What has often and bitterly vexed me, is to hear people lament the wretchedness of this life, and call the world a vale of sorrows. This is not only the most crying ingratitude (humanly speaking,) but the true sin against the Holy Ghost. Is not enjoyment and well-being manifestly throughout the world the positive natural state of animated beings? Is not suffering, evil, organic imperfection or distortion, the negative shadow in this general brightness? Is not creation a continual festival to the healthy eye,—the contemplation of which, and of its splendour and beauty, fills the heart with adoration and delight? And were it only the daily sight of the enkindling sun and the glittering stars, the green of the trees and the gay and delicate beauty of flowers, the joyous song of birds, and the luxuriant abundance and rich animal enjoyment of all living things,—it would give us good cause to rejoice in life. But how much still more wondrous wealth is unfolded in the treasures of our own minds! what mines are laid open by love, art, science, the observation and the history of our own race, and, in the deepest deep of our souls, the pious reverential sentiment of God and his universal work! Truly we were less ungrateful were we less happy; and but too often we stand in need of suffering to make us conscious of this. A cheerful grateful disposition is a sort of sixth sense, by which we perceive and recognise happiness. He who is fully persuaded of its existence may, like other unthinking children, break out into occasional complaints, but will sooner return to reason; for the deep and intense feeling of the happiness of living, lies like a rose-coloured ground in his inmost heart, and shines softly through the darkest figures which fate can draw upon it.
Paradoxes of my friend B—— H——. Yes, certainly the spirit rules in us and we in it; and is eternal, and the same which rules through all worlds; but that which we call our human soul, we frame to ourselves here. The apparent double being in us,—of which one part follows the impulses of sense, while the other reflects upon the nature and movements of its companion, and restrains it,—naturally arises from the (so to say) double nature and destiny of man, who is framed to live as an individual, and also as an integral part of society. The gift of speech was a necessary condition of this latter form of existence, which without it could never have arisen. A solitary man is, and must remain, nothing better than an extremely intelligent brute; he has no more a soul than any other such:—the experiment may be repeated any day. But as soon as the man begins to live with other men, as soon as the interchange of observations is rendered possible to him by speech, he begins to perceive that the individual must submit to what is for the good of the whole—of the society, that is, to which he belongs; that he must make some sacrifices to its maintenance: this is the first rise of the moral principle, the essence of the soul. The feeling of his own weakness and uncertainty next gives birth to religion; the feeling of need of others like himself, to love. Selfishness and humanity now enter upon that continual antagonism which is called, I know not why, the inexplicable riddle of life; though with my view of the matter, nothing appears to me more natural and consequential. The real problem for mankind is, merely to establish the proper balance between these two poles. The more perfectly this is attained, the better and the happier is thenceforward the condition of the man, the family, the state. Either extreme is pernicious. The individual who tries to benefit himself alone, must succumb at length to the power of the many. The romantic enthusiast who starves himself to feed others, will be called by men, (who are ready enough to admire any sacrifice made to them, though they often laugh at it too,) magnanimous, or foolish, according to their peculiar fancy: but such conduct can never be general, and can never become a norma or pattern for imitation—in other words, a duty. Martyrs who give themselves to the flames in honour of the sacred number three, or let the nails grow through the back of the hands to the glory of Brama, belong to this same class, though to the lowest step of it; and receive, according to the prevalent notions of their age, the appellation of saint or madman, but are at all events mere exceptions, (Abnormitäten.) Not that I mean to deny that a rational abnegation and sacrifice of oneself for the good of others is noble and beautiful: by no means. It is unquestionably a beautiful, that is, a beneficent example of the victory of the social over the selfish principle, which forms a refreshing contrast to the far too numerous instances of those whose views never extend beyond themselves, and who end in becoming the pitiless remorseless criminals against whom society is compelled to declare everlasting war. But since we are bound to ourselves more nearly than to society, by that law of self-preservation which is necessary to our existence, egotists are more common than philanthropists, vicious men than virtuous. The former are the truly rude and ignorant, the latter the civilized and instructed. (An ‘avviso’ by the by to all governments who wish to rule in the dark.) But as even the most civilized have a substratum of rudeness, just as the most highly polished marble when broken exhibits the rough grain beneath, philanthropy herself cannot deny that she is the offspring of self-interest,—that she is indeed only self-interest diffused over the whole of mankind.
Where this feeling, therefore, displays itself in a very grand and energetic manner, though it be for the sole advantage of the individual, the possessors of it, such as are commonly called great men and heroes, compel the admiration even of those who disapprove their course of action. Nay, experience teaches us, that men who, with consummate indifference to the good of others, have heaped innumerable sufferings on their fellow men, if they have at the same time manifested a gigantic and over-mastering power, and been favoured by fortune, have invariably been the objects of the high admiration even of those who suffered under them. This shows what I said before, that necessity and fear are the germs of human society, and continue to be the mightiest levers under all circumstances; and that power, (or strength,) is always the object of the greatest reverence and admiration. Alexander and Cæsar cut a greater figure in history than Horatius Cocles and Regulus, (admitting the latter not to be fabulous personages.) Disinterestedness, friendship, philanthropy, generosity, are flowers of rarer growth; they generally unfold themselves at a later season, and with a more delicate fragrance. To the philosophic mind the highest power manifests itself in perfect goodness: and devotedness to others in the end becomes the highest enjoyment to the individual himself.
Another, and, as it seems to me, a striking proof that what we call Morality is entirely the growth of social life, is, that, as it appears to me, we recognise no such principle in our conduct towards other beings. If it were in our power, we should willingly enough pluck a star from heaven and analyse it for the benefit of our science; nor, if we had an angel in our power, should we be very scrupulous in our treatment of him, were we certain we had nothing to fear from him. That our treatment of the lower animals, and in too many cases of the negroes, is utterly and purely selfish, and that we must have reached a high point of civilization before even we cease to torment them or to let them suffer uselessly and wantonly, is but too obvious a fact. Nay more; men, even among each other, throw off the positive moral principle, as soon as a power which they recognise as competent partially dissolves the obligations of society. As soon as war is declared, the most virtuous soldier kills his fellow man ‘ex officio,’ though perhaps he be but the compulsory servant of a despot whom in his heart he regards as the scum of the earth: or the Pope, in the name of the religion of love, absolves men from every sentiment of truth, rectitude or humanity; and immediately the pious burn, torture, kill, lie, ‘con amore,’ and die satisfied and blessed, in fulfilment of their duty, and to the glory of God!
The lower animals, which are destined to live for themselves alone, know no virtue, and have, therefore, no soul, as it is truly said. Yet in the domestic animals, notwithstanding the low order of their reasoning faculty,—from education and from the sort of social intercourse in which they live with man, we may perceive very obvious traces of morality, and the gradual creation of a perception of right and wrong. We see that they are capable of disinterested love; capable even of great self-sacrifice without the motive of fear:—in short, they enter upon the same path as men, their souls begin to germinate and expand; and had animals the faculty of speech, it is possible they would advance to a level with ourselves.
Our best and most useful study would be, to endeavour to see what we are, and wherefore we are so, without vain hypotheses or tedious discussions:—this is the only road to a permanent spread of clear and enlightened ideas, and consequently to true happiness. It may be questioned whether German philosophy has not chosen too poetical a path; whether it do not rather resemble a rocket, which soars into the heavens in a thousand sparkles and tries to assimilate itself to the stars, but soon vanishes into nothing,—than a fire which gives out beneficent light and heat. How many eccentric systems of this kind, from Kant to Hegel, have glittered their moment, and then either rapidly expired, or lived on, divided into obscure and unprofitable fragments!
It is very problematical whether society have reaped so much practical advantage from them as from the now so little valued French philosophers, who stuck to what was near at hand; and in the first place so effectually divided the main nerve of the boa of priestly superstition with their sharp operating-knives, that it has never since been able to do more than feebly drag itself about. The philosopher ought surely to embrace actual life in his speculations, (the greatest of all sages was not less practical, than comprehensively intelligent;) and men who instruct mankind in this manner stand higher in the history of its benefactors than the most astonishing of the firework-makers above mentioned.
The true and only object of philosophy is unquestionably the investigation of truth;—of such truth, be it observed, as can be investigated, for such alone can give any results. To inquire into the incomprehensible is to thrash straw. The most direct way to the attainment of discoverable truth is in my opinion now, as in the days of Aristotle, only that of experiment. At a later stage of science we may venture to say with justice, because the law is so, experience must confirm my conclusions; but this law could only have been discovered by means of prior experiment. Lalande might very fairly maintain that such and such stars must stand in such and such relations, although the most accurate observation seemed to prove the contrary, because he already knew the unalterable rule; but without Newton’s falling apple, &c.,—without the previous and long-continued observations of individual phenomena, and the truths thence elicited,—the secrets of the heavens were still a book with seven seals.
But if philosophy would seek out truth, she ought above all to seek it in relation to the human species. Histories of mankind, in the widest sense, and whatever can be deduced from them for the behoof of the present and the future, must ever be her chief object. By following this direction, we may gradually succeed in arriving, from the knowledge of what has been and is, at the knowledge of causes; i. e. why things are so, and not otherwise: and then again, going back from fact to fact, may approach to fundamental laws, and thus find out a norma or rule for the future. Although the first causes of all existence should forever remain undiscoverable by us, it were sufficient, could we clearly and distinctly ascertain what were the original powers of our being, what they have become, and what direction we ought to endeavour to give to their further growth. Here the reflection will forcibly present itself, that a further progression and improvement are only possible in the element of freedom, and with an unrestrained interchange of ideas. The most noble and important invention by or for mankind, was therefore indisputably that of printing. Happily, it was born quick and active, for the human intellect was at its birth sufficiently matured to employ this mighty engine for the furtherance of the greatest ends. This invention alone has since rendered it possible to call into life that gigantic power, which nothing will long be able to withstand—public opinion. By this I do not mean the clamours of the mob, but the judgment of the best and wisest, which, since they have found an organ, have penetrated to all, and in the end must effect the destruction of those mere clamours.
Without printing, there would have been no Luther;—and until that epoch, had Christianity really been able to make its way? At the time of the thirty years’ war, at the time of the English Queen Mary, at the time of the Inquisition, ‘horribile dictu!’ had Christianity rendered men more merciful, more moral, more benign? I see little evidence of it. Freedom of the press was the great step which at once brought us infinitely nearer to the grand end—the universal diffusion of intelligence; and has given such an impulse to human affairs, that we now learn and accomplish more in ten years than our ancestors did in a hundred. The mass of information and intelligence thus accumulated, is what we must look to for the amelioration of the condition of mankind. In every age there have been illustrious men,—men, perhaps, whom no succeeding age will surpass or equal: but they stood alone; and although their effect on the world was not utterly lost, they could generally diffuse but a partial and momentary light, which the lapse of time dimmed or quite obscured. Let us take as an instance Christ, who, as Gibbon has shown, appeared under peculiarly favourable circumstances. How many men have called, and do call, themselves after his name; and how many are true Christians? He, the most liberal, the most tolerant, the most sincere and benign of men, has served for nearly two thousand years as a shield to despotism, persecution, and falsehood, and lent his exalted and sacred name to a new form of heathenism.