Its general basis and outline, such as we find it within ourselves, is formed by the four fundamental faculties first described, together with four others of a lower and secondary order. Feeling—i.e., the inner feeling, comprising every higher form thereof, is its center. It is that by which we first are awakened to its present existence, and also at the same time the point at which we pass into a higher state, wherein its operation will be more vivid and its union more harmonious. But as to the threefold life of the inner man, it consists in spirit, soul, and God, as the third, in whom the first two are united, or at least must seek their union.
In proportion, therefore, as this key-stone is removed from the human mind, it falls a prey to discord and the isolation of its several powers; nay more, the latter sink continually lower and lower, and fall from one depth of degradation to another. And when occasionally, as in the might and strength of genius, there occurs a preponderance of some one faculty, it exercises for the most part a destructive tendency against the harmony of the whole, checking, if not suppressing altogether, the free developments of other powers as necessary and as essential as itself.
LECTURE VI.
ACCORDING to that outline of the human mind which we have just sketched, its whole alphabet, so to speak, consists but of twelve letters or primary elements. These are formed first of all into the stem-syllables or radicals of higher truth and knowledge, out of which again, in the inner language of true science, entire words and connected propositions are constructed. And these again must further combine into one universal key and all-embracing fundamental word of life. In this internal alphabet of the consciousness, however, there is one point on which a few words of further explanation are necessary to a right understanding. And it is one of the very highest consequence, since it concerns the final aim or even the first foundation, being nothing less than the center of life and perfection of unity. God, it is said, must form the key-stone in the arch of the whole consciousness; and no other real point of union can be found. But now God is without, or, rather, above, the human mind. How, then, are we to designate that by and through which this center of unity, which we feel and acknowledge to be raised far above us, is to be seized and retained, so that it may livingly operate within us? I know no other way of indicating it than by the word idea—the idea, viz., of the divine and of the Divinity Himself. As, then, feeling forms the common center of life for the lower and ordinary consciousness of man and its eight elementary faculties, so it is this idea that, as the third internal principle, makes up, together with spirit and soul, the higher threefold living consciousness. But by this idea we mean not a merely speculative or abstract and dead idea, but an effectually operative and living idea of a God, who, having life in Himself, is the source from which all life proceeds. In its outward form, and as compared with the other functions of the consciousness or acts of the thinking faculty, this idea is a notion. At the same time, however, it is also a figure or a symbol. For it is only figuratively that that which is not so much inconceivable, as rather transcends conception, being far above and beyond all possible notions, can be at all indicated. It is by symbols alone that such can be conceived or comprehended. Indeed, the word idea, in its original Greek sense, alludes to some kind of visible figure and figurative shape lying, as it were, within the notion itself. All that is highest of every species can only be apprehended by such a mode of thinking as is at the same time both logical and symbolical—in which the logical thought of reason and the symbolical of imagination—the scientific, viz., or of that which in cognition is the inward productive faculty, are once more in unison, being thoroughly combined or wholly blended together. The idea, however, is not merely a conception, which is a notion, and yet, at the same time, as properly transcending all notion, a figure or symbol; but looking to the inward form of the consciousness, rather than to the object itself, it is a conception which is also a feeling. Indeed, without the supposition of the latter it can not exist, and, strictly speaking, is not even conceivable. That this is the case, the following instance will fully show: How could we, if we wished it, suggest the idea of true love, or make it clear and comprehensible to one who had never felt any thing of the kind, and was, in short, totally incapable of such a feeling?
Properly, however, and in scientific rigor, there is only one idea truly so called. And that is the one idea of the Godhead. All else that we call ideas, whether in this higher signification, or in a kindred and similar sense—like the innate ideas, without number, of which the Platonic philosophy speaks, or that idea of true love which I lately alluded to (having previously made frequent use of such expressions, and intending to do so again whenever they appear calculated to lead to accuracy of distinction or vividness of indication)—all such can only be called ideas in a certain sense and analogy. Such a mode of speech, however, is allowable whenever we are treating of such notions and conceptions as stand in any relation to the higher and divine. For, contemplated from this spiritual center of the divine idea, they shine in a new light. Being purified in its flame, they seem to be elevated and brought many degrees nearer to this one supreme idea of the living God, in all His perfection and beauty. In all its fullness and completeness, however, this idea can not truly be said to be innate in the human mind. At most there are there only the elements of it, viz., the remembrance of eternal love (which Plato’s doctrine of the anamnesis, when purified, amounts to), the infinite longing, the voice of conscience; and then, completing the number, as the fourth element, comes the genuine and exalted enthusiasm for art and natural beauty. All these higher elements, however, of the divine in man, form but a weak echo of the whole. They are, as it were, but so many faint dying notes, or the first infantine lispings of this one divine idea, which in its full force and brightness must be given, imparted, and revealed; while that which is thus given and experienced, and indeed personally experienced, can only be embraced, understood, and retained by faith through love.
He who has never had any feeling or experience of God, who is a stranger to love, and incapable of faith of any kind, to such a one, so long as he remains in this state, it would be lost labor to speak of God, or of the divine idea, with all that flows immediately from it. This idea may indeed exist as a rational notion necessarily emanating from our own cogitations. But in this form, as the creature of our own conception, but not as a given and revealed, it is little better than the fixed reflection of ourselves—the objective projection of our own Me. For such in all purely rational systems it ever is—emptied and utterly void of all effectual living power, and of all truth and reality. But when the idea of God has been received by a higher experience (and thus only can it be vitally imparted), then may we in truth call it divine. For it is no longer the barren, unfruitful idea that it is in all other cases, but it contains in itself an effectual living and life-giving energy.
The fundamental elements of the human consciousness are, then, twelve in number. The first universal basis is formed by the eight special faculties, with love as their living center. To these must be added the three principles of the higher inward life—soul, spirit, and the idea of the divine—such as we have accurately defined and characterized it. These together I have called the alphabet of the consciousness. And this alphabet, like a fixed and established logical notion, I shall henceforth adopt in this precise shape and number, making it, without any essential variation, the basis of my subsequent remarks. It is, no doubt, of great advantage, and even necessary for the elucidation of any matter, rigorously to separate the several elements of the general notion, duly arranging them, and accurately preserving their number. Still we may be overanxious in this respect. And, indeed, language itself is not always very precise in its designations; and the different dialects of human speech, with their fluctuating phraseology, often assign a different rank and position to the parts of the same whole. Much, for instance is set down as an independent faculty, which, more correctly regarded, is but a state—or even only a passage from one state into another—or it may be merely a natural talent; or, perhaps, some such happy coincidence and harmonious co-operation of several powers of the soul as constitutes true genius. An instance of this kind gave rise to that question which so lately engaged our attention, whether the judgment is rightly to be considered a special faculty; and, if not, how is it in strictness of truth to be designated? And in a similar respect, I now find occasion to say a few words on wit, as being nearly related to judgment (if the latter be, as I have explained it, an intelligent feeling), and as holding an intermediate position between judgment and genius. For now we have given a complete sketch in outline of the whole consciousness, it is desirable to fill in, as completely as possible, all the lesser and nicer features. In other words, it is expedient to assign their proper place in the entire consciousness to those properties of soul and spirit which are not so much simple or first principles as complex phenomena of a secondary order, and compounded of several distinct elements. Now wit, like judgment, is an intelligent feeling, marked, however, with the qualities of immediateness and pertinency. But it is not, like the judgment, associated always with a special knowledge and insight. On the contrary, wit often arises from a certain naïve ignorance of the entire province to which belongs the object on which it exercises itself. We might almost say that the disposition to wit consists in a universally intelligent feeling, for its quickness of perception is confined to no particular department of life, but exercises itself on life in general, and finds therein its proper arena. But this describes rather the notion of what is commonly called “sound sense,” or “natural intelligence,” which, in itself, is not wit, and is often found existing totally unaccompanied with the latter. Nevertheless, this at least is manifest, that if an individual be said to be entirely devoid of judgment—which is nearly the same as saying that he possesses no intelligent feeling in any species or form—it would be in vain in such a person to look for much, if any, wit. That, moreover, which forms the chief characteristic of wit, and essentially distinguishes it from judgment, is its unconsciousness. On this very account children even, if they be at all lively, are often witty. And, indeed, this childish wit forms, perhaps, one of the most graceful of its many forms and kinds. To prove how greatly this childish wit depends on its very unconsciousness, we may appeal to a fact, which, moreover, will teach us at the same time not to lay too much stress on the fact, if children, even at an early age, appear very clever and witty. It is no unfrequent observation that when children, by the development of their understandings, attain to greater clearness of consciousness, their wit suddenly ceases, and their character assumes a touch of dry, solemn, but still childish earnestness. That genial unconsciousness which ever remains the property of true wit, both of social conversation and of poetry, at once forms and attests its affinity with genius. But, still, wit alone is not a complete creative power. By itself it rarely gives birth to aught. It is but a single element, which is added as the last finishing grace to all the creative productions of fancy, and to every other work in which a fertile and original mind gives utterance to its thoughts. On this account it manifests itself in the most varied and opposite forms. It is not limited to social conversation, or to art and poetry, but even in philosophy—and the Socratic especially—assumes a peculiar and important place as the essential ingredient of irony.
Now the variety of forms in which wit so richly displays itself is a further point of resemblance between it and judgment. Still this common property has a different cause in each. The immediate judgment, or intelligent feeling, presents so great a variety of forms, because the human mind is not equally conversant in every province of thought, being generally familiar with some one in particular. But in the case of wit, it is its very versatility, by which it suits itself to and insinuates itself in every object of intellectual attention, that is the source of its manifold diversity. But that it would carry us far beyond our present limits, it would be highly instructive in a scientific point of view to take a survey of all the several forms in which this mental quality gushes forth in all the rich fullness of genius.
But now, since our exposition of the human mind has been hitherto carried on by means of a parallelism with the idea of language, it will not be out of place to make a few remarks here on the real alphabet, or the elementary letters of different languages, as bearing a relation to what we have called the alphabet of the consciousness. For the former presents more than one remarkable analogy with the higher principle of the inward life, and its whole organic framework. Properly, syllables, and not letters, form the basis of language. They are its living roots, or chief stem and trunk, out of which all else shoots and grows. The letters, in fact, have no existence, except as the results of a minute analysis; for many of them are difficult, if not impossible, to pronounce. Syllables, on the contrary, more or less simple, or the complex composites of fewer or more letters, are the primary and original data of language. For the synthetical is in every case anterior to the elements into which it admits of resolution. The letters, therefore, first arise out of the chemical decomposition of the syllables. But the results of this analytical process are very different in different languages, as is proved by the difference of results in the variety of alphabets. While in our own we reckon four-and-twenty letters, in many others the number is far greater. In those oriental languages nearest akin to our own, they amount to more than thirty; while the Indian family counts as many as fifty.
It forms no easy problem to indicate most of these by our European characters; and to pronounce them requires the organs of speech to be more than ordinarily flexible. On the other hand, profound and philosophical inquires into language, by rejecting all mere modifications of harshness or softness in the same sound, and whatever is manifestly a mere variation of the same letter, or a mere compound of simpler tones, have reduced the whole alphabet to ten primary elements. According to this system, which has not been established without great acuteness, so much at least is evident, that properly there are but three vowels,[70] instead of five, as we usually count them, the E being a softened I, and U a deadened or faint O. The diphthongs, and other tones intermediate between the simple vowels, in which the German is so rich, are evidently to be considered but as so many musical transitions from one to the other. We may here appeal to the Hebrew, as being in its system of letters, notwithstanding its other ancient oriental features, highly simple and profoundly significant and coherent.[71] Its two-and-twenty characters may be divided into two orders. The first and higher, as I would term it, contains the three vowels, the aspirates (of which more by and by), and then the simplest and softest (they might almost be called the child’s) consonants, B, D, G. The twelve letters of the second contain all the other grosser, more corporeally-sounding consonants. Usually, indeed, all letters, and especially consonants, are classed into labials, linguals, and dentals, according to the organs principally employed in their utterance, distinguishing, on the same principle, certain nasals and gutturals. But however correct this classification may be in an anatomical point of view, and physiologically considered, still, for that parallel, which is grounded in nature itself, between speech and thought, and for the analogy which subsists between man’s inward and outward language, it is both unsatisfactory and uninstructive. For it looks exclusively to a single aspect. The ordinary grammatical division also of letters into vowels and consonants, is at least incomplete. It would be far more correct to associate with them a third class of aspirates. For the latter may be distinguished from the former by many a characteristic property, even though they are indicated by signs which resemble those of the other class and often pass into and may be resolved into them. In the various alphabetical systems the aspirates stand out most individually. They assume the most diversified forms, even in their mode of notation, and it would almost seem as if the ethereal breathing which floats around them refused to be corporeally fixed and confined with as much easiness as the other elements of language. In some languages, as the Greek, for instance, according to the extant system, which belongs not to the earliest period of its development, the principal aspiration is not denoted by a letter, but is indicated in the same way as an accent. In the oriental, and, generally, in all ancient languages, the aspirates, according to the different forms into which they enter, hold a very important place. It almost seems that the more aspirated a language is, the nearer it is to its original state. It is also remarkable, that wherever this element appears in undiminished vigor, it gives to the whole language a character of antiquity and grandeur, and lends to it a pervading tone of spiritual gravity, such as has been observed in the Arabic, and prevails also in a high degree in the Spanish; though, indeed, an undue prevalence of this high and solemn note, unrelieved by others, is apt to degenerate into monotony. In our own German the aspirates were originally far more numerous than they are at present. And, generally, the more a language is softened down and refined by daily use and conversation, the more it loses this impress of antiquity. And it even happens with some, as with the French, for instance, that the aspirates cease to be articulated, even though they are still marked.