they vanish. By the many, even this range, the natural limit and bulwark of the vale, is but imperfectly known. Its higher ascents are too often hidden by mists and clouds from uncultivated swamps, which few have courage or curiosity to penetrate. To the multitude below these vapors appear, now as the dark haunts of terrific agents, on which none may intrude with impunity; and now all a-glow, with colors not their own, they are gazed at as the splendid palaces of happiness and power. But in all ages there have been a few, who measuring and sounding the rivers of the vale at the feet of their furthest inaccessible falls, have learned that the sources must be far higher and far inward; a few who even in the level streams have detected elements, which neither the vale itself nor the surrounding mountains contained or could supply. How and whence to these thoughts, these strong probabilities, the ascertaining vision, the intuitive knowledge may finally supervene, can be learnt only by the fact. I might oppose to the question the words with which⭑ 3 April, 1825. If I did not see it with my own eyes, I should not believe that I had been guilty of so many hydrostatic Bulls as bellow in this unhappy allegory or string of metaphors! How a river was to travel up-hill from a vale far inward, over the intervening mountains, Morpheus, the Dream-weaver, can alone unriddle. I am ashamed and humbled. Coleridge. S. T. 4 Ennead, iii., 8, 3. The force of the Greek ovviévat is imperfectly expressed by "understand:" our own idiomatic phrase "to go along with me" comes nearest to it. The passage that follows, full of profound sense, appears to me evidently corrupt; and in fact no writer more wants, better deserves, or is less likely to obtain, a new and more correct edition: —τί οὖν συνιέναι; ὅτι τὸ γενόμενον ἐστι θέαμα ἐμὸν, σιώπησις (mallem, θέαμα, ἐμοῦ σιωπωσῆς) καὶ φύσει γενόμενον θεώρημα, καὶ μοι γενομένη ἐκ θεωρίας τῆς ὠδὶ, τὴν φύσιν ἔχειν φιλοθεάμονα ὑπάρχει (mallem, καί μοι ή γενομένη ἐκ θεωρίας αυτῆς wdis). "What then are we to understand? That whatever is produced is an intuition, I silent; and that, which is thus generated, is by its nature a theorem, or form of contemplation; and the birth, which results to me from this contemplation, attains to have a contemplative nature." So Synesius: Ωδὶς ἱερά, The after comparison of the process of the natura naturans with that of the geometrician is drawn from the very heart of philosophy, * [Hymn. Tert., v. 226. S. C.J "Should Plotinus supposes Nature to answer a similar difficulty. any one interrogate her, how she works, if graciously she vouchsafe to listen and speak, she will reply, it behoves thee not to disquiet me with interrogatories, but to understand in silence, even as I am silent, and work without words."" Likewise in the fifth book of the fifth Ennead, speaking of the highest and intuitive knowledge as distinguished from the discursive, or in the language of Wordsworth, "The vision and the faculty divine;" he says: "it is not lawful to inquire from whence it sprang, as if it were a thing subject to place and motion, for it neither approached hither, nor again departs from hence to some other place; but it either appears to us or it does not appear. So that we ought not to pursue it with a view of detecting its secret source, but to watch in quiet till it suddenly shines upon us; preparing ourselves for the blessed spectacle as the eye waits patiently for the rising sun."" They and they only can acquire the philosophic imagination, the sacred power of self-intuition, who within themselves can interpret and understand the symbol, that the wings of the air-sylph are forming within the skin of the caterpillar; those only, who feel in their own spirits the same instinct, which impels the chrysalis of the horned fly to leave room in its involucrum for antennæ yet to come. They know and feel, that the potential works in them, even as the actual works on them! In short, all the organs of sense are framed for a 5 [Καὶ εἴ τις δὲ αὐτὴν ἔροιτο τίνος ἕνε α ποιεῖ, ἐι τοῦ ἐρωτῶντος ἐθέλοι ἐπαΐειν καὶ λέγειν, εἴποι ἄν· ἐχρῆν μὲν μὴ ἐρωτᾷν, ἀλλὰ συνιέναι καὶ αὐτὸν σιωπῇ, ὥσπερ ἐγώ orwaŵ, kai ovx ɛidiopaι Xéyɛiv. Ennead., iii., 8, 3, in initio, p. 634 of Creuzer's edition. S. C.] 6 [Poet. Works, vi., p. 6. The Excursion, book i. S. C.] 7 [Ὥστε ἀπορεῖν ὅθεν ἐφίνη, ἔξωθεν ἢ ἔνδον, καὶ ἀπελθόντος εἰπεῖν, ἔνδον ἄρα ἦν καὶ οὐκ ἔνδον αὖ ἢ (οὐ δεῖ ζητεῖν, πόθεν, οὐ γὰρ ἐστι τὸ πύθεν· οὔτε γὰρ ἔρχεται, οὔτε ἄπεισιν οὐδαμοῦ, ἀλλὰ φαίνεταί τε καὶ οὐ φαίνεται· διὸ οὐ χρὴ διώκειν, ἀλλ' ἡσυχῆ μένειν, ἕως ἂν φανῇ, παρασκευάσαντα ἑαυτὸν θεατὴν εἶναι, ὥσπερ ὀφθαλμός ἀνατολὰς ἡλίου περιμένει), ὁ δὲ ὑπερφανεὶς τοῦ ὁρίζοντος, ἐξ ὠκεανοῦ φασὶν δι ποιηταὶ, Edwkev kavròv Ocáoaodai roîs öppaoiv. Enn., v., 5, 8. Ed.] P. 975 of Creuzer's edition. The parentheses note the part of the passage quoted in the text S. C.] correspondent world of sense; and we have it. All the organs of spirit are framed for a correspondent world of spirit: though the latter organs are not developed in all alike. But they exist in all, and their first appearance discloses itself in the moral being. How else could it be, that even worldlings, not wholly debased, will contemplate the man of simple and disinterested goodness with contradictory feelings of pity and respect? "Poor man! he is not made for this world." Oh! herein they utter a prophecy of universal fulfilment; for man must either rise or sink. It is the essential mark of the true philosopher to rest satisfied with no imperfect light, as long as the impossibility of attaining a fuller knowledge has not been demonstrated. That the common consciousness itself will furnish proofs by its own direction, that it is connected with master-currents below the surface, I shall merely assume as a postulate pro tempore. This having been granted, though but in expectation of the argument, I can safely deduce from it the equal truth of my former assertion, that philosophy cannot be intelligible to all, even of the most learned and cultivated classes. A system, the first principle of which it is to render the mind intuitive of the spiritual in man (i. e. of that which lies on the other side of our natural consciousness) must needs have a great obscurity for those, who have never disciplined and strengthened this ulterior consciousness. It must in truth be a land of darkness, a perfect Anti-Goshen, for men to whom the noblest treasures of their own being are reported only through the imperfect translation of lifeless and sightless motions. Perhaps, in great part, through words which are but the shadows of notions; even as the notional understanding itself is but the shadowy abstraction of living and actual truth. On the IMMEDIATE, which dwells in every man, and on the original intuition, or absolute affirmation of it (which is likewise in every man, but does not in every man rise into consciousness), all the certainty of our knowledge depends; and this becomes intelligible to no man by the ministry of mere words from without. The medium, by which spirits understand each other, is not the surrounding air; but the freedom which they possess in common, as the common ethereal element of their being, the tremulous reciprocations of which propagate themselves even to the inmost of the soul. Where the spirit of a man is not filled with the consciousness of freedom (were it only from its restlessness, as of one still struggling in bondage) all spiritual intercourse is interrupted, not only with others, but even with himself. No wonder then, that he remains incomprehensible to himself as well as to others. No wonder, that, in the fearful desert of his consciousness, he wearies himself out with empty words, to which no friendly echo answers, either from his own heart, or the heart of a fellow being; or bewilders himself in the pursuit of notional phantoms, the mere refractions from unseen and distant truths through the distorting medium of his own unenlivened and stagnant understanding! To remain unintelligible to such a mind, exclaims Schelling on a like occasion, is honor and a good name before God and man. The history of philosophy (the same writer observes) contains instances of systems, which for successive generations have remained enigmatic. Such he deems the system of Leibnitz, whom another writer (rashly I think, and invidiously) extols as the only philosopher, who was himself deeply convinced of his own doctrines. As hitherto interpreted, however, they have not produced the effect, which Leibnitz himself, in a most instruc 8 [The observations of Schelling referred to here and in the previous paragraph are as follows: "A philosophy, the first principle of which is to call forth to consciousness the spiritual in man, namely that which lies on the other side the consciousness, must needs have a great unintelligibility for those who have not exercised and strengthened this spiritual consciousness, or to whom even that in themselves, which is most excellent, is wont to appear only through dead intuitionless conceptions. The Immediate, which is in every one, and on the original intuition whereof (which" [original intuition] "likewise is in every one, but comes not in every one to consciousness), all certainty of our knowledge depends, is intelligible to no one through words, that pass into him from without. The medium through which spirits understand one another, is not the surrounding air, but the common freedom, the vibrations whereof (deren Erschütterungen) propagate themselves even to the innermost part of the soul. When the spirit of a man is not filled with the consciousness of freedom, all spiritual connexion is broken off, not only with others, but even with himself; no wonder that he remains unintelligible to himself as well as to others, and in his tive passage, describes as the criterion of a true philosophy; namely, that it would at once explain and collect the fragments of truth scattered through systems apparently the most incongruous. The truth, says he, is diffused more widely than is commonly believed; but it is oftener painted, yet oftener masked, and is sometimes mutilated and sometimes, alas! in close alliance with mischievous errors. The deeper, however, we penetrate into the ground of things, the more truth we discover in the doctrines of the greater number of the philosophical sects. The want of substantial reality in the objects of the senses, according to the sceptics; the harmonies or numbers, the prototypes and ideas, to which the Pythagoreans and Platonists reduced all things; the ONE and ALL of Parmenides and Plotinus, without fearful solitude only wearies himself with empty words, to which no friendly echo-out of his own or another's breast-replies. "To remain unintelligible to such a one is glory and honor before God and man. "The history of philosophy contains examples of systems, which, for several centuries, have remained enigmatical. A philosopher whose principles are to solve all these riddles, declares lately of Leibnitz, that he is probably the only man, in the history of philosophy, who has attained conviction, the only man, therefore, who is right at bottom. This declaration is remarkable, because it shows that the time is come for understanding Leibnitz. For, as he has been hitherto understood, he is unintelligible, however right he may be at bottom." Transl. (Abhandlungen zur Erlaüter. des Id. der Wiss.-Phil. Schrift., pp. 327-8.) S. C.] 9 This is happily effected in three lines by Synesius, in his THIRD HYMN: ‘Ev kai Ilav ́ra—(taken by itself) is Spinozism. 'Ev d'Aяаv'Twy-a mere Anima Mundi. 'Еv тε про пúνтwv-is mechanical Theism.* But unite all three, and the result is the Theism of Saint Paul and Christianity. Synesius was censured for his doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul; but never, that I can find, arraigned or deemed heretical for his Pantheism, though neither Giordano Bruno nor Jacob Behmen ever avowed it more broadly. Μύσας δὲ Νόος, Τά τε καὶ τὰ λέγει, * [Hymn. Tert., v. 10. 8. C.] |