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

by Friedrich von Schlegel

But it is our object to make this comparison and parallel between faith and infidelity, in the full practical meaning of the words, useful and historically applicable to life. For this purpose we must not regard infidelity as founded exclusively on caprice, aversion, or obstinacy—consequently on ignorance—but consider it rather as enjoying every intellectual advantage, and commanding all the resources of learning and science. For a purely personal, and merely negative unbelief, without any deep foundation, and without even an apparently scientific confirmation, is neither very dangerous to the community, and, above all, presents little if any interest to philosophy. But, on the other hand, if faith is successfully to cope with such an adversary, furnished with all the armor and expedients of science, it must be able to stand the comparison with it in this respect. It must, in short, be conceived and set forth in its natural relation to true science, and, taking its proper place and position, must act in union and co-operation with it.

I must here, however, premise a second preliminary remark. I can not bring myself to follow a very general opinion, and look upon faith as a true and duly moderated medium between superstition and infidelity. On the contrary, I join superstition with infidelity, and can not but class them together. If by this term of superstition nothing is meant but some exaggeration or other, some over-excitement of the moral and religious feelings in individuals, then such a purely-personal case admits not of being raised to a general rule, nor elevated into a universal principle. And in any case it does not fall within the range of philosophical speculation. For the care of the spiritual health and healthy diet of the believing soul, which draws both life and love from the deep sources of faith, belongs to a wholly different province from that of philosophy. But by this word and notion of superstition there is often understood a very childish error, which does not duly separate and distinguish the figurative language and figurative forms of fancy from the substance of the true intrinsic meaning. This error, which thus confounds the figurative expression with reality, and takes it to be something real, may justly be called childish, inasmuch as it is universally peculiar, almost natural, to the intellect of children. Now, in and by itself, and simply understood, such an internal optical delusion results from nothing but a psychological imperfection, or a mere semblance of intellectual nature. But when this error is carried out into a system, and applied, on a large scale, to the sum and essence of faith, then, undoubtedly, it possesses a profounder origin and significance. This species of superstition belongs to one of those classes of error which I am about to describe. When, for instance, an actual positive error is comprised in and understood by this name, then it belongs to infidelity, which, in general, is rather a false faith than any mere absence of belief. Infidelity, in short, is an erroneous belief. And such, also, is every species of superstition, and this designation of it by the name of erroneous faith, if generally adopted, would be more correct and accurate, or, at least, less liable to be misunderstood than its ordinary title.

For, to adhere to the usual term, every species of infidelity is either a material deification of nature and a worship of the sensible powers of life, or it is an abstract deification of the absolute subjective Me, and the pure reason, with its endless thinking and knowing. Even when it is conceived in a purely skeptical light as an absolute not-knowing, still even in this case it is the understanding that is deified. Standing apart from, and thinking itself superior to, the weak prejudices of other men—in its negation feeling and fancying itself to be instinct with genius—it is regarded and set up as the highest object of existence, and thereby in a certain intellectual sense is made an idol of. Even the evil power of perverted genius—for such we may well call it when it ventures to contemn both law and right, and fancies itself to be raised high above the voice of conscience and the moral duties of docility and humblemindedness as belonging to ordinary minds—even such a perverted genius may be made the idol of a man who has once turned his back on the simple truth and on God, and has arrogantly set himself in opposition to both. We may, in short, without hesitation, advance it as an invariable principle and an unerring rule, that the man who has lost or abandoned—not to say rejected—the idea and belief in the one good and righteous God, has enshrined within his breast and cherishes some more or less dangerous idol, whether it be the subjective Me or some fearful passion, or, it may be, some firm and well-finished system of deified reason or nature.

The complete notion or ideal scheme of pure faith, in its organic union, co-operation, and true relation with all higher and with all natural or earthly science, must be conceived of and sketched in agreement with the triple principle of the human consciousness, according to which it is divided into spirit, soul, and sense. At least it is in this way that it can most easily be made clear, and being accurately apprehended in its essential properties and nature, is kept distinct from all foreign elements and adscititious matters. But infidelity, and that doubt and absence of harmony from which it takes its rise, as well as that error which results from it, have their seat in the fourfold consciousness. These all owe their origin to that disunion in which the mind was involved by the Fall, and which manifests itself principally in the dissension which subsists between Fancy and Reason, and eventually destroys all harmony and co-operation between the Understanding and the Will. For this twofold schism in the human consciousness is the source of all philosophical error and of its various false systems. And this scientific error again, so soon as it attains to a practical utterance, and in a living form enters into or interferes with life, becomes infidelity.

Originally, however, the consciousness was not thus rent by dissension. Throughout, in its triple principle of sense, soul, and spirit, prevailed one living, harmonious action. Now, in this its natural state, the soul must be regarded as the principle of faith. And this is a point especially to be borne in mind. It is, however, too often forgotten. And consequently the faith, or, rather (for we are not speaking at present of the subject-matter so much as of the mental act), the believing, is in an external manner derived very incompletely and unsatisfactorily from the divided and quadruple consciousness. For generally the act of believing and its essence is made to consist in a certain internal reserve on the part of both understanding and will, and a similar control of the fancy, and even of the reason, as well as in the recognition of these limits and of such limitation.

We must, no doubt, admit that there may be very much which the human intellect can not fathom nor see through. This it would by no means be difficult to prove. And still more easy were it to show that man’s will can not always give the law, but must often submit to and recognize a higher and more universal authority. And as regards the fancy, every one will be ready—not to say forward—to make a somewhat similar admission. The faculty of imagination, sensuous and material in its origin and in its operation, and always remaining in the highest degree subjective, is liable to innumerable illusions, to which we ascribe no value, or, rather, which we carefully endeavor to dispel from our minds, whenever we attempt to penetrate into the inmost essence of the highest truth which it is the object of faith to embrace. That, moreover, the reason, no less than the fancy, has its peculiar—one might almost say, its innate—optical delusions, must be but too well known to every one who has made the slightest progress in the art of logic, and advanced beyond the mere elements of a philosophical examination of this faculty.

All this, however, is only a negative nature. The mere recognition and acknowledgment of the fact that we can and ought to restrain our reason and reserve our judgment whenever a higher act of faith comes into question—or, in other words, that in such a case the absolute reason, with its logical processes and laws of thought, is not alone qualified to decide, but meets with limits which it is unable to surmount—such concessions do not lead to any positive result. They do but establish the possibility of a faith which may transcend and is not confined within these bounds. While, however, they lead to the inference that such a faith is thoroughly conceivable, and that while it transcends the reason is, nevertheless, rational, and capable of being brought into perfect unison with the sound reason, they do not by any means establish at once its reality. All this is rather the preparatory step to believing, and not the true living faith itself.

A true living faith (and we are here speaking of the function of believing, rather than of the particular details of a positive creed), is nothing else than the reception into the soul of the truth given unto us by God. And inasmuch as the soul is in its origin loving, and, indeed, the very faculty of love, a true living faith can not be thought of or exist without this accompaniment of love, which is even its distinctive characteristic.

In the case, for instance, of a special form and positive rule of faith, the incompetency of the reason and understanding to pass a definitive judgment on such high and divine matters may be acknowledged, and even the external will may sacrifice its own inclinations and submit to the requirements of a positive law. But so long as all this remains, as it were, external to man, so long as the soul within does not concur therewith—a fact which may be infallibly discerned by the want or absence of love—then in this case it is but a dead faith, even though outwardly, and in the judgment of others, it may pass as legitimate and orthodox. Then only is it a true living faith when it is wholly received into the entire soul, as manifested by its internal fruitfulness in spiritual thought and moral action. For it is the soul that believes—that same thinking and loving soul which we have already designated the center of the collective consciousness of man and of his moral life. In this state, however, the soul has undergone a change; is this higher act of believing its cogitation has become steady and uniform, and its love perfectly pure and abidingly permanent in God.

But now, if in the triple consciousness the soul be the principle of faith, then is the spirit or mind [geist] that of higher science, of free thought, of a full and complete discernment, and of the final and supreme act of distinguishing and deciding. And by this higher science I mean that which has for its exclusive object the eternal truth, and Him who is the sum and source of all immutable verities. But, thirdly, the sensuous faculty is the principle of all lower sensible, terrestrial, and natural knowledge. And this comprises all human history, and together therewith all language and art, and every branch of learning that is occupied therewith. But besides the physical sciences, mathematics also belong to this department, for these are dependent on the sensuous conditions of number, weight, and measure, and consequently on time and space, and on those material properties which fill space, viz., gravity and solidity.