Now this reference to the word experience, as one which would be more familiar to the religious reader, is pure affectation; because he must have known that religious people never use that term in the wide or general sense of states of consciousness, but restrict its meaning to a very peculiar class of feelings. As to the distinction which is here laid down, we thought we agreed with Coleridge till we came to the illustration that was to make all clear. He who has to learn arithmetic, or geometry must assuredly exercise thought as well as attention. It is by that "voluntary reproduction" of the ideas presented to him, by which Coleridge defines thought, that he can alone fully understand and make the subject his own.
At other times this erratic genius rejoices in astonishing all philosophically-minded individuals by some extravagance got from the remotest regions of the religious world. What but some morbid caprice could have induced him to pen such a paragraph as this:—
"It might be the means of preventing many unhappy marriages, if the youth of both sexes had it early impressed on their minds that marriage contracted between Christians is a true and perfect Symbol or Mystery; that is, the actualising Faith being supposed to exist in the receivers, it is an outward sign co-essential with that which it signifies, or a living part of that, the whole of which it represents."
Coleridge never did seriously think—of that we may be sure—that the repetition of this abracadabra could be the means "of preventing many unhappy marriages."
The author of the Aids to Reflection had, however, this undoubted merit—that he was a thinker—that, in his own fitful method, he gave himself from time to time to strenuous meditation. He lacked, indeed, the calm, and serene, and patient thought which characterises the successful inquirer into philosophic truth. He could plunge boldly in, and dive deeply down; but the tranquillity of mind which the diver should possess in those depths where the light is so faint—this he failed in; so that, from his perilous enterprises, he often rose with tangled weeds instead of treasure, spasmodically clasped in both his hands, and held aloft with a shout of triumph. This energy of mind makes itself felt through all the cumbrous obscurity of his exposition, and is the real secret of the influence which he exerted over many, to whom he imparted a noble but irregular impulse, and a sense of proud achievement where nothing complete had been accomplished. His disciples are therefore distinguished, as we have remarked, by undisciplined efforts of thought, and a fancied superiority to the age in which they live,—a notion that they stand upon an intellectual eminence they have neither attained nor fairly toiled for.
But we are in danger of forgetting that it is not the Aids to Reflection, but the Guesses at Truth, we are at present concerned with. Guesses at Truth! You think, of course, that the modest inquirer is about to give us the conclusions to which he has arrived upon the great questions of philosophy,—to collect together the results of his investigations into first principles and the eternal problems of human life. But these results, whatever they may be, are rather assumed than expressed throughout the whole book. As you read on, you find the page still occupied with some trifling discussion about words—strictures upon the contemporary tastes—odd bits of criticism and politics—quibble and conundrum. Over all, indeed, is seen hanging the beetle-brow of the pre-eminent sage, and you are to presume that the meditative man is unbending, and merely at his sport. But he is unbent always: the bow is never strung, or nothing flies from it; the great thinker never sets himself earnestly to work. At last you conclude that there is no work in him—that he never did, and never will work; and that it is useless to wait any longer for this nodding image, with its eternal smile of self-complacency, to turn into an oracle of wisdom.
If, indeed, the writer or writers were verily sportive,—if there were wit or amusement in this unbent condition of the bow, most readers might think there was very little reason to complain: there would be mirth, if not wisdom, to be had. But there is no such compensation. With few exceptions, nothing can be more heavy or cumbrous than their efforts at pleasantry. The illustrations, intended to be humorous and sprightly, have no gaiety in them; and the satirical observations have rarely any other characteristic of satire than their evident injustice.
The manner in which these writers appear to have proceeded, in the excogitation of their detached remarks, is after this fashion,—on all occasions, trivial or important, to carp at any thing that assumes the shape of a commonplace truth, any thing that is generally said or admitted. By this means some merit of originality may surely be obtained, and a lofty character for independence secured. Open the book at the first page:—
"The heart has often been compared to the needle for its constancy: has it ever been so for its variations?"
Why should it? Why should the magnetic needle, which is a popular illustration for constancy of purpose, be chosen as an emblem also for our mutability? Are there not the winds, and the clouds, and the feather blown in the air, and a thousand other similes for this phase of our nature? But "true as the needle to the pole" had been said so long that it was time to see whether the saying could not be reversed. We may as well quote the rest of the passage.