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

by Friedrich von Schlegel

LECTURE III.

TRUE irony—for there also is a false one—is the irony of love. It arises out of the feeling of finiteness and one’s own limitation, and out of the apparent contradiction between this feeling and the idea of infinity which is involved in all true love. As in actual life and in the love which centers in an earthly object, a good-humored raillery, which amuses itself with some little defect of character, either apparent or real, is not inconsistent with sincerity—not, at least, when both parties have no doubt of each other’s affection, and its ardor admits of no increase—but, on the contrary, lends to it an agreeable charm, even so is this true of that other and highest love. Here, too, an apparent, or it may be an actual, but still only insignificant and trivial contradiction, can not destroy the idea on which such a love is based, but, on the contrary, serves rather to confirm and strengthen it. But only there where love has reached the highest purity—has become profoundly confirmed and perfect—does this appearance of contradiction, which is thrown out in an affectionate irony, fail to alloy or weaken all higher and better feeling. And what other foundation could a philosophy of life well have and recognize as legitimate than the idea of such a love? And this is even that supposition of life, viz., of the inner life, of which I formerly said that it is the only one which philosophy requires, and from which alone it must set out. Only it is requisite that this love should be personally experienced or inwardly felt, and the notion of it derived from immediate experience.

Directly opposed to those arbitrary systems which compose the reigning philosophy of the day, the philosophy of life is a science of internal spiritual experience, which, as it proceeds from, so it every where rests on facts; though indeed the facts on which it is grounded, and to which it has invariably to refer, are in many respects of a high and peculiar kind. On this account philosophy may even be called a science of divine experience. If man had never, and, in short, were incapable of having any experience of divine things, what could he know of the Deity with certainty? A knowledge devoid of experience would be but the arbitrary creation or illusion of his own mind—an inward fancy, or the mere reflex of his own reason—consequently an absolute nullity. And for such a knowledge the task would ever be difficult to get rid of a mere idealistic conception of the Divine Being, or at least to repel the doubt whether He be actually any thing more than what such a conception represents Him. And, in fact, in most treatises and elaborate developments of that system of thought which makes man’s self the exclusive principle and standard of truth, the manner of treating the divine nature is extremely superficial. Such purely formal and empty notions on this subject are advanced, that we are often justified in applying to these speculations on the highest topic of human language and thought, the remark that applies too often to lower scientific treatises: “Thus it is that men write who have no real knowledge of the matter.” “Here we at once see there is a total want of personal observation; the work is not based on any solid foundation of actual experience.”

Now the philosophy of life, in its highest range at least, is a divine science of experience. This experience, however, is throughout internal and spiritual. It is therefore easily conceivable that it can enter readily and easily into all other experimental sciences, and into those especially which more immediately relate to man, as, for instance, most of the branches of natural history, and still more into philology, with which at present we are most immediately concerned. And this it does, in order to borrow such illustrations and comparisons as may tend to elucidate or further to develop its own subject-matter, or else to furnish applications to individual cases in other departments of life. However, in thus proceeding, philosophy must take heed lest it overpass its own proper limits or forget its true end and aim. It must not go too deeply into particulars, or lose itself among the specialities of the other sciences. On the contrary, it ought carefully to confine itself to those points which more immediately concern man, and especially the inner man, and, adhering to the meaning and spirit of the whole, seek to elucidate and throw out this pre-eminently.

The question as to the origin of language, or, more correctly, the question how man attained to the capacity for this wonderful gift or faculty of speech, which forms so considerable and essential a part of his whole nature, if it is to be taken merely as a matter of historical research and philosophical learning, lies out of the circle which we have marked out to ourselves. A discussion exclusively confined to this special branch of philology has little in unison with speculations involving the inner experience of life and psychological observation. There are two opinions pretty generally diffused on this subject: the one maintaining that there is one primary and original language, from which, as a stem, all others have branched forth; and the other, that several were cotemporaneously formed. These opinions, as unfavorably affecting the right understanding of the essential connection between language or speech and thought, I would wish to keep out of view, and consequently I shall dismiss them with a few passing remarks.

The one is founded on an erroneous hypothesis, and is itself false. It is in open contradiction to facts, as we now know them with tolerable completeness. As for the other, even if it be not in itself truly and properly false, it is, nevertheless, based on a great misconception, or at least, as it is commonly propounded, involves one.

The former theory consists in this, that language generally, or, rather, several cotemporary languages, as fundamentally distinct from each other as the several races of men, who, as this view asserts, sprung up out of the earth, and its primeval slime, were formed spontaneously by a perfectly natural process. To the mere animal cries and various instinctive exclamations, either of joy and grief, of passion and want, were associated the deliberate imitation, together with a childlike mimicry of different sounds, similar to what we may even now observe in children, with whom such mimic intonations and mocking word-play is a common and favorite amusement. From such sensuous beginnings, it is pretended, a language might have grown up, gradually and slowly, indeed, to the height of rationality and grammatic form and order. That these two elements—the animal cries of nature and the mechanical imitation of sounds—have contributed to the development of language, is a position that needs not and can not be controverted. This element, however, is not found in all languages in equal measure. It is strongest in those languages which stand at the very lowest grade of development. Among others, again, which having attained very rapidly to maturity, and having at an early period branched off into several others, appear, in their most ancient state, highly intellectual and significant, it is scarcely traceable. But a fatal objection to the hypothesis as explaining the universal and complete principle of the phenomenon of language in all its ramifications, is the fact that the noblest and most cultivated languages are found, upon investigation into their earliest state, to possess, even at this date, the most artificial form, and to be manifoldly rich, and at the same time highly regular and simple. And this is pre-eminently the case with the Sanscrit or Indian, in comparison with the Greek, Latin, and other kindred languages of the West and North. In those, on the other hand, which appear to be at the very lowest grade of intellectual culture (and generally these stand quite isolated from all those in the midst of which they are found), we frequently observe, on a closer acquaintanceship, a very high and elaborate degree of art in their grammatical structure. This is especially the case with the Basque and the Lapponian, and many of the American languages. In the Chinese, this excessive and inappropriate expenditure of art has been directed to a very peculiar and complicated system of writing. There was no place for it in the language itself, which is extremely poor, being in its basis excessively, not to say childishly, simple, and quite ungrammatical. Its whole verbal treasury does not, it is said, contain more than three hundred and thirty words, which form the same number of single syllables. These, however, acquire a different signification by means of accents, of which there are no less than eighty thousand; and even though, as competent judges and the learned aver, not more than the fourth of this large number are really necessary and made use of in practice, still the liability to mistake must be very great, since the entire language is founded on this artificial system of writing, much more than on its living and spoken sounds. Hence, not unfrequently, when even learned Chinese talk together, they misunderstand each other. This, indeed, is occasionally the case in other countries also. But the difference is, that in the former the source of misconception lies in the language itself; and it is only by writing down their words, that the Chinese can be sure of intelligibly conveying their real meaning.

Modern and experienced philologists have, in consequence of these difficulties, given up that view of language which would derive it entirely from the imitation of animal cries. Plain facts, indeed, speak too decidedly against it. And, in truth, the chief point to be guarded against amid the great variety and the immeasurable richness of the phenomena of language in general, is the explaining them all by any single hypothesis, or the deriving them from one origin.

As to the other opinion respecting the origin of language: the view and assertion that God himself brought language to man, and taught it to him, can not properly excite any opposition, in so far as all that is good, and man’s best and original prerogatives, must in reason be derived from God as their first author. But when it is supposed that the language which on this hypothesis the first man spoke in Paradise, and which, as such, is the source of all other later and derivative languages, may still be found, and is to be recognized in any one now extant, as, e.g., the Hebrew—this assuredly is a great error. It involves a total misconception of the immense interval which separates us from the first origin of the world. Of the language which may have belonged to the first man, before he lost his original power, perfections, and dignity, we are not, with our present organs and senses, in a capacity to form an idea. Indeed, we are no more able to do this than to judge of the nature of the language employed by the eternal spirits for the immediate interchange of their thoughts, which on the wings of light fly instantaneously through the wide expanse of heaven, or of those words, ineffable by any created being, which are uttered by the Deity in His inmost being, where, to use the words of the Psalmist, “deep calleth unto deep,” and where the fullness of infinite love answers to Eternal Majesty.

But now, to descend from this unattainable height to our own level, and to consider the first man as he really was: then in the simple statement of the first authentic records of mankind, that God taught man language, there is nothing, if we adhere to its obvious meaning, which is in any way revolting to man’s natural feelings. For why should it make any such startling impression on us, if, as it ought, this whole matter be understood somewhat in the light of a mother teaching her child the first rudiments of language?