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

by Friedrich von Schlegel

In the sacred volume of the Old Testament, two names are used to designate the Supreme Being. The one is perfectly general, and signifies the idea of God or the Deity absolutely, being also applied to the gods of the heathen, and occasionally employed simply to signify angels and spirits. The other, however, is exclusively given to the true and living God of revelation. This word is derived from a Hebrew root, which signifies “to be,” or, rather, since we can hardly expect to find in these ancient languages, and in the primary significations of the radical words, the idea of a simple abstract existence, it means life, a positive living existence. In one place this name, which is made up of four letters, is explained and interpreted as signifying “I am that I am,” or, more accurately, “I am that I shall be.” Now, this is as much as to say, the true and living God of revelation, He who from the beginning has manifested forth His glory in creation, and who ever since is continually manifesting Himself, internally, at least, to the whole human race and to each individual, though, in truth, often unattended to and little regarded, and who will still more gloriously reveal Himself in the end of time, that is, of this earthly duration and period of change, or, as it is expressed in Sacred Writ, in the fullness of time, or when time itself shall be accomplished.

Now, here it is evident the idea of time is not absolutely excluded from a conception of the essence and operations of God. On the contrary, this description involves the idea of full and complete time, which lasts from eternity to eternity, and to the height of which, when the hour shall have come, that is to say, at the final consummation, this our earthly time, in whose fetters this our world of sense is now held, shall be raised and glorified.

The question, therefore, is properly to determine whether there exists such an absolute opposition between time and eternity that it is impossible for them to subsist in any mutual contact or relation, but the one necessarily leads to the negation of the other, or whether, at least, there is not some conceivable transition from the one to the other. Now, in the former view, since the absolute, universally, and most especially thinking as well as absolute willing, forms the destructive principle in life, there lies, perhaps, the first source, not only of false systems, but also of the metaphysical prejudices which man’s intellect nourishes, and especially of all the deeply-rooted, inborn, or hereditary errors of the reason. On the other hand, according to the theory on which our present speculations are based, both time and eternity are not incompatible with or in hostile and irreconcilable opposition to each other. Their ideas do not mutually destroy each other. Certain definite connecting-links and points of contact and transition exist between them. The contrariety is not an incomprehensibly absolute one of eternal negation, but rather a living one, similar to the distinction between life and death, or that between evil and good. So long as we believe in a great and irreconcilable contrariety between time and eternity, such as at the first delusive aspect they present themselves, we can not hope to extricate ourselves from the labyrinth in which external things and our own internal reflections involve the mind. This can only be effected by the idea of a twofold time, such as it is our purpose accurately to define and bring before you. And this notion of a twofold time arises from the difference between the one perfect and blissful time, which is naught else than the inner pulse of life in an overflowing eternity, without beginning and without end, and that other time which is prisoned and fettered in this lower world of sense, where the stern present alone is prominent, and lords it over all else with despotic sway—the past being lost in darkness and sunk in the night of death; while the future, now advancing, now receding, hovers like a shadow, in an obscure, glimmering, and deceptive twilight, until the now brilliant present passes away, and in its turn becomes as nothing, being buried in the darkness of death, which shrouds all past and former existence. And as there is a twofold time, so also may we, in relation to God and the world, distinguish a twofold eternity. Let us, for this purpose, contemplate the whole creation, including not only this visible world of sense, but also the invisible world of spirits, either in its original perfection, which it possessed when it issued unsullied from the hand of the Creator, or even in that state of perfection, which, glorified and perfected, and become imperishable, it is to enjoy when the course of earthly time shall have run out, and when there shall be no more death.

Now, relatively to either its original perfection or that to which it is finally to be restored, we can not better designate the universe than by terming it the created, while God is the uncreated eternity. The world, however, according to what we know of it from revelation, is not absolutely such. It is eternal only from one point of view, that, namely, which looks forward to its everlasting, continuous, and blessed duration, and not from that of its first origin. For the world (if it was, as we are taught, created out of nothing) had a beginning—a precise beginning—which took place in time. And this fact, again, suggests and confirms the remark how the idea of time, which is unquestionably involved in that of the beginning of the universe, is not absolutely excluded from the essence and operations of the Godhead, at least of the living and personal God of revelation. On this point, however, I would wish to say no more than this: here is the decisive point—two distinct, opposite, or diverging paths lie before us, and man must choose between them. The clear-seeing spirit, which, in its sentiments, thoughts, and views of life, would be in accordance with itself, and would act consistently to them, must in any case take one or the other. Either there is a living God, full of love, even such a one as love seeks and yearns after, to whom faith clings, and in whom all our hopes are centered (and such is the personal God of revelation), and on this hypothesis the world is not God, but is distinct from him, having had a beginning, and being created out of nothing; or there is only one supreme form of existence, and the world is eternal, and not distinct from God; there is absolutely but one, and this eternal one comprehends all, and is itself all in all; so that there is nowhere any real and essential distinction; and even that which is alleged to exist between evil and good is only a delusion of a narrow-minded system of ethics, or of conventional prejudices, that man allows to pass as such, and holds externally in honor, but which intrinsically, and as tested by the rigor of science, has no real and substantial import. Now, the necessity of this choice and determination presses urgently upon our own time, which stands midway between two worlds. Generally it is between these two paths alone that the decision is to be made, since all the doubts and opinions which branch off between them are nothing more than the still unsettled oscillations, assuming in appearance a fixed scientific shape, or a vague mixture of narrow and imperfect views, which are just as far from having taken any precise form or determination. But the choice between them must be perfectly free. No one’s conviction can be forced to adopt either one or the other. For that which is to constitute the inmost sentiment and thought of a man, or the first, last, and deepest foundation of all his sentiments, does not admit of being imposed upon him extrinsically as the condition of controversial defeat, without his own internal consent and agreement. It can not enforce his assent as easily as a mere process of calculation.

But now, if eternity is nothing else but time, vitally full, illimitably perfect, and blissfully complete, who, we may ask, first of all caused or produced this earthly, fettered, and fragmentary time, which seems but the great bond-chain of the whole world of sense—and what, then, is this time itself? I might answer this latter question by the words of the poet, that it “is out of joint.”[66] For although originally employed of a particular period of history, they admit, I think, of a more extensive and universal signification, and possess an entirely metaphysical application. And what, in short, is metaphysics, or what do we name metaphysical, but that which transcends our ordinary nature and the earthly and limited world of sense? And man can not abandon or get rid of all hopes, all prospects of eternity, in short, the thoughts which, partly, at least, outrun these narrow limits. For if so, he must at the same time be willing to cease to be a man, in the full, and true, and highest sense of the word. Consequently, as often as he adventures a bolder flight of thought and inquiry into that elevated region, then his words and phrases must also transcend the familiar sense and ordinary use of language.

I would not, however, be understood as asserting that the language of philosophy, in its descriptions of supersensuous things and ideas, should anxiously avoid all living expression and every thing lifelike (+). For, in strict rigor this is neither possible nor practicable, and in any case would lead to a mere abstract nothingness. On the contrary, the more vivid, the more striking, and apparently startling, the more boldly figurative and rare are the terms or forms of expression employed, the more pertinently and clearly do they often convey our meaning, and the more happily chosen and to the point do they appear.

In proof and confirmation of this assertion, I would appeal to the language of Holy Writ. Most, if not all its descriptions of matters belonging to the invisible world, and the supersensuous regions of thought, or metaphysical subjects, if we could still recall or still experience the first fresh impression, would at once be confessed to be the boldest that language has ever ventured upon. Long familiarity, however, has made them seem ordinary and tame. And it is necessary to contemplate them long and intensely, if we would revive their original fullness and peculiar significancy. In a very recent epoch of science, there prevailed a somewhat similar view of this subject. In Lessing especially it is traceable. For, as often as he entered this region of inquiry, he for the most part designedly employed a free and bold style of language, similar to that which occasionally I have attempted myself to adopt. Now, if it be allowable in this way to apply to time poetical phrases, similar to the one above quoted of “Time out of joint,” giving them at the same time a more universal and entirely metaphysical sense, I would, in the further consideration of the whole question as to time, advance the following remarks.

If eternity is essentially nothing else than the fullness of time, which consequently is in itself complete and blissful, then the time which is “out of joint,” the deranged and distracted time of sense, is naught but eternity fallen or brought into a state of disorder. Here, then, the further question presents itself, “Who can have plunged it into disorder, and perpetrated this jarring interference with the primeval harmony, disturbing the inner pulse of the world’s universal life, which was originally so sound?” According to one of these two views which I so lately spoke of as lying before men to choose between, all this is but a deception—a mere illusion, produced by the imperfection of our senses. Even pain and misfortune, equally with what is called evil, exist only for the poetical purpose of creating, by the skill and spirit with which they are treated, transient, overpowering impressions, which are ultimately to give place to more elevating emotions. But in the other view, which is here adopted as our fundamental conviction, the answer is easily found. Or, rather, it is one long since given, and generally known. Since all the elementary forces and original powers in creation can only be regarded as spiritual, therefore the power or might which threw both time and existence, universal life and the whole world, into disorder, could have been no other than the spirit of absolute negation which rose in revolt against the primary source both of itself and of all. The power and influence of this spirit of eternal contradiction and endless destruction, which in another place I designated the inventor of death, can not be rightly deemed either slight or insignificant, if he be with justice entitled “the Prince and Ruler of this world.” By this term we can not understand any so-called “spirit of the age.” Not, at least, in the ordinary sense of the term, in which it signifies the spirit which has originally arisen out of the age itself, and in its sphere brilliantly predominant, but which at the same time transcends in some way that sphere, either blending itself with some equally great, if not still more exalted, past, or with some new and future era. For with all its excellence of greatness, it is still perhaps partial and narrow in its views; and in any case, so soon as the particular age shall be over, it too will finally pass away and decline with it. It is, rather, the very spirit that originally introduced the whole of that disjointed time. It is, therefore, the author of this fallacious world of sense—the supreme ruler and universal king of all the several periods and eras which belong to it, and are so linked together, that as one succeeds and passes into the other, all of them in succession are finally absorbed in the general abyss of eternal nothingness. Consequently is it the supreme lord; all these so-called spirits of the times which are derived from the primary and supreme spirit of the age, being, so to speak, his absolute subjects and ministers. Now, the belief in such a spiritual power of evil, and even the idea of it, simply and nakedly as in other times it is presented to us, is almost wholly lost sight of in the present day. The expressions of a former faith for what it is now the fashion to call “the spirit of the age” have become antiquated, and make but little impression, being for the most part scarcely even regarded, or else ingeniously explained away, if not derided from the height of a superior enlightenment. Amid the killing monotony of a sleepy skepticism into which men’s views of the world and things had fallen, and as contrasted with a philosophy, neutral from its origin, and finally indifferent to every thing, the celebrated English author of Cain makes a gratifying exception by his vigorous and vivid language, giving, at least honor where honor is due, and calling things by their right names. Accordingly, he paints to the life the king of the spirits of the everlasting abyss and the ruler of this world, in all his majesty of darkness, so that we often wonder whence he could have derived all the tints and touches of truth, and are almost tempted to ask whether this striking portrait, thus executed with a genius and fidelity surpassing all similar poetical delineations, does not owe much if not all its truth to a personal acquaintance.

But, however, this deadly spirit of absolute negation, though the name be now scarcely ever heard except in poetry, has not therefore lost, as yet, his dominion over this world of time and the science thereof. On the contrary, in the baseless and arbitrary systems which the philosophy of the day propounds, he is acknowledged more than ever, though it be with an unconscious reverence. As the idol of absolute rationalism, most highly is he lauded, not to say deified. It is, in fact, remarkable that, in many of the most extreme systems of absolute reason, the whole section of theology is exclusively confined to the negative view of the divine truth. Almost the whole of it, if only a few slight changes be made in the more important phrases, may far more consistently apply to the primal antagonist of eternal love and of revelation, than to that beneficent Being himself.

And even in those systems of rationalism which are less spiritually perverse and less extravagant, but still equally subversive of a right knowledge of the highest truths, the divine nature is frequently if not always confounded with that nothing out of which He has created the world. Or, perhaps, in some more tragic view of the universe, that rigid law of time which operates on the world of sense, and which gives it up as a prey to misery, is, at least poetically, deified as the blind fate of an iron necessity. Now, if eternity is in itself and originally nothing more than the living, full, and essential time, which is still invisible(+), and if our earthly shackled and fettered time of sense is but an eternity “out of joint,” or fallen a prey to disorder, it is easily conceivable that the two do not stand apart and have no mutual contact. On this hypothesis they may possess many a common point of transition from one sphere into the other. At least such a point of transition is in general experience afforded us by death, which is mostly looked upon and regarded in this light. Trivial as may sound the sentiment so commonly uttered of the dead, that they have changed time for eternity, still we can not well question the correctness of the notion on which the expression is founded. Now, these questions about time and eternity nearly concern, and in many ways interest, every thoughtful mind, not only by their connection with life and death, but generally with all existence and consciousness. I can not, therefore, approve of the wish to exclude them entirely from the philosophy of life, as lying beyond the ordinary range of the practical intellect, and, therefore, with all similar matters of unprofitable disputation, to be abandoned to the theologian and the student. On the contrary, I have felt it to be most agreeable to the position which I have taken up, and the view which it opens out, to hazard at least an experiment, and to try whether it be not possible to express these subjects, and to set them forth in language at once appropriate and generally intelligible.