "
what shall come of it ? As yet a mere capability,
apparently undetermined, infinitely determinable :
whereunto shall it grow ? Will you cast its horo-
THE LORDS OF LIFE. 381
scope ? Latent in that lump of flesli there may be,
for aught we know, a sage or a fool, a villain or a
saint. If circumstance makes the man, the circum-
stances into which he is born, or those which await
his after years, have predetermined or will inevit-
ably determine him this or that among the wide
varieties of character which life presents. Know
the circumstances, and your horoscope is infallible ;
given the accidents, you have the man.
But on this supposition there is no mmi ; human
nature disappears ; the individual is only a topic of
fortune, an arena for the play of chance. Reason
revolts from such a conclusion. Closer examina-
tion will discern behind the accidents a substance,
a substantial being whom they befall ; will find
that man is what he is by reason of something in
him, and not altogether through what happens to
him ; that in fact the idea in each subject is the
more decisive factor in his destiny.
Let us trace the operation of this interior
motive.
And first, as regards mankind at large, mark
the force of ideas as shown in the phenomena of
race. Observe how differently human nature de-
velops itself in the Aryan, the Negro, the Malay.
All these partake of one humanity. The essential
attril)utes of man arc common to all. Why is it
that only one of these races has made constant,
382 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
enduring progress in civilization, while the rest,
after reaching a certain stage of development, have
remained stationary or declined ? Why is it that
the highest culture has been attained by multitudes
of the one, and by only here and there an excep-
tional individual in the others ? Why has not the
negro attained the same eminence and made equal
progress in science and the arts with the Euro-
pean ? Circumstances against him ? Because of
slavery ? How came he to be enslaved ? It was
not in him, and is not in him, to develop a com-
manding civilization of his own.
Why is it that the red men who inhabited this
continent for unknown ages before the European
took possession of it have left such slight traces of
their existence on the soil ? The country was a
wilderness then, and would have remained a wilder-
ness still, in aboriginal hands. See what a different
aspect it presents since the Saxons have had pos-
session of it. Here are the same rivers and har-
bors, the same lakes and mountains, which the
Indian knew and named. See what has been made
of them by a different race ! These rivers which
once rolled idly to the main have been made to
drive the wheel of industry, and to bear the prod-
ucts of the distant inland to the coast. These har-
bors are converted into floating forests, these lakes
are made highways of traffic, these mountains have
THE LORDS OF LIFE. 883
been forced to render np tlie secret riches of their
trust. Here the circumstances are the same, but
a different idea supervenes. To the red man they
were barren ; given in marriage to European ideas
they become prolific of endless use.
The preponderance of idea over accident in hu-
man life is seen in the propagation from age to age
of those physical and moral features which charac-
terize a particular nation or tribe, as in the case of
the gypsies, — the immortal tramps, — of the Jews
of the Dispersion, who have propagated through
two millenniums an inextinguishal)le type.
It is seen in the persistence from generation to
generation of family traits, — the Habsburg, the
Bourbon, the Stuart.
In individuals the predominant idea is not so
conspicuous, is not always apparent, for the reason
that individuals are known to us only as manifested
within the limits of a single life-history. In in-
dividuals it is not easy to distinguish between
the phenomenal and the real, between the historic
manifestation and the fundamental type. Yet we
often hear it said of this or that individual that
Nature intended him to be something different
from what he has come to be. It is certain that
Nature never designed Coelestine V. to be pope,
nor Henry VI. of England to be king. Heine says
of Robespierre and Immanuel Kant that Nature
384 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
designed them to be shopkeepers, to weigh coffee
and sugar ; but Fate decreed that they should
weigh something else : that the one should place a
King, and the other a God, in his scales.
Nevertheless, something of the original charac-
ter, the true idea of the man, will show itself be-
neath the accidents of his lot. Cromwell would
not have been Lord Protector of England but for
the maladministration of Charles I. His character
as history presents it would have been different,
or rather history would not have presented it at
all, had he never left, —
" His private garden, where
He lived, reserved and austere,
As if his higliest plot
To plant the bergamot."
But, on the other hand, only a character such as
Cromwell's was in its native quality, could have
filled that place. Napoleon Bonaparte would never
have been the prodigy he was, but for the French
Revolution, and might have led an unnotorious
life ; but Bonaparte under any circumstances would
have been an organizing and commanding power.
The " prohibitionist " pleads that the dram-shop
is the cause of nine tenths of the crimes which deso-
late society. The plea may be valid in civic philos-
ophy, but a searching psychology puts a different
interpretation on the facts. The dram-shop is no
THE LORDS OF LIFE. S8o
doubt the occasion of a vast amount of criminal
acts. The dram-shop develops the sot, but does not
make him. The man who under any conditions
could become a sot and, under the stimulus of in-
toxication, commit murder, must have had some-
thing in the original make of him, some pre-natal
element of weakness or wickedness, which pre-
disposed him to be the victim of temptation. The
overt act, the sinful growth, may be the result of
accident ; the essential nature never. The charac-
ter which the w^orld sees and judges, rewards or
punishes, may be very different from the real typi-
cal character, the underlying nature, which the
world knows not, which, it may be, the individual
himself knows not, but which carries the secret of
his final destiny.
Conceding to external conditions all that can
fairly be claimed for them, there ' is yet in the
bosom of every man a force which transcends them
all. No power which is brought to bear upon him
from without can finally countervail the original
intent of the unfathomable soul. The difference
between characters which we call original and
those which we deem common-place is perhaps but
a difference of more or less activity of tempera-
ment. In the one case the originality finds ex-
pression," in the other it is latent. But, at bottom,
every man is original ; there is more of our own
25
386 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
than of all other men in every one of us. Much of
what we seem to be, our culture, our behavior, is
only costume. We are clothed upon by tradition
and custom and example ; but pierce these wrappers,
and you find an original nature which these may
mask, but not efface. When we look from a dis-
tance on a well-drilled company of soldiers on par-
ade, they seem as one man, — dress, movement,
gesture, all agreeing. But draw nearer ; go through
the ranks ; question this and that bayonet ; and you
will find that each is a world by himself, differing,
it may be, as widely from his fellow as if they in-
habited different spheres. Each has his own pecu-
liar experience, his joys and his woes. Heaven
and Hell may march shoulder to shoulder in one
platoon. So in the grand parade of life. Fashion
dresses us in regimentals, class and calling range
us in platoons, politics and religion marshal us in
battle array ; we fight under given standards, we
practise the same manoeuvres, we march and mess
together. Society seems to be an army of puppets
moved and directed by a few leading minds. Nev-
ertheless each member of each company is fighting
on his own hook ; each has a discipline of his own
besides the manual exercise of his corps ; each has
his own battle besides the general melee ; each has
liis private victory or defeat besides the common
gain or loss. We are all more or less the creatures
THE LORDS OF LIFE. 387
of our time ; but John is still John, and Peter is
Peter : all the discipline of church and state, and
all the drill of custom, will not efface the inborn
johnneity and petriety.
" You are proud of your ancestors," said Mira-
beau to one of the noblesse ; " I too am an ances-
tor." Every man is his own ancestor, and every
man is his own heir. He devises his own future,
and he inherits his own past. All else that per-
tains to us, all wherewith accident overlays us, be
it good or evil, we shall finally outgrow and leave
behind. The underlying idea in us accident can-
not change. As the river receives upon its bosom
sun and shade, and melts into itself the winter's
snow, and floats or absorbs, or deposits in its bed
whatever is committed to its waves; and whether
it winds through civil fields or waters the roots of
primeval forests, is still the same river, replen-
ished from the same fountain, pursuing in dark-
ness and in light its predestined course, — so the
individual character as shaped from within, more
potent than all the influences that pour into it,
more prevailing than all the accidents it encoun-
ters, resolves at last all accident and influence into
itself, and still over all that comes in contact with
it will finally assert its own.
"Nor time nor force that inwrought type can sever
Which through thy life unfolds itself forever."
388 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
And so to every man at birth is allotted an
estate of unknown extent and inexhaustible ca-
pacity. Go where we will, in all our journeyings
we can never out-travel the limits of that domain;
happen what may in the unforeseeable future, there
can come to us nothing from abroad so effective
for good or ill as that which we grow by the action
of our own wills on native ground.
This view of human destiny concerns not merely
the few years of our mortality ; its import reaches
behind and beyond this present life.
I have said that all that is cons:enital in us
constitutes our proper type. Whence that type ?
Evidently it must be the result of ante-natal con-
ditions acting on a pre-existing soul. And so I
infer that earthly experiences acting on the soul
in this present life will modify and I'einforce its
distinctive immortal type.
The question of immortality as commonly ap-
prehended is confused by want of precise defini-
tion. In this compound being what is it that
survives the event of death ? We need to distin-
guish between the person and the self. To vulgar
apprehension they are one and inseparable. The
prevailing opinion supposes a personal immortality;
it supposes an unbroken thread of consciousness
which shall carry over the remembered experiences
THE LORDS OF LIFE. 889
of this life into the one which succeeds, so that
Quidam in all future states of existence shall
recollect himself as the Quidam of this. It re-
gards such recollection as constituting the very
essence of immortality. A sufficient refutation
of this delusion is the fact that we do not in this
life recall a previous existence, which nevertheless
the soul must have had ; for who that deeply pon-
ders the matter can believe that the soul which
is born into this life is a new creation ?
The person is one, the individual, the true self,
is another. The person is a mask which, with all
its belongings, dissolves at death, or only survives
for a while as a dream of the past; the self is
immortal.^
Immortal, also, is that which Buddhism terms
the " Karma," the sum of our doing, the character
we enact, the thread which we spin by the action
of our will while lodged in the flesh. This con-
stitutes a string of causes and effects, which again
are causes, without end.
In this "Karma" we have another of the Lords
of Life. Its sway extends beyond the person ; it
operates for good or evil in the world we leave
behind ; it reacts on the ego of a new birth, and
affects our destiny for indefinite time.
1 "Though personaUties ever shift, the one line of life, on which
they are strung like beads, runs on unbroken." — Esoteric Buddh-
ism, p. 69.
390 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
To sum up all in a word, — character is destiny.
Accidents vanish ; the idea remains. New spheres
will supply new accidents and develop new persons
in the ever new-flowering, imperishable Self. This
aboriginal Self, the subject-bearer of the idea, sur-
vives with the character it has wrought for itself
from the discipline of countless lives. All else is
"fallings from us, vanishings,"
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