About one half of the reported lectures on Aristotle is, though cloudy, intelligible. The remainder is a fair specimen of that skimmy-dashy style of thought which glances over the surfaces of things and never reaches their substance or reality, yet boasts of its unlimited profundity because it does not know the meaning of profound. Such thinking must necessarily end in falsity and folly, of which the lecture gives many specimens, which it is worth while to quote, to show what the devotees of antiquity call philosophy—thus:
“If we cannot know the ultimate nature of being, then philosophy is impossible, for philosophy differs from other kind of knowing by seeking a first principle.” “The objects of philosophy then include those of ontology. They are first the nature of the ultimate being of the universe, the first principle, the idea of God.”
This is not philosophy, but might be called theology, and not legitimate theology even, but supra-theological—for all sane theology admits that man cannot know God. It is a desperate, insane suggestion that we must know the unknowable, and that if we cannot do that we can have no philosophy. Of course men who think this way know nothing of philosophy, and are beyond the reach of reason.
Again, “in the nature of the truly independent and true being, it sees necessary transcendence of space and time, and this is essential immortality.” This is a fair specimen of the skimmy-dashy style. Immortality is not a “transcendence of space,” if that means anything at all, but a conscious existence without end. Perhaps by “transcendence of space” he means filling all the space there is, and going considerably beyond it where there is no space.
His idea of infinity is worthy of Aristotle or Hegel, to whom, in fact, it belongs—he says, “self-conditioning is the form of the whole, the form of that which is its own other.” That something should be “its own other” is just as clear as that it should be its own mother or father. Do such expressions represent any ideas, or do metaphysicians use words as a substitute for ideas—verily they do, in Hegelian metaphysics, and the same thing is done in asylums for the insane.
Again, “our knowledge of quantity is a knowledge of what is universal and necessary, and hence is not derived from experience.” If this is true of the professor, he knew all of mathematics before he opened his eyes in the cradle. Common mortals know nothing of quantity or anything else, until they have had a little experience. If we know everything that is “universal and necessary” without experience, the little babes must be very wise indeed.
Again, “causal energy is essentially a self-separation, for in order that a cause A. may produce an effect in B. outside of it, cause A. must detach or separate from itself the influence or energy which modifies B.” What does the earth detach from itself when it causes a heavy body to fall? In chemical catalysis what does the second body “detach from itself” to produce change in the first, which is changed by its mere presence. The assertion is but partially true, applying only to the transfer of force when one body strikes another. Aristotle has some thoroughly absurd suggestions on the same subject which Professor H. did not reproduce.
How does he grapple with the idea of God, which is the essence of his philosophy? Here it is: “The first principle as pure self-activity, must necessarily have the permanent form of knowing of knowing, for this root form of self-consciousness is entirely self-related. The self sees the essential self, the self-activity is the object of self.” We are instructed! God knows he knows, and that is the very essence of his divinity—that is enough. In this profound expression we have the consummation of philosophy, for the purpose of his philosophy is to know God, “Nunc dimittis,” we need to know nothing more,—we know we know, and so we are God’s. “This line of thought brought up at every step some phase of Plato and Aristotle,” said the professor, and we are thankful that he did not resurrect any more of the puerilities of Athenian ignorance. “Knowing of knowing” is quite enough, which he repeats to be emphatic. “All true being is in the form of the infinite or self-related, and related to itself as the knowing of knowing. All beings that are not this perfect form of self-knowing, either potentially or actually, must be parts of a system or world order which is produced in some way by true being or self-knowing. All potential self-knowings contain within themselves the power to realize their self-knowledge, and are therefore free beings.” This is a broad hint that men are gods and lands us in that realm of folly of which Mrs. Eddy is the presiding genius. She is much indebted to the Concord philosophers for lending their respectability to her labyrinth of self-contradictions.
One quotation more, to give the essence of this Concord philosophy. “The Divine Being exists for himself as one object. This gives us the Logos, or the only-begotten. The Logos knows himself as personal perfection, and also as generated, though in an infinite past time. This is its recognition of its first principle and its unbegotten ‘Father.’ But whatever it knows in self-consciousness, it creates or makes to exist,” and more of the same sort.
We are overwhelmed with such a flood of wisdom! How the professor attained so intimate, familiar, and perfect a knowledge of the infinite power, to which the fathomless depths of starry infinity are as nothing, is a great mystery. Was it by Kabbala or by Thaumaturgy, or did he follow the sublime instructions of his great brother Plato, and thrust his head through the revolving dome of the universe, where the infinite truth is seen in materialized forms.