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

by Friedrich von Schlegel

Let us now glance at the sacred writings of the Jews, though not, indeed, in so far as they are to be regarded as the divine law of faith for that nation, and for all others who should come in the future and latter times of Christianity (a law, we must observe, which is expressed in a language so thoroughly individual, and in so national a spirit, that it often becomes thereby highly obscure and difficult to understand), nor, indeed, generally in a theological light. For otherwise the example we have chosen for the illustration of the theocracy of science would be identical with the matter it was intended to illustrate. We must here consider it simply as the written record of the origin and descent of the nation, both in its legal and historical existence, combining therewith its distant promises and expectations of the future—in short, as the history, poetry, literature, political institutions and hopes of this singular people. Viewing it, then, in this light, merely in its human, national, and historical aspect, its firm and lasting impression on the Jewish mind, and its indestructible effects, which survive all the changes of time, form a most remarkable phenomenon. For by means of it this ancient people, so miraculously scattered among all the nations of the world, is to this day—three-and-thirty centuries from the original composition of its first sacred books—still one, amid all its dispersion, and, we might almost add, even in spite of its half unbelief in itself.

In modern history, which commences with the second epoch of revelation, the four holy Gospels, with various didactic epistles, and the great prophetic book at the close of all, forms the deep focus of illumination, to which, however, I do not now immediately refer, lest, as I observed in a former case, the illustration and the illustrated matter should prove identical. Out of this first germ of light, as it was carried forward in a living transmission through the first five or six centuries, was gradually raised an edifice of Christian science and thought. A new literature was formed in every branch of doctrine or history, of eloquence or controversy, which, composed in the two highly-cultivated languages of classical antiquity, has exercised the greatest possible influence not only on the succeeding generation, but on all subsequent times. Occasionally, no doubt, and especially in the earlier centuries, a deviation from, or, rather, opposition to, the prevailing system, whether as private opinion or positive error, intruded itself into the midst. Still, notwithstanding these little discords, scarce perceptible in the entire mass, the whole forms, as a system of thought, an intellectual power whose effects have been so great that its authors, or, rather, its spokesmen, have with perfect justice been styled the Fathers or the earthly creators and founders of the Church, i.e., of this new era and of the truth which is transmitted in it, without change, indeed, but with a stream which widens as it flows.

I have chosen all these examples from well-known matters, in order to direct your attention to the fact that the idea we have advanced of a theocracy of science, or a divine power of truth therein, does not depend for its final triumph and the total extinction of error on any individual force of genius, however great, but on a common and joint operation of a system of forces—on a vast and comprehensive edifice of thought, various indeed in its composition and mental character and form of expression, but still perfectly harmonizing as a whole. One thing, however, is indispensable—a divine tendency must predominate in it. The foundation on which it rests and is supported must be divine. The one ray of light, even though in itself it be ever so pure and bright, and truly deserve to be termed divine—one stroke of the sword, though ever so sharply and keenly struck—the one confining limit, though set up and maintained by ever so comprehensive an intelligence (which term I use to convey something more than mere prudence)—all these will avail nothing against this new flood of error and infidelity, and of Godless ideas—thoughts, that is, which are entirely without God, and making no reference to Him, proceed from impious and demoniacal delusion. Against the inroad of atheism, which is threatening life on all sides, the divine might or theocracy of true science can alone furnish a defense. It can only raise a new ark to save the age from perishing in the flood of spiritual wickedness. But with this view the most essential point is the building of a consistent and compact whole, while those who wish to co-operate in the good work must, like the builder of the ancient ark, have their regards turned chiefly to the future, looking far beyond the present, and its minute and frequently most trifling controversies.

This true theocracy of science, resting on a divine tendency in man, which, though it is inborn, is seldom found pure, and still more rarely retains its purity to the end, must look to the state to secure its external stability and unimpeded action. To this end it is necessary, however, that the state should understand and recognize its own divine foundation, and look to that heavenly grace and strength which religion alone vouchsafes to it as the true source of its vitality and permanence. Individuals can at most do nothing more than co-operate in bringing about this desirable consummation. They must not attempt to go beyond the true relation of this co-operative character. The moving power must come from above; it must proceed from the fountain of all goodness and all truth.

Philosophically viewed, indeed, science and its divine tendency rests on the good and genuine aspirations of the human consciousness. And it is only by the restoration of man’s mind to the perfection in which it originally came from the Creator’s hands that science can attain to its perfect state. Now that the consciousness in its present state is imperfect—or, rather, that as compared with its condition when, in the first fresh energy of life and in full and unimpeded action, it came immediately from the Creator, it is no longer uncorrupt, unconfused, or unimpaired, as it was almost our opening remark, so it has been kept in view throughout the present series of Lectures. The most natural conclusion of our labors, therefore, is to consider the possibility of restoring it to its original divine perfection, as being the only method which can secure to science a stable foundation and enable its Godward tendency to attain its proper end.

In a cold, dead, and abstract understanding—in a passionately blind and absolute will—in a reason which loses itself in dialectical disputes or amuses itself with dynamical theories, and, consequently, never reaches its true object—in a fancy which is ever longing after and pursuing its own imaginations, living on and lost in a dreamy and imaginary world of its own—in these severally faulty forms of the human consciousness, as corrupted by the influence of sin, and the consequences of the Fall (even though the objects of this vitiated thought and will may, in themselves, appear perfectly innocent, indifferent, unselfish, and even intellectual), lies the original fountain of all perverted and deadly thinking. The soul, in the center of this fourfold source of false cogitation and false volition, is torn and distracted many ways, impeded, and, as it were, crippled and deadened. But still it remains eternal and immortal. Accordingly, the soul must be the point from which the restoration and reawakening of life must proceed. But this restoration of the human consciousness to perfection is to be called divine, on this account, because it can only be reached by the soul attaching itself exclusively to what we formerly called the second new and divine starting-point of human existence. For the more that the soul, created for immortality and loving, and in love embracing that which is in itself immortal, adopts this great and new word for man, this second beginning in God, and is impregnated with it, in the same degree do reason and fancy cease to be at issue with each other and to be independent, isolated, and clashing faculties; and, finally, they become altogether merged in the one thinking and loving soul. Then, too, does the soul cease to be dead, cold, and abstract, and becomes, instead, a living and wakeful spirit, i.e., one which in its new life works freely and energetically. And the will, too, is no longer blind, no longer passionately absolute; but, restored to sight, becomes one with the internal sense, as the third member of the human consciousness. And by this union the will is, as it were, fully armed and equipped. For the external sense, which hitherto has been thoroughly passive, as soon as the will is restored to sight, assumes by its means an active and living operation; and the inner moral sense, which before was merely subjective, acquires a power of external discernment.

This is the end of perfection. And it is only on this road of a divine restoration of the human consciousness, according to its established law of progress, that the divine tendency of science can attain to perfection. With the attainment of this end an entirely new era will commence. But the intricacy of the problem which our own age has to solve arises simply from this circumstance, that a truly new era and a false one are engaged in mortal conflict. The former can only spring up and flourish when the latter decays and is got rid of. To this end the present false spirit of the age, which is but a perversion of the true cosmopolitan spirit, must die the death. And this must be brought to pass by the sword of the Word or of eternal truth, which pierces even to the joints and marrow, and divides asunder soul and spirit. For the immortal, God-created, and God-devoted soul requires to be separated and detached from the so-called spirit of the age, which is mixed up and compounded of so many dim, false, imperfect, and evil spirits. And the spirit of the age must itself be entirely converted and be brought to a knowledge and open confession of its error, and when once whatever in it is totally dead has been adjudged to eternal death, it will itself be renovated and purified in the fiery floods of the truly new times.

In this divine restoration, however, of the human consciousness, or theocracy, man’s part must be wholly passive. It is enough if he does not hinder or retard it; for in a certain sense he can at least co-operate in bringing it to pass. Even that final consummation toward which that true new era, which as yet is entirely hidden and, as it were, choked by the false, longs and yearns—that peace of God, of which the highest and best religious peace is but a foreboding symbol, and, as it were, the first weak grade, or step, can not be brought about by human art and power. It is not by any diplomatic courtesy, which in this case would be highly culpable—not by any amalgamation, which in the present sphere is contradictory to every notion of right, that that peace can be brought about, in which, according to no vain or unmeaning promise, there is to be one fold and one Shepherd. Its accomplishment must be reserved entirely to Him who, from all eternity has been, and still is, the good Shepherd of all His creatures.

Here, then, at this point, having, by means of the idea of a restoration of the human consciousness to its original divine perfection, arrived at a close, I will pause a few moments to take once more a rapid survey of, and to throw a clearer light on, my past labors. And herein I shall purposely refer to the division of philosophy, and the designations of its several parts usually given in the schools. The first five Lectures treated of the human soul in the wide extent of its original relation, not only to life but also to nature and to God, and formed consequently of psychology, though in a wider sense than the science which is usually occupied with this subject. The three next, as discussing the divine order of things, contained a species of natural theology, though treated of in a perfectly living method and relation, and entering historically into individual, no less than universal, life. Of the last seven Lectures the first three were devoted to the investigation of truth. We here examined its fundamental principle of the unity of the highest science and divine faith, the discrimination of truth in the struggle between faith and skepticism, and the final conclusion in the unity of this higher science and faith with the true life and its influence therein. This higher logic, in so far as it considers the true essence of things, might even be designated an ontology. And, indeed, since it derives every thing from a divine principle, it might not inaptly be called an applied or mixed theology, in the same sense as this designation is employed in the mathematical sciences, viz., as the first part of such an applied theology. In this sense the second part thereof would be formed by the metaphysics of life, as the science of that which is above nature, whose province it is to indicate all higher and supernatural principles in the whole sphere of existence and the actual world, so far as it is given to man to know them. Employing the old phraseology and division of the schools, we might term this a cosmology, in a moral and intellectual sense, and with a regard to what human philosophy can attain to. The symbolical energy of the divine communication in religion, the divine foundation of the state, the Godward tendency of science, and the restoration of the consciousness by God, form, as it were, the four poles or summits of all these principles, which transcend and overpass the merely natural.

Concerning the accomplishment of perfection in man’s divinely-restored consciousness, and also in the whole of existence, or in nature itself, a few words yet remain to be added. And thus this last section, considered as a cosmology, is based on a divine principle, so far as this is attainable by man.