Aids to Reflection; and, The Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

2. Substantive = Thesis, expressing Being. 3. Verb = Antithesis, expressing, Act. 4. Infinite = Mesothesis, as being either Substantive or Verb, or both at once, only in different relations. 5. Participle = Synthesis. Thus in Chemistry Sulphuretted Hydrogen is an Acid relatively to the more powerful Alkalis, and an Alkali relatively to a powerful Acid. Yet one other remark, and I pass to the question. In order to render the constructions of pure Mathematics applicable to Philosophy, the Pythagoreans, I imagine, represented the Line as generated, or, as it were, radiated, by a Point not contained in the Line but independent, and (in the language of that School) transcendent to all production, which it caused but did not partake in. Facit, non patitur. This was the punctum invisible, et presuppositum: and in this way the Pythagoreans guarded against the error of Pantheism, into which the later schools fell. The assumption of this Point I call the logical prothesis. We have now therefore four Relations of Thought expressed: 1. Prothesis, or the Identity of T and A, which is neither, because in it, as the transcendent of both, both are contained and exist as one. Taken absolutely, this finds its application in the Supreme Being alone, the Pythagorean tetractys; the ineffable name, to which no Image can be attached; the Point, which has no (real) Opposite or Counter-point. But relatively taken and inadequately, the germinal power of every seed[79] might be generalized under the relation of Identity. 2. Thesis, or position. 3. Antithesis, or Opposition. 4. Indifference. To which when we add the Synthesis or Composition, in its several forms of Equilibrium, as in quiescent Electricity; of Neutralization, as of Oxygen and Hydrogen in water; and of Predominance, as of Hydrogen and Carbon with Hydrogen, predominant, in pure alcohol; or of Carbon and Hydrogen, with the comparative predominance of the Carbon, in Oil; we complete the five most general Forms or Preconceptions of Constructive Logic.

And now for the answer to the question. What is an idea, if it mean neither an Impression on the Senses, nor a definite Conception, nor an abstract Notion? (And if it does mean either of these, the word is superfluous: and while it remains undetermined which of these is meant by the word, or whether it is not which you please, it is worse than superfluous. See the 'Statesman's Manual,' Appendix ad finem.) But supposing the word to have a meaning of its own, what does it mean?—What is an idea?—In answer to this I commence with the absolutely Real as the prothesis; the subjectively Real as the thesis; the objectively Real as the Antithesis: and I affirm, that Idea is the indifference of the two—so namely, that if it be conceived as in the Subject, the Idea is an Object, and possesses Objective Truth; but if in an Object, it is then a Subject and is necessarily thought of as exercising the powers of a Subject. Thus an idea conceived as subsisting in an Object becomes a law; and a Law contemplated subjectively (in a mind) is an Idea.

[78] See the 'Selection from Mr. Coleridge's Literary Correspondence' in Blackwood's Magazine, 1821, Letter II.—Ed.

[79] See Comment on Moral and Religious Aphorism VI., p. 40.—Ed.

[80] In a letter to a friend on the mathematical atheists of the French Revolution, La Lande and others, or rather on a young man of distinguished abilities, but an avowed and proselyting partizan of their tenets, I concluded with these words: "The man who will believe nothing but by force of demonstrative evidence (even though it is strictly demonstrable that the demonstrability required would countervene all the purposes of the truth in question, all that render the belief of the same desirable or obligatory) is not in a state of mind to be reasoned with on any subject. But if he further denies the fact of the Law of Conscience, and the essential difference between right and wrong, I confess, he puzzles me. I cannot without gross inconsistency appeal to his Conscience and Moral Sense, or I should admonish him that, as an honest man, he ought to advertize himself, with a Cavete omnes! Scelus sum. And as an honest man myself, I dare not advise him on prudential grounds to keep his opinions secret, lest I should make myself his accomplice, and be helping him on with a wrap-rascal."

APHORISM III.

Burnet and Coleridge.

That Religion is designed to improve the nature and faculties of man, in order to the right governing of our actions, to the securing the peace and progress, external and internal, of individuals and of communities, and lastly, to the rendering us capable of a more perfect state, entitled the kingdom of God, to which the present life is probationary—this is a Truth, which all who have truth only in view, will receive on its own evidence. If such then be the main end of religion altogether (the improvement namely of our nature and faculties), it is plain, that every part of religion is to be judged by its relation to this main end. And since the Christian scheme is religion in its most perfect and effective form, a revealed religion, and therefore, in a special sense proceeding from that Being who made us and knows what we are, of course therefore adapted to the needs and capabilities of human nature; nothing can be a part of this holy faith that is not duly proportioned to this end.[81]

Comment.

This Aphorism should be borne in mind, whenever a theological Resolve is proposed to us as an article of Faith. Take, for instance, the determinations passed at the Synod of Dort, concerning the Absolute Decrees of God in connection with his Omniscience and Fore-knowledge. Or take the decision in the Council of Trent on the difference between the two kinds of Transubstantiation, the one in which both the substance and the accidents are changed, the same matter remaining—as in the conversion of water to wine at Cana: the other, in which the matter and the substance are changed, the accidents remaining unaltered, as in the Eucharist—this latter being Transubstantiation par eminence! Or rather take the still more tremendous dogma, that it is indispensable to a saving faith carefully to distinguish the one kind from the other, and to believe both, and to believe the necessity of believing both in order to Salvation! For each or either of these extra-scriptural Articles of Faith the preceding Aphorism supplies a safe criterion. Will the belief tend to the improvement of any of my moral or intellectual faculties? But before I can be convinced that a faculty will be improved, I must be assured that it exists. On all these dark sayings, therefore, of Dort or Trent, it is quite sufficient to ask, by what faculty, organ, or inlet of knowledge, we are to assure ourselves that the words mean any thing, or correspond to any object out of our own mind or even in it: unless indeed the mere craving and striving to think on, after all the materials for thinking have been exhausted, can be called an object. When a number of trust-worthy persons assure me, that a portion of fluid which they saw to be water, by some change in the fluid itself or in their senses, suddenly acquired the colour, taste, smell, and exhilarating property of wine, I perfectly understand what they tell me, and likewise by what faculties they might have come to the knowledge of the fact. But if any one of the number not satisfied with my acquiescence in the fact, should insist on my believing, that the matter remained the same, the substance and the accidents having been removed in order to make way for a different substance with different accidents, I must entreat his permission to wait till I can discover in myself any faculty, by which there can be presented to me a matter distinguishable from accidents, and a substance that is different from both. It is true, I have a faculty of articulation; but I do not see that it can be improved by my using it for the formation of words without meaning, or at best, for the utterance of thoughts, that mean only the act of so thinking, or of trying so to think. But the end of Religion is the improvement of our Nature and Faculties. Ergo, &c. I sum up the whole in one great practical Maxim. The Object of religious Contemplation, and of a truly Spiritual Faith, is "the ways of God to Man." Of the Workings of the Godhead, God himself has told us, My Ways are not as your Ways, nor my Thoughts as your Thoughts.