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

by Friedrich von Schlegel

Religious people often speak of death, sometimes generally as a “return,” at others with a further addition as “a return home.” Such modes of speaking, I admit, merely as such, and especially when they are uttered as so many empty phrases, unaccompanied with real feeling, and repeated without discrimination, in season and out of season, are not, perhaps, calculated to make a very deep impression. Still a very beautiful but grave meaning is, nevertheless, contained in them, and one which throws out very strongly the purely spiritual aspect of the matter. But here, then, a difficulty immediately presents itself. The question arises, how can we be said to go back or return to a place where, in fact, we never were before, or how can that be rightly called our home, which in our present life we first seek, and are to find and learn to consider as such. In short, the difficulty recurs in the same manner as the somewhat similar questions which are involved by Plato’s notion of an anamnesis, so long as it is conceived, not (as we would understand it) as a recollection of eternity, but quite literally as that of a former state of things. But if, agreeably to a vivid conception of time and eternity, a less absolute distinction prevails between these two ideas, and many points of contact and transition from one to the other may be found, of which death is one, all the difficulty is removed, and every thing in our view and hypothesis becomes easily intelligible and self-evident. It is, at least, one aspect of death, and a cheerful one too, which exhibits it as a transition from time into eternity, or out of a fettered and distracted time into that which is true, perfect, and blissful. In truth, however, much more is involved herein. For death, in general, is no simple event, but a very complicated phenomenon. No doubt that feature which stands out most fearfully in the whole event, throwing into the shade and obscuring its other higher and more spiritual elements, is the sufferings of disease, which are often so agonizing—the pang of dissolving and decaying organization in the last awful struggle of nature, as it tears itself so reluctantly from life. But even in the midst of all this, occasionally, at least, another and a better state intervenes. A cessation of all physical pain seems suddenly to occur, and to be followed by an almost joyous, or, at least, composed state, which may be often regarded as the harbinger of approaching dissolution. Medical experience, moreover, has recorded many special cases (the explanation of which, however, I leave to others) of idiotcy and madness, which had arisen either from sad defects and derangement of the thinking faculty, suddenly disappearing at the approach of death, and of the full, perfect consciousness returning with extraordinary clearness in the few brief moments which precede the instant of decease. There is yet another remarkable element or feeling in death; and it is one totally independent of the organic pain of dissolution in its various modifications, or the striking phenomena which may be observed in individual cases. I allude to the feeling which shrinks at the thought of the decisive transition and forcible passage into an entirely new sphere, which, however, must not be confounded with an unmanly fear of death. In many instances, too, it has no connection with any troubled thoughts or anxious cares for near and dear ones to be left behind, nor yet with any inward doubts of a restless and disturbed conscience. By no such feelings alone by themselves can it be interpreted or explained. All this is entirely distinct from that which I have at present in my mind, and which may very simply be termed a slight mental shrinking before a wholly unknown state of being, which is, at least, natural to all men, and affects every one, more or less, if the change comes upon them in the full possession of their faculties. But in those whose contemplations have long been directed to this closing event of life—in whom a profound and deep acquaintance with the thought of eternity, and the sublime enlightenment of a confiding faith, have taken the place of a dark uncertainty, and who also, between the last struggle of organic life and the final pang of dissolution, enjoy for a brief interval the last quickening breath of the departing energy of nature, there death is seen in its bright aspect. For such it unquestionably does possess. How often, on the very countenance of the departed, does a calm and beautiful death like this leave its touching trace behind! How often do we see with astonishment a sweet smile, like that of a sleeping child, lingering on the well-known face, but in whose very sweetness is mingled a slight though scarce perceptible trace of some faint recollection of previous suffering. He who has once seen some dear friend or acquaintance so die, or beheld the beloved countenance after such a death, will assuredly cherish forever the remembrance of this soothing expression. Nothing less than a blissful presentiment of eternity seems to have preceded or impressed itself on the dying features, breaking through the shackles of time before its full course was ended. And it is only in this light that I have mentioned it as being one of the points of contact or moments of transition which facts clearly establish between time and eternity, since this final crisis of our consciousness forms an important element for the psychological and perfect comprehension of the human intellect and its development.

But even during life itself there also occur many phenomena and occasions in which, for the brief continuance at least of such moments of intense existence, the limits of time seem to be broken through or removed. To this class belong those brief intervals of rapture which are enjoyed in the midst of deep and earnest devotion—or of proper ecstasy, which, so far as it is genuine and real, we can not but consider as an interval of eternity in the midst of time, or as a fleeting glance into the higher world of full and unchecked spiritual life. Even the inward worldless prayer, in so far as it is preceded by a real emotion of the heart, profoundly agitating its inmost feelings, is, as it were, a drop of eternity falling through time into the soul. Genuine ecstasy, in so far as it is real and actual, is often on its organic side accompanied by a beginning, which indeed is little more than the appearance, though a highly delusive feeling, of dying away, which precedes the higher gleam or echo from the world beyond the grave. Such phenomena, however, require attentive examination before we can draw from them any precise inference. The general idea of them may be distinctly traced in the human consciousness. The recognition of their existence is therefore essential to a full knowledge of the latter. It is, however, often very difficult to form a judgment of individual instances, which are often more or less doubtful. On this account it will be sufficient in this place if, without entering deeply into these necessary distinctions and manifold doubts to which all of such phenomena are liable, we simply notice the fact, as forming one of the most intimate points of association at which time and eternity come in contact and mutually intermingle.

Of such points several still remain to be noticed. One of the least astonishing, and one which in its operation on the soul is no less universal and beneficial than it is generally intelligible, is that which is found in true art and the higher kind of poetry. For here also, even beneath the earthly shell of sensuous phenomenon and the temporal incidents of figurative poetry, the eternal brightens over all. And it is on this mighty influence of the eternal, which gleams through its external investiture of ornament, that the exalted dignity and distinctive charm of true art and the higher branches of poetry depends. Even here, however, as elsewhere, a strict distinction must be made between the true gold and the worthless æsthetical tinsel and mere mannerism of fashion. For such a distinction is necessary in every case where the heavenly and eternal comes into close contact with the earthly and transitory.

That recollection of eternal love, which is implanted, communicated, or innate in the human mind, and which here swells out from its hidden depth (and this is the true original subject-matter of Plato’s notion of the anamnesis, which, as I have endeavored to show, thus cleared from all foreign admixture and corrupting additions, is quite unexceptionable), is not merely a principle of the higher life. Rather is it one of the great vital arteries of true poetry and art, of which, however, there are many others equally essential and no less rich and prolific. Such, for instance, is the longing after the infinite, whose hopes and aspirations are directed more to the future than is the case with that remembrance of eternal love, which, as such, clings more closely to the past, and is often also lost and absorbed in the historic perception of some actual past. On the other hand, the true inspiration, both in art and in life, is exclusively devoted to a something divine in the present, which may be either real or what is at least held to be such, being most intimately bound up with a feeling of such a divine presence, and with a belief therein. Thus, then, these three forms of the highest sentiment in man’s nature, as it yearns after the infinite or swells forth from the eternal source, and longs to receive the divine, are in their different tendencies tied again, not unnaturally, to the three times, or rather, the different categories of our earthly-divided time.

The recollection of eternal love, as far as regards its influence on art, is in truth nothing but a feeling or an inborn idea, if some will so call it. And yet its influence may be universal, and extend itself over the whole field of man’s consciousness. For all other sentiments of the inner man, all the thoughts, conceptions, and ideas of the thinker, and even all the images, shapes, and forms—in short, the whole ideal of the artist—are now forthwith imbued with this one fundamental feeling of eternal love, being, as it were, bathed in a sea or stream of higher life, spiritually refined, and exalted and transformed into a purer and higher degree of beauty and perfection. And thus it is that this ideal view of the world becomes at once conceivable and perfectly clear, to all at least who can enter into and sympathize with Platonic sentiments and ideas, and especially in its close relation to science and the plastic arts. And thus, understood in this correct sense, within its proper limits, and in that place of the human consciousness to which it really belongs, may well be admitted, and even extended to a wider application.

(+) In order, however, to be able to assign their fitting place in the whole consciousness to those other two exalted feelings which are implanted in man’s breast as so many suggesters of eternity, the longing, viz., after infinity, and a vitally energetic enthusiasm, it will be necessary still further to prosecute and complete our psychological review, so as to take in the whole range of faculties belonging to it, and to exhibit their mutual relations.

In my sketchy outline of man’s spiritual life and consciousness, I set out, you will remember, with the four elementary faculties, understanding and will, reason and fancy, as the four opposite and extreme poles of the inner world. As conscience and memory presented themselves to our consideration in the progress of our inquiries, they were characterized as mediate and collateral faculties of the reason, since the conscience stands midway between reason and will, and the memory between reason and understanding. In a similar way I would now attempt to explain man’s instincts, especially in that peculiar form in which they belong only to man, as distinct from the brutes, and subsequently become passions. Afterward I shall proceed to explain why, in those instances when they appear to be exaggerated into passions, they must, to preserve analogy with the view hitherto maintained, be held to be nothing else than movements of the will, or as a will which has yielded itself to the illimitable range of fancy, and thereby lost its inner equilibrium, and finally all liberty, or at least its actual exercise. This intermediate position of the instincts between will and fancy, and the fatal and pernicious influence which both these fundamental powers exert in that height of passionateness and sensuality which constitutes them faults of character, are also especially manifest in what are properly the natural instincts, as enjoyed by man in common with the brutes, and the evil of which arises always, or at least principally, from their excessive indulgence and undue excitement. It is often possible for this excess to reach such a height, and to become so deadly injurious, as to destroy the health, corrupt the whole soul, and to debase the mind to such a degree that it is felt to be almost injustice to compare such a human being, thus degraded by his own fault, with the nobler animals, whose simple instincts and their gratification alternate almost as regularly as day and night or the rising and setting of the stars in heaven. In such cases, however, we may easily discover what was the first cause of such aberrations.

In the better case, at least, the corruption, i.e., of what was previously a noble disposition, it is invariably, in the first instance, some false charm of fancy or imagination which has overmastered the mind with magical power, and subsequently carried it away captive to its will. In every case, however, it is some perverted apprehension, or illusory power of the infinite, which causes a man who has once fallen a prey to any strong passion to devote all his energies, thoughts, and feelings to the one object, or to surrender himself, heart and soul, to the despotic tyranny of some ruling habit or favorite pursuit. How else could there ever have been any talk of the delusions of fancy, which, however, exercise so wide and fatal an influence on human life, and generally in the world, unless a distorted fancy had lent a hand and co-operated therein? Even such emotions and impulses as fear and anger, which are not directed merely to the gratification of the wants of nature, but to self-preservation and defense, and which, consequently, belong equally to the brutes—these also admit of being carried, by unrestrained indulgence, to the height of passionateness. This is especially the case with anger. Wherever long indulgence has made it a ruling habit, and if, moreover, it is associated with envy, hatred, and revenge (which, indeed, are not properly natural instincts, and in this form can scarcely be ascribed to the brutes, but rather faults of character in a demoralized rational being), its outbreaks of passion are fearfully violent. Under their combined influence the wild outbreaks of man’s evil principle often run into fury and madness. But even in avarice itself, it is also some false and strangely-perverted charm of fancy, which in its highest degree approximates very closely to the nature of a fixed idea, that furnishes the first ground and deepest root of this unblessed passion for the earthly mammon. And here, again, in this insatiable love of riches, we meet with a false force of the infinite, and one which can never be satisfied.

A further ethical investigation into these erring instincts does not lie within my present limits. The context of our psychological inquiries only brought them before us for a limited consideration, with a view to determine the position they occupy in the whole consciousness. And here, as in my former instances of comparative psychology, I do not wish to cast my glance downward longer than is necessary, but rather, as quickly as possible, to raise it upward again. In the present case this can easily be done. For, for our present purpose, the simple remark will suffice, that the power of infinity in itself, and the pursuit of the infinite, is properly natural to man, and a part of his very essence. All that is wrong in it, and the source of all its aberrations, is simply and entirely boundless excess. Above all, we must blame that quality of absoluteness, which in every time and place exercises a fatal and destructive influence, both on thought and practice, or, perhaps, the fault may be laid to a false direction of this pursuit toward the sensible and material objects of this earthly and transitory existence, which, for the most part, are utterly unworthy of it. For man’s natural longing after the infinite, even as it still shows itself in his passions and failings, can not, wherever it is still genuine, be satisfied by any earthly object, or sensual gratification, or external possession.

When, however, this pursuit, keeping itself free from all delusions of sense, and from the fettering shackles of earthly passion, really directs its endeavors toward the infinite, and only to what is truly such, then can it never rest or be stationary. Ever advancing, step by step, it must always seek to rise higher and higher. And this pure feeling of endless longing forms, with the recollection of eternal love, the heavenward-bearing wings on which the soul raises itself upward to the divine. This, indeed, has been felt and perceived by Platonic thinkers in all ages. From the earlier centuries to the present many a deeply-significant sentence might easily be selected and quoted on the idea of this longing after the infinite. And this testimony is not confined merely to the comparatively modern philosophy of Europe and the West. The sacred writings, also, of the Hebrews contain a beautiful sentence on this head. Thus a certain prophet, as endowed with more than ordinary power, as chosen for a high and divine destination, or mission, is expressly called a man of longing [desires],[67] as by a title peculiarly suited to him, and most clearly indicating the natural preparation for all higher spiritual and divine avocations. And, in a sense borrowed from, if not exactly identical with, the above, a somewhat similar title has been given to the richest and profoundest of his works by a French philosopher of our own days, to whom, while I can not adopt unconditionally all his principles and sentiments, I must concede the highest praise for the zeal with which, in all his writings, he has maintained and promulgated a high and lofty tone, both in intellectual and divine things, and that, too, in the midst of revolutionary times, when the prevailing tone of thinking was decidedly material, and, indeed, had assumed a thoroughly demoralizing and atheistic tendency. At a former epoch, now more than twenty years ago, when I attempted, in French, to set forth to a friendly audience the principles of the Philosophy of Life, so far as I at that time comprehended it, I thought that it was indispensable to make this pure idea of an exalted longing the primary position from which the whole view of life must be developed. This, however, was too exclusive, and, for that reason, unsatisfactory. It is, therefore, my present wish to embrace all higher elements of conscience, however manifold they may be, and however different in kind they may appear, and, taking a comprehensive view of them, to unite them in a whole.