^^ r 9 < Z *> o: ;^ o fe > u. ■■0 cc ^ < 3 < > vf b. o 1 >■ ^* w 00 1 f^ ix (X W 1 > .l 2 i D -^ 3 rcj, — *$ jv:'>- MODERN PHILOSOPHY, BY JAMES MURDOCK, D. D. AUTHOR OF MURDOCK'S MOSHEIM. NEW-YORK: M.W. DODD, HARTFORD; JOffi^I C. WELLS. 1814. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S42, by ■ JA3IES MURDUCK, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Connecticut. MB PREFACE This work was commenced about a year ago, at the re- quest of several gentlemen, chiefly clergymen, who said ihey could obtain no definite ideas of the modern Germa Philosophy. To meet the wants of these friends, and oth- ers in like circumstances, the author undertook to publish some short Essays in the Congregational Observer, edited by Messrs. Tyler & Poiter of Hartford. Soon after the publication commenced, the editors proposed striking off a number of copies in the volume form; and also encouraged some enlargement and extension of the plan of the work. But before its completion, the Newspaper was discontinu- ed ; and the two last Chapteis now first appear in print. — The piecemeal composition of the work will account for some want of uniformity in the style and manner of treat- ing the subject; and the author's distance from the press, and the difficulty of Newspaper correction, must excuse several unfortunate errata. The author here brings before the public no new system of philosophy, nor smy a.ttempted improvemoits of the sci- ence. Neither does he offer a critique upon the writings and speculations of others. He is not a philosopher ; he has no favorite opinions to introduce an'' recommend ; and he does not assume the office of a teaciicr of philosophical science. He comes forward as a mere historian, narrating the progress of speculative philosophy in modern times, es >V' PREFACE. { ecially among the Germans. And for this purpose, after a brief statement of the two principal modes of philoso- 1 hizing, he endeavors to describe summarily but di.-*- tinctly, all the more noted systems proposed by the meta- I'hysical philosophers from the times of Des Cartes to the present day. In this survey, he endeavors to discriminate accurately between the different systems mentioned, to state clearly and concisely the fundamental principles of each .system, its objects and aims, the estimation in which it was held, and the extent to which it has prevailed. The principal authorities consulted in the twelve first chapters of the work, are JV. G. Tennemanri's Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, ed. 1829 : T. A. Rixner's Handbuch der Gesch. der Philos. ed. 1822 ; W. T. Krug's Encyclopadisch-Philosophisches Lexikon. ed. 1832-33 : and the Algem. Deutsche Real-Encyclopadie. ed. 1824. In the remaining chapters, the authorities are generally sta- ted in the work. While writing the four chapters on the Kantean Philosophy, the author had not the Critik der reinen Vernunft before him, but relied upon very copious t.) tracts w\i\c\i he. made from that work about eight years ago. Since obtaining the Critik, he has not had leisure for a thorough verification ; but he hopes his statements will be found substantially correct. JAMES MURDOCK. New Haven, Sept. 17, 1842. CONTENTS. CHAP. I. TWO MODES OF PHILOSOPHIZING. Description and Character of the two modes. . Page 7 CHAP. II. EMPIRICAL PHILOSOPHIZING. Bacon, Lock e, Berkeley, Reid, &c 14 CHAP. III. METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHERS. Des Cartes, S pinoza , Malebranche. ... 22 CHAP. IV. THE FIRST GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. Leibnitz and Wolf. ...... 33 CHAP. V. KANT AND HIS CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. Introductory Remarks. Critic on Sensation. Time and Space 44 CHAP. VI. THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. Understanding defined. Its Conceptions. The Cat- egories. ........ 55 CHAP. VII. THE CRITICAL PH!LOSOPHY. Pure Reason, Transcendental Ideas. Rational The- ology 68 CHAP. VIII. THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. Results to whicn this Philosophy arrives. . . 79 CHAP. IX. ANTI-CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. Effects of the Critical Philosophy. Reinhold's Doc- m CONTENTS. trine of Thought. FiclUc's Doctrine of Science, or WissenschaftsJeUre. 9S CHAP. X. PANTHEISTIC PHILOSOPHY. Schelling''s Doctrine of Identity, Identitatslehre. Fichte's altered Doctrine of Science. Other Pan- theists . Boutericek, Bardili, Eachenmayer, Wagner, Krause 104 CHAP. XI. PANTHEISTIC PHILOSOPHY. HegeVs absolute Idealism. Logic the only lM#l!qPhys- ics 118 CHAP. xn. INSTINCTIVE PHILOSOPHY. Jacobins Philosophy of Faith or Instinct. His follow- ers, Koepen, von IVeiler, Salat. Ability and Hon- esty of the German Philosophers. Scltulzc, the on- ly Skeptic among them, 129 CHAP. XIII. FRENCH PHILOSOPHY. The new School in France. Its Origin, and Pres- ent State. Its Advocates. Its Doctrines. . 141 CHAP. XIV. GERMAN PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA. Its Introduction. Coleridgeism. . . . 156 CHAP. XV. AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISM. Propriety of the Name. Its origin among us. It? radical Principles. ...... 167 CHAP. XVI. PHILOSOPHY OF DR. RAUCH. JBiographical Notice. His Psychology, Transcer.den- tal, Hegelian. Outline of his Philosophy. Its bearing on Theology. ..... 183 ^7 or THE ^ c two MODES OF PHILOSOPHIZING. Description and Chardcter of the two Modes. Two fundamentally different modes of Pbilos- opiiizing have long prevailed, and have divided Philosophers into two general classes. Aristotle and Plato, — Bacon and Descartes, — Locke and Leibnitz, — the Scotch and English on the one hand, and the modern Germans with some of the recent French on the other, — represent the two classes. The first consider the human mind as born without knowledge, and as incapable of originating any knowledge, from itself, or by the mere exercise of its own powers. It must, they say, receive, from without, the subject matter of all knowledge ; and this it does, especially, through the senses. Reflection on its own sen- sations and perceptions, gives form and consis- tency to the given matter derived from without ; and thus leads to that true and perfect knowledge of things which is properly called philosophy. — ' The other class of philosophers do not deny, that the bodily senses are an inlet of knowledge; and 8 TWO MODES OF PHILOSOPHIZING. that reflection on our sensations and perceptions will give form and consistency to this sort of knowledge. But, say they, this is not properly philosophical knowledge ; it is merely empirical knowledge, or knowledge derived from sensa- tions and experience. It is the acquisition of the Intelle c or Understanding, and not of the Reason, which is a higher power of the mind, and capable of a higher and more important kind of knowledge. According to some of this class, the human mind has certain innate or connate ideas, which exactly correspond with the essence of things, by contemplating and comparing which and by reasoning from tliem correctly, this higher and more important knowledge is obtain- ed. Others among them, not admitting of in- nate ideas, maintain that human Rettson— that higher faculty of the soul — is capable of acquir- ing knowledge, by mere inspection or intuition, and likewise by reasoning a priori ; and in these ways, it does acquire that iiigher and more per- fect knowledge, which is properly called philoso- phical or rational knowledge, that is, knowledge acquired by the aid of Reason. This rational or philosophical knowledge, they say, differs essen- tially frona empirical knowledge, or from the ex- perimental knowledge acquired by the Under- standing. — First ; it is more certain. For it is TWO MODES OF PHILOSOPHIZING. J# always either immediate vision, or it is derived from demonstration ; whereas empirical knowl- edge is derived directly or indirectly from the senses ; which are always liable to fail us, and to give us either false impressions, or impressions too feeble and too indistinct to be relied upon. — Secondly ; it is more solid or fundamental. For it is knowledge of the real nature and essence of things ; whereas empirical knowledge is al- ways superficial and extends only to the phenom- ena or appearances ofthingp. It does not ac- quaint us with things themselves, or with their internal nature and character, but only with their effects or operations upon our bodily organs. — Thirdly ; rational knowledge has a character of necessity and universality^ wliich empirical knowledge never can have. When we see the real nature and essence of thing, we know at once what must of necessity and universally be its operation. But when we know a thing only empirically, we actually know only what was the fact in the several instances in which we ob- served it, or put it to the test of experiment. — We may illustrate the difference by a case in pure mathematics. Geometry demonstrates that the three angles of every right lined triangle are equal to two right angles. And the demonstra- tion is so complete, that the mind is fully satis- s/' ]0 TWO MODES OF niiLosornizixa. fled that this must, necessarily, and universally, hold good of every possible right lined triangle. But the empirical measurement of the angles of two, twenty, or a thousand triangles, could not produce the same result; It would only prove to us, that all the triangles we had examined, had been found to be of this character, not that all others must necessarily and certainly be of the same character. And so of all general truths or principles, '\i Reason discovers them or bring-s us acquainted with them, they have this charac- ter of universaHty and necessity ; but if we have only empirical knowledge of them, they liave not this character ; they are only maxims of ex- perience, and though they may serve as useful guides in matters of common life, they can not be made the foundation of demonstrative reasoning^, or of absolute certainty ; they can not be ad- mitted into scientific reasoning ; they belong not to the science of philosophy, but only to the mass of our empirical knowledge. The two general modes of philosophizing above described, may be denominated the empi- rical^ and the metaphysical. The term empirical, so current among the Germans, comes from the Greek empeiria, experience, which is derived from PEiRAN to try. It is not disrespectful in its import, and it well expresses the thing intended. TWO MODES OF PHlLOSOrniZING. 11 'The term metaphysical is used, as being suited to convey to Americans a correct idea of the other mode of philosophizing. The Germans do not use it in this connexion, but call this mode of philosophizing the rational, and the sci- .,- entific mode. ^ The manner in which tiiese two classes of philosophers regard each other, may easily be conceived. The empirical class, not believing the human mind to possess any higher power than that of the intellect or understanding, and supposing man to be incapable of any other than empirical knowledii:e, of course look upon the metaphysical philosophers as idle dreamers, who mistake the workings of the imagination, and unreal speculations, for truths of the highest order. Despising such fancied wisdom, they will not take pains to acquaint themselves with it. It is to them all moonshine, and unworthy the attention of one who seeks only for solid and useful knowledge. On the other hand, the met- aphysical philosophers regard the empirical as mere children in science, and strangers to the .noble powers of human Reason^ that divine or Godlike principle in man. Like the ancient navigators, they timidly coast along the shores of the vast ocean of human knowledge, keeping y always in sight of land : they never venture to 12 TM^O MODES OF PHILOSOFHIZIIS'G. launch forth in search of foreign realms, depen- ding on tlie sure principles of science to guide their adventurous course. Such explorers, say the metaphysicians, may indeed advance the physical sciences by their close observation of nature, and by their laborious experiments upon her phenomena ; but they must ever remain strangers to even the first principles of true phi- losophy, and can never erect a solid and endur- ing system of philosophical science. For, al- though they actually adopt, unconsciously, many of the principles of rational knowledge, and ap- ply them in their philosophical investigations, yet not relying solely on such principles, or build- ing exclusively upon them, but relying equally upon empirical principles, commingling both, and erecting superstructures out of both, their systems lack entirely that character for certainty, solidity, and pure science, which will entitle them to confidence and to the appellation of true phi- losophy. We may add, that the sjjirit and the tendency of the two modes of philosophizing are very dif- ferent. The one is slow, cautious, dubitating, and modest. It examines every thing, fears de- ception and mistake, and seldom ventures to be positive or dogmatical. The other is more dar- ing, bold, and self-confident : it feels its own TWO MODES OF PHILOSOPHIZING. 13 Strength, is proud of its lofty powers, and there- fore inclines to be dogmatical and overbearinoj. The former prompts men to enquire, to hesitate, to confine themselves down to sense, and to dis- trust all that can not be put to the test of fair experiment. Hence it has actually led multi- tudes to skepticism, to materialism, and to in- fidelity. Tile other prompts to an over-weening estimate of the powers of human reason, to bold and hasty conclusions, and to the excessive love of novelty and of paradox. And henco it has actually led to the exaltation of reason above rev- elation, to bold and confident dogmatism, to idealism, to pantheism, and to transcendent su- pernaturalism. In conclusion, we remark that the English, the Scotch, and the Americans, almost universally, belong to the empirical school ; while nearly all the Germans, several of the latest French philos- ophers, with a very few in England and Amer- ica, belong to the metaphysical school. CHAPTER II. EMPIEICAL PHILOSOPHIZING. Bacon, Locke, Berkeley, Reid, &c. "In the first Chapter, two fundamentally dif- ferent modes of philosophizing were described. Tiie present Chapter will relate to the history of tliem, anterior to the recent German systems of philosophy. The founders of the two schools were Aristotle and Plato : the former pursuing the empirical, the latter the metaphysical method. During the middle ages, Aristotle had most adherents, but Plato found here and there a few followers. Prior to the 17th century, the empirical phi- losophers made almost no experiments, but took up their first impressions as adequate, and pro- ceeded immediately to generalization and the construction of systems. But in the beginning of this century, Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, published his Chart of the Sciences, and his New Method of fiursuing them — de Augmentis Scientiarum, in 1605, and Novum Organum, in 1520 — in which lie recommended dependence on reiterated and well conducted experiments, as being the only sure method of advancing the physical sciences. Lord Bacon's works put the EMPIRICAL PHILOSOPHIZING, 1^' friends of these sciences upon a new course ; which has been pursued to the present time, and with the most splendid results. The bril- liant achievements of the empirical method in these departments of knowledge, tended to bring the metaphysical method of philosophizing into discredit in regard to every branch of philoso- phy, especially in England and France ; yet, foi* a time, there were a few who pursued the meta- physical method, especially in ethics^ natural theology, and the law of nations. Thus, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, a contemporary of Bacon, held to connate knowledge, or to general truths latent in the soul as it comes into life. And H. More and R. Cudworth, both Platonists, believed in moral and religious ideas either born with us, or coming to us by immediate inspiration from God In France, also, Des Cartes attempted, though with little success, to revive the meta- physical method in all the sciences. In Eng- land, however, the metaphysical method was nearly extinct, when Mr. Locke, in the year 1698, attacked it, and wholly exterminated it from the British soil, by his famous Essay on the Human Understanding. In this elaborate and classical work, Mr. Locke confutes the doc- trine of innate or connate ideas, and maintains, that all human knowledge is acquired, or is the result of sensation or reflection ; that is, it is 16 EMPIRICAL PHILOSOPHIZING. eitlier obtained directly through the bodily sen- ses, or it originates from reflei^tion on what is so obtained. In addition to these common and fundamental principles of the empiric school, he maintained the objective reality of our knowl- edge of the external world. In his viovF, all our ideas are either simple or complex : the former are derived immediately from our sensations and reflection, and exactly correspond with the real nature and essence of things. The latter are formed by the understanding, being compound- ed of simple ideas ; and when duly compounded, they also correspond with the nature of things. Mr. Locke's book has been classical, and its principles have maintained the highest authority, in all the empirical schools down to the present time. The work Avas soon translated into French^ and subsequently into other languages ; and for more than a century it was revered and followed, very much as the writings of Aristotle were in the days of the schoolmen. It has already been stated, that the spirit of this mode of philosophizing is slow, cautious, dubitating and modest : it examines every thing, fears deception and mistake, and seldom ven- tures to be positive or dogmatical. At the same time, as it prompts men to inquire, to hesitate, to confine themselves much to the senses, and to distrust all that cannot be put to the test of ex- PHILOSOPHIZING. 17 periment, it has led multitudes to skepticism, to materialism, and to infidelity. The proof of this lies in the fact, that from this school have pro- ceeded all the English and French freethinkers, deists, skeptics, materialists and atheists, from the age of Bacon down to the present day ; and that these, one and all, have depended on argu- ments which they derived from this philosophy, and from no other, to support their peculiar opin- ions ; and they have claimed for themselves ex- chisively the appellation o^ philosophers, because they thus followed this philosophy to its legiti- mate results, unrestrained and untrammeled by vulgar prejudices and by traditional belief. Of the skeptics, David Hume, and his imitators and admirers, are a striking example. As to the deists, we might cite the whole catalogue, both English and French : Hobbe^, Blount, Roches- ter, Toland, Shaftesbury, Collins, Woolston, Tin- dal, Morgan, Chubb, Bolingbroke, Hume, Gib- bon, ifec, among the EngHsh ; and Rousseau, Voltaire, D'Argens, Toussaint, Buffon, Raynal, Condorcet, St. Lambert, Dupuis, D'Alembert and Diderot, the encyclopedists, and all the other infidel philosophers of France. Of ma- terialists from this school, (and I know of none from any other,) we may name as pre-eminent, Hobbes, Shaftesbury and Priestley, among the 2 18 IMPERfAL Englisli ; and De la Mettrie and Helvetius, amon^ the French. Among the avowed atheists in this school, we may mention De la Mettrie, Diderot, the Baron d'Holbach, Naigeon, Marechal, and the astronomer, De la Lande. As all these erratic philosophers belanged to the empirical school, and professed only to fol- low this philosophy into its legitimate conse- quences, the defenders of the Bible and of Chris- tianity have labored much, to shew that this phi- losophy, instead of subverting Christianity and all revealed religion, really confirms and supports them, if it be rightly understood and applied. And to make good this position, some of them have ventured to modify certain tenets of Mr Locke, yet without departing from his funda- mental principles. Thus, Bishop Berkeley dis- carded the idea, that by the bodily senses we apprehend material objects themselves, and be- come acquainted with tlieir real nature. Tlie senses, he maintained, cavi apprehend only the phenomena of external objects, or their impres- sions on our organs. Hence, he inferred, we know nothing of the nature of the world with- out, or the material world, except that it is an incomprehensible cause of various eftects or im- pressions on our bodily senses. And he deemed it most philosophical, to suppose that the great PHILOSOPHIZpGf. ^ 0> l^ii'l^ ^ /(U jinrPT' '^^^'^'^ First Cause and Author of all things, is,'liimself the immediate producer of these sensations in us ; and that material objects, as SBcondary and intervening causes between God and us, are mere fictions of our imaginations. In short, he denied the existence of matter altogether ; and maintained, that God and inferior or finite spirits, (angelic and human,) are the only real existen- ces in the universe. By this amendment of Mr. Locke's system, the excellent bishop hoped to bring all philosophers to believe, that they lite- rally see and hear and feel the immediate power of God, present every moment with them, and operating all around them. And such a belief, he imagined, would banish infidelity and irreli- gion from every philosophic mind : but the ideal- ism or spiritualism of Berkeley, has not met gen- eral approbation. After this, Tho. Reid, Ja. Beattie, and some others, in order to confute Hume's skepticism, Berkeley's idealism, and other aberrations from the common belief, without renouncing the em- pirical mode of philosophizing, called in the aid of common sense, or the common apprehensions of the unsophisticated mind, as a supreme arbi- ter in such controversies. They did not recall the long exploded doctrine of innate ideas, nor adopt that of the intuitions and judgments of /^.6^; l^itr/u 20 -^IMPERIAL reason^ as a higher power of the mind — which would have been to take their stand among the metaphysical philosophers — but they held, that certain instinctive apprehensions of mankind at large, apprehensions which mysteriously accom- pany all our ordinary sensations, and are inde- pendent of all reasoning and all philosophy, are often more sound and correct than the apprehen- sions and conclusions of the most acute philoso- phers. Thus, by making the principles of com- mon sense, or a mysterious and incomprehensi- ble instinct, more to be relied on than philosophi- cal reasoning, and by teaching that the latter must succomb to the former in case of disagree- ment — they virtually taught, that the empirical mode of philosophizing is unsafe, without a re- gulator and a guide ; and, that unphilosophical conclusions are often more correct than those of philosophy. This new doctrine of common sense, without being formally recognized by all, has spread widely among empirical philosophers in England, France and America ; and it has been the frequent refuge of many, when grap- pling with adversaries whose arguments they were unable to confute by sound logical reason- to understand ;) that is, things which are understood or conceived to- exist, but of which we have no certain knowl- edge, and of which consequently we can give nc further account. Phenomena therefore, and phenomena alone, are the elementary matter of all our knowledge of the sensible world around' as. But Reason can discover a priori or by pure intuition, that these phenomena must present themselves to our senses either as being simulta- neous, or as being consecutive ; and if simulta- neous, they must have a relative location, and if consecutive, they must follow each oth-er in some order, and with a greater or le&s degree of rapidi- ty. And thus pure Reason perceives, intuitively^ that all external phenomena must present them- PHILOSOPHY. 51 selves to our senses as being limited and bound- ed by time and place. Time and place, then, are pure intuitions of Reason : they are not things existing in nature, nor are they the pro- perties nor the relations of things in nature ; they are purely ideizl things, and are merely the laws of sensation, the forms of tlie phenomena of ex- ternal sense, or the aspects in which those phe- nomena must always present themselves to our senses. Whether any other beings — God, for instance — must also view material objects as ex- isting in time and place, we do not know. And, as time and place are merely the laics of Sensation, we have no right to predicate them, or either of them, of God, of spirits, or of any abstract ti'uths or ideas. For, these objects never pre- senting themselves to the bodily senses, can never fall under the laws of sensation. But although time and space are merely ideal tilings, or mere laws of sensation, yet they are empirical realities ; that is, they always accom- pany our sensations, and, without ther», set|sible perceptions can not exist. And being thus em- pirical realities, and at the same time perfectly simple ideas, with no composition and no quali- ties whatever, except mere magnitude, they are capable of being adequately depicted or repre- ■eated by diagrams and numbers, and thus oit d» KANT AND HIS CRITICAL becoming themselves the objects of sensible in- tuition. And hence they lay a foundation for a pure science of Reason, namely mathematics. But no other of our simple ideas can be thus de- picted and subjected to sensible intuition ; and therefore they can never become the subject of a pure science of Reason. Such in general is the result of Rant's criticism of the sensitive faculty. His views of the wide difference between noumena and phenomena, seem to have met general approbation. But his ideas of time and place, though accordant with the dogmas of the Wolfian school, have been con- troverted. Many can not persuade themselves that noumena, or things themselveSjhave nothing to do with time and place. And indeed, if we may predicate time and place of phenomena, it seems difficult to say why they are not equally predicable of noumena ; on the supposition that noumena really exist, and are the immediate physical causes of phenomena. For how can physj^al effects be limited to time and place, and not also the physical causes which produce them 1 Can a material thing operate or produce effects, where it is not present ? Or can Reason ^ny more conceive, a priori, of a necessity for phenomena to exist only in time and place, than for noumena to exist in the same manner? If t>flILOSOPIIY. 53- then Reason decides a priori, or intuitively, that phenomena must so exist, does she not equally decide a priori, or intuitively, that noumena must so exist "? It is no objection to this reasoning, that we do not understand the essential nature of noumena ; or that we know nothing of them, except that they are created things and the im- mediate cause of all the phenomena of the ma- terial world. For, by assigning them time and place to exist in, we affirm nothing respecting their nature or essence, but merely the when and the where of their existence and operation. Be- sides, we must suppose that there is an unknown difference of properties in different noumena, in order to account for their producing different phe- nomena. And if we are compelled to make such a supposition, notwithstanding our total ignorance of the essential nature of noumena ; why may we not assign them locations in time and place, in consistency with the same igno- rance of their essential nature 1 Kant indeed tells us in a subsequent part of the Critic, (Elements, Pt. 11. B. II. Ch. IH.) that all our knowledge of external objects is limited to the conditions which render experience possi- ble ; and therefore we can never attain to a knowledge [he should have said, to empirical knowledge] of any objects which, can not be 54 KANT AND HIS CRITICAt PHILOSOPHY. subjected to the senses. Hence the only objects known to us [empirically] are phenomena. The objects of real existence^ which present to us these phenomena, we do not know. Yet, as we admits and ought to admit, their existence, they may be called noumena. This statement may be fully admitted, without reducing time and place to mere forms of our sensations, having no relation to things themselves or to noumena. — For it is not contended, that we have empirical knowledge of the fact that noumena exist in time and place. We only ijifer the; fact, from the known and necessary existence of their phenom- ena in this manner. It is Reason which compels us to admit the fact, and not experience ; just as it is Reason, and not experience, which compels us to admit the more general fact that noumena really exist. CHAPTER VI. THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. Understanding defined. Its Conceptions. The Categories. Tlie faculty of Sensation havinor been exam- ined at the bar of Reason, the Understanding is next arraijrned before the same tribunal. — Rea- son pronounces the Understanding or Intellect, to be an active faculty of the mind ; and not a mere receptivity like Sensation. It is the office of this faculty, to take the multifarious impres- sions on the senses, or the crude matter o^ knowl- edge, just as it is brought into the mind by the sensitive faculty, and to shape and fashion it into conceptions of objects, end judgments concerning them. The Understanding, therefore, is that faculty of the mind, which forms conceptions and judgments of the objects around us. In other words, it is the faculty which tJiinJ:s and judges of all the objects apprehended by our bodily senses. To facilitate her operations, (which are incessant, and endlessly various, and requiring 56 THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. not only accuracy, but great despatch,) the hu- man Understanding classes all objects of fre- quent occurrence, under genera and species, and forms both a conception and a name for each class. According to the received doctrine of the met- aphysical school, tliis faculty, like that of Sensa- tion, is common to man with the brutes , yet in men, it may have some powers, which it has not in brutes; arising, perhaps, from its being com- bined with Reason in us, and not in them. In men, the Understanding is distinguished from Reason, by the sphere of its action, by the objects with which it is concerned, and by the product of its hibors. The sphere of its action is the sensible world, or the world of phenomena ; the objects with which it is concerned, are sensa- tions, conceptions, and simple judgments ; and the product of its labors, is empirical knowl- sy edge. The sphere of the operations of i2e«5ow, on the contrary, is, the supersensible world, or the world of spirits, of ideas, of gene- ral truths, of virtue, &c. ; the objects with which it concerns itself, are ideas, (not conceptions,) things which the mind can contemplate, but which can never be subjected to the senses ; and its product is, rational knowledge, or knowledge of universal and necessary truths. The con- THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 57 foundina^of Reason with Understandings and of Ideas with Conceptions, by Mr. Locke, in his Essay on the Human Understanding, and by most of the English, Scotch, and American wri- ters since the days of Locke, (though -it was a natural, and almost necessary consequence of supposing all human knowledge to be derived from sensations, and reflections on them,) has spread much obscurity and confusion through all the metaphysical productions of these writers ; and, by introducing the indiscriminate use of terms which should never be confoiinded, it has contributed not a little to render the English lan- guage unfit for clear and conclusive reasoning on metaphysical subjects. And, I apprehend that this is one great reason, why so many among us can not understand and appreciate the writings of the German philosophers. Their clear, precise, and definite thoughts, the moment they are translated into English, become obscure, indefinite and vague ; because the language, /^ into which they are translated, is so. It is true that the Germans have introduced a multitude of new technical terms into philosophy, which sound very strange in our ears ; and Kant, in particular, has been censured, even by his own countrymen, for his excessive coinage : but if our language had appropriate terms for expressing the more neces- 58 THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. sary distinctions of thought, we mis^ht contrive some way to avoid the use of German technics, and yet convey to English minds the real views of the German writers. — After this necessary digression, we will return to the Rantean Criti- cism. The conceptions of the Understanding consti- tute all our knowledge of material objects or things ; or rather, they are the very objects them- selves^ so far as we know them ; for they are combinations of phenomena ; and beyond phe- nomena, our knowledge of things does not ex- tend. These conceptions are a sort of mental iman-es of sensible thinsfs. Each imao^e is com- posed of more or fewer distinct impressions, which were made by the object on our senses, when we examined it ; such as, figure, color, di- mensions, attitude, position, motion, taste, smell, noise or sound, its feeling, its actions, its opera- tions on other objects, and the effects of other objects upon it. These various impressions are called the characters or marks of the thing ; and, when duly combined in the mental picture, they constitute the conception of the object. As we sometimes wish to examine individual marks or characters of objects, separately, or uncombined with other marks, this gives rise to abstract con- ceptions^ or conceptions of the qualities or attri- THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 59 butes of objects. And, observing that various objects in nature possess many marks in com- mon, the Understanding combines those common marks into separate conceptions ; and thus she forms conceptions of species, genera, and higher, and still liiglier genera. But it is obvious that, as the conceptions mount upwards to the higher and more general classes, they must contain few- er and fewer marks. The conception of an in- dividual object, will contain all the marks, which belong to that object ; the conception of the species, will contain only the marks common to all the individuals of the species; and the con- ception of the genus, only the marks CQmmon to the genus: and so of the higher genera. Con- ceptions, therefore, always become more meager or more simple, the more extensive their sphere ; that is, the greater the variety of the objects they embrace, the fewer are the marks they contain. In forming these various conceptions, the Un- destanding exhibits the skill and judgment of a practiced arciiitect. Scarcely any object in nature presents itself to the senses, as absolutely isolat- ed or alone. Along with the impressions from the object itself, many other impressions, from the connected or surrounding objects, enter the mind ; for the sensitive faculty, like a faithful mirror, presents them all just as they strike upon 60 THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. it ; and tlie Understanding lias to separate them, in order to combine together only those belong- ing to the object itself. This often requires a very critical examination of the impressions or marks, and a discriminating judgment. And when the proper marks or impressions are select- ed, they must be skillfully combined, in order to form a correct mental picture of the object. In referring individual objects or things to their pro- per species, and species to their genera, accurate discrimination is necessary. And in putting her conceptions together, so as to form from them a correct and useful system of empirical knowl- edge, gr^at skill and judgment are requisite. Yet all this, the Understanding learns by prac- tice, to perform with much accuracy and de- spatch. After glancing at these manifold and impor- tant operations of the Understanding, (which it is the proper business of Logic, or the Art of Thitdiing, to describe more fully,) Kant makes Reason to decide, that the Understanding is wholly dependent on the sensitive faculty, for all the materials of her knowledge. She is tho mere architect to select, to combine, and to ar- ran"^e the materials brought into the mind by Sensation. Hence, the Understanding can pro- duce no knowledge, except what is enipirical. — v^ OF TH^ ^> THE CRITICAL PHIIIOSOPByT '* '' "Bl' \ "J She can not enlarge, at all, our rational or philo- .,P sopliical knowledge. But, by inspecting the operations of this skill- ful architect, Reason discovers, that the Under- standing has four pu7'e ideas ; which serve her as general laws or principles, by which to con- struct her conceptions, and regulate her judg- ments, of all the objects of sensible intuition. — These four ideas, to which Kant gives the name of Categories, are those of quantiti/, qual- ity^ relation, and modaliti/. When the Under- standing would form a conception, or a judgment, of any new bundle of impressions brought to her by the senses, or would test the correctness of any conception or judgment already formed, she calls to her aid these four ideas ; and they suggest, that the thing must be examined as to its quantiti/, its quality, its relations, and its mo- dalitij ; and they also teach, that there are three, and only tliree, results under each inquiry, to which the Understanding can come. 1. The first inquiiy respects the logical quan- tity of an object or conception. And the only possible answers are, it is a unity, ^plurality, or a totality. For instance, the conception bear- ing the appellation man, must denote either a single man, or a plurality of men, or man in gen- eral, that is mankind, the total race of men. — 62 THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. There are only these three subcategories, under the general category of logical quantity. 2. The second inquiry resj.ects the logical qualitif of an object or conception : (qualitas, from quails, of ivhat sort or kind.) — To answer this inquiry, the Understanding places the ob- ject by the side of ano.hcr object, whose quality is known, and then aifirins tlieir agreement, or tlieir disagreement, or decides that they agree in part, or in a limited degree. Proceeding in such a manner, the Understanding affirms that, this object is an animal ; that other object is not an animal ; it is a plant ; and that third object is partly an animal, am\ partly not ; it is a zoo- phyte. So she declares, this house is painted ; that house is unpaintcd ; and that third house is partly painted, tindi partly unpainted. Thus, affirmation, negation, and limitation of the affir- mation or negation, are all the subcategories of logical quahty. 3. The third inquiry respects the relation of the object or conception to other objects or con- ceptions. There are three, and only three, spe- cies of relations ; namely, inherence, dependence^ and external connection or coherence. Tlie rela- tion of inherence is, that which exists between substances and the attributes of substances. — The relation of dependence is, that which exist* THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 63 between causes and their effects. The relation of external connection or coherence is, that which exists between any object and the surrounding objects : for all objects have their places in the universe, or are surrounded bj other objects, with which thej are more or less closely con- nected. 4. The fourth inquiry respects the modality^. or the mode of existence of an object, so far as it is known to us. According to our apprehensions of things, we may predicate of them possible ex- istence, actual existence, or necessary existence. Whatever accords with the formal conditions of experience, or is not contradicted by any law of human experience, is possible or may exist. — What is directly attested by our experience or observation, is actuator really exists. What all human experience requires, necessarily, must exists or exists necessarily. Of this necessary existence, there are two kinds, the one internal, absolute, and ^unconditional ; as, roundness in a circle ; because, if you take away the roundness, it is no longer a circle. The other is external, and hypothetical, or conditional, depending on the laws of causation ; as, every child that is born, must have a father and a mother. " Every house is builded by some man." A ponderous body, in the air, mustfall^ if it is not. supported. 64 THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. It is manifest, from a mere inspection of these categories, and of our continual use of them, that they give form or shape to all our concep- tions and judgments of sensible objects. They are the all-pervading laics of human thinkings and of human language. It is therefore of importance to inquire, from what source did these categories originate ; what is the ground of their validity ; and what limits are there to the application of them. — That they did not originate from a knowledge of the nature of things themselves, or of noumena, must be manifest ; because we have no such knowledge of things themselves : all our knowledge of sen- sible objects, is confined io phenomena. It seems then, tliat the categories must have been derived solely from the inspection of phenomena. And, as they are pure ideas, they must be the product of Reason, the only faculty which produces ideas. This higher faculty of the mind, in contemplat- ing phenomenal matter, perceived it to be capa- ble of being arranged under the categories ; and as the Understanding needs some formulee for her conceptions and judgments, in order to make thein capable of being wrought into a system of empirical knowledge at the suggestion of her sister faculty, Reason, the Understanding tried the system of the categories; and, finding the sys- THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 65 tern to work well, and to produce no discovera- ble errors or mistakes, she continues to frame all her conceptions and judgmWits according to these formulae. Such, Reason pronounces to be the origin of the categories, so far she can dis- cover. And the admission of such an origin of them, will account for the superiority of the hu- man Understanding, which is aided by Reason, over the Understanding of biiutes which is not so aided. — The validity of the categories, therefore, or the right of the Understanding to make use of them, arises from the necessity of her having some formulae to guide her, and from the experi- ence of solid advantages, and no serious evils, arising from the use of them. — But, from this view ofthe subject, it is most obvious, that we have no authority for extending the use of the catego- ries beyond the sphere of our sensible intuitions. We have no authority for applying them to nou- mena, nor to any thing supersensible ; because we do not knoic, either a priori, or from experience, that such things can be brought under their em- pire, without producing misapprehensions and erroneous conclusions. We can not test the re- sults of such application, by experience, as we are able to do in the sphere of sensible intui- tions ; and hence, we can .never make such ap- plication on safe and solid grounds. — Yet when 5 66 THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. we venture beyond the sphere of onr sensible in- tuitions, and atteiiii3t to discuss such cjuestions^, as, Whether the* world had a beginning ; Whether there is a God ; &.c. it seems allowable to apply the categories to them ; because knowl- edge on such subjects must rest on some princi- ples ofreasoning, and we can discover none better than the categories. Still we should not forget, that this is a transcendei^t use of the categories, or an application of them transcending the principles of certain knowledge. — Such, in general, are the doctrines of Kant, in regard to the human Un- derstanding. Whether he has not gone too far, in confining the legimate application of the categories solely to the phenomena of the sensible world, may be questioned. The remarks made in the preceed- ing Chapter on Kant's doctrine concerning time and place, (the categories of Sensation,) that they are merely our mode of intuiting phenom- ena, may be applied with little variation to his doctrine concerning the categories of the Under- standing. It was there stated, that we must sup- pose some unknown difference of properties to exist in different nouniena, in order to account for their producing different phenomena. Now it is admitted by all, tkat phenomena accord very well with the categories. May we not then con- clude, that noumena also must possesssuch a differ- THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 67 cnce of properties, as will make the categories in some measure applicable to them ? The suppo- sition does not imply, that the categories lead us to any objective knowledge of the inherent pro- perties of noumena, or of any other supersensi- ble things. It only permits us to say that, from the diversity of their effects or phenomena, we are authorized to judge, that they do differ ; and that they so differ, as to present to us phenome- na corresponding with their own inherent differ- ences. — It is at least true, that Reason can dis- cover, a priori, no valid reason why the catego- ries should not be as applicable to supersensible things, as to the phenomena of sensible things. If the term 7nan may always be so used as to de- note either an individual man, or a plurality of men, or the ivliole race of men ; why may not the term angel, in like manner, be always used to denote either an individual angel, or aphirali- tij of angels, or the whole host of angels 1 Can Reason discover any other or better ground for the application of this category of quantity, in the one case, than in the other ] And so of all the categories. Indeed, the simple fact that phi- losophers and metaphysicians, in all ages, have apphed the categories to supersensible things, un- hesitatingly, and most abundantly, shows that Reason discovers no diffiulties in making the ap« plication. r CHAPTER VII. THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. Pure Reason. Transcendental Ideas. Rational Theology. Kant next brings theoretical Reason, that higher intellectual faculty of man, under a criti- cal examination. The distinction between speculative or theoret- ical Reason, which imparts to us rational hiowl- edge, and practical OY moral Reason, which en- joins upon us rational conduct, has already been noticed. Our present concern is with the for- mer. — It will be recollected, that the sphere of theoretical Reason is the supersensible world, the VfovXdo^ spirits, 0^ general truths, o^ virtue, &c. ; that the o^ects with which it is concerned, are ideas, things which the mind can contemplate, but which can never be subjected to the senses ; and that the product of its labors is rational knowledge, the knowledge of universal and ne- cessary truths. The distinction between analytical and s^^n- i7teh"ca/ judgments, was stated in the Introduction to the Critic : and the power of Reason to form THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 69 synthetic judgments a priori, was there limited to the mere forms of our knowledge ; that is, to the determining what is possible, and what is not possible, in human experience. In regard to all objects of real existence, she can form only analytical judgments, unless the objects are given or already known. And hence, to form analytical judgments by means of middle terms, or to reason in the logical manner, is the only function of theoretical Reason in regard to our knowledge of whatever may exist around us, within us, or above us. But analytical judg- ments are those in which the predicate is really and truly contained in the subject of the proposi- tion. Of course theoretical or speculative Rea- son can never acquaint us with any unknown object, that may exist within us, around us, or above us. She can only draw forth the knowl- edge of these objects, which we already possess, Of can only present it to us in a different attitude and form. To establish these strong positions respecting the importance of speculative Reason, Rant in- stitutes an elaborate examination of what he calls the transcendental ideas of pure Reason, that is, the ideas which Reason attempts to form, by a logical deduction, of the nature and essen- tial properties of the human soul, of the material 70 THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHT. tvorld, and of God : and he shows, tliat the sup- posed logical deduction is unsound and falla- cious. I. As to the idea of the soul: — The reason- ing which attempts to educe a knowledge of its nature and of its inherent properties^ from those acts of the soul of which we all are conscious, is a mere paralogism. : In the assertions, / thinks I love, I hate, I will, I choose, I remember, ^^c.^ various actions are affirmed of the subject T ; and on the most solid grounds, because we are conscious of those acts. But the actions of any being or thing, are not the thing itself; nor are they any part either of its essential nature, or of its inherent attributes. We may indeed infer, that whatever acts, must really exist ; and that it must be of such a nature as to be capable of per- forming the acts ascribed to it. But all this implies no knowledge of the mode of its exis- tence, or of those inherent qualities which make it capable of performing the acts. Hence, the following reasoning is wholly inconclusive. / thinJc ; therefore I am a thinking Substance. — That substance is not perceived by the external senses, but only by internal consciousness ; it is therefore immaterial or a Spirit. It has no per- ceptible or conceivable pai-ts ; it is therefore a simple Substance. Being a simple substance, TiiE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 71 *and immaterial, it must be of an immortal or ««- dying uatiire. It acts in and by tbe bodily or- gans ; and therefore it is the Soul, the animating principle of the body. All this is sophistical rea- soning; because it mistakes the ^M/yeci of the con- sciousness, for theo^jec^of thatconsciousness. It is sophisma figurse dictionis. — But, though incon- clusive as reasoning, it may nevertheless be true : and it may serve as a convenient basis of a y system of psychology. IE. The cosmological idea^ of pure Reason, or those transcendental ideas which Reason forms of the ezternal world, are equally baseless, con- sidered as the results of logical reasoning. — For, both the thesis and the antithesis of them, may be proved by very similar arguments. Thus it may be proved — (I.) That the world had a beginning in time, and is of limited or finite ex- tent ; and, on the contrary, that it had no begin- ning in time, and has no limits in extent. — (2.) That all substances consist of simple elementary parts, (or Monads, as Leibnitz called them ;) and, on the contrary, that no substance whatever consists of such simple elements, because such simple elements can not exist. (3.) That pliysical causes can not be the only causes in existence, there must be a free cause, to give existence to the physical causes; and, 72 THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. on the contrary, that no free cause can possibly exist, and conseqently physical causes alone must exist. — (4.) That there must be, either in the world, or beyond it, a Being who exists neces- sarily, and who is the first cause of all things ; and, on the contrary, that no such Being exists, either in the world, or beyond it. — As sj)ecimens of the arguments adduced by Kant, take the following : The 3d Thesis is thus proved : Unless we assume a cause prior io the first physical cause, and commencing the series of physical causes, there will be no cause for the whole series of physical causes, and of course none for any part of it. We must therefore suppose an uncaused cause, prior to the first physical cause. But an uncaused cause must be one that is free, or one that acts without being conqielled to act by any higher cause. The Antithesis is tiius proved : Every causality is itself a change, since it is the state of the cause when in action, which is dif- ferent from its state when not in action. Now as every change presupposes a cause, the change in the supposed free cause, by which it proceeds to action, must have a cause. And therefore, there can not beany free cause, or one that acts without being caused to act. The 4th Thesis is thus proved : The world is THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 73 full of changes. But the existence of every change is conditioned ; i. e. it presupposes some- thing which is its condition^ or a cause on which it depends. Now if there were no existence that is absolutely unconditioned, the conditioned could not be conditioned. Consequently, there must be an absolutely necessary Beings whose exis- tence is unconditioned or uncaused : otherwise the series of the conditions or causes would be incomplete. The Antithesisis thus proved : Every member of a series of changes must of course be conditioned. Hence, the supposed absolutely unconditioned Being, if in the world, and a part of the series, must himself be a conditioned Being ; contrary to the thesis. And if such a Being existed out of the world and commenced the series of changes in the world, his causality at least would belong to the loorld, and of course he would constitute a parif of the series: which contradicts itself. We must therefore reject the thesis altogether, in order to make the series of the conditioned complete. The objects of these cosmological ideas lie wholly beyond the reach of experience. Hence, experience can never decide in favor of either the Theses or the Antitheses. Reason alone must solve her own contradictions. The side of the Theses, is that which good men incline to 74 THE CRITICAL PIIILOSOPHY. take ; and it may be called the Dogmathm of pure Reason. The side of the Antitheses is tliat, which is espoused by philosophizing skeptics; and, as its arguments are founded on the princi- ples of pure empiricism^ tliis side may be called the Empiricism of pure Reason. Critical Idealism^ which admits and even demonstrates the existence of noumena or things lying beyond all sensible intuition, can alone solve these dialectical contradictions. This criti- cal Idealism is equally removed from material' ism, which supposes we can have sensible intui- tions of noumena, and from empirical Idealism, which denies the existence of noumena. Now this critical Idealism., by maintaining that sensi- ble intuition extends only to phenomena, or that we have empirical knowledge only of what is sensible, does not deny the possibility of some knowledge, other than empirical, of objects lying beyond the reach of our senses. It only warns us not to strive after erapincaZknowledge of such subjects, and not to reason about them upon the supposition of such knowledge. Taking this stand, and carefully examining both the Theses and the Antitheses respecting the cosmological ideas, critical Idealism declares that both may be true, because they relate to diiVerent things.— The Antitheses direct attention only to phenom' THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 75 ena or the objects of empirical knowledge : but the Theses look beyond phenomena, to their came ; and they consider the total series of phe- nomena as complete and dependent as a whole, on an iutelligible cause lying without the bounds of nature. Hence, both the Theses and the An- titheses may be true ; the one maintaining, e. g. that there is a God beyond nature^ and the other that there is no God toithin nature. And so in all the contradictions, one side includes an intel- ligihle thing among the phenomena of nature ; which the other does not, but only reasons back through phenomena, to an intelligible thing lying beyond them. And therefore, though the side of the Theses failed of proving its assertions with apodictical certainty, yet the opposite party fail- ed of proving the contrary, there not being any such contradiction as would make the one proof overthrow the other. Nor can the latter party overthrow the Theses of the former, unless it can prove, e. g. that out of and beyond nature there is no God, or in other words, that the supposition is itself absurd and self-contradictory, which it is not. III. The third transcendental idea of pure Reason, is thatof a supreme and all-perfect Heing. Reason is disposed to admit the existence of such a Being, because she needs this perfect W hihot, /^^ ¥h: '/^ 76 THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. ideal of absolute excellence, and still more, be- cause her moral wants demand it. But the ar- guments of speculative Reason to prove that such a Being exists, are defective. The ontnlogical proof, or that derived from the very idea of a God, (that to be ^perfect Being, he must be a necessary existence, and that a necessary existence can not but exist,) is entirely fallacious, being a mere assumption of the thing to be proved, and then inferring it from that as- sumption. The cosmolgical proof, or that stated in the Theses of the third and fourth cosmologi- cal ideas, besides tiie objections already noticed can only prove o. first cause, which is uncaused ; and not, that this first cause is the great ideal himself. This argument therefore rests upon the ontological for support. And the physico- theol- ogical proof, or that founded on the marks of wisdum and design in the works of nature, is illogically reasoning from objects of experience among men, to objects lying wholly out of the reach of all human experience ; and moreover, if admitted, it does not prove the author of na- ture to be an infinite and perfect Being, but only a Being of sufficient intelligence and power to produce such a world as this. Hence, this argu- ment also falls back on the ontological proof. Kant here goes into a Critic of all Theology, THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 77 on the ground of speculative Reason. — Theolo- gy is the knowledge of an Original Beings a God^ the Author of all things. This knowledge may be derived either from mere Reason^ or from Revelation. In the former case, it is rational theology {\\\Qo\og\?i rationalis;) in the latter case it is revealed theology (theologia revelata.) — Again; rational theology is g'\\\\qx transcendental theology, or it is natural theology. Transcendental theology^ which is that of a Deist, contemplates its object as it is presented to us in those transcendental ideas, of which we have been treating. It therefore regards God as being known to us merely as the original cause of all things, (ens originarmm, realissimum, ens entium.) Yet as it does not deny him to be an intelligent Being, we must say, that it admits the existence of a God. In so far as it takes the cosmological ideas for its basis, it may be called cosmO'theology : and in so far as it relies on the ontological argument for proof, it may be called onto-theology. Natural theology is that of a Theist. It con- templates its object as being an infinite Intelli- gence or Mind, of which the human mind is the finite image or likeness. It therefore recognizes a living God, a Being of boundless intelligence, who by his wisdom and power created and gov- 78 THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. erns the world. This theology alone can satisfy the wants of man. — It is physico-theology, so far as it relies upon the physico-theological proof of the existence of a God ; that is, so far as it infers, from the beauty and order of the natural world, an all-wise Architect ; just as, from any produc- tion of human art, we infer that it had an intelli- gent fabricator. But it is moral theology when, from the moral law within us, it infers a moral government of the rational universe ; and of course, a supreme Lawgiver and Judge^ who takes account of human actions, and will reward or punish esery man according to his deserts. From all that has been said in the preceding criticism of Reason, it will be seen, that every attempt to establish theology on a scientific basis, by means of mere speculative Reason, must be futile. It can not be done. Yet when /)r<7c//ca/ Reason, by means of the moral law within us, has taught us to believe and to confide in God, speculative Reason may be of use, to purify our conceptions and to give form and consistency to our theoloofical views. CHAPTER VIII. THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. The Results to which this Philosophy leads. We now come lo the concluding part of the Critic of pure Reason. The autlior says : If we compare a system of transcendental philosophy with an edifice, the former part of this work has examined the ma- terials of which the edifice is composed, and this second part will survey \\\e plan of it. And here we shall have to treat of a Discipline^ a Canoii^ an Architectonic^ and a Hist or?/ o^ pure Reason, I. Discipline of pure reason. — A discipline is the opposite of a culture. It restrains, and ulti- mately destroys, the constant inclination to swerve from and overleap the rules by which we should be governed. Culture carries us forward in the right way ; discipline keeps us back from pursuing wrong ways. (1.) Discipline of pure reason in its dogmatic use. Philosophical knowledge is rational knowl- edge derived immediately from ideas or abstract conceptions. Mathematical knowledge is ration- 80 THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. al knowledge derived from the construction of such ideas or conceptions ; that is, from schema- ta^ diagrams, or sensible representations of the conceptions. Mathematics is concerned only with quantities ; which are always capable of being adequately constructed or represented to the eye. But philosophy is concerned with qualities^ which can not be thus constructed or represented. And this it is, makes the wide difference between mathematics and philosophy. For all our knowledge rests ultimately on» intui- itions of the objects of it. But philosophical knowledge can have no other than empirical intit- tions of lis objects, while mathematical knowl- edge can make its most abstract conceptions the object of direct intuition by means of its con- structions. Thus we can construct a conical figure^ which shall represent all cones ; but we canneverconstructtheco/orof acone: nor can we draw anyc^i^o'raw which shall adequately represent simple existence^ though we may easily draw one to represent extension or magnitude. For exam- ple ; ask a mathematician what is the sum of the three angles of every right-lined triangle, and he will draw his diagram to represent every pos- sible triangle, and will demonstrate by it that the sum must be equal to two right angles ; and his diagram subjects the whole to our intuition. THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 81 Now ask a philosopher the same question, and he goes to analyzing his abstract conceptions of angles and lines, but can never find an answer in this way. So the algebraist represents ade- quately his quantities, known and unknown, by letters ; and then by a regular process, he can solve his problems. But the philosopher can not mak5 out any such sensible representations of his. general conceptions : he can only analyze them ; unless he will recur to the sensible intui- tion of the objects themselves, i. e. of some indi- vidual thing under the genus ; which will afford only empirical, and never philosophical knowl- edge of them. Hence, all purely philosophical reasoning is discursive or purely logical, that is, is based immediately on our conceptions. But mathematical reasoning is not purely logical, as it rests on intuitions of the general conceptions, hy means of its constructions. Mathematics and philosophy are therefore essentially different sciences ; and the precision and certainty of the former can never be carried into the latter. Philosophy can not make out complete defi- nitions of the objects of which' it treats, as mathematics can do. For those objects are either empirical facts, with regard to which we are liable to much deception, and which are moreover always particular facts, and not uni- 6 8*2 THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. versal truths; or they are pu7'e conceptions a priori, (e. g. substance, cause, right, equity, iVc.) and therefore so obscure as to be incapable of any adequate description on which reliance can be placed. We can indeed expound our conceptions of the thin!, may be illustrated by the verb to become (loerden), as whatever becomes any thing, pasj^es over from not being ihai thing, to heing th.it thing. It may also be illustrated by the import of the noun beginning (An fang), as beginning is a transition from non existence to existence. After advancing thus far, I found myself in the midst of water so deep and so tur- bid, that I could neither reach nor see tiie bot- tom. Still I sut^ered him to carry me forward. When he had fully analyzed and explained, as he averred, all that is material in the idea of pure entity, he proceeded to analyze and explain the idea of being (Wesen)y or thing, in the ab- stract ; and then the \deiis o( phenomenon, and actuality, and lastly of conception, and object, and ideas. This closed the first part. Qn the philosophy of nature and of mind, he was equal- ly obscure and incompreliensible : I could un- dej-stand only here Qnd there a detached thought. ^^^ If52 PANTHEISTIC PHILOSOPHY. As I am unable to comprehend liis works my- self, I can (Jo nothing better than detail the opin- ions of others. I will therefore translate from Krug, (Eiicyclop. Philosoph. Lexicoti,) such parts of his statements as seem most deserving a place in these sketches. In the body of his work, as printed in 1833, KruiTihus writes: "Hegel was at first a true follower of Schelling, wi:h whom he united in publishing a critical Journal of Philosophy, Tubiiijr. 1802—3. In this period of his philoso- phizing also appeared his Tract on the differ- ence between Fichte's system and that of Schel- ling. But he gradually separated himself from his master, and rejected in particular his doc- trine of intellectual intuition, as being an unwar- ranted assumption. Yet he retained Schelling's fundamental idea, namely, the oneness of the subjective or ideal and of the objective or real ; and in the idea of this oneness he searches for that absolute knowledge and absolute truth, to which, according to the demands of this school philosophizing must soar. Hetice also, he main- tained that pure conception in itself, is entity ; and that real entity is nothing but pure conception. And this he does, without first demotistrating the unity of entity and conception, or, as it should be called, (since conception is only the product of the PANTHEISTIC PHILOSOPHY. 123 thinkinor mind,) llie oneness ofentity and tMnlcing, Equally arbitrary is his assertion, in a practical view, lliat whatever is rational is actual, and whatever is actual is also rational ; a position, which may be considered as making moral pre- cepts, viewed as demands of reason upon the will, altogether nugatory and superfluous, since the will can make nothing to be real, but what will thereby become rational. But the weakest part of Hegel's system is the aisiheiical or the philosophy of art, and the theological or the phi- losoj)l'y of religion. And here, one who was formerly a \(iYy warm advocate of his system, but who on a better acquaintance with it cooled down considerably, (Wtisse, in his Syst. of ^sthtnics,) says, that iEstlielics and Theology begin, where Hegel leaves olF; for, ' what we call ideas of the Beautifid and of God, Hegel recognizes only as to their psychological and historical apparition; that is, he con.-iders them as ))henomena, and the science of them as a part of the phenomenology of mind.' In short, Hegel seems^ioito have fully perfected his sys- tem. And as he was any thing rather than a master in the art of composition, and as his writ- ings suffer as much from their obscurity as from a sort of dry harshness, it is scarcely possible to form a satisfactory judgment of his philosophy. > 124 PANTHEISTIC PHILOSOPHY. Those who profess to comprehend it, discover in it the consummated system of pure rational science. ******* Moreover, it is a strikinij fact, tliat among llie numerous fol- lowers of Heijel, no one has hitherto heen able to remove the obscurity, heaviness, and drynesa of his mode of philosopliizintf, by a more clear, agreeable, and lively exhibition. All use the words, the phrases, and the turns of expression of their master ; as if they were magic formu- las, which would lose their power by the slight- est change. Jurare in verba mogistri seems to be no stranger in tins school. Yet this renown- ed philosopher, who received special favor from the great, and thereby gained the more adherents, did not fail of opposers who assailed him with more or less ardor." After recounting various attacks upon Hegel's system, Krug proceeds : "It may here be asked, whether this school will be able to sustain itself long, against so many and certainly not inconsiderable oj)posers. To us it appears, this school no lonjjer has internal union ; and therefore it is n()l lil^dy to escape dissolution, whatever may be d(Uie from without tobolst(Tit up, on the false supposition that it is' better suited iban any other to sustain the exist- ing order of thinjrs in church and slate. Even the founder of it himself seems to iiave had some PANTHEISTIC PHILOSOPHY. 125 presentiment of such a result. For, afjreeabJy to a letter from Berlin, (inserted in a Periodical, Dec. 17, 1831 J wiiicli in general speaks favora- bly of HegeL he said a little before he died, that he was anxious respecting ihe fate of his philos- pliy after his decease, hecanse among all his dis- ciples only one understood him, and that one misunderstood him." In his supplemental volume, printed in 1838, Krug resumes his account of Hegel, thus; " The three principal parts of his system, are ; Logic^ as being the science of idea in itself (an sich) ; Philosophy of Nature, as being the science of idea in its secondary state (in ihrem Andersein); and Philosophy of Mind, as being the science of idea in its reversion from its sec- ondary state into itself. Accordingly, there ap- pears every where in this system a triplicity'of subjects, together witli their reconciling unity, in which they are all contained as momenta or ele- ments. In this system th(; oneness of Entity and Conception is vindicated, on tiie ground of a supposed necessity inherent in Conception to move (develop) itself; and this it docs, by a progressive negation ; so that, e. g. Entity, by a negation of itself, passes into Existence ; and God, by a negation of himself, passes into a World ; &c. For God is in self (an sich)^ and 126 PANTHEISTIC PHILOSOPHY. must also be for self (fur sich) ; in order to which, he must become his second self ( semem Andern), and this is Nature, or the World. So in Heorel's Lectures on tlie Piiilos. of Rehgion, (published by Marheineke in 1832f this funda- mental tlio\iglit is variously drawn out, that God is the eternal, all-comprelieiiding: process of the absolute idea, which returns from the form of its secondary state (ilires Anderseins), its manifes- tation in nature, into itself, and, by means of human consciousness, attains to its individuality (ihrem Fursichsein) as Spirit. That this doc- trine comes near to Pantheism, is not to be denied; notwithstanding Hegel and his school will not admit it, and by the use of biblical and religious phraseology — to which however they annex a new and professedly deeper and more occult meaning, they endeavor to give to their doctrine a colormg of orthodoxy. And hence Eschen- mayer (in his Tract entitled, Hegel's religious philosophy compared with the principles of Christianity, p. 100,) passes the following judg- ment on this philosophy : ' It is nothing but a Logic vaunting itself in Christian verities.' And he goes on, perhaps with too much severity : '* Hegel has a God without holiness, a Christ without free love, a Holy Ghost without illumina- tioD, a Gospel without faith, an Apostasy with- PANTHEISTIC PHILOSOPHY. 127 out sin, Wickedness witliout conscious guilt, an Atonement without remission of sin, a Death without an oflerin<(, a religious Assembly with- out divine worship, a Release without imputa- tion, Justice without a judge, Grace without re- demption, Dogmatic Theology without a revela- tion, a this Side without a that side, an Immor- tality witliout a personal existence, a Christian Religion without Christianity, and in general, a Religion without religion.' And in an Article on Hegel's philosophy, (in the Allg. Kirchenzeit. 1836,) in which the religious and ecclesiastical part of this philosophy is particularly reviewed, the following severe judgment is pronounced : 'Hegel's philosophy is nothing in itself and bi/ itself ^ nor was its author in himself hut beside himself.^ Compare also the Words of a Lay- man on the Hegelian-Straussian Christology. Zurich 1836, 8vo. No less unsatisfactory have the explorers of nature found Hegel's theory of the philosophy of nature. Thus Link^ (in his Propylaen &.c. vol. I. p. 46.) tells us, that HegePa system, although framed with the greatest meta- physical acuteness, * is of no value in the science of nature ; indeed, it is painful to see what blun- ders Hegel makes, when he speaks on subjects of natural science, astronomy and mathematics. He is also so dictatorial and so bitter, that one 128 PANTHEISTIC PIIILOSOPHV. would laugh over him, if it were a la«jghable thing to see such a man so self-deceived.' " After these ren)aiks, Krug fills nearly three large 8vo paores with notices of the numerous works for and against Hegel's philos(){)liy, which issued from the German press durini; about 12 years ending in 1837. After Hegel's death in 1831, his devoted followers and admirers, (chief- ly young men, in and around Berlin,) resolutely met the asisailants of his system, and exerted themselves strenuously to recommend it and give it currency. For this end they collected and published a voluminous edition of Hegel's Works, including his private letters, and his manuscripts and notes for Lectures, with elabo- rate prefaces and introductions. On the other hand, numerous adversaries, (and among them were many of the older and graver philosophers,) assailed the Hegelian phdosophy in an uncom- promising manner. They analyzed it, they confuted it, ihey ridiculed it, and held it up to scorn and contempt. The issue of the conflict^ I have not the means of knowing. CHAPTER Xn. INSTINCTIVE PHILOSOPHY. Instinctire Philosophy. JacohVs Philosophy of Faith or Instinct. His followers : Koeppen, von fVeiller, Sulat. Ability and Honesty of the German Philosophers. Schuhe, the only Skeptic among them. We have now taken a brief view of most of those systems of German [)hilosophy, which profess to give us a true and scieniific knowledge of supersensible thii)g.s; of whicli, Kant tells us^ we can have no scientific knowledge. And we find, that all these systems end, eitiier in absolute Idealism, or in what may be called Pahtheism ; that is, they either make all noumena and all supersensible things, together with their phe- nomena, to be nothing but conceptions and ideas existing in our own mii)ds, and existing no where else ; or they reduce all things to one primal substance, the All-One, or God, which develop! itself according to certain laws inherent in ite very nature, and thereliy presents to us all the variety, beauty, and harmony of this great uni- verse. And the latest and most renowned of these philosophers makes this primal All-One to be himself nothing but an idea' or conception of the human mind. 9 130 INSTINCTIVE PHILOSOPHY. 0|)posecl to all these scliools, and also to th« Kanteari school, was the ceh^hraled Fred. Henrj Jacobi, and a very resf)eclah!c number of piiiios- ophers and divines who coincideii wiih liim in his general views. Of this school we now pro- ceed to givn some account. Fred. Hrnry Jacobf, privy counselor to the king of Bavaria, and prcfiident of the royal academy of soierice at Muniih, was di^iinguisb- cd as a fine writer, a poet, and a philosopher. He died at Munich in 1819, iiiied 7G. Disgusted with the speculations of the pliilosophers around him, he assailed ihecn all in their turn, yet with candor and disciimination. He was also more intent on overthrowing false systems, than on propanaiiiig a better one of his own devising. To Kant he awarded jjreat merit, for successful- ly prostrating the delusive speculations of the former dogmatists, and for establishing on a firm basis a pure system of moral or practical philos- ophy. But he thought that Kant laid too much stress on the necessity of demonstration in order to true knowledge ; for, by this error, he subven- ed all spocuiative knowledge of supersensible things, and then was unable to derive aiiy satis- factory knowledge of them from practical rea- son. But the other schools, in his view, were still more erroneous. Their entire schemes were INSTINCTIVE PHILOSOPHY. 131 fundamentally wrono:, anJ when carried out, would necessarily lead lo fatalism and to pan- theism. He supposed that there is a source of true rational knowledge, wiiicli tliese philosophers overlook. They reject all speculative knowl- edge, which can not be traced eiiher to immedi- ate rational inluitiotis, or to logical deductions from self-evident truths; thus making the intui- tions of reason and the legitiuiate deductions from such intiiitions the only sources of scientific Of philoso[)hical knowledge. But Jacobi sup- posed, thiJt we have true knowledge hy faith in tlie operations of our own fiiculiies. 1'hisyaiM, be considers, as a rational inslinct, a knowing from immed\ale mental feeling, n rlirect percep' Hon of the true and the supersensible, without any intervejiingproof; and of courst,it is entire- ly different from what is ordinarily called faith, or a belief founded on tesdn'on". And the knowledge based on this faith, is essentially differentfromspeculiitive or scientific knowledge; which is generally only second-hand knowledge, or knowledge derived from intervening evi- dence or proof. According to Jacobi, there are two grand sources or itdets of knowledge to the human mind : first, ci/erwa/ sense^ by which we acquire a knowledge of the external world or of 132 INSTINCTIVE PHIL080PBT. material objects ; and secondly, an internal sense^ the or<;an of truth, (or, as he afterwardf named it, Reason^ the [)ovver of immediate kno\vledge,) by wliieli we acquire a knowledge of God, of what is foreseen, of free agency, of immortality, of virtue, in a word of supersensible things. By this twoluld revelation to him, (and Jacobi believed in no oiher divine revelation,) man is roused to self-consciousness, with a feel- ing of his elevation above blind nature, or of hit free agency. He recognizes God, and his own free agency, immediately, by means of Reason, Moral doctrines also are capable of confirma- tion only by feeling. Reason^ as being ihe facul- ty of ideaSj which reveal themselves in our in- most feelings, iiives to philosophy its subject mat- ter; and the Understandings as being the faculty of conceptions^ gives to that subject matter its form. At least, so Jacobi expresses himself in his latest writings. Previoiisly he did not ex- plain himself with sufficient clearness, respecting iXvAi faith or internal revelation which he regard- ed as the foundation of philosophy; but left the point in considerable obscurity. And from tbit source, and from his not making a clear distinc- tion between Reason and Understanding, and finally, from the fact that his theistic doctnne of faith and internal feeling was developed in a INSTINCTIVE PHILOSOPHY. 133 loose and unsystematic} manner, chiefly in oppo- sition to others, various misapprehensions and objections originated. Still his merits, at least indirectly, in rejrard to the progress of philoso- phy among the Germans, are undeniable.— (Tennem. Grundritz, p. 531 &c.) Jacobi's doctrine was well received, especially by those who place a higher value on faith and feeling than on the other manifestations of the mind. On the contrary, it was regarded as a subordinate mode of philosophizing by those, who give rational thiidiing a higher rank than feeliiii!;. I5ut his want of clearness in discrimi- nating bf'tween Reason and Understanding, ieem.s to have led the cultivators of his philoso- phy to separate into two parties. For, some considered ideas as a divine revelation to the mind, through the medium of Reason ; and they Supposed the conceptions of the Understanding lo have a negative relation to ideas, or that ideas uMcetiienl is ap- prehended by the mind, it is next to be compre- hended, to be nunJe mtellijrible, and t») become iOoaelUing known i and this is what philosopher INSTINCTIVE PHILOSOPHY. 137 accomplishes hy the aid of Understanding. He considers Metaphysics as tlie whdie of scientific philosophy; and Lojfie, Anihropolojry, and the Criticism of the iniellectufd powers, as only pre- paratory studies. There are three branches of phiU)sophy, corresponding with the threefold re- lations of man ; viz. moral nhilo.-ophy, the phi- losophy of rio:ht, and the phdosopliy of religion, (Krug.aud 2e/m. p.536; We have now completed oar survey of the various meliiods devised hy Kanl's successors, for passing that impracticnble gulf, wjjich, as Kant supposed, must ever separate between nou- mena and phenomena in the material world, and between the ol-jective and the subjective in the •piritual world. Before we take our leave of these acute but adventurous German philosopliers, it seems per- tinent to remark, that in general they appear to be, not only men of great learning and industry, but, what is more important, sincere and honest inquirers after truth, men who labor to discover a true and useful philosophy, a philosophy that will satisfy the wants of man as a rational and immortal being. And hence, though whole schools of them have landed in Idealism, and Pantheism ; and though great numbers of them were rationalists ortheistSjdisbelievinfj the divinti Ids INSTINCTIVE PIIILOSOPHir* inspiration of the Bible ; yet not a single indi- ▼idual, since the pubhcation of Kant's Criticism, (so far as 1 know,) has professed either atlieism or materiahsm, or advocated lax moral princi- ples, or treated religion with levity or contempt, ox denied a future state of rewards and punish- ments, or, in a word, showed himself a disbelie- ver in the great principles of natural religion. And only a solitary individual among them has professed to be a skeptic ; and his skepticism was of a mild character, and was afterwards re- tracted or greatly modified. With some account of that individual, we shall close the present chap- ter. Gottlob Ernst Schulze^ (born in 1761, Dr. and prof, of philos. at Gottingen, and honorary member of the Philos. Acad, at Philadelphia in our country, died at Gottingen in 1833 ;) pub- lished in 1792 an anonymous work, in opposi- tion to Reinhold's theory and to Rant's Critic, entitled: iEnesidemus ; or, on the foundation of prof. Reinln)ld's Elemental Philoso, hy ; togeth- er with a Defence of Skepticism, in regard to the pretensions of the Critic of Reason. This work professed to annihilate the illusions of imagina- ry knowledge, and to carry farther than Kant had done, the self-knowledge of Reason, by de- tecting the hereditary faults of all philosophy. INSTINCTiyiC PHILOSOPHY. 139 The result of the investigation was, that tlie origin of human knowledge is unknowable ; and there- fore, there can be no philosophy which shall ex- plain it : that all that the schools tell us respect- iHg the origin of knowledge, is mere play upon words without meaning; an»i that our curiosity should be limited to inquiries respecting tho constiuent parts of knowledge, the diiferent kinds of it, and the laws by which conviction accompa- nies its several species. And this he called Skepticism, and likewise Antidogmatism, found* ed on the essential and necessary condition of the mind of m;in. This skepticism moreover, recognized the so called facts of consciousness; ond it maintained, that the human mind, from its very coiistitution, is obliged to recognize thesa facts of consciousness as real, and to govern itself by them in practice. After farther inquiry Schulze narrowed down his skepticism still more ; for, winle he still denied the possibility of infallible criteria of truth, i. e. of the argree- mentof our knowledge with the essential nature of things, lie did not divest the mind of ability, to discover how far our knowledge of particular objects is in harmony with the original constitu- tion of the human mind, and to discriminate be- tween such knowledge, and that which originate! ^om our peculiar temperament or character ai 140 INSTINCTIVE PHILOSOPHY. individuals. At length, being fully convinced of the untenableness of skepticism, he attempted an investigation of the origin, the truth, the per- fectibility, and the limits of human knowledge, according to the approved laws of natural sci- ence. His later views of philosophy approach near to the doctrines of Jacobi. He agrees with those who taking Plato for their pattern, regard Reason (distinct from the comparing faculty, the Understanding) as a source of knowledge of su- persensible things, and who endeavor by means of it to solve the proper problems of philosophy. With his eye on those feelings, which distinguish men fr/5m brutes, he divides philosophy into four grand departments : viz. theoretical pliilosophy or nletaphysics, explaining religious feeling; practical philosophy, explaining moral feeling ; logic in the sense of the ancients, explaining in- tellectual feeling ; and aesthetics, explaining the feeling of ihe beautiful. (Krug^ and Tennem,, p. 637 &c.; CHAPTER XIII. FRENCH PHILOSOPHY. The new school in France : its Origin, and Present State : its Adfo<- cates : its Doctrines. As a conclusion to these sketclies, we sliall no- lice the part whicli France has taken iu the modern developments of philosophy. From near the limes of Mr. Locke till quitft recently, empiricism, and that of the grossest kind, has reigned undisturhed in France. About the middle of the last century, the abbe Gondii* lac expounded the philosophy of Locke, omit* ting rejleciion as a distinct source of knowledge. Reflection, he said, can add noihing to the matter on which it reflects. Itcan only recognize, compare, generalize, and give form to the ideas\vhichsensa» tion presents. Of course, all our ideas in his Yiew, are ideas of sensation, or in other words, are sensations. This became the reigning doctrine in France. The infidels, Voltaire, the encyclo- paedists, &c. all embraced it ; and many of them deduced from it the materiality of the soul, athe-- ism, fatalism, and sensuality as man's chief good. A few ecclesiastics and others feebly re* 142 PRENCU PHILOSOPHY. listed ihe tendencies of this philosophy ; but without exposing or clearly discerning the un- sound basis on wliich it rests. During tlie first years of the revolution, (1789—95,) all eyes were directed to the portentous occurrences of the day, and the only branch of philosophy much regarded, was political philosophy ; and in that, man was considered merely as a reasoning ani- mal, whose interests are all confined to the pres- ent life. Under the Directorial government, (1795—99,) the Instiluie and the Normal Schools called some attention to education, and required the study of philosophy on the princi- ples of Condillac and the materialists. Under the Consular government, (1799 — 1804 J philos- ophy was more zealously pursued, but on the iame general principles. Cabanis and Destutt de Tracy were the most distinguished writers on philosophy. Under the Imperial government, (1804 — 14,) a reformation m philosophy com- menced, and it had made some progress before the restoration of the Bourbons. From that time onwards it has been steadily advancing, and it now has the weight of talent and influence on its side. The philosophers of the new school assume the name of Eclectics; and the name appears appropriate. We shall first notice the principal persons concerned in this reformation PRENCH PHILOSOPHY. 143 of philosopljy, and then attempt some descrip- tion of their principles. ^ Peter Laromiguiere^ hnrn in 1757, first tauglit at Toulouse, and afierwanls at Paris, where ha was a member of the National Institute and a distinguished writer, till his death in 1837. He deviated considerahl}' fronj Candillac ; for h« maintained that the soul is aciive^nuil not merelj passive, in the acquisi'ion of knowltdge. Sen- sation indeed furnishes the materials for all our knowledge ; hut the mind gives form and shape to those materials. The activity of the mind is therefore a source of knowledge as well as sen- sation. The two aro coordinate. Laromiguicre being a charming writer and a man of great acuteness, liis doctrines spread far and were not without considerable influence. Maine de Biran^ who died at Paris in 1824, oged 58, obtained a prize from the Berlin Acad- emy of Science in 1809, for the best essay on this qiiestton ; Is there any inunedifite, internal [intellectual] iniiiitini; and how does it differ from sensible percaplianl Cousin considered his works so valuable, that he undertook to edit them himself so late as 1834. De Biran was so oppos- ed to the doctrines of the materialists, that Iw leaned towards universal idealism : whenca Cousin compares hint with the German Ficlite. 144 FRENCH PHILOSOPHY* He is said to liave adopted Leibnitz's doctrine of Monads, with aibme alterations. He believed that all substances, or all real existences, are active powers or forces of some sort ; ibat minds or souls liave iiilelli<^ence, voliiion, ^c, \vliil« material substances bave only motive force. He theref(»re clearly distinguisbed tbe soul from tbe body ; and in examining' tbe faculties and pow- ers of tbe former, be commenced wiib conscious- ness. John Pefer Fred. AnciUon was born in 1766 at Berlin, wbere bis futber was minister of the Fr. Prot. cburcb. He was bimself preacber to the satne cbsircb, tlien professor of pbilosophj in tlie military academy at Berlin, member of the Acad, of Sciences, counselor of state for foreign affairs, &c., and died in 1S37. Ancillon wrote altogf'tiier in French ; and be published various works on philosophical subjects, jiolitical, moral, &c. ; in which he appeared pretty clear)/ to belong to the school of Jacobi. His worki were read in France. Peter Paul Royer- C ollard ^ born in 1763, was first an advocate in the parliament of Paris, and then active but moderate in the revobition ; afterwards, being made dean of the Faculty of Letters in the Normal School at Paris, he lectur- ed on philosophy with great applause, from 1811 fRENCH PHILOSOPHY. 145 to 1814, when he returned to political life, and became head of the party called Doctrinaires, which took middle ground between the royalists and ihe ultra-republicans. In his lectures he brouo;ht forward Reid's doctrine of Common Sense, as an independent source of true knowl*- edge, and urged it strenuously and successfully in opposition to the doctrine of Condillac.-^ This source of the knowledge of noumena and supersensible things, he called naturalinduction ; and he described it as being a spontaneous and necessary action of the mind. His eloquence and his acute and powerful reasoning transfused this doctrine into nearly all liia pupils ; and thus laid the foundation for the new French school in philosophy. Yet only one of hi^ lectures has been published entire, although many extracts from them have been given to the public, espe- cially in JoufFroy's French edition of Reid's works, Paris 1828. Victor Cousin^ born in 1792, and educated under Royer-Collard, succeeded him in the Nor- mal School in 1815, and carried forward the re- formation in philosophy begun by his predeces- sor. In 1820 he was displaced, for his too libe- ral political opinions, and retired to Germany; but he returned in 1828, and resumed his lec- tures. His lectures for that year contain an In 10 146 FRENCH PHILOSOPHY. troduction to the liistory of philosophy. These have been elegantly translated by H. G. Linberg, and were published at Boston in 1832. They contain the best exposition I have seen of his philosophical opinions. In 1829 he published a course cfF lectures in two volumes, on the philos- ophy of the 18ih century. The first volume contains general views of philosophy and its history. The second volume contains an elabo- rate criticism on Mr. Locke's Essay, which has been well translated by the Rev. C. S. Henry» D. D. of New York. On the accession of Louis Philippe in 1839, Cousin was admitted into the French Academy; and the next year, he was sent by the king to examine the literary institu- tions of Germany, especially of Berlin, and make report. On his return in 1832, he "was made a peer of France; and in 1804, minister of public instruction. He may be considered the corypheus of the eclectic or new school phi- losophers of France. But before we examine his philosophical doctrines, we will notice some others who have co-operated in the reformation of French pliilosophy. The baron de Massias^ for some time French consul general at Dantzic, and then charge d'af- fairs at Berlin, published various philosopliical works, between 1821 aud 1835 ; in which, it is FRENCH PIIILOSOrufT^^^ 147 ^ said, he seems to come near to Kantean principles ; but lie professes to differ from Kant, as well as from Royer-ColIarJ and Reid. Krug could not exactly define his position ; but tells us, he was ranked among the new eclectics of France. The baron Degerando, born in 1772, and made a peer of France in 1837, the author of the Comparative Hist, of Philosophy, was a fol- lower of Condiliac in 1802 ; but when he pub- lished the 2d edit, of his history, in 1822—3, he accorded with Royer-Collard and Cousin, or was an eclectic. Berard^ who died m 1828, at the age of 35, published a work in 1823, in which he main- tained the immateriality of the soul, and assailed the doctrines of the materialists openly and vig- orously. And in the same year, Virey publish- ed a treatise on Vital Power, in which he takes the same ground. Theodore Joiiffroy^ born in 1793, and now professor of philosophy in the Faculty of Litera- ture at Paris, is an active member of the eclec- tic school. In 1828, he published Reid's works in French, with abstracts from Royer-Collard's lectures ; and likewise Dug. Stewart's Outlines of Moral Philosophy. Jouffroy devotes himself especially to Moral Philosophy ; and he comes frequently before the public, in works which ar« 148 FRENCH PHILOSOPHY. said to be creditable both to his head and his heart. Philip Damiron, educated under Cousin, and HOW professor of phiIoso|)liy in the college of Lonis le Grand at Paris, is liie author of a his- tory of philosophy in France in the IQlh century, 2 vols., first publislied in 1828, and again in 1830. From this work, Krug and Dr. Henry appear to have derived most of their information respecting the recent history of French philoso- phy ; and on them I am chiefly dependent. In 1831, Diuniron commenced publishing a Course of Philosophy ; of which fourvolumes had appear- ed inlS34,enibracing Psychology and Morals. In his history, Damiron gives account of twenty- seven French philosophers of the 19th century ; whom he divides into three classes: viz. '"^ I. Sensualists; e. g. Azias, Cabanis, Destutt de Tracy, G^^ll, Laromiguiere, Volney, &-c. !* II. Theulogists ; e. g. Vallanche, de Bonald, de Maistre, de la Mennais, &.c. ^ III. Eclectics; e. g. Ancillon, Berard, Bon- P t^ Stettin, Cousin, Damiron, Degerando, Droz, ^^ /^ Jouffroy, Kerelrny, Massias, Maine de Biran, * ''^' Royer-Colliird, Vn-ey, &,c. The French philosophers of the new school appear to be ingenuous, liberal-minded, honest men ; men who have no selfish or sinister views, FRENCH PHILOSOPHY. 149 no vain ambition of applause, no pride of learn- ing, in short, no other aim than to discover and to recommend the useful and the true, in a branch of knowledge long degraded and abused in their country by superficial and reckless men. They are harmonious in their efforts to raise ))hijosophy in France to the rank of an honora- ble and useful scinnce, by the careful study of foreign writers. Dititring among themselves on various points, they are yet tolerant to each other, and assume the common sense of Eclec- tics. Indeed they appear not yet to have ma- tured their thoughts. They all read the Scotch philosophers, Reid and Stewart, and some of them also Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Jacobi, &c. ; and from all these, as w(!ll as from Plato, Aris- totle, Des Cartes, Leil)nitz, &c. they take what seems to them plausible, and too often, without due regard to the congruity or incongruity of that syncretism which they call eclecticism. At least, this appears to me to be true of Cousin, the present leader of the school. Dr. Henry has '^ indeed exhibited a pretty coherent system, as being held and taught by Cousin. But he does not refer us to the works of the author for proofs ; and as, with the three volumes of Cousin's lec- tures before me, I can not verify all his state- ments, and yet find in Cousin mvnQ dogmas and 150 FRENCH PHILOSOPHY. positions which are not distinctly mentioned hj Dr. Henry, instead of abridging the professor's statement, I will subjoin what I have been able to glean directly from Cousin. It should be recollected, that the works I consult are not pre- cise and logical disquisitions, but loose popular lectures, and addressed also to a French audi- ence, whose fancy must be pleased to secure their attention. Hence, not only is the language often popular rather than scientific, but in too many instances the reasoning also. Most of my references are to the Introduction to a Hist, of Philos. &c., translated by Linberg, Boston, 1833. According to Cousin, philosophy is the science which strives to comprehend things, and to ac- count for what takes place. It is the result of reflection, of the study of ideas and of thought ; and its aim is, to advance all the great interests of man. It is one of man's most real wants, (p. 19—25, 51, 52, 367 &c.) Philosophy com- mences with reflection, with a critical examina- tion of the human mind, or with what is called psychology, (p. 368 «fec. 380, 390 &c.) From psychology it proceeds to logic, metaphysics, ontology, natural theology, cosmology, morality, A-c. And its method or mode of proceeding is, to begin with observation and induction, or careful researches a posteriori ; and then to introduce FRENCH PHILOSOPHY. 151 analysis and deduction, or reasoning a ^nort. (p,416&c. 95—103.) All the facts of psycholog^y are found on the records of consciousness ; and to these records we must go for a knowledore of tliem. It is by reflection^ «hat we inspect that record, and learn those facts, (p. 147 &c. 152, 159, 1(31 &,c. 193.) Cousin recognizes three faculties of the mind; viz. sensibility^ or susceptibility of impressions from objects without ; volition or the will, the source of voluntary action ; and reason or intel- lect, the knowing, judging, reasoning faculty. On the fii-t, (sensibility,) he says hut little in this volume, and he seems to hold the common views of pln]i»sopiiers. RespFcting the will or volun- tary power, he is singular in maintaining that this faculty is the sole foundation of i)ersonality. The other faculties are not of a personal nature ; they are common properties of our race ; and they would operate in the same manner and with the same results, in all men, if they were not influenced in individiuds, by the persoiial fac- ulty or the will. (p. 125 &-c. 128, 169, 175 &c.) Reason^ or intelligence, is nothing personal to us as individuals. There are not as many rea" sons^ as there are reasoning beings ; but there is one eternal reason, which is a sort of common property of all intelligent beings, and which 152 FRENCH PHILOSOPHY. they all use at pleasure, according to their ahil- ity. The infinite God, who is intelligence itself, enjoys and uses it without any lin»itation ; but finite beings can make only a limited use of it. (p. 125-129, 167, 171.) Reason as a faculty of the human mind, ope- rates in two ways ; viz. spontancousli/, or with- out the co-operation of the will ; and voluntari- ly^ or under the guidance of the will, as when we intentionally reflect, think, judge, A^c. From its first mode of operation we derive all our pri- mary knowledge, and all those general truths which seem to he innate or connate. This ope- ration of reason is the Common Sense of Dr. Reid ; and by Cousin it is denominated the in- stinctive perception of truth, the instinct of rea- son, original perception^ and also faith^ and inspiration, (p. 1G2 — 175, 193, 417; comp. his Hist, of Philos. II. 38S— 392.) Reason, in both her modes of operation, is governed by three fundamental latvs or first prin- ciples; which he calls the elements of reason and which occupy the same place in his system with the categories in the Rantean system : they give form, consistency and unity to all our knowledge. Moreover, as reason is not subjec- tive or personal to us, but is universal, or the common property of all intelligent beings, and FRENCH PHILOSOPHY. 153 is the same in man as in God ; hence these laws or elements of reason are not merely the laws of our mode of thinking (as Kant erroneously maintained,) but they are the laws of all rational thinking, and the mode of God's viewing things ; and of course they accord with the divine consti- tution of the universe, or with the real nature of things ; that is, they have objective validity. They are the basis, not only of human logic, but of true metaphysics, and of a solid system of ontology. According to these fundamental laws of reason, whatever exists above us, around us, or within us, falls under one or the other of these two categories ; viz. (1) the finite, the mul' tiple, the particular, the limited, the dependent, the phenomenal, &.t;. or (2) the infinite, the one, the universal, the unlimited, the absolute, the substance &c. These are the two first catego- ries or fundamental laws of reason. The third is the result of an analysis of the two preceed- log. It is, that whatever exists under either of these categories, stands in inunediate relation with its corresponding thing in the other catego- ry ; so that neither can be conceived as existing, or as being possible, without the other. Moreo- ver, all the things existing under the first category, (the finite, the mu!ti|)le &-c.) stand related to the corresponding things under the 154 FRENCH PHILOSOPHY. second category as effects stand related to their causes ; that is, the infinite is the cause of the finite, tlie one of tiie rnuhiple, tlie universal of the particular, the unlimited ot the limited, the absolute of the dependent, the substantial ol the phenomenal, &c. And finally, by summing up separately all that exists under each of the two first categories, we have, as the sum total of the first, the world or nature ; and as the sura total of the second, God the author of nature ; and then this third category unites the two sums in a harmonious whole, which isihe universe, (p. 108—131, 158 — 160, 418.; Cousin seems aware, that these views approximate so near to those of Schelling, that they may expose him to the ch.irgK of pantheism ; a charge which he did not well know liow to answer, (p. 132, 141 — 143, 147, 158, 233, 420.) Yet he did not intend to identify God with nature, or to teach tii;U there is no God distinct from the world, (p. 16, 132, 143.) Creation he held to be a development of (jod's power, an act of l)is will ; and in some sense a m» c >s«ary act. (p. 133 iVc. 142, 153.) It will also follow from these laws of reason, that God is as comprehensible by us, as any other object : and Cousin admits the inference, (p. 132, 133) Indeed he is so far a Hegelian, as to believe that idf . ....»' '''^^nces, and not the FRENCH PHILOSOPHY. 1 55 mere imas^es or representatives of something else. (p. 21 &c. 123—125, 127, 129,) And he even tells us, that ideas constitute the nature of God. (p. 133, 134, 15S, 165, 166 ) Cousin liolds firmly to the providence and moral govern- ment of God. He says : " God's perpetual agency, in respect to the world and to humanity, is providence.'* '* The great deeds recorded in history, are the decrees of God's moral govern- ment of the world." (p. 224, 225.) And he dis- tinctly avows himself to be a Christian j)hil6so- pher. (p. 49, 57, 338, 339.) He says : " I be- lieve that in Christianity all truths are contained ; but these eternal truths may and ought to be ap- proached, disengaged, and illustrated by philos- ophy. Truth has but one foundation ; but truth assumes two forms, nainely, mysteiy" [tlu; form in which religion is presented to the mind in ordinances of worship, and in representations intended to excite devotion]" and scientific expo- sition : I revere the one, I am the organ and in- terpreter of the other," CHAPTER XIV. GERMAN PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA. Its Introduction. Coleridgeism. The original design of these sketches, was, merely to give a general idea of the principal systems of German philosophy. This object was pursued through the twelve first Chapters. Another Chapter was added, on the new ec- lectic pliilosophy in France. And now, it is deemed expedient to annex some account of those schemes of modified German philosophy which have excited most attention in our own CDuntry ; namely, the philosophy of Coleridge^ as contained in liis Aids to Reflection ; the so called Transcendental Philosophy^ contained in the Dial and other recent works published in Massachusetts; and tlie philosophic system of Dr. Fred. A. Rauch^ contained in his Psy- cliology. ^ Until within about twenty years, the empirical philosophy as tauglit by Locke and the Scotch writers, and which was described in the first Chapter of these sketches, had dominion in all our colleges and schools, and was regarded every where as the only true philosophy. Berkeley's GERMAN PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA. IS? idealism was indeed received by a few ; and, if it did not originate, it doubtless helped to give cur- rency to, that species of pantheism which is fun- damental in the theology of the Emmons school. Berkeley made immediate divine agency the sole cause of all the phenomena of the material world; and Emmons extended the same im- mediate agency throughout the intellectual world. But neither of these very acute reason- ers aimed to overthrow the empirical mode of philosopliizing. The first only wished to strengthen the argument from experience for the being of a God, and the second to reconcile the doctrines of Calvinism with a sound phi- losophy. A little more than twenty years ago the Ger- man language, and with it, German literature and science began to be studied in this country ; and soon, here and there an individual was in- duced to look with some fovor on German phi- losophy. But the perfect novelty of its princi- ples, and its strange terminology, rendered it al- most unintelligible. Under these circumstances the writings of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who had mastered and adopted some of the funda- mental principles of Kant, found their way into the country and were eagerly caught at and read by several of our younger theologians. His 158 GERMAN PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA. / Bios^rapliia Literaria, liis work entitled The Friend, and his Aids to Reflection, found as warm admirers in this country as in England. In 1829, Pres. James Marsh, D.D. now a Pro- fessor in Burlington, Vt., published an American edition of the Aids to Reflection, with an elabo- rate Preliminary Essay vindicating and recom- mending the principles of the book. From that period Coleridgeism has spread very considera- bly in A^ew England. The Biographia Litera- ria of Coleridge, and his Friend, which I read hastily soon after their publication, are not now at hand, and I shall therefore confine my re- marks to his Aids to Reflection. This work is not so much a treatise on phi- losophy, as a treatise on practical or experimen- tal religion, and was intended especially for the use of young men who are studying for the min- istry. Dr. Marsh well says : "It might rather be denominated a philosophical statement and vin- dication of the distinctively spiritual and peculiar doctrines of the Christian system.'''' Coleridge was one of the most evangelical men of his times in the English Episcopal church : and he supposed he could explain and establish in the most satisfactory manner the religious doctrines which he held in common with Abp. Leighton and other early Puritans, by means of those GERMAN PIirLOSOPHY IN AMERICA. 159 principles of the Kantean philosophy mIucIi he had imbibed, and especially by means of what he calls the inomentous distinction hetiveen Rea- son and Understanding. By means of this dis- tinction, he thought he could establish more clearly and precis^ely the import of certain scrip- tural terms, such as carnal, fleshly, spiritual, the flesh, the spirit, &c. ; and likewise "establish the distinct characters of Prudence, Morality, and Religion ;" and finally, could shew the perfect harmony of "all the peculiar doctrines of the Christian faith" wilh reason or sound philoso- phy. (Aids &c., p. 62-64, ed. New York, 1840.) But Coleridge was a poet: and poets seldom write well on metaphysical subjects. Besides, he has justly been pronounced a turgid and ob- scure writer : and although in his Aids to Re- flection he aims at a more chastened and simple style than in his other prose writings, yet he has preposterously employed, in this purely didactic work. Aphorisms instead of logical definitions and fully developed arguments. He assumes that his readers know too much, or that they can understand him from a mere hint, a passing re- mark, a brilliant fragment of thought, without any full and clear delineation of his new theo- ogical views ; and, like a genuine poet, he leaps 160 GERMAN PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA. in medias res, and throws out his new and gtrange ideas, without pivparing our minds to receive them, or even to understand them. Thus the all-important distinction between Reason and Understanding, which is the basis of his whole system, but of which nine tenths of the reading public have no clear idea, is every where held up to view as fundamental, and yet is no where described or defined. And his learned editor, catcliing too much of his spirit, says ex- plicitly, (p. 48,) : "What is the precise nature of the distinction between the understanding and reason, it is not my province, nor have I under- taken, to shew. My object is merely to illus- trate its necessity." The consequeLice is, most readers of the book are utterly unable to com- prehend it ; and therefore, they strongly suspect the author was groping in darkness, or that he did not see clearly those shadowy objects which he would not venture to describe. From the language and reasonings of Cole- ridge, as well as from his known partiality for German philosophy, it is presumable that he adopted substantially that distinction between reason and understanding which was described in the sixth Number of these sketches. There, however, we had especially in view the distinc- tion between what is called theoretical or specU' GET?MAN PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA 161 lat'ivc Reason, and the Understanding considered as an intellectual focully : but Coleridge is prin- cipally concerned with j^r^^t^ica/ Reason, or Rea- son in its relation to the Will and to the moral actions of man ; in which relation, Coleridge says, it is " tiie determinant of ultimate ends," that is, it is the source of those pure ideas of right, of duty, of moral obligation, which should be the supreme law of action to a rational being. To distinction from this faculty, the Understand- ins to ascertain the precise import of the terms pru- dence, morality, and spiritual religion. Prudence^ GERMAN PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA. 165 he says, has for its chief organs the senses and the understanding. Its sole aim is the advance- ment of our personal interest or happiness ; and it is especially careful to guard against every thing that may do us harm, frustrate our plans, or mar our happiness. 3Iorality has for its chief organ the heart, or the natural affections and sympathies of our nature ; and it seeks the happiness of others, hecause we find pleasure iu doing so. Spiritual religion has for its organs free Will and practical Reason ; and its sole aim is to make the whole conduct of the man to harmonize with the divine law. From these definitions, it is manifest that a man may have and may exhibit much prudence and much morality, and yet be entirely destitute of spir- itual religion. Such, according to Coleridii^e, are some of the radical principles of mental philosophy ; and they are of very high importance to the right understanding and the vindication of the pecul- iar doctrines and precepts of Christianity. They give us clear and just conceptions of the apostacy of man, of both original and actual sin, of that carnal mind whicli is enmity against God, be- cause it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be ; and hence also, of that redemp- tion which is bv Jesus Clirist, of regeneration by ' II* 166 GERMAN PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA* divine grace, and of that holiness williout which no man shall see the Lord. Not that this philo- sophy, or any other, is competent to teach us originally all the peculiar doctrines of Christian- ity, or to demonstrate their truth, without the aid of revelation. But when these momentous truths are revealed to us, this philosophy enables us to comprehend them, and to see that they are reasonable, and are worthy of all acceptation as comina: from God. CHAPTER XV. AMERICAN TRANSCEXDEXTALISM. Propriety of the Name. Its Origin. Its Radical Principles. That species of German Philosophy which has sprung up among the Unitarian Clergy of Massachusetts, and which is advocated especial- ly in a recent periodical called the Dial, is known by the appellation Tkanscendentalism. The propriety however of the appellation, may be questioned. Kant, who, so far as I know, first brought the term Transcendental into philosophy, would certainly not apply it to this or to any similar system. He would denominate it Trans- . CENDENT, not Transcendental. The difference, according to his views, is immense. Both terms indeed denote the surpassing or transcending of certain limits ; but the limits surpassed are en- tirely different. That is called Transcendental, which surpasses the hmits of sensible or empi- rical knowledge and expatiates in the region of pure thought or absolute science. It is therefore truly scientific ; and it serves to explain empiri- cal truths, so far as they are explicable. On the other hand, that is called Transcendent, which 168 AMERICAN TRANSCKNDENTALISM. not only f^oes beyond empiricism, but surpasses the boundaries of human knowledge. It expa- tiates in the shadowy region of imaginary truth. It is, therefore, falsely called science : it is the opposite of true philosophy. A balloon sent up by a besieging array to overlook the ramparts of a fortification, if moored by cables, whereby its elevation, its movements, and its safe return into camp are secured, is a transcendental thing ; but if cut loose from its moorings and left to the meicy of the winds, it is transcendent ; it has no connection with any thing stable, no regulator ; it rises or descends, moves this way or that way, at hap-hazard, and it will land, no one knows where or when. Now, according to the Critical Philosophy, all speculations in physical science that attempt to go beyond phenomena, and all speculations on supersensible things which at- tempt to explain their essential nature, are trans- cendent ; that is, they overleap the boundaries of human knowledge. In violation of these can- ons, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel plunged head- long into such speculations, and yet called them Transcendental ; and the new German Philoso- phers of Massachusetts follow their example. Waiving however this misnomer, — as every real Kantian must regard it, we will call this philosophy Transcendental; since its advocates AMERICAN TRANSCENDEJhTALISM. 169 choose to call it so, and seeing the name has hecome current in our country. And we will first inquire into its ori;L;in among- us, and then proceed to notice its prominent characteristics. Origin of Transcendentalism among us. Accordinn; to tlieir own representations, the believers in this philosophy are Unitarian clergy- men, who had for some time been dissatisfied with the Unitarian system of theology. They tell us, they found it to be a meagre, uninterest- ing system, which did not meet the religious wants of the community. While laboring to improve their system of theology, or to find a better, they cast their eyes on foreign countries. There they discovered a different philosophy prevailing ; a philosophy which gives an entirely new version to Christianity, invests it with a more spiritual character, with more power to move the soul, to call forth warm emotions, and to produce communion with God. This phdosophy they have now embraced. Such, they inform us, was the oriirin of Transcendentalism amonij them. — But it may be more satisfiictory to give their own statements on this head. The Rev. G. Ripley, or whoever Composed the long anonymous letter to Prof. Norton, on his Discourse before the Alumni of the Cam- 170 AMERICAN TRANSCEXDEXTALISM. bridge Theological School, in 1830, says (pages 11, 12) : '-' In our happy state of society, as there is no broad line of distinction between the clergy and the rest of the community, they [the Alumni] iiad shared in the influences, which, within the last few years, have acted so strongly on the public mind : with intelligent and reflecting men of every pursuit and persuasion, many of them had been led to feel the necessity of a more thorough reform in iheology : they were not satisfied that the denial of the Trinity and its kindred doctrines gave them possession of all spiritual truth : they wished to press forward in the course which they had begun, to ascend to higher views, to gain a deeper insight into Chris- tianity, to imbibe more fully its divine spirit, and to apply the truths of revelation to the wants of society and the progress of man. Their experi- ence as pastors had brought them into contact with a great variety of minds ; some of which were dissatisfied with the traditions they had been taught ; the religion of the day seemed too cold, too lifeless, too mechanical for many of their flock ; they were called to settle difficul- ties in theology of which they had not been advised in the school ; objections were presented by men of discernment and acuteness, which could not be set aside by the learning of books ; AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISM. 171 it was discovered that many had become unable to rest their religious faith on the fou||dation of a material philosophy, [viz. the empirical philoso- phy of Locke ;] and that a new direction must be given to their ideas, or they would be lost to Christianity, and possibly to virtue. The wants of such minds could not be concealed," &-c. . . . ..." In the course of the inquiries which they had entered into, for their own satisfaction and the good of their people, they had become convinced of the superiority of the testimony of X\iQ soul to the evidence of the ex^eniflZ senses; the essential character of Christianity, as a prin- ciple o^ spiritual faith, of reliance on the Uni- versal Father," &-c. The Rev. O. A. Brownsox, in his Charles Elwood, (Boston, 1840, p. 261,) says: "It can not have escaped general observation, that reli- gion, for some time, has failed to exert that in- fluence over the mind and the heart that it should. There is not much open skepticism, not much avowed infidelity, but there is a vast amount of concealed doubt, and untold difficulty. Few, very iQW among us but ask for more certain evidence of the Christian faith than they possess. Many, many are the confessions to this effect, which I have received from men and women whose reli- gious character stands fair in the eyes of the 172 AMKKICAX TIIANSCEXDEXTALISIM. church. I Jmve been tol.l by men of unquestion- able piety,' 'that the oniy means they have to maintain their behef even in God, is never to suffer themselves to inquire into the grounds of that belief. The moment they ask for proofs, they sa}^ they begin to doubt. Our churches are but partially Med, and the majority of those who attend them complain that they are not fed." — — "Surely, tiien, it is time to turn Christianity over and see if it have not a side which we have not hitherto observed. Perhaps when we come to see it on another side, in a new light it Vt ill appear unto us more beautiful and have greater power to attract our love and reverence." The Rev. R. W. Emehsox, in his Address to the Senior Theological Class, at Cambridge, in 183S, says, (page 17,) " It is my duty to say to you, that the Jieed luus never greater of a new rcuelatlon than now. From the views I have already expressed, you will infer the sad convic- tion, which I have, I believe, with numbers, of the universal decay and now almost death of faith in society. The soul is not preached. The church seems to ^o^^cr ^0 ?7s/<7//, almost all life extinct." Again, (page 24,) he says : " I think no man can go with his thoughts about him, into one of our churches, without feeling that what hold the public worship once had on men, is gone AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISM. 173 or going. It has lost its gra&p on the affection of the good, and the fear of the bad. In the country neighborhood?, half parishes are signing off, — to use the local term." .... And (on })age 21.) he says : " The prayers and even the dogmas of our church, are like the zodiac of Denderah, and the astronomical instruments of the Hindoos, wholly insulated from anything now extant in the life and business of the people. They mark the height to which the waters once rose." For the perfect accuracy of these statements, I cannot vouch from my own personal knowl- edge. Nor are they here adduced to prove the actual state of the Unitarian congregations, but simply to show how defective the Transcenden- talists consider the Unitarian theology, and of course, the grounds of ^//eir dissatisfaction with it. The author of an elaborate and highly inter- esting article in the Dial for April 1841, entitled the Unitarian Movement in ISqw England, has given a very philosophical account of the origin of the Unitarian community in this country, as well as of the recent rise of the sect of Trans- cendentahsts in that community. According to this able writer, the doctrine of the Trinity, and the connected doctrines of man's deep-rooted 12 174 AMERICAN TRA^SCENDE^TALISM. depravity, and his dependence on divine grace for a recovery to holiness and happiness, will admit of a satisfactory explanation and vindica- tion, only on the principles of the Platonic, or (as we have called it) the metaphysical philoso- phy. On the principles of the sensuous or empi- rical philosophy, as he supposes, a Trinity in the Godhead is an absurdity, and the connected doc- trines mysterious and inexplicable. But, as is well knovv^n, from the days of Locke this latter philosophy held the ascendency ; or rather, it was, until quite recently, the only philosophy known in the country. While addicted to such a philosophy, our theolot^ians could not reason closely on the articles of their faith, without meeting with difficulties and perplexities : and they were in great danger of falling into different opinions respecting the Christian doctrines. At the same time, the orthodox creeds forbade any deviation from the established faith. The result was, that those most given to free inquiry, fell into Unitarianism, and the doctrines connected with that system. Thus originated, according to this writer, the Unitarian movement in New England: for he says expressly, (page 431,) " We regard it [Unitarianism,] as the result of an attempt to explain Christianity by the sensual philosophy, instigated by a desire to get rid of AMKRICAN TRANSCEXDEXTALIS3I. 175 mystery, and to make every thing clear and simple." Tlie proximate causes of the rise of Trans- <;endentahsm among the Unitarians, are thus described by this writer, (page 422 — 3) : " The Unitarian movement disenthralled the minds of men, and bade them wander wheresoever they might list in search of truth, and to rest in what- soever views their own consciences miirht ao- prove. The attention of our students was then called to the literature of foreisrn countries. — They wished to see how went tlie battle against sin and error there. They soon found a differ- ent philosophy in vogue, and one which seemed to explain the facts of their own experience and observation more to their satisfaction, than the one they had been accustomed to meet in their books. In most cases the pleasure of the dis- covery was heightened by the fact, that these men, in their previous inquiries, had come to the same or similar conclusions. In some cases they had been too ditiident to express them, while in others the expression of them had called forth manifest indications of disapprobation, i^ not of open persecution." The concluding sentences in this quotation shew, that the Trans- cendentalists, before they became acquainted with foreign philosophy, were not satisfied witii 176 AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISM. the Unitarian system of theology ^ and that some of them had, at that time, arrived at nearly their present theological views, the expressions of which then met the disaj)probation, if not the open persecution of the staunch Unitarians. — The inconsistency of the Unitarian body in ad- vocating unhmited freedom of inquiry, and then censuring the Transcendentaiists for practising it, is severely rebuked in the following passage, (page 434,) " They have made a great move- ment in favor of freedom of inquiry, and thor- ouo:hness and fearlessness of investigation ; and now, like the witch of Endor, they seem terrified at the spirit they have called up. This would seem to indicate that the movement in favor of freedom and liberty was not the offspring of pure, disinterested love of truth and princij)le." The defects of the Unitarian theology are de- scribed by this able writer, in the following terms, (page 436,) " Unitarians make Christianity too plain, plainer than from the very nature of the case it can possibly be." " There is, more- over, a degree of religious experience that Uni- tarianism fails to satisfy," [Page 438] : " Uni- tarianism is sound, sober, good sense. But the moment a i)reacher rises to eloquence he rises out of his system," [^^gG 440] : " We think AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISM. 177 that in its principles and logical tendency, it is allied to the most barren of all systems." Characteristics of the Transcendental Philoso- phy. None of theTranscendentahsts of this country are Philosophers by profession. Nearly all of them are clergymen, of the Unitarian school ; and their habits of thought, their feelings, and their aims, are manifestly theological. Nor do they give us proof that they have devoted very great attention to philosophy as a science. They have produced, I believe, no work professedly on the subject, not even an elementary treatise ; and, if I do not mistake, they have brought for- ward no new views or principles in philosophy. So far as I can judge, they have merely taken up the philosophy of Victor Cousin, and, after comparing it according to their opportunity with that of the more recent German schools, have modified a little some of its dicta, and applied them freely to scientific and practical theology. At the same time they take little pains, to eluci- date and explain the principles of their new phi- losophy. They address us, as if we all read and understood their favorite Cousin, and were not ignorant of the speculations of the German pan- theists : and their chief aim seems to be, to shew 12* 178 AMERICAN TKANSCENDENTALISM. US how much better thisGallo-Germanic philoso- phy explains the religion of nature and of the bible, than the old pJiilosophy cf Locke and the Scottish school. Whoever, therefore, would un- derstand the Transcendental writers, must first understand, if he can, the French philosopher Cousin and the German pantheists. The philosophy of Cousin, as well as that of the modern Germans, we have attempted to de- scribe very briefly, in the preceding chapters ; and to them the reader is referred. Cousin maintains that, by taking a higher point of observation, he has brought all previous systems of philosophy to harmonize with each •other. [See his Introd. to Hist, of Phil, by Lin- berg, page 414.] He therefore adopts, and uses at pleasure, the peculiar phraseology of all the systems, as being all suited to express his own new views. This causes his writings to exhibit, iiot only great variety, but apparently, if not really, great inconsistency of terminology. And Jience different persons, aiming to follow him as a guide, may easily mistake his meaning, and adopt different principles ; or, if they adopt the same principles, they may express themselves in a very different manner. And, if we suppose the same persons, with only a moderate share of philosophic learning and philosophic tact, to AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISM. 179 attempt to re-construct the philosophy of Cousin, by comparing it with the German systems from which it is taken, and at the same time to adopt Cousin's lax use of language ; we may easily conceive, what confusion of thought and obscu- rity of statement may appear on their pages. Now the Transcendentalists, if I do not mistake, have thus followed Cousin. Of course, they differ considerably from one another ; some fol- lowing Cousin more closely, and others leaning more towards some German ; some preferring one set of Cousin's terms, and others another, or coining new ones to suit their fancy. After all, Linberg's translation of Cousin's Introduc- tion to the History of Philosophy may be consid- ered as the great store house, from which most of them — e. g. Brownson, Emerson, Parker, &c. — have derived their peculiar philosophical opin- ions, their modes of reasoning, and their forms of thought and expression. The radical principle of the Transcendental philosophy, the corner stone of the whole edifice, is, Cousin's doctrine that Spontaneous Reason acquaints us with the true and essential nature of things. According to this doctrine, Reason, when uncontrolled by the Will, or when left free to expatiate undirected and uninfluenced by the voluntary faculty, always apprehends things as 180 AMEIUCAN TRANSCENDENTALISM. tliey arc, or has direct and absolute knowledf^e of the objects of its contemplation. This clair- voyance of Reason, Cousin calls " an instinc- tive perception of truth, an entirely instinctive development of thought," " an original, irre- sistible, and unreflective perception of truth," "pure apperception, and spontaneous faith," — " the absolute affirmation of truth, without re- flection, — inspiration, — veritable revelation." — [Introd. &c. pages 163, 167, 172, 166.] The characteristics of this kind of knovvledofe, as being immediate, and infallible, though not al- ways perfectly distinct at first, and as being divine, or as coming from God either directly or indirectly, all Transcendentalists maintain. But in what manner, or by what mode of action, our Reason acquires this knowledge, they do not dis- tinctly inform us. Whether our Creator has en- dowed us with an intellectual instinct, a power of rational intuition ; or whether the rational soul, as itself partaking of the divine nature, has this inherent sagacity An and of itself; or whether the divine Being, God himself, is al- ways present in the soul and acting in it by way of inspiration, these philosophers seem not to have decided. They use terms, however, which fairly imply each and all of these hypotheses, and especially the last. But however undecided AMERICAN TRANSCENDKXTALISM. 181 on this point, which is of so much importance in a philosophic view, on tlie g'eneral fact that all rational beings do possess this knowledge, they are very explicit ; and some of them attempt to prove it, by reasoning from the necessity of such knowledge to us, and from the current belief of mankind. [See Cousin's Psychology, Chap. vi. and a writer in the Dial, vol. ii. page 80, &c.] The effects of this principle, when carried into theology, are immense. It dispels all mysteries and all obscurities from this most profound of all sciences, and gives to human Reason absolute dominion over it. For, it makes the divine Be- ing, his government and laws, and our relations to him, and all our religious obligations and in- terests, — every part of theology, theoretical or practical, — perfectly comprehensible to our Rea- son in its spontaneous operation. It makes all the doctrines of natural religion the objects of our direct, intuitive knowledge : we need no ex- planations and no confirmations from any books or teachers ; we have only to listen to the voice of spontaneous Reason, or to the teachings of our own souls, the light that shines within us, and all will be perfectly intelligible and absolute- ly certain. And hence, we need no external revelation^ no inspired teacher, to solve our doubts and difficulties, or to make any part of 182 AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISM. natural religion, or any principle of moral duty, either more plain or more certain. We are, all of us, prophets of God, all inspired tlirough our Reason, and we need no one to instruct and enlighten us. Tlie great Seers of ancient times, Moses and t!ie prophets, Christ and the apostles, were no otherwise inspired than we all are ; they only cultivated and listened to spontaneous Rea- son more than ordinary men ; and this enabled them to see further and to speak and write better than other men on rcli AMKRICA?^' THANSC; ceivable, sotlmt it shall become evanescent ; and in tha#evanescent state, while fltvctimtiiig between something and nothing, it is the pf'hTiitivS^, the generative principle of all things. For it is the most comprehensive or generical of all ideas, including all other ideas under it as subordinate genera and species ; and therefore, when expan- ded or drawn out into the subordinate genera and species, it becomes the ro ttxv^ the universe of beings and things. Vacillating among all these theories, especially between the two last, and trying to amalgamate them all in one, Cou- sin, without exhibiting any very definite ideas, merely declares the Infinite to be the primitive, and all that is finite to be derivative from the Infinite, while yet both the Infinite and the finite are so inseparable that neither can exist without the other. The appellation Pantheists^ it ap- pears, is unacceptable to Cousin, and to most of liis American followers ; but some of the latter voluntarily assume it ; and they unscrupulously apply it to all Transcendentalists. That the doctrines of the Transcendentalists, as well as those of Spinoza, Schelling, and Hegel, are really and truly pantheistic^ appears from the fact that they all hold to but one essence, or one substance, in the universe. They expressly deny, that God created or produced the world out of 113 180 AMERICAN TRANSCEXDE\TAL1SM, nothings or that he gave existence to beings and things the substance or matter of which had no previous existence : tliey say, he created or brought forth the world //ow himself^ or formed it out of his own suhstaiice ; and also, that he still exists in the created universe, and the cre- ated universe in him, thus constituting an abso- lute unity^ as to essence or substance. That the e^iihei pantheistic may properly be applied to such doctrines, seems not to be deniable. [See Krug's Philos. Lexikon ; art. Pantheismus.'] As Pantheists, the Transcendentalists must behold God, or the divine nature and essence, in every thing that exists. Of course, none of them can ever doubt the existence of God^ or be in the least danger of atheism ; for they cannot believe any thing to exist, without finding God in it : they see him, they feel him, they have sensible perception of his very substance in every object around. Moreover, if our souls are only portions of the Divinity, if they are really God working in us, then there is solid ground for the belief that si^ontancous Reason always sees the true nature of things, or has divine knowledge of the objects of its contem- plation. And again, if it is the Divine Nature which lives and acts in all creatures and things, then all their action is Divine action. All crea- AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISM. 187 ted inteljigences think, and feel, and act, as God acts in them ; and of course, precisely as He would have tliein. There can, then, be nothing icrong^ nothing sinful., in the character or conduct of any rational beinir. . There may be imperfection, or imperfect action, because the whole power of God is not exerted ; but every act, so far as it goes, is just what it should be, just such as best pleases God. And hence, though men may sigh over their imperfections, or may. ardently desire and strive to become more perfect, yet they can have no reason for repentance^ for sorrow and shame and self-con- demnation, for any thing they have done or have omitted to do. Neither can they feel themselves to need any radical change of character, to make them acceptable to God ; or any Redeemer, to rescue them from impending perdition. All they need, is, to foster the divinity within, to give it more full scope and more perfect action ; then they will become all that it is possible they should be, and all they can reasonably desire. — These inferences from their principles, are not palmed upon Transcendentalists by their adver- saries, but are admitted and defended by their ablest writers. Says one of them, whom we have before quoted, [Dial, vol. i. pages 423 — 4,] " Holding as they do but one essence of all^things, 188 AMF.RICAX TItANSCENDEN rALIS>r. which essence is God, Pantheists must deny the existence of essential evil. All evil is negative, — it is imperfection, non-growth. It is not es- sential, but modal. Of course there can be no such thing as hereditary sin, — a tendency posi- tively sinful in the soul. Sin is not a wilful transgression of a righteous law, but the difficul- ty and obstruction which the Infinite meets with in entering into the finite. Regeneration is noth- ing but an ingress of God into the soul, before which sin disappears as darkness before the ris- ing sun. Pantheists hold also to the atonement, or at-one-ment between the soul and God. This is strictly a unity or oneness of essence, to be brought about by the incarnation of the spirit of God, [in us,] which is going on in us as we grow in holiness. As we grow wise, just, and pure, — in a word, holy, — we grov/ to be one with him in mode, as we always were in essence. This atonement is effected by Christ, only in as far as he taught the manner in which it was to be be accomplished more fully than any other, and gave us a better illustration of the method and result in his own person than any ojie else that has ever lived." CHAPTER XVI. PHILOSOPHY OF DR. RAUCH. Biographical Notice. — His Psychology — Transcendental — Hegelian. — Outline of his Philosophy. — Its bearing on Theology. The Rev. Frederic A. R.vuch, Ph. D., late President of Marshall College, Penii., was born in Hesse Darmstadt, in the year 1806. His fa- ther, a pious and orthodox clergyman of the Ger- man Reformed Church, is still living, and is an active pastor in the vicinity of Frankfort on the Maine. Dr. Ranch received his education at Marburg, Giessen, and Heidelberg, and became a Professor in the two last named places. In some of his lectures at Heidelberg he uttered his thoughts too freely on the affairs of government, and found it necessary to flee the country. He came to America in 1831. The next year, he took charge of the classical school connected with the Theological Seminary of the German Reformed Synod at York, Pennsylvania ; and on the removal of that institution to Mercersberg in 1836, he was made President of the College, and Professor of Biblical Literature in the Sem- 13* 190 riTiLosoniY of dr. raucii. inaiy. He died on tlie 2d of Marcli, 1841, in the 35l1i year of his age. (Sec an Obituary No- tice in the New York Observer, Marcli 27, IS41 ; and the Prehminary Notice to Ranch's Psychol- ogy, 2d edition.) Dr. llauch was one of that class of German philosopliers, who, embracing fully the transcen- dental speculations of Schelling and Hegel, have labored to reconcile them with the religion of the bible. The two most prominent men of this par- ty in Germany, have been Dr. Philip Marheine- ke of Berlin, and Dr. Charles Daub of Heidel- berg. The former is still living, and is the editor of the Works of Hegel, and also of the Works of Daub, who died in 1836. The biographer of Dr. Rauch characterizes Daub, as being a " gi- ant in the sphere of mind," and " a man who had followed Kant, Schelling, and Hegel, to the farthest bounds of speculation, without surren- dering for a moment his firm hold upon the great objects of faith." This metaphysical giant, wlio travelled the whole round from Kantism to He- gelism, is best known by his mystical work on the nature and origin of Evil, intitled, Judas Is- cariot, or Evil in its relation to Good ; Heidelb. 1816 — 18. 8vo. Dr. Rauch was the favorite pupil of Daub ; who, it is said, "had fixed his eye upon him as a young man of more than common rillLOSOPIlY OF DI?. RAUCII. 191 promise, who might be expected to do good ser- vice in the cause of science, in tiie department to which he wished to consecrate his hfe." The doctrines wliicli Daub instilled into the mind of his pupiJ, Dr. Ranch appears to have brought with him to America, and to have retained as long as he lived. The first and only publication of Dr. Ranch in this country, was his Psychology, or View of the Human Soul, including Anthropology; first published in 1840, and revised by him for a second edition, 1841. Tiie subject of this w^ork, like that of most German treatises on Psycholo- gy, and like the English treatises on. Mental Phi- losophy, is Empirical Psychology, not Rational or Speculative Psychology. That is, it embra- ces that knowledge of the human Mind, whic4i is derived from experience and observation ; not that which is obtained by philosophical specula- tions on the nature and properties of the soul. It therefore has but little to do with Philosophy in tlie proper sense of the term, or with strictly rational science. It treats of empirical knowl- edge, not of that which is scientific. Still there is a philosophy underlying it, which it is not dif- ficult to discover ; and that philosophy is mani- festly transcendental^ and derived from the school of Hegel, 193 PHILOSOPHY OF DR. RArCH. Dr. Ranch, being a man of genius, and famil- iar with the numerous and learned works of the Germans on Psychology, and having access to the more recent investigations of his countrymen in physical science, has been able to embody in his work much that is new and interesting to American readers, especially in the mode of explaining and illustrating the mental phenome- na. In the first part of his work entitled Anthro- pology, he treats largely o^ Life, both in vegeta- bles and animals ; of Instinct, as a part of ani- mal nature ; and of the influence of external Nature on the Mind, and of the Mind on the body. In the second part, or l*sychology prop- er, he treats oi Self -consciousness, the distinguish- ing mark of a rational being : and of our two mental faculties, Reason and Will. Reason in man has three modes of action. Sensation, Intel- lect, and Pure Thinking. The Will, in the natural or unregenerate man, follows the natural Desires, Inclinations, Emotions, and Passions : in the regenerate, it follows the Divine Will. Some concise remarks on true and false Religion conclude the work. The short chapter on Pure Thinking, is the only part of the book that di- rectly treats on speculative Philosophy : but phi- losophical remarks and observations occur throughout the work. PHILOSOPHY OF DJl. KAUCH. 193 As a phiJosoplier, Dr. Raueli was a Transcen- dentalist : for, he maintains that our Reason gives us objective knowledge of things, and not merely subjective knowledge. Thus in the de- partment of nature or the material world, he sup- poses our knowledge to extend beyond Phenom- ena, and to embrace what Kant calls Noumcna. After describing the Conceptions of the Under- standing as being mental Images of objects exis- ting in nature, he says, page 227 : " The image is the same as the thing it represents, . . . the same as the object; for it cannot be without it, and, un- less it includes what the object includes, it is not its true image The image has therefore the same contents as the object, with this difference, the one has them as they exist in the mind, ide- ally, the other as they are in the material thing really. We would say, therefore, by the power of conceiving, the contents of an object, and the object itself, become contents oj our conceptions or images." So also, in regard to supersensible objects, or things in the world of thought and of ideas, he supposes we have power to discover their real essence, or their ontological nature. — Describing the objects which are the subject mat- ter of Pure Thinking, he says, page 281: "They are wholly general ; and as such have no exis- tence independent ofthiid\ing. Yet they truly 194 PHILOSOPHY OF DR. RAUCH, exist ; tlicj are not a mere abstraction ; tliey are the pure being and nature of individual things, their soul and ///c." And we sliall see, as we proceed, that lie undertakes to tell us prcciscFj what is the essential tiature of the human soul or mind; of life also, both in vegetable and animal bodies ; and indeed, of all the mysterious po2^'t7s which operate in any part of the created uni- verse. Being a Transcendentalist, Dr. Rauch was di- ametrically opposed to tli^e views of Kant, whos*? Critical Philosophy has for its chief aim to over- throw all Transcendentalism, or as Kant would rather call it, Transcendentism. Kant supposed an impassable gulf to lie between subjective and objective knowledge in all created things. But Transcendentalists either discover no gulf there, or they suppose they have found out a way to transcend and fairly get over it. As a Transcendental philosopher, Dr. Rauch belonged to the school of Hegel, and not to that of Schelling. For, his whole chapter on Pure Thinking shews that he did not, with Schelling, regard ^a knowledge of the essential nature ©f things as attainable by mere inspection, or by a rational intuition ; hut, with Ilegel, he consider- ed such knowledge as the result of a logical pro- cess^ a generalization y or as he denominates it. VKrLOSOPHY OF DR. RAUCH. 195 Pare Thinking. Thus he writes, page 275: — • *' Thinking is the true basis of all our knowledge, for until we have penetrated our conceptions by thought, until we know their nature, their ground, their connexion with each other, we have no sci- encey He says also, page 277 : " Thinking is that activity of mind which generalizes. * * * The generality here s]>oken of, is not gained by <^ih sir action^ but by position ; it is not the pro- duct o^man, nor of any object^ it is neither sub- jective nor objective^ but above both ; its origin is in pure reason, as such. It exists not meielj in our«thoughts, but equally as much in nature; it is in the sphere of nature the genus ; in the sphere of mind the identity ; and in that of sci- ence the generality.''' In the passage quoted a few paragraphs back, he says of these general- ities : *' They are the pure being and nature of individual things, \he\v soul and life^ According to Dr. Rauch's philosophy, a crea- ted substance or things is a mere activity or pow- er of acting; and not, as is generally supposed, an inscrutable essence, with inherent qualities and accidents. Of course, as many kinds of activity as exist, so many kinds of substances or things , are there in the universe. These, i£ seems, are ascertained to be four in number, viz. (1) Mind or soul, an activity that has self- consciousness, intelligence, and will : (2) Ani- 196 PHILOSOPHY OF DIJ. KAUCH. mal Life, a plastic power having sensation or feeling, and generating organic bodies, wiiich it nourishes and matures, and then transmits itself tlirough them to a progeny of similar activities ; (3) Vegetable Life, a plastic power without feel- ing, which produces organized bodies with roots and leaves, and matures seeds, whereby it prop- agates itself; and (4) Lifeless 3Iattcr, which can act only mechanically, or by impulse, attraction, repulsion, decomposition, dispersion, combina- tion, aggregation, &.c. These four kinds of ac- iivities, variously combined, and operating upon and with each other, and under various ^rcum- stances and condition?, constitute the created universe, and produce all its varied phenomena. Of course, a thorough knowledge of these four activities involves or includes a perfect and sci- entific knowledge of the entire universe of crea- ted beings and things: for, each of these activi- ties is, in the sphere of nature, the genus of all the beings and things under it; in the sphere of rnind or thouglit, it is their idcntitij ; and in the sphere of science or logical arrangement, it is their generality, or that which comprehends and embraces them all. If now curiosity enquires, what is the essential nature of these all-compre- hending activities ; Dr. Ranch is prompt to an- swer. Each of them is a definite Thought com- PHFLOSOPHY OF DR. RAUCH. 197 bined with a Volitioji of God. The infinite Mind conceived them, and the divine fiat made them reahties. Four divine thoughts, therefi)re, combined ^^ ith divine volitions, constitute the en- tire created universe : and God and his thoughts are all that exists or has any being. Some of the passages in Dr. Rau h's Psych- ology involving such sentiments, ' ere follow. Page 43 : '* Most of us are in the habit of con- sidering nature and its manifold powers as a mechanical whole, whose parts have been brought together by some mechanic, and whose powers ezist side hy side, without having any afiinity to, or connection with each other. But the oppo- site of all this is the case. Nature is a system, not a conglomeration ; alive and active in all its elements and atoms, it is filled with powers, from the mechanical, chemical, magnetic, and galvan- ic, up to the organic, all of which flow invisibly into each other, affect and determine each other. Eternal laws divell in them, and provide that while these powers receive and work with and through each other, none interferes with the other, or in any degree changes its nature, but supports and upholds it. Thus we have a constant life, powers flow up and down, to and fro.'''' Page 183 : " All life, wherevei it exists, is formed and organized. Form is not and cannot be the re- 198 PHILOSOPHY OF DR. RAUCH. suit of matter, which is chaotic and shapeless. Form in man, and throughout the universe, is the result o^ thought. Hence life^ being formed, does not proceed from matter ; but is a thought of God^ accompanied hy the divine will^ to be re- alized in nature, and to appear externally by an organized body. As the thought gives the form, so the divine will, resting in the thought, and in- separably united with it, works as power and law in all nature The animal, with its members and senses, what else can it be but a divine thought exhibited in an external form V' Page 184 : " The soul of man is likewise a di- vine thought, a creation of God, filled with poic- er to live an existence of its own.'''' — Page 150: " The mind is pure activity But this activity takes different directions, and unfolds it- self in different ways, and thus it may be said to be the union of manifold activities, all of which are internally united.'''' — Page 195: " The soul contains in its simple, identical activity, all that afterwards appears in succession, under the form of faculties. They are but the development of the energy of the soul." — Page S56 : " Reason has not its origin in itself ; its author is God, whose ivill lives in it as its law.''"' — Page 185 : Man is soul only, and cannot be any thing else. This soul) however, unfolds itself externally in PH1L0S50PHY OF DR. RAUCH. 199 the life of the hody^ and internally in the life of mind. Twofold in its development, it is one in its origin, and the centre of this union is our per- sonality." — Page 184: "The particles of the body are not at all a part o^man; they are dust, and only their connection and the life connecting them, is truly human." — Page 283: *' That which truly is in nature, are the divine thoughts, the divine laws : and all the rest is but matter." — Page 191 : " It is not nature nor mat- ter that produces personality, but God^ who is the ground of all personality. We can know a thing thoroughly only when we are acquainted with its ground — so man must know God before he can become trxdy acquainted with himself'' In his Preface, page iv.. Dr. Ranch tells us that one great object which he aimed to accom- plish, was, " to give the science of man a direct bearing upon the other sciences, and especially upon religion and theology.'*'' And it must be admitted that he every where manifests profound reverence for God, and a deep sense of the im- portance of religion. But whether his philoso- phy is favorable to sound views of religion, de- serves more examination than comports with the design of these sketches. If I have not entirely misunderstood him, he is a Transcendentalist and a Pantheist pf the school of Hegel. It is ^00 PHILOSOPHY OF DR. EAUCH. also noticeable that his book makes no allusion to any special Revelation from God, or to an apostasy of man, the intervention of a Savior, the forgiveness of sin in consequence of an atone- ment, a future judgment, and eternal retribidittns after the jjresent life. At the same time, his pan- theistic, transcendental principles seem to leave little or no room for these cardinal doctrines of the Bible ; which are either discarded, or essen- tially changed, by all German, as well as Amer- ican Transcendentalists. He utterly denies the freedom of the Will in the natural man ; and he gives to the divine Will an absolute control over the human, in the regenerate. See page 155, &c., 292, &c., 309 — He affirms that, by nature, or in his natural state, man is wholly incapable of holiness. See pages 383, 398. — He explicitly says : " Religion is not a mere quality, but the substance of man He ceases to be man, in the full sense of the term, when he has no re- ligion." See Pre'", page iv. — He defines true re- ligion to be, " a peculiar activity of God, which, announcing itself to the heart of man, changes it, converts it, and restores man to peace with himself, with the world, and with God." See page 388. He thus explicitly admits a regenera- tion of the sold by the power of God ; but he makes it to be a change of man's substance or PHILOSOPHY OF DR. RAUCH. 201 nature ; a change too, which seems to consti tute tlie whole of man's redemption, or to leave n© room for the pardon of sin through an atone- ment, and no work for a Mediator between G ) J and man. The simple activity of God upon the heart, accomplishes the whole business. Inshort, like other Trancendentahsts, he seems to mike religion in man, to be an operation of God, car- rying out and perfecting the Creation of a ration- al soul. ERRATA. Pa£e 17, 1. 24, for encyclopedists r. encyclopyedist!?. 18 and 20, Running Title, forlsiPKRiAL r. Empirical. 24, 10, for cannot be, r. can be. 48, 5, for No. I r. Chap. I. 64, 26, after knowledge, insert a comma. 83, 15, for number r, chapter. 93, 3, for thus it r. then it. 95, 20, for powers r. process. 106, 18, for all changes r. all the changes, 112, 14, for of philosophy r. of his philosophy. " 23, for the acts r. these acts. 114, bottom line, for Stutgard r. Stuttgard- 126, 8, insert a ) after 1832. 26, for Chris r. Christ. 140, 8, after who, insert a comma. 141, 13, after ideas, insert a comma. 146, 18, for 1804 r. ]840. " 26, r. charge d'affaires. 148, 5, for Lonis read Louis. " 18, for Azias r. Azais. 149, 11, for common sense r. common name. 150, 13, for 1833 r. 1832. 160, 26, for Number r. Chapter. 163, 7, after nature, insert a comma. " 9, after It is, omit comma. 165, 3, for happiness r. well-being. 176, 3, for expressions r. e.xpression. [ For want of suitable type the omission of the accents in German, Greek and French words must remain without con ection. —Pmtcr, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, BERKELEY THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW Books not returned on time are subject to a fine of 50c per volume after the third day overdue, increasing to $1.00 per volume after the sixth day. Books not in demand may be renewed if application is made before expiration of loan period. StP 1 7 1980 4^ " U C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES CD^bD^bs^l