And here arises a question similar to that which we started in our investigation of language. Must we assume, at the first awakening and hidden spring of memory, a divine impulse, so to speak, or a higher foundation for it from before the beginning of this terrestrial existence? Or, indeed, since on this subject many theories have been started of old, and are ever springing up, to retain a place among the world’s floating opinions, what are we to think of these views tested by that knowledge of our inmost consciousness which the observation of life furnishes? How far do our feelings and reflections justify or limit them? Among these opinions is the hypothesis revived by Leibnitz, of innate ideas, or, rather, according to the most recent exposition of it, of certain forms of thought essential to the reason, existing, antecedently to experience, in its fundamental scheme, and, as it were, engraven in it. Now all such opinions, whatever variations they may present, arise, without exception, from the Platonic notion of the anamnesis possessed by the soul from a previous existence, and, moreover, they agree with the dogma of the metempsychosis, which, Indian in its origin, is, however, widely diffused among other nations also.
A real and actual pre-existence, however, of the human soul, as it does not admit of any historical proof, so is it not easily reconcilable with our own feelings, nor with our general sentiments on the relation we stand in to God, and the divine economy in the government of the world. And as for the ancient belief in the migration of souls, it can not, however remarkable for its wide diffusion, be regarded in any other light than an arbitrary creation of fancy and a kind of mythology of the soul. Moreover, with regard to the theory of essential forms of thought impressed on the reason antecedently to all experience and prior to the first awakening of consciousness, it is based on a view of the reason which would make it a universal receptacle of the thought, divided into greater and less chambers and compartments. It is thus made the residuum or dead precipitate of the natural functions of the living cogitation, and of the law of life which rules therein, which, thus arranged in rank and row, are placed before us, like the dried specimens of an herbarium, or like the butterflies pinned to the entomologist’s case, from each of which, however, amid the mechanical arrangement, the true, delicate, light-winged Psyche has long since flown away. And since in philosophy our first object must be to seize, if possible, the living thought in its very life, and to give to it also a living expression, or at least to paint it after the life, it is not easy to see to what end this so circumstantial procedure is to lead. The whole hypothesis, in short, seems useless and superfluous. As to the principle or hypothesis of innate ideas, which in truth requires to be kept perfectly distinct from the one previously considered, it is quite conceivable that it may be a right method for the artist, who is ever in pursuit of the ideal, and in some cases also for the thinker, to present to his mind the object of his conception, and which he is seeking ideally to manifest, such as with a similar end it would appear before and be contemplated by the divine mind. At any rate, such a mode of thought would greatly facilitate the execution of his ideal conception. But if what is meant by this theory is an antecedent intellectual intuition of the pure ideas in the divine mind, then we are brought again to the difficult and debatable hypothesis of an actual pre-existence. Moreover, when we go into details, and attempt to apply this theory to particular instances, we are at once involved in the greatest perplexity. For what, even in the department of art, are we to understand by the inborn idea of a noble, wide-spreading tree, of a beautiful flower, a grand and well-proportioned architectural edifice, or other monument? or a vigorous animal, or noble human form? and what meaning, in the domain of practical life, would it convey, to talk of the innate idea of a skillful general, or of a wise financier? We can not, indeed, imagine to what good end this hypothesis can serve or lead, and, consequently, as soon as it is taken for any thing more than a mere figure of thought, it involves us in new, if it does not entangle as again in the old, inextricable difficulties.
The question, however, admits of a more general sense. Without supposing that there is, inborn in the human soul, a whole system of notions and forms of thought—a whole world, in short, of all possible ideas—may there not have been imparted to it from above a higher gift, which, naturally, is only called into action simultaneously with the awakening of the rest of the human mind, or of the mind generally? If so, would it not appear to the soul in the form of a memory; and, in a certain sense, be really such, though, indeed, not so much a memory of the part as of eternity? This is a question which, advanced in this sense, can not, I think, be absolutely negatived; not that any essential necessity or actual ground exists for it; but that, carefully guarded by certain limitations, it is an hypothesis that may, without hesitation, be assumed or conceded. Can it, in truth, well be doubted that every spiritual being, created by infinite love, has had imparted to him a share in the source of eternal love, which is to remain his forever, or so long, at least, as the connection with the supreme source of his being is not violently broken and rent asunder? If, then, such a portion is to remain forever the property of every created spiritual being, it must assume a definite place in his consciousness, and, in the development of the latter, manifest itself in its due place. As regards, indeed, the human soul, this supposition can, with less justice, be denied, the more universally and pre-eminently the prerogative of a high degree of resemblance to the divine image is ascribed to it.
Now, this participation in God, as the primary source of eternal love, which abides forever in the human soul, and which becomes extinct in one extreme case alone—this divine endowment of the human consciousness from above—can only be thought of and described as the recollection of eternal love; and this, moreover, is the only innate idea in the human mind which it is possible or allowable to assume.
The thought of an original recollection in man—which, properly, is not of a mere foretime, but of eternity, but which, in all propriety, still admits of being termed a recollection—has brought us to the notion of time and eternity, and to the question of their reciprocal relation—of which the true and correct view is probably very different from that which commonly prevails. But this is a topic which, for its further and complete elucidation, demands a special investigation.
LECTURE IV.
THE idea of a pre-existence of the soul in an earlier and different state of being from the present, is a delusion and groundless hypothesis, arbitrarily tacked on to Plato’s doctrine of the anamnesis or of innate ideas. As such, it is calculated to involve us in innumerable difficulties. I have, however, endeavored to show that the doctrine itself is distinct, and can be kept separate, from this arbitrary admixture. Stripped of all extraneous additions, the essential parts of this Platonic doctrine of a higher memory have always possessed a powerful attraction for many deep thinkers and noble minds. From its first authors down to Leibnitz, it has made a deep and lasting impression, which has ever enabled it from time to time to recover its ascendency. In its purer sense and more simple and legitimate view, we may, I asserted, understand by it no completely lifeless and mechanical system of all the possible ideas which reason may evolve in the human mind, antecedently arranged and classified, but an idea of his divine origin innate or implanted in his mind, which can not be otherwise or more simply indicated than by the expression we have chosen to designate it—of a recollection of eternal love. But this recollection, I affirmed, is not so much the remembrance merely of some special past, which would again lead us to an actual pre-existence of the human soul, as a remembrance of eternity; and it is in this light that the whole idea must be regarded, if it is to be allowed any force. Now, this gives rise to and calls for a closer investigation into the mutual relation and whole conception of time and eternity.
This faculty of remembrance is of an entirely different kind from the ordinary exercise and function of memory. This state, this quality or power of the soul, or whatever else it may be called, might be appropriately termed a transcendental memory, if it were not out of season, or if any advantage would be gained by renewing the already half-forgotten and involved terminology of the philosophic schools of the last generation. Yet this would but be a change of name for the self-same idea and object, which at best could only serve to exhibit more distinctly and clearly, and from many points of view, whatever is peculiar in the nature of such an unusual idea, or its new and unusual sense, as well as the proper and difficult focus of inquiries and investigations of this nature. But the point upon which depends the decision of the whole matter, or, rather, from which alone its right explanation can and must proceed, is, as already stated, the mutual relation between time and eternity, and a just conception of both.
Usually, or at least oftentimes, eternity is explained and understood as being the entire cessation, the perfect nonexistence and unconditional negation of all time. But this would involve at the same time the negation of life and all living existence (+),[65] so that nothing would remain but an absolute negative, which is a void entity and perfect nullity.
In place of the endless contradictions to which all negation generally, and especially the absolute negation of time, can not but lead—in place of that to which the English poet’s phrase of “darkness visible” is applicable, I would offer a description of the idea of eternity, which may, perhaps, render it less incomprehensible. Eternity, as I should define it, is the all-embracing, completely complete time, which is infinite, not only “a parte externâ,” i.e., ever-passing, yet everlasting, without beginning and without end, but also infinite “a parte internâ;” so that in the endlessly living, thoroughly luminous present, and in the blissful consciousness thereof, the whole past, and also the whole future, are equally actual, equally clear, and equally present to us as the very present itself. For can we form any other conception of a state of bliss? Nay, is not this idea of the fullness of time entirely one and the same, and exactly coincident with that state which at least we are able to think of, and indeed can not well avoid thinking of? and is not this also the only form of existence applicable to the divine consciousness, on the assumption and belief not of any mere divine essence, but of an actual living and self-conscious Godhead? That, at least, the idea of time is not absolutely excluded from the life and essence or the operations of the living God of revelation, there exists in the latter abundant indication, testimony, and proof. Almost all the expressions there chosen for this matter allude to that full and divine time, in which yesterday and to-morrow are as to-day, and “a thousand years as one day,” and many others which convey the same idea, but in no ways apply to the false notion of eternity which makes it the absolute negation of all time. The very Hebrew name of God furnishes a confirmation of this assertion. And I may here indulge myself with producing it, since we shall be able to accomplish this object without entering into an analysis of the language itself, and its sense can be made perfectly clear according to the sense of our own language, without any circumlocution or periphrase.