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

by Friedrich von Schlegel

This is man’s first and ever-recurring, ever-renewed perception of his inward life. Careful observation of self is ever impressing on him a consciousness of what we might almost call an inborn, or at least hereditary, discord and division in the human mind. This intellectual fact, which is one purely psychological and totally independent of the disturbing influences of passion or disease, may in truth well carry us to the conclusion which, independently of it, so many other moral phenomena and historical traces appear to point at. It leads us on almost irresistibly to embrace that exposition of it which has been held in common by almost every ancient people; the doctrine, namely that man at the very onset fell from his original state of harmony into dissension and disunion, and has since sunk many degrees lower and lower from the dignity which belonged to him on his first creation. But as this primitive obscuration and degeneracy went to the inmost root of man’s being, under its influence, not only his relations to the external world, but also in himself, in his pure internal thinking, feeling, and willing, all is deranged, discordant, and fragmentary, so that very rarely indeed do the three co-operate effectually in a living and enduring harmony. And it is doubtless because the prevailing theories of the human mind overlook the fact of this great change that they are so utterly unsatisfactory and generally so tame and superficial. The determination, however, how far this event is to be regarded as an historical fact and rests on authentic tradition, is a question which lies beyond our present purpose, and belongs rather to a purely critical investigation. The immediate and specific aim of philosophy is simply to analyze and clearly understand the psychological fact of the discord and dissension which subsists between the several faculties of soul and spirit, and to exhibit it just as it is. Having accomplished this, it will then proceed to indicate the point or position from which the work of restoration must be commenced, or by which at least the way which leads to it may be discovered; the path, namely, of return to the original harmony of the soul. In other words, its ultimate object will be to discover the means of restoring a living and perfect consciousness, and of bringing about a more harmonious co-operation of its hitherto divided powers and faculties, whether of soul or spirit.

Now, even in ordinary experience, certain propitious combinations of circumstances do occur, when this inward strife and innate or hereditary discord between the understanding and the will, the reason and fancy, is happily overcome. Under their influence the faculties, which previously were separate and divided, or hostilely arrayed against each other, are, partly at least, and for one individual life in all its incidents, actions, and productions, brought into profitable agreement and harmony. These rare occasions are furnished by extraordinary energy of character, unrivaled artistic genius, or other high and rare mental endowment. These, therefore, form not only so many experimental proofs of the possibility of restoring the now discordant elements and the isolated organs of the inner man to completeness of unity and entirety of life, but also furnish stable points from which to start again, and to carry on the work of restoration. Such instances, however, are but exceptions from the general course of things. Fortunate and rare exceptions they are, no doubt, but still, even as such, they only serve to establish more surely and incontestably the predominance of the rule, and the universal fact of the internal strife among the faculties of the human mind.

Not unnecessarily to distract your attention at the very outset, I shall for the present omit to consider many subordinate and derivative, but applied and complex faculties of our mind and soul, such as memory, the external senses, the various instincts, and the conscience. Restricting, therefore, myself immediately to these four principal powers—understanding and will, with reason and fancy, which we may regard as the four poles of the internal world, or as the quarters of the human consciousness, I shall consider generally the opposition which displays itself between these elementary powers of man’s mind. This fact is so universally recognized, and so generally predominant, that it displays itself even in the experience and incidents of every-day life. To what amounts the opinion so commonly expressed of many men, nay even the greater part of distinguished characters, “that their judgment and will are not in unison?” “What extensive learning and comprehensive views does he not possess,” is said of one man; “what acuteness, excellent judgment! What might he not accomplish if he had but the will; but he is so changeful, you can never depend upon him, so inactive, so void of energy of character, that he does not himself know rightly what he wishes.” Now in such passing estimates of men, it is deserving of remark, that it is not the passions, or of passionate transgressions of the moral law, that come in question, but rather some internal defect and weakness. “He has the best will,” is said of another, “is always active, capable of any sacrifice and devotion, and of a firm and undaunted resolution; but at the same time he is so narrow-minded, so unbending and short-sighted, and possessed by such inflexible prejudices, that nothing can in truth be made of him, and every enterprise is sure to miscarry that he has any thing to do with.” The discord is not indeed in every case so strongly marked and distinct, still every one who at all observes his own consciousness may easily determine, and satisfactorily answer the question, whether this opposition between the understanding and the will, or at least the disposition thereto, is not deeply fixed and rooted in our inmost nature, and on the whole universal. Whence else springs the high estimation in which steadiness and consistency of character are generally held, but from the fact that it is a rare exception for will and understanding—the inward thought and the outward practice—to be in perfect harmony and agreement? And in truth consistency, thoroughly carried out in the whole life, steadfast unison of idea and practice—in short, power—immediately enforces our respect and admiration, even though we may not be able to agree with the motive and principles on which it acts, and moreover remark much in the whole line of conduct deserving of blame, when measured by the highest ideal standard of moral justice and perfection. How often do we feel this to be the case in the historical judgment and estimate of great and celebrated men, where our admiration by no means implies or carries with it a full and perfect approbation of every trait in their character or actions. Another mode of view and comparison will perhaps serve to set in a still clearer light the characteristic feature of the human mind in its present broken and discordant condition. Man usually directs his glance downward to the brutes, in order, by pointing out its difference from the animal world, to determine the peculiar essence of his own being and nature. In this comparison, after much and painful investigation, man discovers that although his physical organization and the principle of life, the blood-soul, as the source of vital heat, is of the same kind and nature with that of the brutes, he nevertheless possesses a rational soul, which they do not enjoy.

More instructive would it be, occasionally at least, to raise our contemplation to things above. By this method, many characteristic qualities of the human mind might be briefly but distinctly set forth in sharper contrast by comparison with other created things, or, as the poet calls them, “superior spirits, with whom we share our knowledge.”[62] Leaving this belief in the existence of purely spiritual beings, which was common to all nations of the old world, to rest on its own deep foundation, and passing over the doubts which might perhaps be raised against it, I shall simply take for the basis of my comparison the general idea of these angelic essences, such as from the very first it has been long and widely entertained. Now, from this point of view I should be at least justified, were I to point to that fickleness and inconsistency, or weakness and even defect of character, which I have above mentioned and depicted as forming the ordinary condition and the specific characteristic of man, which according to our hypothesis does not belong, either in the same degree or at all, to the pure spirits. With them understanding and willing are altogether one, and every thought is at the same time also a deed, every fact perfectly comprehended and carried out, with a design perfectly understood. Their activity is ever one and the same living and uninterrupted operation, whatever be its direction, in a bad as well as a good sense. And thus it is that with these spirits knowing and willing are one; so that a living and effective intellect is even a very spirit, and equally so is a perfectly self-conscious will. But a spiritual being like man, in whom intellect and will are not one, is, as contemplated from this point of view, a spirit divided and distracted, and one that has fallen into disunion with itself, which only by means of a new and higher aspiration can be again raised to its full energy and living unity.

Still more obvious, and even more striking than the general and universally prevailing discord between the understanding and the will, is the opposition and division which holds both the fundamental faculties or opposite poles of the inner world of consciousness, namely, between reason and fancy. The fancy is the fertile, and, properly speaking, the inventive and creative faculty of man; but she is blind, and subject to many, or rather, we must say, innumerable delusions. This is not the case indeed, at least not in the same degree and manner, with the reason, as the faculty of calm prudence in man—the internal standard of the moral equilibrium of his nature. Still, actually to produce, truly to bring forth or to create, is, with all its reasoning, utterly beyond its power; and if at times, as is the case with the false philosophy and mere dialectical thinking, it does make the attempt, it gives birth to naught but lifeless abortions and mere thought-created phantoms of abstract nothingness. It will hardly be necessary to track this opposition between reason and fancy farther, and to follow it into the great arena of public life, or to prove by a lengthened discussion that the men endowed with the best reasoning powers are not at the same time or especially endowed with the fire of genius, or that the most æsthetical and artistic natures are not always the most logical. True genius, however, forms a rare exception to this rule, because in him the faculties of soul and spirit, which are usually found isolated and opposed, are happily united and effectually co-operate in an harmonious unison. In other words, we have in such a case a union of the creative fancy, which in the productions of genius is the most essential point, and the acute, discerning sagacity, as also the distinctness of sensible shape and order, which can not be absent from any real production of art. And yet, for all this, the understanding of the artist is something quite distinct from practical reason and logical acuteness. There is, moreover, another state, or, rather, quality of the soul, wherein the else divided reason and fancy are intimately associated and entirely reunited. This is a natural, pure affection, and the very faculty of love, which is itself the soul and the peculiar essence of man’s spiritual soul. For example, a mother’s love for her child, which is the deepest and strongest of the natural affections; no one can call this love irrational, although it must be judged by an entirely different standard from the reason. At least it does not arise from any carefully-weighed process of the reason, for it is over it that it gains its greatest triumphs. In love both halves of the soul are united. For, taken separately and apart, reason is only one half of the soul, and fancy the other. In love alone do both concur, and the soul is there present totally and perfectly. In it both halves, which otherwise are ever apart, being again united, restore a perfect state of the consciousness.

And in the same manner there is also a means of reunion for the understanding and the will. And that, too, is a pure, strong, and morally regulated love. Whenever, proceeding from the very depths of man’s being, it has become, as it were, a second nature, and having received a higher and diviner consecration, it forms the still and invisible, but ruling soul of life, then is it the best and surest road for attaining to the reconciliation of the otherwise inveterate and deeply-rooted discord between the intellect and the will. By such a love the inmost man may be restored to peace and harmony with itself, and the otherwise distracted consciousness, regaining a full and perfect unity, is enabled to exercise its best and highest energies.

The following are briefly the results of this our first psychological sketch, so far forth as they are necessary for the purpose and object before us. The ordinary state of the human mind, such as, in its present condition, it exhibits itself to our internal apperceptions, is one of fourfold discord and distraction. Or, rather, if we may so speak, it is a quadruply divided consciousness, as being a prey to the double contrariety between the understanding and the will, and between reason and fancy. But the mind, when restored to its full and living perfection, is threefold, or, if the expression be here allowable, it is a triune consciousness—the soul restored to unity in love—the mind or spirit requickened by the energy of a consistent life, and, lastly, the internal sense for all that is highest and divine—which third member, as the external medium and the ministering instrument of the other two, can not interfere with or disturb their profound harmony. Now, the return from the mind, checked and limited in its operation by its existing divisions and discord, into a living triple or triune consciousness, is the very beginning of a truly vital philosophy, and, indeed, of a renovated and enhanced vitality.

LECTURE II.

WHEN man is considered relatively to his external existence in the sensible world and nature, to which by his body he belongs and forms a constituent part, then the three elements of which, as regarded from this point of view, his whole being or essence appears to consist, are body, soul, and spirit. Now, not even from these are schism and conflict excluded. There is little or no harmony between the higher and spiritual principle of the inner man and the outer world to which properly his sensuous faculty belongs. The natural wants and the organic laws of our corporeal life are at issue with the moral law of the inward feelings—with the exalted requisitions of the soaring thought and the profound desire of the pure spirit. The struggle between these two distinct laws or ordinances of life, the higher and the lower, forms, perhaps, the chief problem which in his moral destination on earth man has to solve. At least it constitutes the first beginning and step thereof. No doubt, the external frame of the human body, with its wonderful organization, presents in the prime of its development the corporeal image of a more exalted and more spiritual beauty. In its highest and happiest expansion—in its noblest forms—in many a bright gleam, for instance, of animated expression on the countenance of youth—we read the graceful reflection of a more than earthly loveliness. The stamp of man’s heavenly origin is not quite extinct or completely defaced even in his frame. But on the other hand, it is exposed and subject to innumerable injuries, sufferings, diseases, and corruptions; so that we feel at once the truth of the Apostle’s words, in calling it the “body of this death.” Added, then, to the other two elements of man’s being, spirit and soul, the organic body forms the third constituent, in which, however, is contained the ground and occasion of conflict and strife. In the inner man, indeed, taken by itself, and in soul and spirit, as the two constituents of his higher life, there is involved no absolute element of discord. No doubt even here the harmony is liable to many disturbances, and perfect unison, perhaps, is very rarely to be met with; but still the discord has not its ground in the essential constitution of these two principles of soul and spirit. The contrariety between reason and fancy, understanding and will, though existing in the fourfold consciousness of man in its present state, prevails not there by any law of necessity. It is not a result of their essential constitution. Simply, the spirit is the more active faculty of the whole higher principle and of its internal life, the soul the more passive one. I have designedly employed the expression the more active, and the more passive, while thus speaking of soul and of spirit; for perfectly passive, and entirely devoid of liberty, the feeling and loving soul is not, as neither, on the other hand, is the spirit perfectly active and independent. The latter stands in need of the fellowship of the soul and of the life-giving feeling to kindle and to expand it. To a certain degree, both spirit and soul, or at least the preponderance of the one or the other, are dependent on the organization and organic differences of sex. In general, we may at least assert and admit this much: that, viz., spirit or thought predominates in man, but spirit or soul in the female sex. But even here (so incalculably great is the diversity of human character and disposition, so various are the methods and forms of education and moral culture) many exceptions, either by way of complication or deviation from the original simple relation, are found to subsist. In no case, moreover, can this preponderance of the reigning element be taken or understood as a total isolation or severance from the other. On the contrary, there are manifold transitions and fusions in the reciprocal action of soul and spirit. In the same way that there are peculiar modes of thought, a special kind of intellect, which, by a happy divination, goes infallibly to the point and the truth, and is entirely the judgment of feeling—the issue, in short, of the feeling soul; so, too, there are many impressions on the feelings (an ardent love, for instance, and a purely intellectual enthusiasm), which take their origin immediately out of some thought, or generally from the understanding. And, in fact, the very separation of the two generally does but lead to their more intimate union, and furnish a new bond of unity. Thought and feeling stand reciprocally in need of each other. As thought gains new life and animation from the rich feeling, with its facile, tender, and profound emotions, deriving therefrom its vital nourishment and sustenance, even so the feelings are not unfrequently first awakened, and very often strengthened and elevated, by the lofty flight of thought in its bold and searching investigations. It is even this that constitutes, in part at least, the attraction of social intercourse, the charm of love, and the happiness of a well-assorted union, which does but become more close by years—the one party finding in the other the intellectual or (if the term be preferred) the psychological complement of his own being and character.

But now a similar complement for the void and deficiency which, even in the most favored dispositions, enjoying the highest advantages of learning and culture, still remains in man’s consciousness and internal existence, may be found in yet another wise, and by a far superior method. We may, for instance, seek this consummation of our nature in that Being who contains in Himself the fullness of all might and of all existence—of all life and of all love—and out of whom both soul and spirit proceed and take their beginning. Now, if we should wish to form an idea of the heavenly state of supreme felicity, such, at least, as in forecasting hope we may suppose it to be, and indeed are justified in so doing, then we may doubtless think of it as such that in it both soul and spirit, sunk in the abyss of eternal love, will rest perfectly satisfied. Or rather, in a living communion of thought and feeling, they will most intimately sympathize in this ineffable majesty, being absorbed in the never-failing stream of the infinite plenitude of divinity. In this state of bliss, the body will be dissolved and no longer existent. At least transfigured and changed, it will remain nothing more than the pure, luminous veil [Lichthülle] of the immortal soul and the spirit, now totally and freely emancipated. For it will no longer be possible, with any propriety, to think of the body as separate and distinct from the soul and spirit, as in truth and fundamentally it will not be separate from them. Now, for this blissful state of perfect union with the supreme essence, no less than for those single and rare moments of mental ravishment, during which, even in this earthly life, man occasionally, though transiently, does, by vivid thought, transport himself to such a state, the third element, which as the connecting link must accrue to these two fundamental energies of man’s inward being and existence, in order to complete and perfect it, is God Himself. For it is here even as in the external world of sense; there must be a third element. There, however, it is the body, which, as no less essential than the other two, completes the existence of the total man. Merely psychologically regarded, and when we adhere and limit ourselves to the given sphere of the internal consciousness, the triple principle of man’s being is neither God, soul, and spirit, as in the higher blissful state, nor even body, soul, and spirit, as in this material world, but simply spirit, soul, and sense. These are the three elements of the mind, which as such immediately concern us at present, and form the essential basis of the following considerations.