partes captus, dum exercitationem ac usum, quo isti in civilibus rebus pollent, pro natura et magnitudine ingenii plerique accipiunt.34 "As therefore physicians are many times forced to leave such methods of curing as themselves know to be the fittest, and being overruled by the patient's impatiency, are fain to try the best they can: in like sort, considering how the case doth stand with this present age, full of tongue and weak of brain, behold we would (if our subject permitted it) yield to the stream thereof. That way we would be contented to prove our thesis, which being the worse in itself, is notwithstanding now by reason of common imbecility the fitter and likelier to be brooked." "35 If this fear could be rationally entertained in the controversial age of Hooker, under the then robust discipline of the scholastic logic, pardonably may a writer of the present times anticipate a scanty audience for abstrusest themes, and truths that can neither be communicated nor received without effort of thought, as well as patience of attention. "Che s'io non erro al calcolar de' punti, 34 [Barclay's Argenis, lib. i. Leyden, 1630, 12mo. pp. 63-4, with some omissions. The original, after assuescere labori, runs thus: et imagini Sapientiæ parere, tegere angustiores partes ingenii. Hæc neque summum hominem desiderant, et sola interdum sunt quæ in laudatis Proceribus suspicias. Ut vel abesse vitia pro virtute sit; vel non invidiosus prudentiæ rivus in Oceani famam se diffundat, dum exercitationem, &c. S. C.] 35 [Slightly altered, with omissions, from Hooker's Eccles. Polity, B. I. c. viii. s. 2. S. C.] 36 Satire di Salvator Rosa, [tom. i. p. 34. La Musica, Sat. i. 1. 10. S. C.] NOTE TO CHAPTER IX. N the preceding chapter Mr. C. speaks of Schelling's philosophy as if it had his entire approbation, and had been adopted by him in its whole extent. Yet it is certain that, soon after the composition of the B. L. he became dissatisfied with the system, considered as a fundamental and comprehensive scheme, intended to exhibit the relations of God to the World and Man. He objected to it as essentially pantheistic, though the author has positively disclaimed this reproach, and made great efforts to free his system from the appearance of deserving it. To Mr. C. however, it appeared, as originally set forth, to labour under deep deficiencies-to be radically inconsistent with a belief in God, as Himself Moral and Intelligent—as beyond and above the world—as the Supreme Mind to which the human mind owes homage and fealty-inconsistent with any just view and deep sense of the moral and spiritual being of man. The imposing grandeur of this philosophy, beheld from a distance, the narrowness into which it shrinks on a nearer view, are thus set forth by Cousin in his clear trenchant style. “ La philosophie de Schelling se recommande par l'originalité de son point de vue, la profondeur du travail, la conséquence des parties, et l'immense portée des applications. Elle rallie à une seule idée tous les êtres de la nature. Par là elle écarte les barrières qu'on avoit données à la connaissance humaine, soutenant la possibilité pour l'homme non plus seulement d'une représentation subjective, mais d'une connaissance objective et scientifique, d'une science déterminée de Dieu et des choses divines, à ce titre que l'esprit humain et la substance de l'être sont primitivement identiques. Cette philosophie embrasse le cercle entier des connaissances spéculatives," &c. Then he states the difficulties which beset the scheme, and after suggesting several root objections, he exclaims: "Quel homme enfin peut avoir la téméraire prétention de renfermer la nature de la Divinité dans l'idée de l'identité absolue?" He had previously observed, "La forme de ce système est moins scientifique en réalité qu'en apparence. Son problème étoit de déduire, par une demonstration réelle (par construction,) le fini de l'infini et de l'absolu, le particulier de l'universel. Or ce problème n'est point résolu et ne peut l'être." And he concludes"En un mot, le système tout entier n'est, à proprement parler, qu'une poésie de l'esprit humain, séduisante par son apparente facilité pour tout expliquer, et par sa manière de construire la nature." I think, as far as I am able to judge, that Mr. Coleridge's view of the system, after long reflection upon it, coincided, as to its general character and result, with that of Victor Cousin, deeply as he must have felt obliged to the author for much that it contains. During the latter part of his life he was ever applying his thoughts to the development of a philosophy which should more satisfactorily perform what Schelling's splendid scheme of modern Platonism had seemed to promise, a solution of the most important problems, which are presented to human contemplation, or at least an answer to them sufficient to set the human mind at rest. He sought to construct a system really and rationally religious; and since, in his philosophical inquiries, he "neither could nor dared throw off a strong and awful prepossession in favour"* of that great main outline of doctrine which came to us from the first in company with the highest and purest moral teaching which the world has yet seen; which was felt after, if not found, by the best and greatest minds before the preaching of the Gospel; which has been received in substance, with whatever variations of form and language, by a large portion of the civilized world ever since, and had actually been to himself the vehicle of all the light and life of the higher and deeper kind, which had been vouchsafed to him in his earthly career;-he therefore set out with the desire to construct a philosophical system in which Christianity, based on the Tri-une being of God, and embracing * This is said in regard to the Bible in the Confessions of au Inquiring Spirit, p. 8. a Primal Fall and Universal Redemption,-Christianity ideal, spiritual, eternal, but likewise and necessarily historical, realized and manifested in time,-should be shown forth as accordant, or rather as one with ideas of reason, and the demands of the spiritual and of the speculative mind, of the heart, conscience, reason, should all be satisfied and reconciled in one bond of peace. See what has been said of the labours of Mr. C.'s latter years in the Preface. I am not aware however that he, at any time, altered or set aside the doctrine of Schelling put forth in the present work on Nature and the Mind of Man, with their mutual relations; or indeed that he discovered any positive error or incompatibility with higher truth in such parts of his system as are adopted in the Biographia Literaria, and which he believed himself in the main to have anticipated. In the Table Talk he is reported to have said "The metaphysical disquisition at the end of the first volume of the Biographia Literaria is unformed and immature;—it contains the fragments of the truth, but it is not fully thought out. It is wonderful to myself to think how infinitely more profound my views now are, and yet how much clearer they are withal. The circle is completing; the idea is coming round to, and to be, the common sense.' (2nd edit. p. 308.) Some little insight into the progress of his reflections on philosophical subjects, and on the treatment of those subjects by Schelling, will perhaps be derived from his remarks on several tracts in that author's Philosophische Schriften, which I have thought it best to place at the end of the first volume. S. C. CHAPTER X. A Chapter of digression and anecdotes, as an interlude preceding that on the nature and genesis of the Imagination or Plastic Power-On pedantry and pedantic expressions-Advice to young authors respecting publication-Various anecdotes of the Author's literary life, and the progress of his opinions in Religion and Politics. SEMPLASTIC. The word is not in Johnson, nor have I met with it elsewhere." Neither have I! I constructed it myself from the Greek words, εἰς ἕν πλάττειν, to shape into one;1 because, having to convey a new sense, I thought that a new term would both aid the recollection of my meaning, and prevent its being confounded with the usual import of the word, imagination. "But this is pedantry!" Not necessarily so, I hope. If I am not misinformed, pedantry consists in the use of words unsuitable to the time, place, and company. The language of the market would be in the schools as pedantic, though it might not be reprobated by that name, as the language of the schools in the market. The mere man of the world, who insists that no other terms [Ist das Band die lebendige In-Eins-Bildung des Einen mit dem Vielen. If the bond is the living formation-into-one of the one with the many. Darlegung, pp. 61-2. Schelling also talks of the absolute, perfect In-Eins-Bildung of the Real and Ideal, toward the end of his Vorlesungem über die Methode des Academischen Studium-p. 313. S. C.] |