Noiré has developed this theory fully in another book, entitled, “Ursprung der Sprache” (“Origin of Speech”). When it was published, Max Müller stated in the Contemporary Review, that, although he considered this system too exclusive, yet it was far superior to either the onomatopœia or the interjection theory, and that it was certainly the best and the most probable one brought forward at present. I can but bow before this appreciation.
Noiré is a fanatical Kantian, and an enthusiastic admirer of Schopenhauer. He has succeeded in forming a committee for the purpose of erecting a statue in honor of the modern Heraclites. The committee, he says, must be international, for if as a writer Schopenhauer be German, as a philosopher he belongs to the entire world, and he asked me to join it. “I am exceedingly flattered by the proposal,” said I; “but I offer two objections.” In the first place, a humble economist has not the right to place his name side by side with such as are already on the list. Secondly, being an incurable disciple of Platonism, I fear that Schopenhauer did not remain in the Cartesian line of spiritualism. I feel persuaded that two notions, which, it appears, are at the present day very old-fashioned—I speak of a belief in God and in the soul’s immortality—should form the basis of all social science. He who believes in nothing but matter cannot rise to a notion of what ‘ought to be’—i. e., to an ideal of right and justice. This ideal can only be conceived as a divine order of things imposing itself morally on mankind. The ‘Revue Philosophique’ of October, 1882, says, ‘Positive Science, as understood at the present day, considers not what should be, but only what is. It searches merely the formula of facts. All idea of obligation, or of imperative prohibition, is completely foreign to its code. Such a creed is a death-stroke to all notion of duty. I believe that faith in a future life is indispensable for the accomplishment of good works. Materialism weakens the moral sense, and naturally leads to general decay.’
“Yes,” replied Noiré, “this is just the problem. How, side by side with the dire necessities of Nature, or with Divine omnipotence, can there be place for human personality and liberty? Nobody, neither Christian nor Naturalist, has yet been able satisfactorily to answer this. Hence has sprung, on the one hand, the predestination of the Calvinists and Luther’s De servo arbitrio, and, on the other, determinism and materialism. Kant is the first mortal who fearlessly studied this problem and studied it satisfactorily. He plunged into the abyss, like the diver of Schiller, and returned, having vanquished the monsters he found there, and holding in his hand the golden cup from which henceforward Humanity may drink the Divine beverage of Truth. As nothing can be of greater interest to us than the solution of this problem, so our gratitude, be it ever so considerable, can never possibly equal the service rendered by this really prodigious effort of the human mind. Kant has provided us with the only arm which can combat materialism. It is full time we should make use of it, for this detestable doctrine is everywhere undermining the foundations of human society. I venerate the memory of Schopenhauer, because he has inspired the truths revealed by Kant with more real life and penetrating vigor. Schopenhauer is not well known in either France or England. Some of his works have been translated, but no one has really understood him thoroughly, because to understand a philosopher it is necessary not only to admire but to be passionately attached to him. ‘The folly of the Cross’ is an admirable expression.
“Schopenhauer maintains that the will is the great source of all; it means both personality and liberty. We are here at once planted at the antipodes of naturalistic determinism. Free intelligence creates matter. Spiritus in nobis qui viget, ille facit. God is the great ideal. He does not make us move, but moves Himself in us. The more we appropriate to ourselves this Ideal, the freer we become; we are the reasonable and conscious authors of our actions, and liberty consists in this. Schopenhauer’s moral law is precisely that of Christianity—a law of abnegation, of resignation and asceticism. What Christians call Charity, he designates as ‘Pity.’ He exhorts his followers to struggle against self-will; not to let their eyes dwell on the passing delusions of the outside world, but to seek their soul’s peace by sacrificing all pursuits and interests which should fix their attentions solely on the changing scenes of this life. Are not these also the Gospel principles? Must they be rejected because Buddha also preached them? ‘The sovereign proof of the truth of my doctrines,’ says Schopenhauer, ‘is the number of Christian persons who have abandoned all their earthly treasure, position and riches, and have embraced voluntary poverty, devoting themselves wholly to the service of the poor and the sick and needy, undaunted in their work of charity by the most frightful wounds, the most revolting complaints. Their happiness consists in self-abnegation, in their indifference to the pleasures of this life, in their living faith, in the immortality of their being, and in a future of endless bliss.’
“The chief aim of Kant’s metaphysics,” proceeds Noiré, “is to fix a limit to the circle that can be embraced by man’s reason. ‘We resemble,’ he says, ‘fish in a pond, who can see, just to the edge of the water, the banks that imprison them, but are perfectly ignorant of all that is beyond.’ Schopenhauer goes farther than Kant. ‘True,’ he says, ‘we can only see the world from outside, and as a phenomenon, but there is one little loophole left open to us by which we can get a peep at substantial realities, and this loophole is each individual “Myself,” revealed to us as “Will,” which gives us the key to the “Transcendent.” You say, dear colleague, that you are incurably Platonic; are you not then aware Schopenhauer constantly refers to the ‘divine’ Plato, and to the incomparable, the prodigious, der erstaunliche Kant. His great merit is to have defended idealism against all the wild beasts which Dante met with in the dark forest, nella selva oscura’ into which he had strayed—materialism and sensualism, and their worthy offspring selfishness and bestiality. Nothing can be more false or dangerous than physics without metaphysics, and yet this truth proclaimed at the present day by great men merely provokes a laugh. The notion of duty is based on metaphysics. Nothing in Nature teaches it, and physics are silent on the subject. Nature is pitiless; brute force triumphs there. The better armed destroys and devours his less favored brother. Where then is right and justice? Materialists adopt as their motto the words which Frenchmen falsely accuse our Chancellor of having uttered, ‘Might is Right.’ Schopenhauer’s ‘Pity,’ Christian ‘Charity,’ the philosopher’s and jurist’s ‘Justice,’ are diametrically opposed to instinct and the voice of Nature, which urge us to sacrifice everything to the satisfaction of animal appetites. Read the eloquent conclusion of the book of Lange, ‘Geschichte des Materialismus.’ If materialism be not vanquished while it is yet time, all the law courts, prisons, bayonets and grape-shot in the world will not suffice to prevent the downfall of the social edifice. This pernicious doctrine must be banished from the brains of learned men, where it now reigns supreme. It has started from thence, and has gradually obtained a hold on the public mind. It is the duty of true philosophy to save the world.”
“But,” I replied, “Schopenhauer’s philosophy will never be comprehended but by a small minority; for myself, I humbly confess I have never read but fragments translated.”
“It is a pity you have never perused the original,” answered Noiré, “the style is exceedingly clear and simple. He is one of our best writers. He has exposed the most abstruse problems in the best possible terms. No one has more thoroughly justified the truth of what our Jean Paul said of Plato, Bacon and Leibnitz, the most learned reflection need not exclude a brilliant setting to show it off in relief, any more than a learned brain excludes a fine forehead and a fine face. Unfortunately, M. de Hartmann, who popularized Schopenhauer, has too frequently rendered his ideas unintelligible by his Hegelian Jargon. Schopenhauer could not endure Hegelianism. Like an Iconoclast, he smashed to shivers its idols with a heavy club. He approved of violent expressions, and indulged in very strong terms. So, for instance, he liked what he calls die göttliche Grobheit, ‘divine coarseness.’ At the same time, he praises elegance and good manners, and even, strange to say, has translated a little manual on ‘The Way to Behave in Society,’ ‘El Oraculo Manual,’ published in 1658, by the Jesuit, Baltasar Gracian. ‘There was a time,’ he writes, ‘when Germany’s three great sophists, Fichte, Schelling, and especially Hegel, that seller of senselessness, der freche unsinnige Schmierer, that impertinent scribbler, imagined they would appear learned by becoming obscure. This shameless humbug succeeded in winning the adulations of the multitude. He reigned at the Universities, where his style was imitated. Hegelianism became a religion, and a most intolerant one. Whosoever was not Hegelian was suspected even by the Prussian State. All these good gentlemen were in quest of the Absolute, and pretended that they had found it, and brought it home in their carpet-bags.’
“Kant maintainedthat human reason can only grasp the relative. ‘Error,’ cry in chorus Hegel, Schelling, Jacobi and Schleiermacher, and tutti quanti. ‘The Absolute! Why, I know it intimately; it has no secrets from me,’ and the different universities became the scenes of revolutions of the Absolute which stirred all Germany. If it were proposed to attempt to recall these illustrious maniacs to their right reason, the question was asked, ‘Do you adequately comprehend the Absolute?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then hold your tongue; you are a bad Christian and a dangerous subject. Beware of the stronghold.’ The unfortunate Beneke was so startled by this treatment that he went mad and drowned himself. Finally these great authorities quarrelled between themselves. They informed each other that they knew nothing of the Absolute. A quarrel on this subject was very often deadly. These battles resemble the discussion at Toledo between the Rabbi and the Monk in Heine’s ‘Romancero.’ After they had both lengthily discussed and quarrelled, the king said to the queen: ‘Which of the two do you think is right?’ ‘I think,’ replied the queen, ‘that they both smell equally unpleasantly.’
“This nebulous system of the Hegelian Absolute-seekers, reminding one of Nephclokokkygia, ‘the town in the clouds,’ in Aristophanes’ ‘Birds,’ has become a proverb with our French neighbors, who very rightly are fond of clearness. When anything seems to them unintelligible, they dub it as German metaphysics. Cousin did his best to clarify all this indigestible stuff, and serve it up in a palatable form. But in so doing he lost, not his Latin, but his German and his French. I am sure you never understood that ‘pure Being’ was identical with ‘no Being.’ Do you recollect Grimm’s story, ‘The Emperor’s Robe?’ A tailor condemned to death promised, in order to obtain his pardon, to make the Emperor the finest robe ever seen. He stitched, and stitched, and stitched ceaselessly, and finally announced that the robe was ready, but that it was invisible to all, save to wise people. All the servants, officers, and chamberlains of the court came to examine this work of art with the ministers and high dignitaries, and one and all pronounced it magnificent. On the coronation day the Emperor is supposed to put on the costume, and rides through the town in procession. The streets and windows are crowded; no one will admit that he has less wisdom than his neighbor, and all repeat; ‘How magnificent! Was ever anything seen so lovely?’ At last a little child calls out, ‘But the Emperor is naked,’ and it was then admitted that the robe had never existed, and the tailor was hanged.
“Schopenhauer is the child revealing the misery, or rather the non-existence of Hegelianism, and his writings were consequently unappreciated for upwards of thirty years. The first edition of his most important work found its way to the grocer’s shop and thence to the rubbish heap. It is our duty to-day to make amends for such injustice, and to render him the honor which is his due; his pessimism need not stay you. ‘The world,’ he says, ‘is full of evil, and all suffer here below. Man’s will is by nature perverse.’ Is not this doctrine the very essence of Christianity? Ingemui tomnis creatura. He maintains that our natural will is selfish and bad, but that, by an effort over itself, it may become purified and rise above its natural state to a state of grace, of holiness, of which the Church speaks, δευτἑρος πλὁυς. This is the deliverance, the Redemption, for which pious souls long, and it is to be attained by an indifference to and condemnation of the world and of self. Spernere mundum, spernere se, spernere se sperni.”[54]