The philosophy of life, and philosophy of language, in a course of lectures

by Friedrich von Schlegel

But inasmuch as the fault and origin of the dissension has partly its foundation in human imperfection and finiteness, we must rest content, even if we can not all at once get rid of and remove it. We must be satisfied if in this ceaseless struggle with man’s hereditary and connatural fault of error, the progress though slow is sure. It is enough if in this surely advancing progression, each step, however short, brings us nearer to the truth, and to the perfect cognition of the unity of the highest science and divine faith. But this is a point on which even individuals, with the most perfect honesty of purpose and a sincere love of truth, too often go wrong. Unable, perhaps, to reconcile to their own minds some conflicting claim of science and of faith, and to see their way clear out of their perplexities, then to cut the knot of the problem to which they despair of soon finding a satisfactory solution, they precipitately adopt some partial and overhasty conclusion. But slow, extremely slow, is the advance of man’s mental enlightenment in the realm of truth. And if the course of Providence, according to the very gradual progression of divine order in this domain, must be counted by millenniums, then in the life of individuals, years and decades must be reckoned as days and hours. Even though some grave doubt, distracting the inmost feelings, but scarcely definable in express terms—some oppressive problem suggested by the peculiar mental temperament of the individual, can not be resolved in three hours, or even three days, still it may perhaps in three years; and if three years be too little, then thirty years may probably suffice. While in spite of this inward doubt we follow uninterruptedly our vocation in outer life, many a silent change is effected in our minds, and so at length with altered views and enlarged experience we attain to a calm and clear conviction on the points which at an earlier period had appeared to us obscure, had held us in suspense, and oppressed us with perplexing difficulties.

This is the only road that can be safely trod by those who desire above all things to retain a divine faith, but at the same time not to renounce the pursuit of higher science. And is not this the difficult position in the present day of every well-disposed person who is in any way connected with science, or whose pursuits in life require him to occupy himself with it? But now, in the case of physical science, we are all content to observe this law of tardy progress; indeed we think it quite natural, and hold it to be the only correct method. And it is only by following a similar course in the internal investigations of philosophy that we shall ever arrive at a stable position and the firm ground of eternal truth. By any other method, we shall most assuredly lose ourselves among the ever-shifting systems which change with the fashions of the day, or be carried away by the baseless hypotheses of this or that sect or school, which, like the sterile blossoms in the spring, fall fruitless to the ground.

In respect to this tardiness of progress, which most assuredly is at least not inconsistent with true philosophy, I can appeal to my own instance, which in such a case is, I hope, allowable. It is now nine-and-thirty years since I first read, with indescribable avidity, the entire works of Plato in the original; and ever since, amid many other scientific studies, philosophical research has been my principal and favorite avocation. In this pursuit many and various have been the systems of science—of discord and of error—that I have had to wander through. Satisfied neither with the opinions of others nor with my own views, I felt reluctant to come forward with a system of my own. In the mean while my view of philosophy has been in a state of inchoation and of tardy but progressive development. Slowly and incompletely, little by little, incidentally and fragmentarily, at different epochs, has some of its principles come to the light, or escaped me in my earlier literary works and compositions—an explanation which I do not consider superfluous, even for those who are best acquainted with them. But the more I held fast to the two poles of divine faith and of supreme science, which as such is also divine, the firmer footing did I gain in that point and that center in the everlasting Beginning, in which both are one and cease to be at issue, but rather intimately cohering, do but lend fresh life, strength, and elevation to each other. And now at length I believe I have attained to that point when, fully persuaded myself of this unity of science and faith as grounded in God, I may safely indulge the wish to impart to others this important truth, publicly to set it forth, and develop it to the whole world. And it is to me no slight cause of congratulation that I am to enter upon this task in the present place and in the present manner.

Besides those points of correlation already pointed out, between the highest science and faith, there is still another way in which the former, in its all-embracing notion of the triple life of the primal cause and force, is referred to faith, and even to its positive articles and its divine authority. It is obliged to appeal to this, in order to find and maintain its guiding rule and correct standard for the further application and development of this highest and fundamental notion, and to keep it dear of all erroneous and extravagant excrescences. The necessity of this will be best and most simply shown by a few historical instances.

When we open any of the ancient writings of the Hindoos, whether it be their scientific systems, their books of laws and customs for practical life, or their merely mythological poems, we find them, in every instance, based on the notion of a divine trinity, and, in some cases, asserting it in express words and phrases. But inasmuch as, forgetting to maintain the unity together with the trinity, they abandoned the simple truth and made thereout three distinct gods, the metaphysical theory (which otherwise contains so many and distinct traces of ancient truth) and the trinity of the Hindoos has become a pure mythology, comprising as long a genealogy of gods as any other. But the retention, however, of this fundamental notion, their mythology has acquired a theistic hue and coloring, which forms a strong contrast between it and the better known mythology of Greece, notwithstanding that in other respects, and in its purely poetic portion, it exhibits many and strong features of resemblance and affinity. Thus, in this wonderful chaos of distorted truth, of monstrous error, and pure fiction, we meet with ten fabulous creations of men, instead of the single true one with which, only within the last three centuries, the Hindoos have formed a more thorough and permanently-based acquaintance. Moreover, in life and in practice there is exhibited a renunciation of the world, and a mortification of the body, which, far surpassing the rigorous self-denial of the early Christian solitaries in Egypt, is carried to an intensity and an extreme which it is almost incredible that human nature should be capable of. But co-existing with all this, we meet with immoral practices and licentious excesses sanctified by falsehood and superstition, similar to those we have already become acquainted with in the more sensual heathenism of antiquity, that, I mean, which prevailed among the ancient races of this our western portion of the globe. Into such a frightful abyss of error even the most spiritual system of metaphysics inevitably falls, or at least easily becomes associated with falsehood, whenever it is left entirely to itself, and is devoid of a divine rule for its guidance, and the simple standard of a higher and heaven-descended authority.

In the history, too, of the development of the Grecian mind we discover a similar doctrine advanced in one of its latest epochs. The Neo-Platonists were very well acquainted with this doctrine and idea of a divine trinity; as, indeed, it may also be traced in the still earlier writings of Plato himself. How far the expressions and formularies employed by the former writers scientifically to convey this idea were perfect and correct is a question which does not concern us at present to inquire. Moreover, the determination of it would carry us far beyond our proper limits, inasmuch as its exact solution would require a nice and accurate classification of the several writers and systems which belong to this school. It is, however, sufficient to remark that this profound metaphysical school of the Neo-Platonists, which reckoned among its adherents the Emperor Julian, stood in direct and hostile collision with Christianity. To adapt to the purpose of their opposition the old Grecian mythology, a faith in which had sensibly declined even among the masses, they attempted to mold it according to their own views and notions, into such a theological shape and direction as would make it more closely resemble the Indian. By this means they believed it possible to revive and reanimate the popular faith. But, even if their ulterior view and their whole object and actuating motive had not taken a direction so decidedly hostile to the truth, still their enterprise, even as such, could not but miscarry. No doubt the mythology of Greece, in its earliest times and original shape, did contain, in some of its less prominent and more hidden passages, esoterically interpreted, a few symbolical doctrines and somewhat theistic ideas, as many a profound examiner of it, in modern times, has recognized and demonstrated. But, notwithstanding all these traces, which we must regard as the remains of an older tradition of the primary knowledge and full revelation belonging to primeval times, still, in subsequent ages, the Grecian mythology had, on the whole, assumed exclusively and pre-eminently a poetic development and form, which even subordinated to itself that political tendency which in so many of its details is so strong. It was, therefore, nothing less than an absurd and inconsistent attempt to try, so late in the day, to metamorphose this beautiful world of fable into a factitious theory of metaphysics, and a colossal system of mysticism, after the manner and fashion of the Indian. Accordingly, like every other attempt that is fundamentally false and directly opposed to the spirit of the age, it passed away at last, without leaving a trace of its influence.

This inclination to the poetic aberration of polytheism and a deification of nature, so universally prevalent in the heathen antiquity of the West, renders it easily conceivable why, in the first and Jewish portion of written revelation, such great stress is laid pre-eminently and primarily on the oneness of the living God. All other expressions—such as that of the eternal creative Word, of the life-giving Spirit of God—are, as it were, but allusions full of hidden meaning for the more clear-sighted and profounder inquirers. How numerous, nevertheless, such indications are; how frequent the reference to three powers or persons—the time, energy, and property of the one Supreme Being—an allusion to which is contained even in the different Hebrew names of the Godhead, is known and acknowledged, even by those who would, if they could, deny it, both to themselves and others.

The tradition of the Jews, which, lying without the strictly-defined body of Scripture, yet proceeds concurrently with it, while it possesses of itself no authority, is, nevertheless, a very useful though too much neglected source of illustration for the sacred volume. Now, in the Talmud the doctrine and notion of the divine trinity is expressed quite fully and distinctly, and without reserve; although in the mode and manner of conceiving it there is much that is both false and objectionable.

In that second portion of revelation with which our present era commences, together with the fulfilling and perfection of the object of faith, this supreme science is brought prominently and clearly forward. No doubt a certain caution and degree of reserve on this doctrine of the Trinity are distinctly visible in the earliest teaching and statements, so long as the preaching of the new faith was confined within the Jewish nation, on whose mind the idea of the oneness of God was still deeply imprinted, even though, like every other principle of their religion, it was ill understood and had long ceased to be embraced with a living energy, being taken merely in the dead letter. But ere long this thin veil was also removed from the All-holy One, and the great mystery of faith set forth as the introduction to the fourth and last Gospel. From the latter I have accordingly borrowed that designation of this great mystery which is even the most appropriate to science; of the supreme life which is itself omnipotence, of the eternal word which is ominisence, and of the uncreated light which is the All-holy.

Certain great thinkers, who, however, in many respects can not be classed among proper Christians, have indeed recognized and acknowledged the profound significance of this opening of the Gospel. Only they adopted a spirit of hostile analysis, which, as it attacked so many of the great works of olden time, did not spare even this divine monument. They lost themselves in all sorts of superfluous hypotheses as to the source from which this or that passage was derived, and with what object it was introduced. Much simpler were it, without having recourse to any such artificial explanations, to receive the divine truth in sincerity as it is offered to us. If we must ascribe some special design for its composition, it will be sufficient to suppose, that after the Evangel of Life and the new era commencing therewith had been sufficiently set forth as history in a triple narrative, it was requisite to add thereto this Evangel of the Beginning—as the Gospel according to the spirit of the highest science, in so far as this is fully identical with the divine faith, and henceforward was always to continue one with it. It was quite in the natural order of things that the word which was uttered at the beginning of the material creation, and is the basis of the first revelation, should also at the opening of the second revelation, and the spiritual creation of a new era, be repeated (though in a different and far higher sense) for the soul in the realm of truth:—“And God said: Let there be light, and there was light.”