LECTURE II.
OF THE LOVING SOUL AS THE CENTER OF THE MORAL LIFE; AND OF MARRIAGE.
THE development of the human consciousness, according to the triple principle of its existence, or of its nature as compounded of spirit or mind, soul, and animated body, must begin with the soul, and not with the spirit, even though the latter be the most important and supreme. For the soul is the first grade in the progress of development. In actual life, also, it is the beginning and the permanent foundation, as well as the primary root of the collective consciousness. The development of the spirit or mind of man is much later, being first evolved in or out of, by occasion of, or with the co-operation of the soul. But even when thus developed, the mind (under which term we comprise the will, as well as the understanding) is neither in all men, nor always in the same individual, equally active. In this respect we may apply to it what has been said of the wind, which imparts vital motion and freshness to all the objects of outward nature: we “hear the sound thereof, but we can not tell whence it comes, nor whither it goeth.”[13] The thinking soul, on the contrary, is, properly speaking, always, though silently, working; and it is highly probable that it is never without conceptions. Of these, indeed, it may either possess a clear or an almost totally indistinct consciousness, according to that principle of unconscious representations propounded as a fundamental axiom of psychology by a great German philosopher[14] of earlier times, with whose opinions I often find myself agreeing, and with whom, before all other men, I would most gladly concur.
Applied to the alternating states of sleeping and waking in the outward organic life, this would merely mean that in sleep we always dream, even at those times when our vision leaves no traces on our memory. The great majority of dreams, even those which in the moment of awakening we still remember, are absolutely nothing but the conjoint impression of the bodily tone and the ever-varying temperament of life and health, and of the disorderly repetition of such ideas as previously to sleeping had principally engaged the attention. Now, since every opposite comes near to its correlative in one or more points of contact, which, as they establish, also serve to maintain the relationship between the two, so the state of the soul in dreaming will serve strikingly to illustrate its waking action. Of the great multitude of dreams, which are for the most part confused and unmeaning, some occasionally stand out from the rest extremely clear and well-connected, in which the feelings oftentimes discover a profound significance, or which, at least, as significant images, interest the fancy. And just in the same manner in the state of waking there passes before the soul no inconsiderable number of obscure and vague conceptions, which are not much if at all clearer or more methodically disposed than the train of images which in a dream succeed one another without the least intrinsic order or connection. Still we should greatly err were we to assume, that like the latter they leave no trace behind them on the soul. On the contrary, in these undeveloped beginnings of thought there often lies the germ of very definite ideas, and especially of the various peculiarities of mental character, as also of the impulses and determination which, at first slowly and spontaneously formed, eventuate in some definite susceptibility or direction of the will. Now, as the external life of man alternates between the waking activity and the state of repose in sleep, so, too, the thinking soul is divided between the abstracting and classifying Reason and the inventive Fancy.[15] These two are, as it were, the halves, so to speak, or the two poles of the thinking soul, of which the one may be regarded as the positive, the other as the negative. In respect to the inner fruitful cogitation itself—to the origination and production of thoughts—the imagination, as the reproductive faculty, is the positive pole. As for the fancy, properly so called—the poetic fancy, or that which plays an important part in the inclinations and passions—it is only a particular species and operation of this faculty, which in its general form also manifests itself in many other directions and spheres of human thought and action. To it belongs, for instance, that talent of extensive combination which distinguishes all the great discoverers in mathematics. Opposite to this productive faculty of thought, the negative pole is formed by the classifying faculty of reason, which further elaborates, closely determines, and limits the materials furnished to it by the fancy. Thus, then, the place which the fancy—with all the powers, emotions, and impressions which belong to it—assumes relatively to the external world, is subordinate and ministerial, since it is only within certain prescribed limits that it can duly make use of its rich productive energies, realize its inmost ideas, and act upon them.
Here, therefore, the first place belongs to the ordering and determining reason, and which here ought to hold the helm. In this respect it may justly be called the regulative faculty. And yet, since the reason is, so to speak, only one half of the soul, it must not pretend to exclusive authority; while, on the other hand, it is but little likely that that which we may have set before our mind and imagination as the innermost wish of our hearts, will simply on that account prove invariably a real and lasting good.
I called the understanding and the will, the reason and the fancy, the four principal branches of the human consciousness, of which all other mental powers or faculties of the soul, usually ascribed to man, are but so many offshoots. These other powers, however, can not with perfect propriety be called subordinate, since in another point of view they may, perhaps, be entitled to assume a higher rank. Assigned[16] faculties is, therefore, what I should prefer to term them. Now of such faculties belonging to the domain of the combining and distinguishing reason, the memory and the conscience are pre-eminently to be mentioned. For the memory also in another way is a combining, just as the conscience is a distinguishing faculty—the latter, however, being so not only in another, but even in a far higher sense. But we must postpone for the present the further consideration of this matter, and consider rather those faculties or functions which are under the influence of, or at least immediately connected with, the fancy. These are the senses, and the inclinations or instincts. With regard, then, to the senses: in the first place, I would simply call your attention to the fact, that the triple principle of human existence—according to which the latter consists of a spirit or mind, of a soul, and of a living body or a bodily manifestation—is repeated as it were in miniature in every smaller and narrower sphere of man’s consciousness. This is especially the case with the external senses. Thus viewing them, however, we should have to reckon but three senses instead of the usual number of five. This can be managed easily enough by taking the three lower and counting them as one, since they constitute pre-eminently the corporeal sense, as contradistinguished from the other two, which are both higher and more incorporeal. For to the three lower senses, not only is a material contact indispensable, but also, as in the case of smell, a sort of chemical assimilation with matter. No doubt, in the act of seeing and hearing there is likewise a certain but imperceptible contact of the nerves of the eye and ear with the waves of light and the undulations of the air; but still this contact is of a different kind from the former, and of another and indeed of a higher nature, producing the relations of tone, color, and shape. Now, in this classification, the eye is the mind or spirit’s sense for beauty of form and grace of motion. It is so in truth, not merely in those who are endowed with a taste for the arts or the artistic eye, but far more universally, being diffused in a greater or less degree through the whole human family. Special gifts of it, or, rather, higher though varying endowments, are to be found in some highly-favored individuals; and in the same way the ear for music is not imparted to all who possess the general organ of hearing, which we very properly term the soul’s sense. The external senses man shares, indeed, in common with the brutes, in some of whom they are found of an exquisite and highly-developed susceptibility. But these higher endowments of eye and ear, and above all the natural artistic feeling for beauty of form, and the musical talent, are the prerogatives of man, conferred upon him by his peculiar faculty of fancy. On this account they, like that faculty, are distributed unequally among men, though they are not on that account less real and undeniable.
The brutes, I said, do not possess them. No doubt there is a certain melodious rhythm perceptible in the songs of birds. Some, also, of the more eminently docile and sagacious of terrestial animals do indeed evince peculiar signs of pleasure in the music of man. Still I would call this but so many single, unconnected echoes or reverberations of fancy, since every thing like free choice, further development, or intrinsic coherence, is wanting to them—all is broken, abrupt, and incapable of being formed into a whole. In the same manner the artistic instinct and skill of some animals exhibits, no doubt, a certain likeness in its operations to the rational works of man, but still it ever remains a resemblance at best, and is forever divided from reason by a wide and impassable gulf. It is, as it were, the indistinct trace of a weather-worn and nearly obliterated inscription—the dying notes of some far-off music. And hence the agreeable, but, at the same time, melancholy, impression which such things make upon our feelings. A something human seems to be stirring in them. They appear to revive a faint but nearly-forgotten allusion to an originally close and intrinsic relation between animated nature in its highest developments and man as its former master and as the divinely-appointed lord of the whole earthly creation. But if the influence and the operation of the fancy on the external senses be thus indistinct and difficult to be traced, it is far more apparent, as also far greater and more decided, on the inclinations, instincts, and passions which form the second class of the faculties subordinate to the fancy. It can easily be shown how even the simplest instincts of self-preservation, and the gratification of the most natural wants, are in man perceptibly affected by the working of fancy, so as to be manifoldly diversified thereby. But still more is this the case with the higher impulses and instincts, as confirmed and strengthened by use and indulgence, especially when, in their most violent and intensest development, they become passions. For, in this shape, both by this excess and by the false direction they give to the mental powers, originally designed for nobler and more exalted purposes, they form so many moral perversities and faults of character. I would here, in the first place, call your attention to the fact, that in all the passions, when, by their intensity, they become immoral, the fancy exercises an essential and co-operating influence. And, in the second place, I would remind you that in the same way as in the external senses generally, so also in all the principal phases of ill-regulated passion, the threefold principle of human existence manifests itself once more, and is even repeated anew in all the several forms and subdivisions of these special spheres.
Now, the first of these false tendencies and moral infirmities—unbounded pride and haughtiness—is essentially a mental blindness and aberration; and vanity, with its delusions, is the same disease in a lower and milder phase. And all will admit that the source of this moral failing is an overweening love of self. But in self-conceit the co-operating influence of fancy is easily and distinctly traceable. As to the second of those infirmities which distract and disturb life: I should also be disposed to consider the sensual passionateness or passionate sensuality as a disease indeed, but of a brutalizing tendency—an inflammatory habit, a fever of the soul, which either spends itself in acute and violent paroxysms, or with slower but certain progress secretly undermines and subverts all man’s better qualities. In either case, the true source of the evil—the irresistible energy and the false magic of this passion—lies in an over-excited, deluded, or poisoned fancy. The natural instinct itself, in so far as it is inborn and agreeable to nature, is obnoxious to no reproach. The blame lies altogether in the want of principle, or that weakness of character which half-voluntarily concedes to the mere instinct an unlimited authority, or, at least, is incapable of exercising over it a due control. The third false direction of man’s instincts which, after the two already noticed, involves human society in the greatest disorder, and most fatally disturbs the peace of individuals, is an unlimited love of gain, selfishness, and avarice. No doubt, in a certain modified and lower sense, the hope of advantage or profit is the motive that prompts every enterprise; at least, according to the judgment of the world, nothing is undertaken or transacted without a view to some object of a selfishness more or less refined. But when we look to the worst and most violent cases of this disease—an insatiable avarice and a morbid love of gain, then we at once see the baneful effects which the fancy, dwelling exclusively on material property and chinking coin, has on this moral disease, where, with the golden treasure, mind and soul are shut up and buried, and both completely numbed and petrified, in the same way that, by certain organic diseases of the body, the heart becomes ossified.
By these pernicious passions, the higher moral organ of life is in different ways attacked and destroyed. In the first case, that of the blinding of the mind by pride and vanity, the moral judgment is perverted and falsified. In the second case, where the soul is brutalized by a life of sensuality, the moral sense is clouded, loses all its delicacy, and is at last totally obliterated. In the third instance, that of a thorough numbness of the inner life produced by selfishness and avarice, the idea of moral duty is in the end totally lost, dies away, and becomes extinct, while the dead Mammon is regarded as the supreme good of life, and, being set up as the sole object of human exertion, is substituted for the best and noblest acquisition of mind and soul. The three passions which we have already examined are founded indeed on a positive pursuit, however false may be the extent or perverted the direction in which it is carried out. We might now proceed with our speculation, and, progressively developing it from the same point of view, extend and apply it to the aggressive passions, which are based on a merely negative pursuit—the attack, annihilation, and destruction of their objects. I allude to the passion of hatred, in its three different elements or species, viz., anger, malice, and revenge. But to enter further upon such investigations would be inappropriate in the present place. Generally, indeed, in touching upon matters so universally known, my object has been merely to consider and exhibit them from their psychological side, in order to show partly how the triple principle of human existence, according to mind or spirit, and soul, and the third element, wherein the former two conjointly operate, finds its application, and is repeated, as it were, in miniature, in the narrower sphere of the natural inclination, both good and bad, and also in that of the external senses. At the same time it was also my wish to call attention to the fact, that the dominion of the fancy over its subordinate faculties, whether of the external senses or the instincts, manifests itself likewise in the pernicious passions, as exercising over them a very baneful influence, and, indeed, as being the principal source of the prevailing aberrations.
These three passions and leading defects of character, which destroy the inward peace of individuals and disturb the order of society, may be regarded as so many Stygian floods, so many dark subterranean streams of lava and fire, which, bursting from the crater of a burning fancy, pour down upon the region of the will, there again to break out in lawless deeds and violent catastrophes, or, perhaps, what is far worse, to lie smoldering in a life frittered away in worthless pursuits, without object or meaning, or in the frivolous routine of an ordinary existence.
Having thus fully set forth the injurious influence of a disordered fancy on the deadly and pernicious passions of man, we shall be more at liberty to consider the other and better aspect of this mental faculty. For fancy, which, as his peculiar prerogative, distinguishes man from all other intellectual beings, is a living and fruitful source of good no less than of evil. Accordingly, in the higher aims of his good instincts, noble inclinations, and true enthusiasms, fancy gives life and stability to his exertions, and arouses and calls to his aid all the energies of mind and intellect.