Lecture X
The apprehending of a real object in thought, unquestionably involves an act of knowing, so long, at least, as it is no empty thought, but has a real subject-matter. It is a piece of knowledge, even though it may be as yet very incomplete, both as regards its external connection with others and its inward development, and though it be highly defective also in form and expression. It is, moreover, possible that subsequently, by an incorrect analysis or other erroneous treatment of it, its usefulness may be destroyed, itself dissolved into naught, and stripped of true vital significance. And thus by our own fault, the thought, which originally possessed a true and real object, is reduced into a mere wordy formula, conveying actually no meaning at all. In order, then, to indicate the real distinction between the two, and at the same time to guard against all possible misconception, we would define as follows the intrinsic essence of knowledge: to know is the living thought of something real. The general indefinite term, thought, which we have here employed, is the right one and the most appropriate in this place, for it comprises every kind of perceiving and understanding, of judging and comprehending, of cognition and recognition, and serves to indicate the several elements and relations or differing degrees of knowledge, and of that intuitive inward certainty which is combined and associated with it. It would be far less accurate to say that knowledge is the correct thought, instead of the living thought of a real object; although, indeed, the former is involved in and inseparable from the latter. When a thought which in any degree apprehends or comprehends a real object, is said to be incorrect, this is as much as to say that it comprises much that is not found in the object itself, and consequently does not coincide with it. But that which is not contained in the object itself is, so far as it is concerned, unreal and does not belong to it. And all such is necessarily excluded from the notion of the thought of a real object, since otherwise it would be a thinking of what is unreal. The expression, too, of an incorrect thinking of what is real, would, no doubt, point to and indicate the same fact in every case where such thinking is a thoroughly defective and incomplete knowing, if, for instance, much that is essential and is really found in the particular object were not comprised in the thought or were wanting in it. This expression, consequently, is perfectly applicable, and indeed appropriate, when we wish to speak of a complete and perfect knowledge, and to distinguish it from one that is faulty and defective. But such knowledge slowly and gradually develops itself; the notion of knowing in general must precede that of perfect knowledge. The living thought of a real object, however imperfect and incomplete it may be, contains, nevertheless, the first beginning and germ of a knowing. It is only out of a dead thought that a true knowing can never arise; properly, indeed, when it is but a mere formula, it is not even a true thinking. Knowledge, therefore, in general is the living thought of some real object; but perfect and complete knowledge is the full and correct development of this thought, by means of which it becomes perfectly defined, both outwardly and inwardly. But a real object is invariably the first foundation and beginning, from which all knowledge springs up, and to which all thought must be immediately directed and also closely attach itself.
In an older form of philosophy, the supreme, or—as it was called, not very appropriately, if all its various relations be considered—necessary Being, was usually declared to be that of which the reality was at once given in its possibility, so that the proof of its actual existence would immediately follow from the mere idea of its perfection. This, however, is but one of the many forms of expression for the absolute unity of being and knowledge. We have already expressed ourselves sufficiently at large on the general topic, and we have only adduced this particular instance to serve as a passage to our exposition of another view, in the hope of throwing out the latter more distinctly and definitely by means of the contrast.
In that method of philosophy which takes its rise in no dead and abstract thinking, but rather in life itself and the living thought, reality, together with the immediate feeling of whatever is thus real and actual in the inward perception, as well as in external experience, and also in the revelation from above, forms the first beginning out of which all is developed. This is the fixed, stable point to which all that follows attaches itself. The necessary, which comes first after this reality, is simply the inner essential and complete connection of this first data. But the possible, which is not any mere arbitrary conception and chimerical invention, but something truly, and we might almost say really possible, forms the conclusion, as that which by a natural development results from the two former—the initiatory fact and its intrinsic essentiality. This simple series or natural progression in living thought forms and constitutes in the next place the different degrees of understanding, and even the internal grades of certainty and clearness in a continuously advancing development. The foundation of the whole is formed by the feeling of a reality, the perception of a fact, existing somewhere within the limits of that triple experience which takes in an inner and an outer and also a higher world. Now, the first step in this progressive intellectual development is formed by the notion or general term, which, as I formerly explained it, is a thought or conception that is mathematically determined and precisely limited, both inwardly and outwardly, according to the three dimensions of number, measure, and weight. In it all the several elements which, taken together, form the original thought or conception of the real object, are first of all duly separated and arranged, and then again united as organic members into a regular whole, or, after the manner of geometry, brought into a construction. But this act of comprising into a general notion [Begreifen] is by no means a perfect explanation of the matter. It is not, as it were, an analysis carried out fully and completely, so that nothing still remains to be explained. For even according to the ordinary usage of speech, we may very easily form and have a notion of any system, whether purely ideal or experimental, philosophical or unphilosophical, or belonging to any other domain of science, and even of a work of art, at the same time that we are forced to admit that there is much in it that we do not understand, or which appears to us inexplicable and unintelligible. This comprehending, which externally consists in the correct marking out of the whole circumference of an object, and inwardly, in the clear division and arrangement of its several organic members, is not the complete act of understanding; it is only its first step. As such, however, it may afterward attain to an internal confirmation, and become thereby the second degree in the approach to completeness of understanding. And this it does as soon as a cognition of the error which may either possibly rise up in, about, or together with itself, or is actually combined with it, is attained, and when, consequently, a clearer recognition of the opposing truth advances the mere feeling of a something real into an intelligent feeling or judgment of inward certainty. And this is the very essence of knowing. The third step in the further development or enhancement of the first living thought, or of its progressive approach toward completeness of understanding, is formed by the idea. The idea is distinct from the notion, even in its form. Unlike the latter, it does not set forth all that, under the given conditions, necessarily and essentially belongs together. In other words, it does not give the full and complete extent of the reality which was taken up by the original feeling and perception. It rather propounds the thought of a possibility, which, in a certain and definite view or direction, appears attainable. For instance, in our present development of the inner and higher life, the notion of the consciousness was followed by the idea of science, and the question how far it is possible and within the reach of man. Even in ordinary language this distinction is observed. How often do we hear it observed, that this or that scheme is a mere idea, signifying that it is a thought whose object is a something possible, but of which the reality or realization appears at the time highly problematical. On the other hand, by the term notion, strictly taken, it is usual to understand a thought which has for its subject-matter something relatively true at least, since, otherwise there would be nothing that we could have a notion of or comprehend. And simply on this account it is not possible that the idea should contain a perfectly definite and organically articulated construction of its object. For, in fact, an idea is merely the indication, the standard, and the rule of the possible. It is simply designed to show what is to be, and in what way it can be, attained, and perhaps, also, in what law of progression its attainment will be actually realized.
However, a truly scientific and scientifically useful idea is before all things closely and essentially dependent on the foundation of an inward certainty, or a feeling and conviction that the object which forms its problem, or the problem which is its object, is really and actually attainable. Consequently, it intimately depends on the intelligent feeling or judgment as to this inward certainty and truth in knowledge.
Footnotes
1 Shakspeare. Hamlet, Act I., Scene V.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Schlegel seems to have read our, which is the reading of the folio of 1623.—Trans.
2 The νοὑς of Anaxagoras. A brief, but characteristic sketch of these earlier philosophemes is given in Thirlwall’s History of Greece, vol ii. See, also, Ritter’s History of Philosophy, vol. i—Trans.
3 Schlegel is here alluding to Condillac and his theory of transformed sensations.—Trans.
4 Kant. For a full and systematic view or modern German philosophy, see Michelet’s Geschichte d. letzten Systeme d. Phil. in Deutschland, Berlin, 1837-8. Some able and ingenious essays on its errors and abuses are to be found in Fred. Ancillon’s Essais de Philosophie, de Politique, et de Littérature.—Trans.
5 Jacobi, in his Glauben’s-Philosophie.—Trans.
6 Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre.—Trans.
7 Schelling’s Natur-Philosophie.—Trans.
8 Schlegel is alluding to those systems which suppose a primary and original essence, which, by its successive spontaneous developments, produce every thing else out of itself. This absolute original of all things was by Schelling, after Spinosa, called natura naturans, while, by a phraseology which happily indicates the identity of the self-developing subject and its objective developments, the totality of the objects derived from it are termed natura naturata.—Trans.
9 Hegel. For a view of his philosophy, see the Article Hegel, in the Penny Cyclopædia, and Morel’s Speculative Philosophy of Europe in the Nineteenth Century, vol. ii., p. 131.—Trans.
10 Schlegel is speaking of Byron, and his Cain, a Mystery.—Trans.
11 “Dein Wissen theilest du mit vorgezogenen Geistern;
Die Kunst, o Mensch, hast du allein.”
Schiller’s Kunstlehre.—Trans.
12 That by geist, spirit, and not mind merely, is here meant, will be doubted by no one who considers the scriptural basis of these Lectures. Schlegel seems to have had in view 1 Thess., v., 23. In the German geist stands both for mind and spirit, which, however, in English are equivalent neither in use nor meaning. Whenever, therefore, the translator is compelled by the English idiom to translate geist and its derivatives by mind and its cognates, and it is essential to keep in view the identity of the matter by the sameness of expression, he will indicate it by adding the German original in a bracket.
13 St. John, iii., 8.—Trans.
14 Leibnitz.—Trans.
15 It is clear from what follows, that Schlegel used the term Fancy in a wide and general sense, which embraces, first, its original use in ancient philosophy, as the faculty of conception (φαντασια), which reproduces the images of objects whether present or absent; secondly, imagination, which is essential to all authors; and thirdly, fancy, in a narrow sense—or the poetic fancy. It is in this wide sense that the translator employs it after Milton who uses it, as more extensive than imagination, when he says of fancy,
“Of all the external things
Which the five watchful senses represent,
She forms imaginations, aery shapes.”
Par. Lost, Book V.
Indeed the whole of the speech of Raphael in this fifth book contains a striking affinity of thought and idea with Schlegel. We have there man’s triple constituents, body, soul, and spirit—reason and fancy in the soul, of which reason is the being or essence—while discursive reason is appropriated to man, but intuitive reason is made the prerogative of the “purest spirits”—“the pure intelligential substances.”—Trans.
16 In the original zugetheilte, said of a matter assigned for investigation to a particular judge, or of the judge appointed to examine and report upon it.—Trans.
17 Vernunft, from Vernehmen.
18 The Rosetta stone, which led to the hieroglyphical discoveries of Young and of Champollion.—Trans.
19 “God is a loving Spirit,” page 57.—Trans.
20 Schlegel is here alluding to, and adapting to the purpose of his illustration, Acts, v., 15, 16.—Trans.
21 2 Peter, iii., 8.
22 These words were uttered scarcely twenty years ago, and now beyond Uranus, another planet, whose “vibrations have been long felt upon paper,” is added to the heavenly choir. On the other hand, if Sir Wm. Hamilton’s hopes are realized, will not the discovery of the center around which the solar system revolves establish another point of resemblance between modern astronomy and the Pythagorean system with its central fire; and, also, as Schlegel subsequently implies, that the former has yet further advances to make?—Trans.
23 Or the central fire, according to Boeckh, around which the whole planetary heavens revolve, and which is also the source of light, which being collected by the visible sun, is transmitted to the earth. By the αντἱχθν or counter-earth, whose revolution is parallel and concentric with that of the earth, Boeckh understands that half of the terrestrial globe which, as turned away from the sun, is in darkness. Sea August. Boeckh “de Platonico systemate cœlestium globorum, et de vere indole astronomiæ Philolaicæ,” or his “Philolaus,” pp. 114-136, and Ideler “Ueber d. Verhaltniss d. Copernicus zum Alterthum,” in the Museum d. Alterthumswissenschaft, Bd. ii., St. ii., § 405, &c.—Trans.
24 Romans, viii., 20.
25 Schlegel is alluding to such principles as the “Cogito ergo sum” of Des Cartes, and especially to the cognate axiom of Fichte: “Das ich setzt sich selbst.” “The Me posits or affirms itself.”—Trans.
26 Hegel.
27 Daniel, ix., 23. In our authorized translation it stands “greatly beloved,” but in the Hebrew it is as given in the margin, “a man of desires;” in the Septuagint, ἁνἡρ ἑτιθυμἱων.—Trans.
28 1 Cor., xiii., 13.
29 Theodicée, or justification of the ways of God in the world. The word originated with Leibnitz, who, in his “Essai de Theodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l’homme et l’origine du mal,” published in 1710, maintained that the existence of moral evil has its origin in the free will of the creature, while metaphysical evil is nothing but the limitation which is involved in the essence of finite beings, and that out of this both physical and moral evil naturally flow. But these finite beings are designed to attain to the utmost felicity they are capable of enjoying, which each, as a part, contributes to the perfection of the whole, which, of the many worlds that were possible, is the very best. On this account it has been called the theory of Optimism.—Trans.
30 Does not this appearance of a common character among brutes of the same species arise rather from the imperfection of our observation? Is not every sheep an individual to the shepherd?—Trans.
31 Schlegel appears to have believed in the theory of equivocal generation. But microscopic research and experiments forbid us any longer to believe that fermentative or putrefactive matter spontaneously gives birth to living creatures. Such matters do but furnish the necessary circumstances for hatching the germs or ova which are present in such immense numbers in the atmosphere. The doctrine of equivocal or spontaneous generation seems conclusively refuted by the experiment of Schulze, detailed in volume 23 of Jameson’s Journal. “I filled a glass flask half full with distilled water, in which I had mixed various vegetable and animal substances. I then closed it with a good cork, through which I passed two glass tubes, bent at right angles, the whole being air-tight. It was next placed in a sand-bath and heated until the water boiled violently, and thus all parts had reached a temperature of 212° Fahrenheit. While the watery vapor was escaping by the glass tubes, I fastened at each end an apparatus which chemists employ for collecting carbonic acid; that to the left was filled with sulphuric acid, and the other with a solution of potash. By means of the boiling heat, every thing living and all the germs in the flask or in the tubes were destroyed, and all access was cut off by the sulphuric acid on the one side, and by the potash on the other. I placed this easily-moved apparatus before my window, where it was exposed to the action of light, and also, as I performed my experiments in the summer, to that of heat. At the same time I placed near it an open vessel with the same substances that had been introduced into the flask, and also after having subjected them to a boiling temperature. In order now to renew the air constantly within the flask, I sucked with my mouth, several times a-day, the open end of the apparatus filled with solution of potash; by which process, the air entered my mouth from the flask, through the caustic liquid, and the atmospheric air from without entered the flask through the sulphuric acid. The air was, of course, not altered in its composition by passing through the sulphuric acid into the flask; but if sufficient time was allowed for the passage, all the portions of living matter, or of matter capable of becoming animated, were taken up by the sulphuric acid and destroyed. From the 28th of May until the early part of August, I continued uninterruptedly the renewal of the air in the flask, without being able, by the aid of a microscope, to perceive any living animal or vegetable substance, although, during the whole of the time, I made my observations almost daily on the edge of the liquid; and when at last I separated the different parts of the apparatus, I could not find in the whole liquid the slightest trace of Infusoria, Confervæ, or of Mold. But all the three presented themselves in a few days after I left the flask open. And the open vessel too, which I placed near the apparatus, contained on the following day, Vibriones and Monades, to which were soon added larger Polygastric Infusoria, and afterward, Rotatoria.”—Trans.
32 Although, in the case of the entozoa, the induction is not very large, still, of some of them it is an established fact that they are generated from ova, and it is therefore a fair presumption that such is the general law, and that these parasitical beings are, in every case, hatched from ova, which are every where present, but remain undeveloped until they meet with the necessary nutriment and heat for their development.—Trans.
33 Isaiah, lxv., 17.
34 In this and the following paragraph it is necessary to bear in mind that Schlegel, as a member of the Roman Catholic Church, held the doctrine of a purgatory, which the catechism of the Council of Trent describes as a fire, “in which the souls of the pious are tortured for a certain time, and expiated, that they may be qualified to enter that eternal country into which nothing enters that is unclean.” “Purgatorius ignis, quo piorum animæ ad definitum tempus cruciatæ expiantur, ut eis in æternam patriam ingressus patere possit, in quam nihil coinquinatum ingreditur.”—Cat. Conc. Trid., pars i., art. v., c. 5.—Trans.
35 Eph., vi., 12; Col., ii., 15, &c.
36 Dell’ Inferno, Canto III.
“............ quel cattivo coro
Degli angeli che non furon rebelli,
Nè fur fedeli a Dio, ma per ae foro.
Cacciarli i Ciel, per non esser men belli;
Nè lo profundo Inferno gli riceve,
Ch’ alcuna gloria i rel avrebber d’ elli.”
Thus rendered by Carey:—
“............. with that ill-band
Of angels mixed, who nor rebellious proved
Nor yet were true to God, but for themselves
Were only. From his bounds Heaven drove them,
Not to impair his luster; nor the depth
Of Hell receives them, lest th’ accursed tribe
Should glory thence with exultation vain.”
—Trans.
37 Gal., iii., 24.
38 The Gnostics and the Manichees.—Trans.
39 The Arians, with all the other rationalizing sects of Noëtus, Paul of Samosata, Sabellius, and the like.—Trans.
40 The schism of the East and West—of the Greek and Roman churches—produced by the illegal interference of the bishops of Rome, in the diocese of the Patriarch of Constantinople.—Trans.
41 Luke xxii., 38.
42 Rev., xiv., 6.
43 1 Kings, iii., 16.
44 The Apocalypse or Revelations of St. John the Divine.—Trans.
45 Matt., xxiii., 13.
46 Acts, vii., 22.
47 Schlegel is apparently alluding to the triumph of Mohammedism in Asia and Africa, and the almost total extinction of Christianity in those quarters of the world.—Trans.
48
“Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht.”
Schiller’s Ode to Resignation.
49 The following passage forcibly expresses Schlegel’s thoughts on this point:—“Les individus de l’espèce humaine s’échappent quelquefois aux suites de leurs actions, qui dans la règle doivent être regardées comme les justes châtimens des infractions faites à la loi de Dieu. Les nations ne sauraient s’y soustraire; car leur existence se prolonge et se projette dans un espace immense, où les lois eternelles trouvent leur sanction et leur entier accomplissement. C’est là que la terrible Némésis se déploie tout entière, et exerce sur le crime sa bienfaisante réaction; c’est sur la longue route que décrivent les nations que, dans sa marche lente, silencieuse, mais sûre, elle punit la licence par le despotisme, et le despotisme par l’insurrection, où par la dégénération des peuples; c’est là que l’égoisme et immoralité des peuples, la lâcheté et la faiblesse des souverains et la servilité amènent des résultats aussi terribles qu’inévitables. On peut dire d’eux: ‘Habuerent vitia opatium exemplorum.’”—Ancillon. Essais de Philosophe, de Politique, et de la Littérature, tom. ii.—Trans.
50 Voltaire.
51 In the book of Job we have a picture of this earlier and purer religion of nature, as professed by this Idumæan Gentile, while, in his vindication of himself, we read a testimony to the existence of the beginnings of idolatry in the worship of the host of heaven. xxxi., 5.—Trans.
52 This statement does not necessarily imply the Romish doctrine of transubstantiation. It is fully met in an unobjectionable sense by the Catholic tenet of the real presence.—Trans.
53 Schlegel is apparently referring to the Constituent Assembly of the French Revolution.—Trans.
54 2 Sam., xxiv., 14.
55 John, viii., 36.
56 In this and the following sentence Schlegel is alluding to Holland and Poland.—Trans.
57 The Kaiser was in theory the temporal lord of the whole earth; according to the words of the Sachsen-Spiegel, “Zwei swert liess Got in ertriche zu beschirmene dy Christenheit, dem Pabste das geistliche, den Keiser das werltliche.” “Two swords has God left to the world to protect Christianity; (having given) to the Pope the spiritual, and the temporal to the Emperor.” The claim of the Empire to universal dominion was indicated by the sword pointing to the four points of the heavens, while as the “Holy Empire” it was its duty to exterminate not only the Heathens and the Moslems, but also the false Christians, as the members of the Greek Church were regarded by the West. In the medieval constitution of the Empire, a symbolical character prevails throughout. Seven were its shields: of these the first was borne by the Emperor; the second by the spiritual Electors; the third by the temporal Princes; the fourth and fifth by the Counts and Knights of the Empire; the sixth by their vassals; and the seventh by the free burghers and peasants. Seven, also, was the original number of the Hereditary Electors of the Empire. Three spiritual Princes, the Archbishops of Mayence, Cologne, and Treves, as chancellors, respectively of the Empire, of Burgundy, and of Italy. Four temporal Electors: the Prince Palatine of the Rhine, who, as grand-carver, carried the imperial apple at the coronation; the Duke of Saxony Wittemberg, who, as marshal, carried the sword; the Margrave of Brandenburg, who, as grand-chamberlain, bore the scepter; and the King of Bohemia, who, as cupbearer, presented the cup. The election of the Emperor was held at Frankfort-on-the-Maine; the coronation at Aix; and the new Emperor held his first diet at Nuremberg.—Trans.
58 2 Tim., iv., 7.
59 The words in the bracket are not in the original. As a loyal priest of a true branch of that Church which is built on the foundation of the Apostles, the translator could not help to give currency to such a misrepresentation of it. Henry VIII. can stand on his own merits, or, rather, demerits. It seems, however, to be what Schlegel would call an historical retribution, that the universal supremacy claimed by the bishops of Rome, as it was confirmed by a Phocas, should be first shaken by a Henry VIII.—Trans.
60 Pius VII.
61 Cshatriyas. (See “Philosophy of History,” p. 146.)
62 See Philosophy of Life, p. 25.
63 See quotation from the “Die Kunstlehre” of Schiller, “Philosophy of Life,” p. 25.
64 Alexander von Humboldt.
65 The passages thus indicated were marked by Schlegel himself for revision.
66 Shakspeare. Hamlet, Act i., Scene v.
67 Philosophy of Life, p. 113.
68 St. James, c. ii., v. 5.
69 In the original the three terms are—Gewissen, Wissen, and Gewissheit.
70 The three primary vowels, according to Bopp and Grimm, are a, i, u, e and o being dipthongal compounds of ai and ao respectively. The former appears from a comparison between the Greek σφαιρα, Latin sphæra, and our sphere; or, again, from Μουσαι, Musæ, pronounced by us Musā; or from the Ionic form ης, of dat. plur. αις. To prove that au gives o, it will be sufficient from many instances to give one:—the Latin pauci, in the Spanish and Italian dialects of the Romance is poco.
The simple alphabet of ten elementary sounds may stand thus:—
| Three vowels | a, i, u. |
| Three consonants | p, t, k, or b, d, g in the mediate form, given as by Schlegel. |
| Three liquids | l, n, r. |
| Sibilant | s.—Trans. |
71 On the Hebrew alphabet, see Latham’s “The English Language,” p. 184.—Trans.
72 “Die Zeit hat Glauben nicht, noch Liebe;
Wo wäre dann die Hoffnung die ihr bleibe?”
73 The philosophy of Schelling professed to be a system of identity, and had for its basis the principle of the sameness of subject and object.—See Philosophy of Life, note, p. 20.—Trans.
74 Schlegel is here again alluding to the philosophy of Schelling.—Trans.
75 Our language can not give the etymological connection of the thoughts in this sentence. The original is: Die zweyte wäre dann ein Empfinden, nämlich das volle gewisse In sich finden einer Wahrehit.