{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_6799/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_6799","id":"gutenberg_6799","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6799","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: German Literature","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Philosophy"],"text":"Produced by Tapio Riikonen and David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\nSCHILLER'S PHILOSOPHICAL LETTERS.\n\n\nBy Frederich Schiller\n\n\n\nCONTENTS:\n\n    PREFATORY REMARKS\n    THEOSOPHY OF JULIUS\n    ON THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE ANIMAL AND THE SPIRITUAL NATURE IN MAN\n    PHYSICAL CONNECTION\n    PHILOSOPHICAL CONNECTION\n\n\n\n\nPREFATORY REMARKS.\n\n\nThe reason passes, like the heart, through certain epochs and\ntransitions, but its development is not so often portrayed. Men seem to\nhave been satisfied with unfolding the passions in their extremes, their\naberration, and their results, without considering how closely they are\nbound up with the intellectual constitution of the individual.\nDegeneracy in morals roots in a one-sided and wavering philosophy, doubly\ndangerous, because it blinds the beclouded intellect with an appearance\nof correctness, truth, and conviction, which places it less under the\nrestraining influence of man's instinctive moral sense. On the other\nhand, an enlightened understanding ennobles the feelings,--the heart must\nbe formed by the head.\n\nThe present age has witnessed an extraordinary increase of a thinking\npublic, by the facilities afforded to the diffusion of reading; the\nformer happy resignation to ignorance begins to make way for a state of\nhalf-enlightenment, and few persons are willing to remain in the\ncondition in which their birth has placed then. Under these\ncircumstances it may not be unprofitable to call attention to certain\nperiods of the awakening and progress of the reason, to place in their\nproper light certain truths and errors, closely connected with morals,\nand calculated to be a source of happiness or misery, and, at all events,\nto point out the hidden shoals on which the reason of man has so often\nsuffered shipwreck. Rarely do we arrive at the summit of truth without\nrunning into extremes; we have frequently to exhaust the part of error,\nand even of folly, before we work our way up to the noble goal of\ntranquil wisdom.\n\nSome friends, inspired by an equal love of truth and moral beauty, who\nhave arrived at the same conviction by different roads, and who view with\nserener eye the ground over which they have travelled, have thought that\nit might be profitable to present a few of these resolutions and epochs\nof thought. They propose to represent these and certain excesses of the\ninquiring reason in the form of two young men, of unequal character,\nengaged in epistolary correspondence. The following letters are the\nbeginning of this essay.\n\nThe opinions that are offered in these letters can only be true and false\nrelatively, and in the form in which the world is mirrored in the soul of\nthe correspondent, and of him only. But the course of the correspondence\nwill show that the one-sided, often exaggerated and contradictory\nopinions at length issue in a general, purified, and well-established\ntruth.\n\nScepticism and free-thinking are the feverish paroxysms of the human\nmind, and must needs at length confirm the health of well-organized souls\nby the unnatural convulsion which they occasion. In proportion to the\ndazzling and seducing nature of error will be the greatness of the\ntriumphs of truth: the demand for conviction and firm belief will be\nstrong and pressing in proportion to the torment occasioned by the pangs\nof doubt. But doubt was necessary to elicit these errors; the knowledge\nof the disease had to precede its cure. Truth suffers no loss if a\nvehement youth fails in finding it, in the same way that virtue and\nreligion suffer no detriment if a criminal denies them.\n\nIt was necessary to offer these prefatory remarks to throw a proper light\non the point of view from which the following correspondence has to be\nread and judged.\n\n\n\n\nLETTER I.\n\n\nJulius to Raphael.                  October.\n\nYou are gone, Raphael--and the beauty of nature departs: the sere and\nyellow leaves fall from the trees, while a thick autumn fog hangs\nsuspended like a bier over the lifeless fields. Solitary, I wander\nthrough the melancholy country. I call aloud your name, and am irritated\nthat my Raphael does not answer me.\n\nI had received your last embrace. The mournful sound of the carriage\nwheels that bore you away had at length died upon my ear. In happier\nmoments I had just succeeded in raising a tumulus over the joys of the\npast, but now again you stand up before me, as your departed spirit, in\nthese regions, and you accompany me to each favorite haunt and pleasant\nwalk. These rocks I have climbed by your side: by your side have my eyes\nwandered over this immense landscape. In the dark sanctuary of this\nbeech-grove we first conceived the bold ideal of our friendship. It was\nhere that we unfolded the genealogical tree of the soul, and that we\nfound that Julius was so closely related to Raphael. Not a spring, not a\nthicket, or a hill exists in this region where some memory of departed\nhappiness does not come to destroy my repose. All things combine to\nprevent my recovery. Wherever I go, I repeat the painful scene of our\nseparation.\n\nWhat have you done to me, Raphael? What am I become? Man of dangerous\npower! would that I had never known or never lost you! Hasten back; come\non the wings of friendship, or the tender plant, your nursling, shall\nhave perished. How could you, endowed with such tender feelings, venture\nto leave the work you had begun, but still so incomplete. The\nfoundations that your proud wisdom tried to establish in my brain and\nheart are tottering; all the splendid palaces which you erected are\ncrumbling, and the worm crushed to earth is writhing under the ruins.\n\nHappy, heavenly time, when I groped through life, with bandaged eyes,\nlike a drunken man,--when all my knowledge and my wishes were confined\nto the narrow horizon of my childhood's teachings! Blessed time, when\na cheerful sunset raised no higher aspiration in my soul than the wish\nof a fine day on the morrow; when nothing reminded me of the world save\nthe newspaper; nothing spoke of eternity save the passing bell; only\nghost-stories brought to mind the thought of death and judgment; when I\ntrembled at the thought of the devil, and was proportionately drawn to\nthe Godhead! I felt and was happy. Raphael has taught me to think I am\non the way to regret that I was ever created.\n\nCreation? No, that is only a sound lacking all meaning, which my reason\ncannot receive. There was a time when I knew nothing, when no one knew\nme: accordingly, it is usual to say, I was not. That time is past:\ntherefore it is usual to say that I was created. But also of the\nmillions who existed centuries ago nothing more is now known, and yet men\nare wont to say, they are. On what do we found the right to grant the\nbeginning and to deny the end? It is assumed that the cessation of\nthinking beings contradicts Infinite Goodness. Did, then, Infinite\nGoodness cone first into being at the creation of the world? If there\nwas a period when there were no spirits, Infinite Goodness must have been\nimperative for a whole eternity. If the fabric of the universe is a\nperfection of the Creator, He, therefore, lacked a perfection before the\ncreation of the world. But an assumption like this contradicts the idea\nof perfect goodness, therefore there is no creation. To what have I\narrived, Raphael? Terrible fallacy of my conclusions! I give up the\nCreator as soon as I believe in a God. Wherefore do I require a God, if\nI suffice without the Creator?\n\nYou have robbed me of the thought that gave me peace. You have taught me\nto despise where I prayed before. A thousand things were venerable in my\nsight till your dismal wisdom stripped off the veil from them. I saw a\ncrowd of people streaming to church, I heard their enthusiastic devotion\npoured forth in a common act of prayer and praise; twice did I stand\nbeside a deathbed, and saw--wonderful power of religion!--the hope of\nheaven triumphant over the terror of annihilation, and the serene light\nof joy beaming from the eyes of those departing.\n\n\"Surely that doctrine must be divine,\" I exclaimed, \"which is\nacknowledged by the best among men, which triumphs and comforts so\nwondrously!\" Your cold-blooded wisdom extinguished my enthusiasm. You\naffirmed that an equal number of devotees streamed formerly round the\nIrmensaeule and to Jupiter's temple; an equal number of votaries, with\nlike exultation, ascended the stake kindled in honor of Brahma. \"Can the\nvery feeling,\" you added, \"which you found so detestable in heathenism\nprove the truth of your doctrine?\"\n\nYou proceeded to say: \"Trust nothing but your own reason. There is\nnothing holy, save truth.\" I have obeyed you: I have sacrificed all my\nopinions, I have set fire to all my ships when I landed on this island,\nand I have destroyed all my hopes of return. Never can I become\nreconciled to a doctrine which I joyfully welcomed once. My reason is\nnow all to me--my only warrant for God, virtue, and immortality. Woe to\nme if I catch this, my only witness, in a contradiction! if my esteem for\nits conclusions diminishes! if a broken vessel in my brain diverts its\naction! My happiness is henceforth intrusted to the harmonious action of\nmy sensorium: woe to me if the strings of this instrument give a false\nnote in the critical moments of my life--if my convictions vary with my\npulsations!\n\n\n\n\nLETTER II.\n\n\nJulius to Raphael.\n\nYour doctrine has flattered my pride. I was a prisoner: you have led me\nout into the daylight; the golden shimmer and the measureless vault have\nenraptured my eye. Formerly, I was satisfied with the modest reputation\nof being a good son of my father's house, a friend of my friends, a\nuseful member of society. You have changed me into a citizen of the\nuniverse. At that time my wishes had not aspired to infringe on the\nrights of the great: I tolerated these fortunate people because beggars\ntolerated me. I did not blush to envy a part of the human race, because\nthere was a still larger part of humanity that I was obliged to pity.\nMeeting you, I learned for the first time that my claims on enjoyment\nwere as well founded as those of my brethren. Now, for the first time, I\nlearned that, raised one stratum above this atmosphere, I weighed just as\nmuch and as little as the rulers of this world. Raphael severed all\nbonds of agreement and of opinion. I felt myself quite free; for reason,\nas Raphael declared, is the only monarchy in the world of spirits, and I\ncarried my imperial throne in my brain. All things in heaven and earth\nhave no value, no estimation, except that which my reason grants them.\nThe whole creation is mine, for I possess an irresistible omnipotence,\nand am empowered to enjoy it fully. All spirits--one degree below the\nmost perfect Spirit--are my brethren, because we all obey one rule, and\ndo homage to one supremacy.\n\nHow magnificent and sublime this announcement sounds! What a field for\nmy thirst of knowledge! But--unlucky contradiction of nature--this free\nand soaring spirit is woven together with the rigid, immovable clockwork\nof a mortal body, mixed up with its little necessities, and yoked to its\nfate--this god is banished into a world of worms. The immense space of\nnature is opened to his research, but he cannot think two ideas at the\nsame time. With his eyes he reaches up to the sunny focus of the\nGodhead, but he himself is obliged to creep after Him slowly and wearily\nthrough the elements of time. To absorb one enjoyment he must give up\nall others: two unlimited desires are too great for his little heart.\nEvery fresh joy costs him the sum of all previous joys. The present\nmoment is the sepulchre of all that went before it. An idyllic hour of\nlove is an intermittent pulsation of friendship.\n\nWherever I look, Raphael, how limited man appears! How great the\ndistance between his aims and their fulfilment!--yet do not begrudge him\nhis soothing slumber. Wake him not! He was so happy before he began to\ninquire whither he was to go and whence he came! Reason is a torch in a\nprison. The prisoner knew nothing of the light, but a dream of freedom\nappeared over him like a flash in the night which leaves the darkness\ndeeper than before. Our philosophy is the unhappy curiosity of Oedipus,\nwho did not cease to inquire till the dreadful oracle was unravelled.\nMayest thou never learn who thou art!\n\nDoes your wisdom replace what it has set aside? If you had no key to\nopen heaven, why did you lead me away from earth? If you knew beforehand\nthat the way to wisdom leads through the frightful abyss of doubt, why\ndid you venture the innocence of your friend Julius on this desperate\nthrow?--\n\n   If to the good, which I propose to do,\n   Something very bad borders far too near,\n   I prefer not to do this good.\n\nYou have pulled down a shelter that was inhabited, and founded a splendid\nbut lifeless palace on the spot.\n\nRaphael, I claim my soul from you! I am unhappy. My courage is gone. I\ndespair of my own strength. Write to me soon!--your healing hand alone\ncan pour balm on my burning wounds.\n\n\n\n\nLETTER III.\n\n\nRaphael to Julius.\n\nJulius, happiness such as ours, if unbroken, would be too much for human\nlot. This thought often haunted me even in the full enjoyment of our\nfriendship. This thought, then darkening our happiness, was a salutary\nforetaste, intended to mitigate the pain of my present position.\nHardened in the stern school of resignation, I am still more susceptible\nof the comfort of seeing in our separation a slight sacrifice whose merit\nmay win from fate the reward of our future reunion. You did not yet know\nwhat privation was. You suffer for the first time.\n\nAnd yet it is perhaps an advantage for you that I have been torn from you\nexactly at this time. You have to endure a malady, from which you can\nonly perfectly recover by your own energy, so as not to suffer a relapse.\nThe more deserted you feel, the more you will stir up all healing power\nin yourself, and in proportion as you derive little or no benefit from\ntemporary and deceptive palliatives, the more certainly will you succeed\nin eradicating the evil fundamentally.\n\nI do not repent that I roused you from your dream, though your present\nposition is painful. I have done nothing more than hasten a crisis,\nwhich every soul like yours has sooner or later to pass through, and\nwhere the essential thing is, at what time of life it is endured. There\nare times and seasons when it is terrible to doubt truth and virtue. Woe\nto the man who has to fight through the quibbles of a self-sufficient\nreason while he is immersed in the storms of the passions. I have felt\nin its fulness all that is expressed by this, and, to preserve you from\nsimilar troubles I could devise no means but to ward off the pestilence\nby timely inoculation.\n\nNor could I, my dear Julius, choose a more propitious time? I met you in\nthe full and glorious bloom of youthful intelligence and bodily vigor,\nbefore you had been oppressed by care or enchained by passion; fully\nprepared, in your freedom and strength, to stand the great fight, of\nwhich a sublime tranquillity, produced by conviction, is the prize.\nTruth and error had not yet been interwoven with your interests. Your\nenjoyments and virtues were independent of both. You required no images\nof terror to tear you from low dissipation. The feeling for nobler joys\nhad made these odious to you. You were good from instinct and from\nunconsecrated moral grace. I had nothing to fear for your morality, if a\nbuilding crumbled down on which it was not founded. Nor do your\nanxieties alarm me, though you may conjure up many dark anticipations in\nyour melancholy mood. I know you better, Julius!\n\nYou are ungrateful, too! You despise the reason, and forget what joys it\nhas procured you. Though you might have escaped the dangers of doubt all\nyour life, still it was my duty not to deprive you of the pleasures which\nyou were capable of enjoying. The height at which you were was not\nworthy of you. The way up which you climbed gave you compensation for\nall of which I deprived you. I still recall the delight--with what\ndelight you blessed the moment when the bandage dropped from your eyes!\nThe warmth with which you grasped the truth possibly may have led your\nall-devouring imagination to an abyss at sight of which you draw back\nshuddering.\n\nI must follow the course of your inquiries to discover the sources of\nyour complaints. You have written down the results of your thoughts:\nsend me these papers and then I will answer you.\n\n\n\n\nLETTER IV.\n\n\nJulius to Raphael.\n\nI have been looking over my papers this morning. Among them I have found\na lost memorandum written down in those happy hours when I was inspired\nwith a proud enthusiasm. But on looking over it how different seem all\nthe things treated of! My former views look like the gloomy boarding of\na playhouse when the lights have been removed. My heart sought a\nphilosophy, and imagination substituted her dreams. I took the warmest\nfor the truest coloring.\n\nI seek for the laws of spirits--I soar up to the infinite, but I forget\nto prove that they really exist. A bold attack of materialism overthrows\nmy creation.\n\nYou will read through this fragment, my dear Raphael. Would that you\ncould succeed in kindling once again the extinct flames of my enthusiasm,\nto reconcile me again to my genius! but my pride has sunk so low that\neven Raphael's friendly hand can hardly raise me up again.\n\n\n\nTHEOSOPHY OF JULILTS.\n\n\nTHE WORLD AND THE THINKING BEING.\n\nThe universe is a thought of God. After this ideal thought-fabric passed\nout into reality, and the new-born world fulfilled the plan of its\nCreator--permit me to use this human simile--the first duty of all\nthinking beings has been to retrace the original design in this great\nreality; to find the principle in the mechanism, the unity in the\ncompound, the law in the phenomenon, and to pass back from the structure\nto its primitive foundation. Accordingly to me there is only one\nappearance in nature--the thinking being. The great compound called the\nworld is only remarkable to me because it is present to shadow forth\nsymbolically the manifold expressions of that being. All in me and out\nof me is only the hieroglyph of a power which is like to me. The laws of\nnature are the cyphers which the thinking mind adds on to make itself\nunderstandable to intelligence--the alphabet by means of which all\nspirits communicate with the most perfect Spirit and with one another.\nHarmony, truth, order, beauty, excellence, give me joy, because they\ntransport me into the active state of their author, of their possessor,\nbecause they betray the presence of a rational and feeling Being, and let\nme perceive my relationship with that Being. A new experience in this\nkingdom of truth: gravitation, the circulation of the blood, the natural\nsystem of Linnaeus, correspond essentially in my mind to the discovery of\nan antique dug up at Herculaneum--they are both only the reflections of\none spirit, a renewed acquaintance with a being like myself. I speak\nwith the Eternal through the instrument of nature,--through the world's\nhistory: I read the soul of the artist in his Apollo.\n\nIf you wish to be convinced, my clear Raphael, look back. Each state of\nthe human mind has some parable in the physical creation by which it is\nshadowed forth; nor is it only artists and poets, but even the most\nabstract thinkers that have drawn from this source. Lively activity we\nname fire; time is a stream that rolls on, sweeping all before it;\neternity is a circle; a mystery is hid in midnight gloom, and truth\ndwells in the sun. Nay, I begin to believe that even the future destiny\nof the human race is prefigured in the dark oracular utterances of bodily\ncreation. Each coming spring, forcing the sprouts of plants out of the\nearth, gives me explanations of the awful riddle of death, and\ncontradicts my anxious fears about an everlasting sleep. The swallow\nthat we find stiffened in winter, and see waking up to life after; the\ndead grub coming to life again as the butterfly and rising into the\nair,--all these give excellent pictures of our immortality.\n\nHow strange all seems to me now, Raphael! Now all seems peopled round\nabout me. To me there is no solitude in nature. Wherever I see a body I\nanticipate a spirit. Wherever I trace movement I infer thought.\n\nWhere no dead lie buried, where no resurrection will be, Omnipotence\nspeaks to me this through His works, and thus I understand the doctrine\nof the omnipresence of God.\n\n\nIDEA.\n\nAll spirits are attracted by perfection. There may be deviations, but\nthere is no exception to this, for all strive after the condition of the\nhighest and freest exercise of their powers; all possess the common\ninstinct of extending their sphere of action; of drawing all, and\ncentring all in themselves; of appropriating all that is good, all that\nis acknowledged as charming and excellent. When the beautiful, the true,\nand the excellent are once seen, they are immediately grasped at. A\ncondition once perceived by us, we enter into it immediately. At the\nmoment when we think of them, we become possessors of a virtue, authors\nof an action, discoverers of a truth, possessors of a happiness. We\nourselves become the object perceived. Let no ambiguous smile from you,\ndear Raphael, disconcert me here,--this assumption is the basis on which\nI found all that follows, and we must be agreed before I take courage to\ncomplete the structure.\n\nHis inner feeling or innate consciousness tells every man almost the same\nthing. For example, when we admire an act of magnanimity, of bravery and\nwisdom, does not a secret feeling spring up in our heart that we are\ncapable of doing the same? Does not the rush of blood coloring our\ncheeks on hearing narratives of this kind proclaim that our modesty\ntrembles at the admiration called forth by such acts? that we are\nconfused at the praise which this ennobling of our nature must call down\nupon us? Even our body at such moments agrees with the attitude of the\nman, and shows clearly that our soul has passed into the state we admire.\nIf you were ever present, Raphael, when a great event was related to a\nlarge assembly, did you not see how the relater waited for the incense of\npraise, how he devoured it, though it was given to the hero of his\nstory,--and if you were ever a relater did you not trace how your heart\nwas subject to this pleasing deception? You have had examples, my dear\nRaphael, of how easily I can wrangle with my best friend respecting the\nreading aloud of a pleasing anecdote or of a beautiful poem, and my heart\ntold me truly on these occasions that I was only displeased at your\ncarrying off the laurels because these passed from the head of author to\nthat of the reader. A quick and deep artistic appreciation of virtue is\njustly held to be a great aptitude for virtue, in the same way as it is\nusual to have no scruple in distrusting the heart of a man whose\nintelligence is slow to take in moral beauty.\n\nYou need not advance as an objection that, frequently, coupled with a\nlively perception of a perfection, the opposite failing is found to\ncoexist, that evil-doers are often possessed with strong enthusiasm for\nwhat is excellent, and that even the weak flame up into enthusiasm of\nherculean growth. I know, for example, that our admired Haller, who\nunmasked in so manly a spirit the sickly nothingness of vain honors; a\nman whose philosophical greatness I so highly appreciated, that he was\nnot great enough to despise the still greater vanity of an order of\nknighthood, which conferred an injury on his greatness. I am convinced\nthat in the happy moment of their ideal conceptions, the artist, the\nphilosopher, and the poet are really the great and good man whose image\nthey throw out; but with many this ennobling of the mind is only an\nunnatural condition occasioned by a more active stirring of the blood, or\na more rapid vibration of the fancy: it is accordingly very transient,\nlike every other enchantment, disappearing rapidly and leaving the heart\nmore exhausted than before, and delivered over to the despotic caprice of\nlow passions. I expressly said more exhausted than before, for universal\nexperience teaches that a relapsing criminal is always the most furious,\nand that the renegades of virtue seek additional sweets in the arms of\ncrime to compensate for the heavy pressure of repentance.\n\nI wished to establish, my Raphael, that it is our own condition, when we\nfeel that of another, that perfection becomes ours for the moment during\nwhich we raise in ourselves the representation of it; that the delight we\ntake in truth, beauty, and virtue shows itself when closely analyzed to\nbe the consciousness of our individual ennobling and enriching; and I\nthink I have proved this.\n\nWe have ideas of the wisdom of the highest Being, of His goodness, of His\njustice, but none of His omnipotence. To describe His omnipotence, we\nhelp ourselves by the graduated representation of three successions:\nNothing, His Will, and Something. It is waste and empty; God calls on\nlight; and there is light. If we had a real idea of His operative\nomnipotence we should be creators, as He.\n\nAccordingly, every perfection which I perceive becomes my own; it gives\nme joy, because it is my own; I desire it, because I love myself.\nPerfection in nature is no property of matter, but of spirits. All\nspirits are happy through their perfection. I desire the happiness of\nall souls, because I love myself. The happiness which I represent to\nmyself becomes my happiness; accordingly I am interested in awakening\nthese representations, to realize them, to exalt them; I am interested in\ndiffusing happiness around me. Whenever I produce beauty, excellence, or\nenjoyment beyond myself, I produce myself; when I neglect or destroy\nanything, I neglect, I destroy myself. I desire the happiness of others,\nbecause I desire my own; and the desire of the happiness of others we\ncall benevolence and love.\n\n\nLOVE.\n\nNow, my most worthy Raphael, let me look round. The height has been\nascended, the mist is dissipated; I stand in the midst of immensity, as\nin the middle of a glowing landscape. A purer ray of sunlight has\nclarified all my thoughts. Love is the noblest phenomenon in the world\nof souls, the all-powerful magnet in the spiritual sphere, the source of\ndevotion and of the sublimest virtue. Yet love is only the reflection of\nthis single original power, an attraction of the excellent, based upon an\ninstantaneous permutation of individuality, an interchange of being.\n\nWhen I hate, I take something from myself; when I love, I become richer\nby what I love. To pardon is to recover a property that has been lost.\nMisanthropy is a protracted suicide: egotism is the supremest poverty of\na created being.\n\nWhen Raphael tore himself from my embrace my soul was rent in twain, and\nI weep over the loss of my nobler half. On that holy evening--you must\nremember it--when our souls first communed together in ardent sympathy,\nall your great emotions became my own, and I only entered into my\nunvarying right of property over your excellence; I was prouder to love\nyou than to be loved by you, for my own affection had changed me into\nRaphael.\n\n   Was it not this almighty instinct\n   That forced our hearts to meet\n   In the eternal bond of love?\n   Raphael! enraptured, resting on your arm,\n   I venture, joyful, the march towards perfection,\n   That leadeth to the spiritual sun.\n\n   Happy! happy! I have found thee,\n   Have secured thee 'midst millions,\n   And of all this multitude thou art mine!\n   Let the wild chaos return;\n   Let it cast adrift the atoms!\n   Forever our hearts fly to meet each other.\n\n   Must I not draw reflections of my ecstasy\n   From thy radiant, ardent eyes?\n   In thee alone do I wonder at myself.\n   The earth in brighter tints appears,\n   Heaven itself shines in more glowing light,\n   Seen through the soul and action of my friend.\n\n   Sorrow drops the load of tears;\n   Soothed, it rests from passion's storms,\n   Nursed upon the breast of love.\n   Nay, delight grows torment, and seeks\n   My Raphael, basking in thy soul,\n   Sweetest sepulchre! impatiently.\n\n   If I alone stood in the great All of things,\n   Dreamed I of souls in the very rocks,\n   And, embracing, I would have kissed them.\n   I would have sighed my complaints into the air;\n   The chasms would have answered me.\n   O fool! sweet sympathy was every joy to me.\n\nLove does not exist between monotonous souls, giving out the same tone;\nit is found between harmonious souls. With pleasure I find again my\nfeelings in the mirror of yours, but with more ardent longing I devour\nthe higher emotions that are wanting in me. Friendship and love are led\nby one common rule. The gentle Desdemona loves Othello for the dangers\nthrough which he has passed; the manly Othello loves her for the tears\nthat she shed hearing of his troubles.\n\nThere are moments in life when we are impelled to press to our heart\nevery flower, every remote star, each worm, and the sublimest spirit we\ncan think of. We are impelled to embrace them, and all nature, in the\narms of our affection, as things most loved. You understand me, Raphael.\nA man who has advanced so far as to read off all the beauty, greatness,\nand excellence in the great and small of nature, and to find the great\nunity for this manifold variety, has advanced much nearer to the\nDivinity. The great creation flows into his personality. If each man\nloved all men, each individual would possess the whole world.\n\nI fear that the philosophy of our time contradicts this doctrine. Many\nof our thinking brains have undertaken to drive out by mockery this\nheavenly instinct from the human soul, to efface the effigy of Deity in\nthe soul, and to dissolve this energy, this noble enthusiasm, in the\ncold, killing breath of a pusillanimous indifference. Under the slavish\ninfluence of their own unworthiness they have entered into terms with\nself-interest, the dangerous foe of benevolence; they have done this to\nexplain a phenomenon which was too godlike for their narrow hearts. They\nhave spun their comfortless doctrine out of a miserable egotism, and they\nhave made their own limits the measure of the Creator; degenerate slaves\ndecrying freedom amidst the rattle of their own chains. Swift, who\nexaggerated the follies of men till he covered the whole race with\ninfamy, and wrote at length his own name on the gallows which he had\nerected for it--even Swift could not inflict such deadly wounds on human\nnature as these dangerous thinkers, who, laying great claim to\npenetration, adorn their system with all the specious appearance of art,\nand strengthen it with all the arguments of self-interest.\n\nWhy should the whole species suffer for the shortcomings of a few\nmembers?\n\nI admit freely that I believe in the existence of a disinterested love.\nI am lost if I do not exist; I give up the Deity, immortality, and\nvirtue. I have no remaining proof of these hopes if I cease to believe\nin love. A spirit that loves itself alone is an atom giving out a spark\nin the immeasurable waste of space.\n\n\nSACRIFICE.\n\nBut love has produced effects that seem to contradict its nature.\n\nIt can be conceived that I increase my own happiness by a sacrifice which\nI offer for the happiness of others; but suppose this sacrifice is my\nlife? History has examples of this kind of sacrifice, and I feel most\nvividly that it would cost me nothing to die in order to save Raphael.\nHow is it possible that we can hold death to be a means of increasing the\nsum of our enjoyments? How can the cessation of my being be reconciled\nwith the enriching of my being?\n\nThe assumption of immortality removes this contradiction; but it also\ndisplaces the supreme gracefulness of this act of sacrifice. The\nconsideration of a future reward excludes love. There must be a virtue\nwhich even without the belief in immortality, even at the peril of\nannihilation, suffices to carry out this sacrifice.\n\nI grant it is ennobling to the human soul to sacrifice present enjoyment\nfor a future eternal good; it is the noblest degree of egotism; but\negotism and love separate humanity into two very unlike races, whose\nlimits are never confounded.\n\nEgotism erects its centre in itself; love places it out of itself in the\naxis of the universal whole. Love aims at unity, egotism at solitude.\nLove is the citizen ruler of a flourishing republic, egotism is a despot\nin a devastated creation. Egotism sows for gratitude, love for the\nungrateful. Love gives, egotism lends; and love does this before the\nthrone of judicial truth, indifferent if for the enjoyment of the\nfollowing moment, or with the view to a martyr's crown--indifferent\nwhether the reward is in this life or in the next.\n\nThink, O Raphael, of a truth that benefits the whole human race to remote\nages; add that this truth condemns its confessor to death; that this\ntruth can only be proved and believed if he dies. Conceive this man\ngifted with the clear all-embracing and illumining eye of genius, with\nthe flaming torch of enthusiasm, with all the sublime adaptations for\nlove; let the grand ideal of this great effect be presented to his soul;\nlet him have only an obscure anticipation of all the happy beings he will\nmake; let the present and future crowd at the same time into his soul;\nand then answer me,--does this man require to be referred to a future\nlife?\n\nThe sum of all these emotions will become confounded with his\npersonality; will flow together in his personal identity, his I or Ego.\nThe human race he is thinking of is himself. It is a body, in which his\nlife swims forgotten like a blood-drop, forgotten, but essential to the\nwelfare of the economy; and how quickly and readily he will shed it to\nsecure his health.\n\n\nGOD.\n\nAll perfections in the universe are united in God. God and nature are\ntwo magnitudes which are quite alike. The whole sum of harmonic activity\nwhich exists together in the divine substance, is in nature the antitype\nof this substance, united to incalculable degrees, and measures, and\nsteps. If I may be allowed this expressive imagery, nature is an\ninfinitely divided God.\n\nJust as in the prism a white ray of light is split up into seven darker\nshades of color, so the divine personality or Ego has been broken into\ncountless susceptible substances. As seven darker shades melt together\nin one clear pencil of light, out of the union of all these substances a\ndivine being would issue. The existing form of nature's fabric is the\noptical glass, and all the activities of spirits are only an endless play\nof colors of that simple divine ray. If it pleased Omnipotence some day\nto break up this prism, the barrier between it and the world would fall\ndown, all spirits would be absorbed in one infinite spirit, all accords\nwould flow together in one common harmony, all streams would find their\nend in the ocean.\n\nThe bodily form of nature came to pass through the attractive force of\nthe elements. The attraction of spirits, varied and developed\ninfinitely, would at length lead to the cessation of that separation (or\nmay I venture the expression) would produce God. An attraction of this\nkind is love.\n\nAccordingly, my dear Raphael, love is the ladder by which we climb up to\nlikeness to God. Unconsciously to ourselves, without laying claim to it,\nwe aim at this.\n\n   Lifeless masses are we, when we hate;\n   Gods, when we cling; in love to one another,\n   Rejoicing in the gentle bond of love.\n   Upwards this divinest impulse holdeth sway\n   Through the thousandfold degrees of creation\n   Of countless spirits who did not create.\n\n   Arm-in-arm, higher and still higher,\n   From the savage to the Grecian seer,\n   Who is linked to the last seraph of the ring,\n   We turn, of one mind, in the same magic dance,\n   Till measure, and e'en time itself,\n   Sink at death in the boundless, glowing sea.\n\n   Friendless was the great world's blaster;\n   And feeling this, he made the spirit world\n   Blessed mirrors of his own blessedness!\n   And though the Highest found no equal,\n   Yet infinitude foams upward unto Him\n   From the vast basin of creation's realm.\n\nLove is, Raphael, the great secret that can restore the dishonored king\nof gold from the flat, unprofitable chalk; that can save the eternal from\nthe temporal and transient, and the great oracle of duration from the\nconsuming conflagration of time.\n\nWhat does all that has been said amount to?\n\nIf we perceive excellence, it is ours. Let us become intimate with the\nhigh ideal unit, and we shall be drawn to one another in brotherly love.\nIf we plant beauty and joy we shall reap beauty and joy. If we think\nclearly we shall love ardently. \"Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven\nis perfect,\" says the Founder of our Faith. Weak human nature turned\npale at this command, therefore He explained himself in clearer terms:\n\"Love one another!\"\n\n   Wisdom, with thy sunlike look,\n   Awful goddess! turn thee back,\n    And give way to Love;\n   Who before thee went, with hero heart,\n   Up the steep and stormy path\n   To the Godhead's very throne;\n   Who, unveiling the Holiest,\n   Showed to thee Elysium\n   Through the vaulted sepulchre.\n    Did it not invite us in?\n   Could we reach immortality--\n   Or could we seek the spirit\n   Without Love, the spirit's master?\n   Love, Love leadeth only to Nature's Father,\n    Only love the spirits.\n\nI have now given you, Raphael, my spirit's confession of faith--a flying\noutline of the creation I have undertaken. As you may perceive, the seed\nwhich you scattered in my soul took root. Mock, or rejoice, or blush at\nyour scholar, as you please. Certain it is this philosophy has ennobled\nmy heart, and extended and beautified the perspective of my life. It is\npossible, my excellent friend, that the entire structure of my\nconclusions may have been a baseless and visionary edifice. Perhaps the\nworld, as I depicted it, nowhere exists, save in the brain of your\nJulius. Perhaps, after the lapse of thousands on thousands of years,\nwhen the wiser Judge promised in the future, sits on the judgment-seat,\nat the sight of the true original, filled with confusion, I should tear\nin pieces my schoolboy's design. All this may happen--I expect it; and\neven if not a vestige of reality is found in my dream, the reality will\nfill me with proportionately greater delight and wonder. Ought my ideas\nto be more beautiful than those of the Creator? How so? Could we\ntolerate that His exalted artistic structure should fall beneath the\nexpectations of a mortal connoisseur? This is exactly the fiery\nprobation of His great perfection, and the sweetest triumph for the\nExalted Spirit, that false conclusions and deception do not injure His\nacknowledgment; that all tortuous deviations of the wandering reason at\nlength strike into the straight road of everlasting truth; that all\ndiverging arms and currents ultimately meet in the main stream. What an\nidea, Raphael, I form of the Great Artist, who, differently travestied in\na thousand copies, still retains identical features in all this\ndiversity, from which even the depreciating hand of a blunderer cannot\nremove admiration.\n\nMoreover, my representation may certainly be fallacious, wholly an\ninvention,--nay, I am persuaded that it must necessarily be so; and yet\nit is possible that all results of this may come to pass. All great\nsages are agreed that our whole knowledge moves on ultimately to a\nconventional deception, with which, however, the strictest truth can\nco-exist. Our purest ideas are by no means images of things, but only\ntheir signs or symbols determined by necessity, and co-existing with\nthem.\n\nNeither God, nor the human soul, nor the world are really what we\nconsider them. Our thoughts of these are only the endemic forms in which\nthe planet we inhabit hands them to us. Our brain belongs to this\nplanet; accordingly, also, the idioms of our ideas, which are treasured\nup in it. But the power of the soul is peculiar, necessary, and always\nconsistent: the capricious nature of the materials through which it finds\nexpression changes nothing in the eternal laws, as long as this\ncapriciousness does not stand in contradiction with itself, and so long\nas the sign remains true to the thing it designates. As the thinking\npower develops the relations of the idioms, these relations of things\nmust also really be present in them. Therefore, truth is no property of\nthe idioms, but of the conclusion; it is not the likeness of the sign\nwith the thing signified, of the conception with the object; but the\nagreement of this conception with the laws of thought. In a similar\nmanner, the doctrine of quantity makes use of cyphers which are nowhere\npresent, except upon paper, and yet it finds with them what is present in\nthe world of reality. For example, what resemblance is there between the\nletters A and B, the signs : and =, +, and -, and the fact that has to be\nascertained? Yet the comet, foretold centuries before, advances from a\nremote corner of the heavens and the expected planet eclipses the disk\nat the proper time. Trusting to the infallibility of his calculation,\nthe discoverer Columbus plunges into unknown regions of the sea to seek\nthe missing other half of the known hemisphere--the great island of\nAtlantis--to fill up a blank in his geographical map. He found this\nisland of his paper calculation, and his calculation was right. Would it\nhave been less great if a hostile storm had shattered his fleet or driven\nit back? The human mind makes a similar calculation when it measures the\nsuper-sensual by means of the sensible, and when mathematics applies its\nconclusions to the hidden physics of the superhuman. But the last test\nof its calculations is still wanting, for no traveller has come back from\nthat land to relate his discovery. Human nature has its proper bounds,\nand so also has the individual. We will give each other mutual comfort\nrespecting the former: Raphael will concede this to the boyish age of his\nJulius. I am poor in conceptions, a stranger in many branches of\nknowledge which are thought to be essential in inquiries of this nature.\nI have not belonged to any philosophical school, nor have I read many\nprinted books. It may quite well be that I occasionally substitute my\nfancies in the place of stricter logical proofs, that I mistake the rush\nof my blood or the hopes of my heart for sound wisdom; yet, my dear\nfriend, you must not grudge me the moments I have thus lost. It is a\nreal gain for universal perfection: it was the provision of the Wisest\nSpirit that the erring reason should also people the chaotic world of\ndreams, and make fruitful even the barren ground of contradiction. It is\nnot only the mechanical artist who polishes the rough diamond into a\nbrilliant whom we ought to value, but also that one who ennobles mere\nordinary stones by giving them the apparent dignity of the diamond. The\nindustry displayed in the forms may sometimes make us forget the massive\ntruth of the substance. Is not every exercise of the thinking power,\nevery sharpening of the edge of the spirit, a little step towards its\nperfection; and every perfection has to obtain a being and substantial\nexistence in a complete and perfect world. Reality is not confined to\nthe absolutely necessary; it also embraces the conditionally necessary:\nevery offspring of the brain, every work elaborated by the wit, has an\nirresistible right of citizenship in this wider acceptation of creation.\nIn the measureless plan of nature no activity was to be left out, no\ndegree of enjoyment was to be wanting in universal happiness. The great\nInventive Spirit would not even permit error to be wasted, nor allow this\nwide world of thought to remain empty and chaotic in the mind of man.\nFor the Great Ruler of His world does not even allow a straw to fall\nwithout use, leaves no space uninhabited where life may be enjoyed; for\nHe converts the very poison of man into the food of vipers; He even\nraises plants from the realm of corruption, and hospitably grants the\nlittle glimmer of pleasure that can co-exist with madness. He turns\ncrime and folly into excellence, and weaves out of the very vices of a\nTarquin the great idea of the universal monarchy of Rome. Every facility\nof the reason, even in error, increases its readiness to accept truth.\n\nDear friend of my soul, suffer me to add my contribution to the great\nwoof of human wisdom. The image of the sun is reflected differently in\nthe dewdrop and in the majestic mirror of the wide-stretching ocean.\nShame to the turbid, murky swamp, which never receives and never reflects\nthis image! Millions of plants drink from the four elements of nature; a\nmagazine of supplies is open for all: but they mix their sap in a\nthousand different ways, and return it in a thousand new forms. The most\nbeautiful variety proclaims a rich Lord of this house. There are four\nelements from which all spirits draw their supplies: their Ego or\nindividuality, Nature, God, and the Future All intermingle in millions of\nways and offer themselves in a million differences of result: but one\ntruth remains which, like a firm axis, goes through all religions and\nsystems--draw nigh to the Godhead of whom you think!\n\n\n\n\nLETTER V.\n\n\nRaphael to Julius.\n\nIt would be very unfortunate, my dear Julius, if there were no other way\nof quieting you than by restoring the first-fruits of your belief in you.\nI found with delight these ideas, which I saw gaining in you, written\ndown in your papers. They are worthy of a soul like yours, but you could\nnot remain stationary in them. There are joys for every age and\nenjoyments for each degree of spirits. It must have been a difficult\nthing for you to sever yourself from a system that was entirely made to\nmeet the wants of your heart. I would wager that no other system will\nstrike such deep roots in you, and, possibly, if left quite to your own\ndirection, you would sooner or later become reconciled to your favorite\nideas. You would soon remark the weakness of the opposite system, and\nthen, if both systems appeared equally deficient in proof, you would\nprefer the most desirable one, or, perhaps, you would find new arguments\nto preserve at least the essential features of your former theory, even\nif a few more doubtful points had to be given up.\n\nBut all this is remote from my plan. You must arrive at a higher freedom\nof mind, where you no longer require support. I grant that this is not\nthe affair of a moment. The first aim of the earliest teaching is\ncommonly the subjugation of the mind, and among all the artifices of the\nart of education this generally succeeds the first. Even you, though\nendowed with great elasticity of character, yet appear destined to submit\nreadily to the sway of opinions, and even more inclined to this than\nthousands; and this state of infancy might last very long with you, as\nyou do not readily feel the oppression of it. Your head and heart are in\nvery close connection. A doctrine is sweet to you on account of the\nteacher. You soon succeeded in finding an interesting side in this\ndoctrine, you ennobled it according to the wants of your heart, and you\nsuffered your mind to be resigned to other points that must needs appear\nstrange to you. You regarded attacks on this doctrine as boyish revenge\ntaken by a slavish soul against the rod of its tutor. You played with\nyour chains, which you thought you carried by your own free will.\n\nI found you in this situation, and the sight gave me pain--how, in the\nmidst of the enjoyment, of your glowing life, and while giving expression\nto your noblest powers, you were hemmed in by narrow considerations. The\nvery logical consistency with which you acted according to your\nconvictions, and the strength of soul that made every sacrifice light to\nyou, were twofold hinderances to your activity and to your joys. I then\nresolved to set aside these clumsy efforts by which it had been\nendeavored to cramp a soul like yours in the measure of ordinary natures.\nThe result of your first exertions favored my intentions. I admit that\nyour imagination was more actively employed upon the work than was your\npenetration. The loss of your fondest convictions was more than atoned\nfor by your presentiments, which gathered results much more rapidly than\nthe tortoise pace of cold scientific inquiry, passing from the known to\nthe unknown. Your kind of inspired system gave you your first enjoyment\nin this new field of activity, and I was very careful not to destroy a\nwelcome enthusiasm which was very favorable to the development of your\nexcellent disposition. The scene is now changed. A return into the\nrestrictions of infancy is closed forever. Your way leads onwards, and\nyou require no further precautions.\n\nYou must not be surprised to find that a system such as yours cannot\nresist the searching of a severe criticism. All essays of this kind,\nequal in breadth and boldness to yours, have had no other fate. It was\nalso most natural that your philosophical progress began with you\nindividually, as with the human race in general. The first object on\nwhich man's spirit of inquiry first attempted its strength was, at all\ntimes, the universe. Hypotheses relating to the origin of the world, and\nthe combination of its parts, had occupied the greatest thinkers for\nages, when Socrates called down the philosophy of his day from heaven to\nearth. But the limits of human wisdom were too narrow for the proud\nintellect of his followers. New systems arose on the ruins of the former\nones. The penetrating mind of subsequent ages explored the immeasurable\nfield of possible answers to those ever-recurring questions, bearing on\nthe mysterious interior of nature, which could not be disclosed by any\nhuman intellect. Some, indeed, succeeded in giving a certain coloring of\ndistinctness, completeness, and evidence to their views. There are many\nconjuring tricks by which the pride of reason seeks to avoid the disgrace\nof not being able to exceed the bounds of human nature in extending the\ncircle of its knowledge. It is a frequent conceit with men to believe\nthat they have discovered new truths, when they have dissected a\nconception into the separate elements out of which it was first\ncompounded by an act of caprice. Not unfrequently an imperceptible\nassumption lies at the basis of a chain of consequences, whose breaks and\ndeficiencies are cunningly concealed, while the false conclusions are\nadmired as sublime wisdom. In other cases, partial experiences are\naccumulated to found a hypothesis, and all contradictory phenomena are\neither ignored, or the meaning of words is changed according to the\nrequirements of the reasoning. Nor is it only the philosophical quack\nwho employs these conjuring tricks to deceive the public; without being\nconscious of it, the most upright and the least prejudiced thinker uses\nanalogous means to satisfy his thirst for knowledge directly that he\nissues from the only sphere where reason can legitimately enjoy the fruit\nof its activity.\n\nAfter what you have heard me say on former occasions, Julius, these\nexpressions must cause you no little astonishment; yet they are not the\nproduct of a sceptical caprice. I could lay before you the foundations\non which they rest, but this would require, as prelude, a somewhat dry\nexamination into the nature of human knowledge,--and I prefer to reserve\nthis for a time when you will feel the want of it. You have not yet\narrived at that state of mind when humiliating truths on the limits of\nhuman knowledge can have any interest for you. Make a first essay with\nthe system which has supplanted your own in your mind. Examine it with\nthe same impartiality as severity. Proceed in the same manner with other\ntheories with which you have recently become acquainted; and if none of\nthem can fully satisfy your requirements, you will ask yourself if, after\nall, these requirements are reasonable.\n\nPerhaps you will tell me this is a poor consolation. You will infer that\nresignation is your only refuge after so many brilliant hopes had been\nraised. \"Was it worth while,\" you will say, \"to challenge me to a full\nexercise of my reason in order to set bounds to it at the very moment\nwhen it was beginning to bear the noblest fruit? Was I only to become\nacquainted with a higher enjoyment in order to feel with a double\nkeenness how painful it is to be thus bounded?\"\n\nNevertheless, it is this very feeling of discouragement that I expressly\nwish to banish from your soul. My aim is this: to remove all that places\nan obstacle to the free enjoyment of your being, to bring to life in you\nthe germ of all lofty inspiration--the consciousness of the nobility of\nyour soul. You have been awakened from the slumber in which you were\nrocked by the slavery of others' opinions; but you would never reach the\ndegree of grandeur to which you are called if you dissipated your\nstrength in the pursuit of an unattainable end. This course was all\nproper up to the present time; it was the natural consequence of your\nrecently acquired freedom. It was necessary that the ideas which had\nmost engaged you previously should give the first impulse to the activity\nof your mind.. Among all possible directions that your mind could take,\nis its present course the most fertile in results? The answer would be\ngiven, sooner or later, by your own experience. My part was confined to\nhastening, if possible, this crisis.\n\nIt is a common prejudice to take as a measure of the greatness of man\nthat matter on which he works, and not the manner of his work. But it is\ncertain that a superior Being honors the stamp of perfection even in the\nmost limited sphere, whilst He casts an eye of pity on the vain attempts\nof the insect which seeks to overlook the universe. It follows from this\nthat I am especially unwilling to agree to the proposition in your\npapers, which assumes that the high destiny of man is to detect the\nspirit of the Divine Artist in the work of creation. To express the\nactivity of infinite perfection, I admit that I do not know any sublimer\nimage than art; but you appear to have overlooked an important\ndistinction. The universe is not the pure expression of an ideal, like\nthe accomplished work of a human artist. The latter governs despotically\nthe inanimate matter which he uses to give a body to his ideas. But in\nthe divine work the proper value of each one of its parts is respected,\nand this conservative respect with which the Great Architect honors every\ngerm of activity, even in the lowliest creature, glorifies it as much as\nthe harmony of the immeasurable whole. Life and liberty to all possible\nextent are the seal of divine creation; nowhere is it more sublime than\nwhere it seems to have departed most widely from its ideal. But it is\nprecisely this highest perfection that prevents us from grasping the\nlimits in which we are at present confined. We embrace only too small a\npart of the universe, and the explanation of most of its discords is\ninaccessible to our faculties. Each step we climb in the scale of being\nwill make us more susceptible of these enjoyments of art; but even then\ntheir only value will be that of means, and to excite us to an analogous\nexercise of our activity. The idle admiration of a greatness foreign to\nourselves can never be a great merit. A superior man is never wanting in\nmatter for his activity, nor in the forces necessary to become himself a\ncreator in his sphere. This vocation is yours also, Julius; when you\nhave recognized this you will never have a thought of complaining of the\nlimits that your desire of knowledge cannot overstep.\n\nWhen you have arrived at this conviction I expect to find you wholly\nreconciled to me. You must first know fully the extent of your strength\nbefore you can appreciate the value of its freest manifestation. Till\nthen, continue to be dissatisfied with me, but do not despair of\nyourself.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nON THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE ANIMAL AND THE SPIRITUAL NATURE IN MAN.\n\n\n\"It behooves us to clearly realize, as the broad facts which have most\nwide-reaching consequences in mental physiology and pathology, that all\nparts of the body, the highest and the lowest, have a sympathy with one\nanother more intelligent than conscious intelligence can yet, or perhaps\never will, conceive; that there is not an organic motion, visible or\ninvisible, sensible or insensible, ministrant to the noblest or to the\nmost humble purposes, which does not work its appointed effect in the\ncomplex recesses of the mind, and that the mind, as the crowning\nachievement of organization, and the consummation and outcome of all its\nenergies, really comprehends the bodily life.\"--MAWDESLEY, Body and Mind.\n\n\"It is an indisputable truth that what we call the material world is only\nknown to us under the forms of the ideal world, and, as Descartes tells\nus, our knowledge of the soul is more intimate and certain than our\nknowledge of the body.\"--HUXLEY.\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\nS 1.\n\n\nMany philosophers have asserted that the body is, as it were, the\nprison-house of the spirit, holding it only too firmly to what is\nearthly, and checking its so-called flight towards perfection. On the\nother hand, it has been held by another philosophic school that knowledge\nand virtue are not so much an end as a means towards happiness, and that\nthe whole perfection of man culminates in the amelioration of his body.\n\nBoth opinions [1], methinks, are one-sided. The latter system has\nalmost entirely disappeared from our schemes of ethics and philosophy,\nand is, I am inclined to think, not seldom cast out with over-fanatical\nzeal--(nothing assuredly is so dangerous to truth as when one-sided\nopinions meet with one-sided opponents). The former system has on the\nwhole been more patiently endured, since it has the greatest capacity for\nwarming the heart towards virtue, and has already justified its value in\nthe case of truly great souls. Who is there that does not admire the\nstrength of mind of a Cato, the lofty virtue of a Brutus and Aurelius,\nthe equanimity of an Epictetus and a Seneca? But, in spite of all this,\nthe system in question is nothing more than a beautiful aberration of the\nunderstanding, a real extreme, which in its wild enthusiasm underrates\none part of our human nature, and desires to raise us into the order of\nideal beings without at the same time relieving us of our humanity,--a\nsystem which runs directly contrary to all that we historically know or\nphilosophically can explain either of the evolution of the single man or\nof that of the entirer race, and can in no way be reconciled with the\nlimitations of our human soul. It is therefore here, as ever, the wisest\nplan to hold the balance between the two opinions, and thus reach with\ngreater certainty the middle line of truth. But, inasmuch as a mistake\nhas very often been committed by treating the mental powers in an\nexclusive way, that is, in so far as they can be considered in\nindependence of the body, and through an intentional subordination of\nthis same body, the aim of this present essay will be to bring into a\nclearer light the remarkable contributions made by the body to the\nworkings of the soul, and the great and real influence of the animal\nsystem of sensations upon the spiritual. But this is as like the\nphilosophy of Epicurus as the holding of virtue to be the summum bonum is\nstoicism.\n\nBefore we seek to discover those higher moral ends which the animal\nnature assists us in attaining to, we must establish their physical\nnecessity, and come to an agreement as to some fundamental conceptions.\n\n\n[1] Huxley, speaking of psychology and physiology (idealism and\nmaterialism), says: \"Our stem divides into two main branches, which grow\nin opposite ways, and bear flowers which look as different as they can\nwell be. But each branch is sound and healthy, and has as much life and\nvigor as the other. If a botanist found this state of things in a new\nplant, I imagine he might be inclined to think that his tree was\nmonoecious, that the flowers were of different sexes, and that, so far\nfrom setting up a barrier between the branches of the tree, the only hope\nof fertility lay in bringing them together. This is my notion of what is\nto be done with physics and metaphysics. Their differences are\ncomplementary, not antagonistic, and thought will never be completely\nfruitful until the one unites with the other.\"--HUXLEY, Macmillan's Mag.,\nMay 1870.\n\nDescartes' method (according to Huxley) leads straight up to the critical\nidealism of his great successor, Kant, in declaring that the ultimate\nfact of all knowledge is a consciousness and therefore affirming that the\nhighest of all certainties, and indeed the only absolute certainty, is\nthe existence of mind. But it stops short of Berkeley in declaring that\nmatter does not exist: his arguments against its existence would equally\ntend to prove the non-existence of soul. In Descartes' stem, the body is\nsimply a machine, in the midst of which the rational soul (peculiar to\nman) is lodged, and which it directs at its will, as a skilful engineer\nfamiliar with its working might do--through will and through affection he\ncan \"increase, slacken, and alter their movements at his pleasure.\" At\nthe same time, he admits, in all that regards its mere animal life--in\nactive functions, such as those connected with hunger, respiration,\nsleep, digestion; in many passive ones, such as we are accustomed to call\nmental, as in memory, the perception of color, sound--a purely automatic\naction of the body, which it pursues simply by following out its own\nlaws, independent of the soul's direction or interference.\n\n\n\nPHYSICAL CONNECTION.\n\nTHE ANIMAL NATURE STRENGTHENS THE ACTION OF THE SPIRIT.\n\nS 2.--Organism of the Operations of the Soul--of its Maintenance and\nSupport--of Generation.\n\n\nAll those conditions which we accept as requisite to the perfection of\nman in the moral and material world may be included in one fundamental\nsentence: The perfection of man consists in his ability to exercise his\npowers in the observation of the plan of the world; and since between the\nmeasure of the power and the end towards which it works there must exist\nthe completest harmony, perfection will consist in the highest possible\nactivity of his powers, and, at the same time, in their mutual\nsubordination. But the action of the human soul is--from a necessity\nwhich I do not understand--bound fast to the action of matter. The\nchanges in the world of matter must be modified and, so to speak, refined\nby a peculiar class of secondary powers--I mean the senses--before they\ncan produce in me any corresponding ideas; while, on the other hand, a\nfresh set of organic powers, the agents of voluntary movements must come\ninto play between the inner spirit and the outward world in order to make\nthe changes of the former tell upon the latter; thus must the operations\nof thinking and sensation alike correspond to certain movements of the\ninternal sensorium. All this goes to make up the organism of the soul's\nactivities.\n\nBut matter is spoil stolen from the eternal change, and wears itself\naway, even as it works; in its movement its very element is driven from\nits grooves, chased away and lost. Because now, on the contrary, that\nsimple essence, the soul, possesses in itself permanence and stability,\nand in its essence neither gains nor loses aught,--matter cannot keep\nstep with the activity of the spirit, and there would thus soon be an end\nof the organism of spiritual life, and therewith of all action of the\nsoul. To prevent which there must be added to the first system or\norganic powers a second one, which shall make good the losses sustained,\nand sustain the decay by a chain of new creations ready to take the place\nof those that have gone. This is the organism of maintenance.\n\nStill further. After a short period of activity, when the equal balance\nof loss and reparation is once removed, man quits the stage of life, and\nthe law of mortality depopulates the earth. There is not room enough for\nthe multitude of sentient beings, whom eternal love and wisdom seemed to\nhave called to a happy existence, to live side by side within the narrow\nboundaries of our world, and the life of one generation shuts out the\nlife of another. Therefore was it necessary that new men should appear,\nto take the place of those who had departed, and that life should be kept\nup in unbroken succession. But of creation there is no longer any trace;\nwhat now becomes new becomes so only by development. The development of\nman must come to pass through man, if it is to bear a proportion to the\noriginal number, if man is to be cultivated into man. On this account a\nnew system of organic powers was added to the two that had preceded it,\nwhich had for its object to quicken and to develop the seed of humanity.\nThis is the organism of generation.\n\nThese three organisms, brought into the most thorough connection, local\nand real, go to form the human body.\n\n\n\nS 3.--The Body.\n\n\nThe organic powers of the human body naturally divide themselves into two\nprincipal classes. The first class embraces those which no known laws\nand phenomena of the physical world enable us to comprehend; and to these\nbelong the sensibility of the nerves and the irritability of the muscles.\nInasmuch as it has hitherto been impossible to penetrate the economy of\nthe invisible, men have sought to interpret this unknown mechanism\nthrough that with which they were already familiar, and have considered\nthe nerves as a canal conducting an excessively fine, volatile, and\nactive fluid, which in rapidity of motion and fineness was held to excel\nether and the electric spark. This fluid was held to be the principle\nand author of our sensibility and power of motion, and hence received the\nname of the spirit of life. Further, the irritability of the muscles was\nheld to consist, in a certain effort to contract themselves on the touch\nof some external provocation. These two principles go to form the\nspecific character of animal organism.\n\nThe second class of powers embraces those which we can account for by the\nuniversally-known laws of physics. Among these I reckon the mechanism of\nmotion, and the chemistry of the human body, the source of vegetable\nlife. Vegetation, then, and animal mechanism, thoroughly mingled, form\nthe proper physical life of the human body.\n\n\n\nS 4.-Animal Life.\n\n\nThis is not yet all. Since loss or misfortune, when it occurs, falls\nmore or less within the will-power of the spirit, the spirit must be\nable to make some compensation for it. Further, since the body is\nsubjected to all the consequences of this connection, and in the circle\nof circumstances is exposed to countless hostile forces, it must be\nwithin the power of the soul to protect the body against these harmful\ninfluences, and to bring it into such relations with the physical\nworld as shall tend most to its preservation. The soul must therefore\nbe conscious of the present evil or good state of its organs; from a\nbad state it must draw dissatisfaction, from a good state satisfaction,\nso that it may either retain or remove the condition, seek it or fly\nfrom it. Here then we have the organism at once and closely linked to\nthe sensational capacity, and the soul drawn into the service of the\nbody. We have now something more than vegetation, something more than a\ndead model and the mechanism of nerves and muscles. Now we have animal\nlife. [1]\n\nA healthy condition of our animal life is, as we know, most important for\nthe healthy condition of our spiritual life; and we dare never ignore the\nanimal life so long as we are not quit of it. It must therefore possess\na firm foundation, not easily moved; that is, the soul must be fitted and\nprepared for the actions of our bodily life by an irresistible power.\nWere then the sensations of our animal loss or well-being to become\nspiritual perceptions, and had they to be created by thought, how often\nwould the soul be obscured by the overwhelming blaze of passion; how\noften stifled by laziness and stupidity; how often overlooked in the\nabsorptions and distractions of business! Further, would not, in this\ncase, the most perfect knowledge of his economy be demanded of the animal\nman--would not the child need to be a master in a branch of knowledge in\nwhich, after fifty years of investigation, Harvey, Boerhaave, and Haller\nwere only beginners? The soul could thus have positively no idea of the\ncondition she was called upon to alter. How shall she become acquainted\nwith it? how shall she begin to act at all?\n\n\n[1] But we have something more than the animal life of the animal\n(beast). A beast lives an animal life in order that it may experience\npleasant sensations. It experiences pleasant sensations that it may\npreserve the animal life. It lives now, therefore, in order that it may\nlive again tomorrow. It is happy now that it may be happy to-morrow.\nBut it is a simple, an uncertain happiness, which depends upon the action\nof the organism, it is a slave to luck and blind chance; because it\nconsists in sensation only. Man, too, lives an animal life,--is sensible\nof its pleasures and suffers its pains. But why? He feels and suffers\nthat he may preserve his animal life. He preserves his animal life that\nhe may longer have the power to live a spiritual one. Here, then, the\nmeans differ from the end; there, end and means seem to coincide. This\nis one of the lines of separation between man and the animal.\n\n\n\nS 5.--Animal Sensations.\n\n\nSo far we have met with such sensations only as they take their rise in\nan antecedent operation of the understanding; but we have now to deal\nwith sensations in which the understanding bears no part. These\nsensations, if they are not exactly the expression of the present state\nof our organs, mark it out specifically, or, better, accompany it. These\nsensations have quickly and forcibly to determine the will to aversion or\ndesire; but, on the other hand, they are ever to float on the surface of\nthe soul, and never to extend to the province of the reason. The part,\naccordingly, played by thought, in the case of a mental perception, is\nhere taken up by that modification in the animal parts of us which either\nthreatens the destruction of the sensation or insures its duration: that\nis, an eternal law of wisdom has combined with that condition of the\nmachine which confirms its welfare, a pleasant emotion of the soul; and,\non the other hand, with that condition which undermines it and threatens\nruin, an unpleasant emotion is connected; and this in such a manner that\nthe sensation itself has not the faintest resemblance to the state of the\norgans of which it is the mark. Animal sensations have, on this showing,\na double origin: (1) in the present state of the machine; (2) in the\ncapacity or faculty (of sensation).\n\nWe are now able to understand how it is that the animal sensations have\nthe power to drive the soul with an irresistible tyranny in the direction\nof passionate action, and not seldom gain the upper hand in a struggle\nwith those sensations which are most purely intellectual. For these last\nthe soul has produced by means of thought, and therefore they can by\nthought be solved or even destroyed. Abstraction and philosophy have\nthis power over the passions, over opinions--in short, over all the\nsituations of life; but the animal sensations are forced upon the soul by\na blind necessity, by a stern mechanical law. The understanding, which\ndid not create them, likewise cannot dissolve them and make them as if\nthey were not, though by giving an opposite direction to our attention it\ncan do much to weaken their power and obscure their pretensions. The\nmost stubborn stoic, lying in the agony of the stone, will never be able\nto boast that he did not feel its pain; but, lost in the consideration of\nthe end of his existence, he will be able to divide his whole power of\nsensation and perception, and the preponderating pleasure of a great\nachievement, which can subordinate even pain to the general welfare, will\nbe victorious over the present discomfort. It was neither absence of nor\nannihilation of sensation that enabled Mucius, while he was roasting his\nhand in the fire, to gaze upon the foe with the Roman look of proud\nrepose, but the thought of great Rome in admiration of his deed. This it\nwas that ruled in his soul, and kept it grandly self-possessed, so that\nthe terrible provocation of the animal pain was too slight to disturb the\nequal balance of his nature. But not on this account was the pain the\nRoman suffered less than it would have been in the case of the most\neffeminate voluptuary. True enough, the man who is accustomed to pass\nhis days in a state of confused ideas will be less capable of manly\naction, in the critical moment of sensuous pain, than he who lives\npersistently among ideas distinct and clear; but, for all that, neither\nthe loftiest virtue, nor the profoundest philosophy, nor even divine\nreligion, can save a man from the result of a necessary law, though\nreligion can bless her servants even at the stake, and make them happy as\nthe pile gives way.\n\nThe wisest purpose is served by the power which the animal sensations\npossess over the perceptive faculty of the soul. The spirit once\ninitiated in the mysteries of a higher pleasure would look with disdain\nupon the motions of its companion, and would pay no heed to the poor\nnecessities of physical life, were it not that the animal feeling\ncompelled it to do so. The mathematician, soaring in the region of the\ninfinite, and dreaming away reality in a world of abstractions, is roused\nby the pang of hunger from his intellectual slumber; the natural\nphilosopher, dismembering the solar system, accompanying through\nimmeasurable space the wanderings of the planets, is restored by the\nprick of a needle to his mother earth; the philosopher who unfolds the\nnature of the Deity, and fancies himself to have broken through the\nfetters of mortality, returns to himself and everyday life when the bleak\nnorth wind whistles through his crazy hut, and teaches him that he stands\nmidway between the beast and the angel.\n\nAgainst an excess of the animal sensations the severest mental exertion\nin the end possesses no influence; as they continue to grow stronger,\nreason closes her ears, and the fettered soul moves but to subserve the\npurposes of the bodily organization. To satisfy hunger or to quench\nthirst man will do deeds at which humanity will shudder: against his will\nhe turns traitor or murderer--even cannibal:--\n\n  Tiger! in the bosom of thy mother wilt thou set thy teeth?\n\n--so violent is the influence of the animal sensation over the mind.\nSuch watchful care has the Creator shown for the preservation of the\nmachine that the pillars on which it rests are the firmest, and\nexperience has taught us that it is rather the over-abundance than the\nwant of animal sensations that has carried destruction with it.\n\nThe animal sensations therefore may be said to further the welfare of the\nanimal nature, just as the moral and intellectual perceptions promote\nspiritual progress or perfection. The system of animal sensations and\nmotions, then, comprises the conception of the animal nature. This is\nthe ground on which all the activities of the soul depend, and the\nconformation of this fabric determines the duration of the spiritual\nactivity itself, and the degree of ease with which it works. Here, then,\nwe find ourselves in possession of the first member of the connection\nbetween the two natures.\n\n\n\nS 6.--Objections against the Connection of the Two Natures, drawn from\nIdeas of Morality.\n\n\nThere is no doubt that thus much will be conceded; but the next remark\nwill be: \"Here ends, too, any determining influence the body may possess;\nbeyond this point the body is but the soul's inert companion, with whom\nshe must sustain a constant battle, attendance on whose necessities robs\nher of all leisure, whose attacks and interruptions break the thread of\nthe most intricate speculation, and drive the spirit from the clearest\nand plainest conceptions into a chaotic complexity of the senses, whose\npleasures remove the greatest part of our fellow-creatures far from their\nhigh original, and reduce them to the level of the beasts, which, in a\nword, entangles them in a slavery from which death only can deliver them.\nIs it not senseless and injust,\" our complainer might go on to say, \"to\nmix up a being, simple, necessary, that has its subsistence in itself,\nwith another being that moves in an eternal whirl, exposed to every\nchance and change, and becomes the victim of every external necessity?\"\nOn cooler afterthought we shall perhaps see a great beauty take its rise\nout of this apparent confusion and want of plan.\n\n\n\nPHILOSOPHICAL CONNECTION.\n\nANIMAL IMPULSES AWAKEN AND DEVELOP THE IMPULSES OF THE SOUL.\n\nS 7.--The Metho.\n\n\nThe surest way, perhaps, to throw some light upon this matter is the\nfollowing: Let us detach from man all idea of what can be called\norganization,--that is, let the body be separated from the spirit,\nwithout, however, depriving the latter of the power to attain to\nrepresentations of, and to produce actions in, the corporeal world; and\nlet us then inquire how the spirit would set to work, would develop its\npowers, what steps it would take towards its perfection: the result of\nthis investigation must be founded upon facts. The actual culture of the\nindividual man is thus surveyed, while we at the same time obtain a view\nof the development of the whole race. In the first place, then, we have\nthis abstract case: the power of representation and will are present, a\nsphere of action is present, and a free way opened from the soul to the\nworld, from the world to the soul. The question then is, How will the\nspirit act?\n\n\n\nS 8.-The Soul viewed as out of connection with the Body.\n\n\nWe can form no conception without the antecedent will to form it; no\nwill, unless by experience of a better condition thereby induced, without\n[some] sensation; no sensation without an antecedent idea (for along with\nthe body we excluded bodily sensations), therefore no idea without an\nidea.\n\nLet us consider now the case of a child; that is, according to our\nhypothesis, a spirit conscious in itself of the power to form ideas, but\nwhich for the first time is about to exercise this power. What will\ndetermine him to think, unless it be the pleasant sensation thereby\narising, and what can have procured for him the experience of this\npleasurable sensation? We have just seen that this, again, could be\nnothing but thinking, and he is now for the first time to think.\nFurther, what shall invite him to a consideration of the [external]\nworld? Nothing but the experience of its perfection in so far as it\nsatisfies his instinct of activity, and as this satisfaction affords him\npleasure. What, then, can determine him to an exercise of his powers?\nNothing but the experience of their existence; and all these experiences\nare now to be made for the first time. He must therefore have been\nactive from all eternity--which is contrary to the case as stated--or he\nwill to all eternity be inactive, just as the machine without a touch\nfrom without remains idle and motionless.\n\n\n\nS 9.--The Soul viewed in connection with the Body.\n\n\nNow let the animal be added to the spirit. Weave these two natures so\nclosely together as they really are closely woven, and cause an unknown\nsomething, born of the economy of the animal body, to be assailed by the\npower of sensation,--let the soul be placed in the condition of physical\npain. That was the first touch, the first ray to light up the night of\nslumbering powers, a touch as from a golden finger upon nature's lute.\nNow is sensation there, and sensation only was it that before we missed.\nThis kind of sensation seems to have been made on purpose to remove all\nthese difficulties. In the first case none could be produced because we\nwere not allowed to presuppose an idea; here a modification of the bodily\norgans becomes a substitute for the ideas that were lacking, and thus\ndoes animal sensation come to the help of the spirits inward mechanism,\nif I may so call it, and puts the same in motion. The will is active,\nand the action of a single power is sufficient to set all the rest to\nwork. The following operations are self-developed and do not belong to\nthis chapter.\n\n\n\nS 10.-Out of the History of the Individual.\n\n\nLet us follow now the growth of the soul in the individual man in\nrelation to what I am trying to demonstrate, and let us observe how all\nhis spiritual capacities grow out of motive powers of sense.\n\na. The child. Still quite animal; or, rather more and at the same time\nless than animal--human animal (for that being which at some time shall\nbe called man can at no time have been only animal). More wretched than\nan animal, because he has not even instinct--the animal-mother may with\nless danger leave her young than the mother abandon her child. Pain may\nforce from him a cry, but will never direct him to the source from which\nit comes. The milk may give him pleasure, but he does not seek it. He\nis altogether passive.\n\n   His thinking rises only to sensation.\n   His knowledge is but pain, hunger--and what binds these together.\n\nb. The boy. Here we have already reflection, but only in so far as it\nbears upon the satisfaction of the animal impulse. \"He learns to value,\"\nsays Garve [Observations on Ferguson's \"Moral Philosophy,\" p. 319], \"the\nthings of others, and his actions in respect of others, first of all\nthrough the fact of their affording him [sensuous] pleasure.\"\n\nA love of work, the love to his parents, to friends, yea even love to\nGod, must go along the pathway of physical sense [Sinnlichkeit] to reach\nhis soul. \"That only is the sun,\" as Garve elsewhere observes, \"which in\nitself enlightens and warms: all other objects are dark and cold; but\nthey too can be warmed and illumined when they enter into such a\nconnection with the same as to become partakers of its rays.\"\n[Observations on Ferguson's \"Moral Philosophy,\" p. 393.] The good things\nof the spirit possess a value with the boy only by transferrence--they\nare the spiritual means to an animal end.\n\nc. Youth and man. The frequent repetition of this process of induction\nat last brings about a readiness, and the transferrence begins to\ndiscover a beauty in what at first was regarded simply as a means. The\nyouth begins to linger in the process without knowing why. Without\nobserving it, he is often attracted to think about this means. Now is\nthe time when the beams of spiritual beauty in itself begin to fall upon\nhis open soul; the feeling of exercising his powers delights him, and\ninfuses an inclination to the object which, up to this time, was a means\nonly: the first end is forgotten. His enlightened mind and the richer\nstore of his ideas at last reveal to him the whole worth of spiritual\npleasures--the means has become the highest end.\n\nSuch is the teaching more or less of the history of each individual man--\nwhose means of education have been fairly good; and wisdom could hardly\nchoose a better road along which to lead mankind. Is not the mass of the\npeople even to this day in leading-strings?--much like our boy. And has\nnot the prophet from Medina left us an example of striking plainness how\nto bridle the rude nature of the Saracens?\n\nOn this subject nothing more excellent can be said than what Garve\nremarked in his translation of Ferguson's \"Moral Philosophy,\" in the\nchapter upon the Natural Impulses, and has developed as follows: \"The\nimpulse of self-preservation and the attraction of sensual pleasure first\nbring both man and beast to the point of action: he first comes to value\nthe things of others and his own actions in reference to them according\nas they procure him pleasure. In proportion as the number of things\nunder whose influence he comes increases do his desires cover a wider\ncircle; as the road by which he reaches the objects of his wishes\nlengthens, so do his desires become more artificial. Here we come to the\nfirst line of separation between man and the mere animal, and herein we\nmay even discover a difference between one species of animal and another.\nWith few animals does the act of feeding follow immediately upon the\nsensation of hunger; the heat of the chase, or the industry of collection\nmust come first. But in the case of no animal does the satisfaction of\nthis want follow so late upon the preparations made in reference thereto\nas in the case of man; with no animal does the endeavor wind through so\nlong a chain of means and intentions before it arrives at the last link.\nHow far removed from this end, though in reality they have no other, are\nthe labors of the artisan or the ploughman. But even this is not all.\nWhen the means of human subsistence have become richer and more various\nthrough the institutions of society; when man begins to discover that\nwithout a full expenditure of time and labor a surplus remains to him;\nwhen at the same time by the communication of ideas he becomes more\nenlightened; then he begins to find a last end for all his actions in\nhimself; he then remarks that, even when his hunger is thoroughly\nsatisfied, a good supply of raiment, a roof above him, and a sufficiency\nof furniture within doors, there still remains something over and\nabove for him to do. He goes a step further, he becomes conscious that\nin those very actions by which he has procured for himself food and\ncomfort--in so far as they have their origin in certain powers of a\nspirit, and in so far as they exercise these powers--there lies a higher\ngood than in the external ends which thereby are attained. From this\nmoment on he works, indeed--in company with the rest of the human race,\nand along with the whole animal kingdom--to keep himself alive, and to\nprovide for himself and his friends the necessaries of physical\nexistence;--for what else could he do? What other sphere of action could\nhe create for himself, if he were to leave this? But he knows now that\nnature has not so much awakened in him these various impulses and desires\nfor the purpose of affording so many particular pleasures,--but, and far\nmore, places before him the attraction of those pleasures and advantages,\nin order that these impulses may be put in motion--and with this end,\nthat to a thinking being there may be given matter for thought, to a\nsensitive spirit matter for sensations, to the benevolent means of\nbeneficence, and to the active opportunity for work. Thus does\neverything, living or lifeless, assume to him a new form. All the facts\nand changes of life were formerly estimated by him only in so far as they\ncaused him pleasure or pain: now, in so far as they offer occasion for\nexpression of his desire of perfection. In the first case, events are\nnow good, now bad; in the latter, all are equally good. For there is no\nchance or accident which does not give scope for the exercise of some\nvirtue, or for the employment of a special faculty. At first he loved\nhis fellows because he believed that they could be of use to him; he\nloves them now far more--because he looks upon benevolence as the\ncondition of the perfect mind.\"\n\n\n\nS 11.-From the History of Humanity.\n\n\nYet once more, a glance at the universal history of the whole human\nrace--from its cradle to the maturity of full-grown man--and the truth of\nwhat has been said up to this point will stand forth in clearest relief.\n\nHunger and nakedness first made of man a hunter, a fisher, a cowherd, a\nhusbandman, and a builder. Sensual pleasure founded families, and the\ndefencelessness of single men was the origin of the tribe. Here already\nmay the first roots of the social duties be discovered. The soil would\nsoon become too poor for the increasing multitude of men; hunger would\ndrive them to other climates and countries that would discover their\nwealth to the necessity that forced men to seek it; in the process they\nwould learn many improvements in the cultivation of the soil, and perhaps\nsome means to escape the hurtful influence of many things they would\nnecessarily encounter. These separate experiences passed from\ngrandfather to grandson, and their number was always on the increase.\nMan learned to use the powers of nature against herself; these powers\nwere brought into new relations and the first invention was made. Here\nwe have the first roots of the simple and healing arts--always, we admit,\nart and invention for the behoof of the animal, but still an exercise of\npower, an addition to knowledge; and at the very fire in whose embers the\nsavage roasted his fish, Boerhaave afterwards made his inquiries into the\ncomposition of bodies; through the very knife which this wild man used to\ncut up his game, Lionet invented what led to his discovery of the nerves\nof insects; with the very circle wherewith at first hoofs were measured,\nNewton measures heaven and earth. Thus did the body force the mind to\npay attention to the phenomena around it; thus was the world made\ninteresting and important, through being made indispensable. The inward\nactivity of their nature, and the barrenness of their native soil,\ncombined in teaching our forefathers to form bolder plans, and invented\nfor them a house wherein, under conduct of the stars, they could safely\nmove upon rivers and seas, and sail toward regions new:--\n\n   Fluctibus ignotis insultavere carinae.\n   (Their keels danced upon waves unknown.)\n\nHere again they met with new productions of nature, new dangers, new\nneeds that called for new exertions. The collision of animal instincts\ndrives hordes against hordes, forges a sword out of the raw metal, begets\nadventurers, heroes, and despots. Towns are fortified, states are\nfounded: with the states arise civic duties and rights, arts, figures,\ncodes of law, subtle priests--and gods.\n\nAnd now, when necessities have degenerated into luxury, what a boundless\nfield is opened to our eyes! Now are the veins of the earth burrowed\nthrough, the foot of man is planted on the bottom of the sea, commerce\nand travel flourish:--\n\n     Latet sub classibus aequor.\n   (The sea is hid beneath the fleets.)\n\nThe West wonders at the East, the East at the West; the productions of\nforeign countries accustom themselves to grow under other skies, and the\nart of gardening shows the products of three-quarters of the world in one\ngarden. Artists learn her works from nature, music soothes the savage\nbreast, beauty and harmony ennoble taste and manners, and art leads the\nway to science and virtue. \"Man,\" says Schloezer [see Schloezer's Plan\nof his Universal History, S 6], \"this mighty demigod, clears rocks from\nhis path, digs out lakes, and drives his plough where once the sail was\nseen. By canals he separates quarters of the globe and provinces from\none another; leads one stream to another and discharges them upon a sandy\ndesert, changed thereby into smiling meadow; three quarters of the globe\nhe plunders and transplants them into a fourth. Even climate, air, and\nweather acknowledge his sway. While he roots out forests and drains the\nswamp, the heaven grows clear above his head, moisture and mist are lost,\nwinter becomes milder and shorter, because rivers are no longer frozen\nover.\" And the mind of man is refined with the refining of his clime.\n\nThe state occupies the citizen in the necessities and comforts of life.\nIndustry gives the state security and rest from without; from within,\ngranting to thinker and artist that fruitful leisure through which the\nage of Augustus came to be called the Golden Age. The arts now take a\nmore daring and untrammelled flight, science wins a light pure and dry,\nnatural history and physical science shatter superstition, history\nextends a mirror of the times that were, and philosophy laughs at the\nfollies of mankind. But when luxury grows into effeminacy and excess,\nwhen the bones begin to ache, and the pestilence to spread and the air\nbecomes infected, man hastens in his distress from one realm of nature to\nanother, that he may at least find means for lessening his pains. Then\nhe finds the divine plant of China; from the bowels of the earth he digs\nout the mightily-working mercury, and from the poppy of the East learns\nto distil its precious juice. The most hidden corners of nature are\ninvestigated; chemistry separates material objects into their ultimate\nelements, and creates worlds of her own; alchemists enrich the province\nof physical science; the microscopic glance of a Schwammerdam surprises\nnature in her most secret operations. Man goes still further; necessity\nor curiosity transcends the boundaries set by superstition: he seizes the\nknife, takes courage, and the masterpiece of nature is discovered, even\nman. Thus did it behoove the least, the poorest, to help us to reach the\nhighest; disease and death must lend their aid to man in teaching him\nGnothi seauton (\"Know thyself!\"). The plague produced and formed our\nHippocrates, our Sydenhams, as war is the mother of generals; and we owe\nto the most devastating disease that ever visited humanity an entire\nreformation of our medical system.\n\nOur intention was to show the influence upon the perfecting of the soul\nthrough the temperate enjoyment of the pleasures held out by the senses;\nand how marvellously has the matter changed, even while under our hands!\nWe found that even excess and abuse in this direction have furthered the\nreal demands of humanity; the deflections from the primitive end of\nnature--merchants, conquerors, and luxury--have, undoubtedly, tended to\nhasten a progress which had otherwise been more regular, but very slow.\nLet us compare the old world with the new! In the first, desire was\nsimple, its satisfaction easy; but how mistaken, how painful was the\njudgment passed on nature and her laws! Now, the road is made more\ndifficult by a thousand windings, but how full the light that has been\nshed upon all our conceptions!\n\nWe may, then, repeat: Man needed to be an animal before he knew that he\nwas a spirit; he needed to crawl in the dust before he ventured on a\nNewtonian flight through the universe. The body, therefore, is the first\nspur to action; sense the first step on the ladder to perfection.\n\n\n\nANIMAL SENSATIONS ACCOMPANY MENTAL SENSATIONS.\n\nS 12.--Law.\n\n\nThe understanding of man is extremely limited, and, therefore, all\nsensations resulting from its action must of necessity be also limited.\nIn order, therefore, to give these sensations greater impulse, and with\nredoubled force to attract the will to good and restrain it from evil,\nboth natures, the spiritual and the animal, are so intimately connected\nwith each other that their modifications, being mutually interchanged,\nimpart strength to one another. Hence arises a fundamental law of mixed\nnatures, which, being reduced to its primary divisions, runs thus: the\nactivities of the body correspond to the activities of the mind; that is,\nany overstraining of a mental activity is necessarily followed by an\noverstraining of certain bodily actions,--just as the equilibrium, or\nharmonious action, of the mental powers is associated with that of the\nbodily powers in perfect accord. Further: mental indolence induces\nindolence in the bodily actions; mental inaction causes them to cease\naltogether. Thus, as perfection is ever accompanied by pleasure,\nimperfection by the absence of pleasure, this law may be thus expressed:\nMental pleasure is invariably attended by animal pleasure, mental pain by\nanimal pain. [Complacency and Displacency perhaps more aptly express the\nmeaning of Lust and Unlust, which we translate by pleasure and pain.]\n\n\n\nS 13.--Mental Pleasure furthers the Welfare of the Human Frame.\n\n\nThus, a sensation which embraces within its range the whole spiritual\nbeing agitates in the same measure the whole framework of the organic\nbody,--heart, veins and blood, muscles and nerves, all, from those mighty\nnerves that give to the heart its living impulse of motion down to the\ntiny and unimportant nerves by which hairs are attached to the skin,\nshare equally its influence. Everything tends to a more violent motion.\nIf the sensation be an agreeable one, all these parts will acquire a\nhigher degree of harmonious activity; the heart's beat will be free,\nlively, uniform, the blood will flow unchecked, gently or with fiery\nspeed, according as the affection is of a gentle or violent description;\ndigestion, secretion, and excretion will follow their natural course; the\nexcitable membranes will pliantly play in a gentle vapor-bath, and\nexcitability as well as sensitiveness will increase. Therefore the\ncondition of the greatest momentary mental pleasure is at the same time\nthe condition of the greatest bodily well-being.\n\nAs many as there may be of these partial activities (and is not every\nbeat of the pulse the result perhaps of thousands?) so many will be the\nobscure sensations crowding upon the soul, each one of which indicates\nperfection. Out of this confused complexity arises entire sensation of\nthe animal harmonies, that is, the highest possible combined sensation of\nanimal pleasure, which ranges itself, as it were, alongside of the\noriginal intellectual or moral sensation, which this addition infinitely\nincreases. Thus is every agreeable affection the source of countless\nbodily pleasures.\n\nThis is most evidently confirmed by the examples of sick persons who have\nbeen cured by joy. Let one whom a terrible home-sickness has wasted to a\nskeleton be brought back to his native land, and the bloom of health will\nsoon be his again; or let us enter a prison in which miserable men have\nfor ten or twenty years inhabited filthy dungeons and possess at last\nbarely strength to move,--and let us tell them suddenly they are free;\nthe single word of freedom will endow their limbs with the strength of\nyouth, and cause dead eyes to sparkle with life. Sailors, whom thirst\nand famine have made their prey during a long voyage, are half cured by\nthe steersman's cry of \"Land!\" and he would certainly greatly err who\nascribed the whole result to a prospect of fresh food. The sight of a\ndear one, whom the sufferer has long desired to see, sustains the life\nthat was about to go, and imparts strength and health. It is a fact,\nthat joy can quicken the nervous system more effectually than all the\ncordials of the apothecary, and can do wonders in the case of inveterate\ninternal disorders denied to the action of rhubarb and even mercury. Who\nthen does not perceive that the constitution of the soul which knows how\nto derive pleasure from every event and can dissipate every ache in the\nperfection of the universe, must be the most beneficial to the whole\norganism? and this constitution of the soul is--virtue.\n\n\n\nS 14.--Mental pain undermines the Welfare of the Whole Organisms.\n\n\nIn the very same way, the opposite result is brought about by a\ndisagreeable affection of the mind. The ideas which rule so intensely\nthe angry or terrified man may, as rightly as Plato called the passions a\nfever of the soul, be regarded as convulsions of the organ of thought.\nThese convulsions quickly extend through the nervous system, and so\ndisturb the vital powers that they lose their perfection, and all organic\nactions lose their equilibrium. The heart beats violently and\nirregularly; the blood is so confined to the lungs that the failing pulse\nhas barely enough to sustain it. The internal chemical processes are at\ncross-purposes; beneficent juices lose their way and work harm in other\nprovinces, while what is malignant may attack the very core of our\norganism. In a word, the condition of the greatest mental distress\nbecomes the condition of the greatest bodily sickness.\n\nThe soul is informed of the threatened ruin of the organs that should\nhave been her good and willing servants by a thousand obscure sensations,\nand is filled with an entire sensation of pain, associating itself to the\nprimary mental suffering, and giving to this a sharper sting.\n\n\n\nS 15.--Examples.\n\n\nDeep, chronic pains of the soul, especially if accompanied by a strong\nexertion of thought--among which I would give a prominent place to that\nlingering anger which men call indignation--gnaw the very foundations of\nphysical life, and dry up the sap that nourish it. Sufferers of this\nkind have a worn and pale appearance, and the inward grief betrays itself\nby the hollow, sunken eyes. \"Let me,\" says Caesar, \"have men about me\nthat are fat\":--\n\n   Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights;\n   Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look;\n   He thinks too much--such men are dangerous.\n\nFear, trouble, distress of conscience, despair, are little less powerful\nin their effects than the most violent fevers. Richard, when in deepest\nanxiety, finds his former cheerfulness is gone, and thinks to bring it\nback with a glass of wine. But it is not mental sorrow only that has\nbanished comfort, it is a sensation of discomfort proceeding from the\nvery root of his physical organism, the very same sensation that\nannounces a malignant fever. The Moor, heavily burdened with crimes, and\nonce crafty enough in absolving all the sensations of humanity--by his\nskeleton-process--into nothing, now rises from a dreadful dream, pale and\nbreathless, with a cold sweat upon his brow. All the images of a future\njudgment which he had perhaps believed in as a boy, and blotted out from\nhis remembrance as a man, assail his dream-bewildered brain. The\nsensations are far too confused for the slower march of reason to\novertake and unravel them. Reason is still struggling with fancy, the\nspirit with the horrors of the corporeal frame. [\"Life of Moor,\" tragedy\nof Krake. Act. v. sc. 1.]\n\n\nMOOR.--No! I am not shaking. It was but a dream. The dead are not\nbeginning to rise. Who says I tremble and turn pale? I am quite well,\nquite well.\n\nBED.--You are pale as death; your voice is frightened and hesitating.\n\nMOOR.--I am feverish. I will be bled to-morrow. Say only, when the\npriest comes, that I have fever.\n\nBED.--But you are very ill.\n\nMOOR.--Yes truly; that is all. And sickness disturbs the brain and\nbreeds strange mad dreams. Dreams mean nothing. Fie on womanish\ncowardice! Dreams mean nothing. I have just had a pleasant dream.\n                    [He falls down in a faint.\n\nHere we have the whole image of the dream suddenly forcing itself upon a\nman, and setting in motion the entire system of obscure ideas, stirring\nup from the foundation the organ of thought. From all these causes\narises an intense sensation of pain in its utmost concentration, which\nshatters the soul from its depth, and lames per consensum the whole\nstructure of the nerves.\n\nThe cold horror that seizes on the man who is about to commit some crime,\nor who has just committed one, is nothing else than the horror which\nagitates the feverish man, and which is felt on taking nauseous\nmedicines. The nightly tossings of those who are troubled by remorse,\nalways accompanied by a high pulse, are veritable fevers, induced by the\nconnection between the physical organism with the soul; and Lady Macbeth,\nwalking in her sleep, is an instance of brain delirium. Even the\nimitation of a passion makes the actor for the moment ill; and after\nGarrick had played Lear or Othello he spent some hours in convulsions on\nhis bed. Even the illusion of the spectator, through sympathy with acted\npassion, has brought on shivering, gout, and fits of fainting.\n\nIs not he, then, who is plagued with an evil temper, and draws gall and\nbitterness from every situation in life: is not the vicious man, who\nlives in a chronic state of hatred and malevolence; is not the envious\nman, who finds torture in every excellence of his neighbor,--are not\nthese, all of them, the greatest foes to their own health? Has vice not\nenough of the horrible in it, when it destroys not only happiness but\nhealth.\n\n\n\nS 16.-Exceptions.\n\n\nBut a pleasant affection has sometimes been a fatal one, and an\nunpleasant one has sometimes worked a marvellous cure. Both facts rest\nupon experience: should they remove the limits of the law we have\nexpounded?\n\nJoy is fatal when it rises into ecstacy: nature cannot support the strain\nwhich in one moment is thrown upon the whole nervous system. The motion\nof the brain is no longer harmony, but convulsion, an extremely sudden\nand momentary force which soon changes into the ruin of the organism,\nsince it has transgressed the boundary line of health (for into the very\nidea of health there enters and is essentially interwoven the idea of a\ncertain moderation of all natural motions). The joy as well as the grief\nof finite beings is limited, and dare not pass beyond a certain point\nwithout ruin.\n\nAs far as the second part is concerned, we have many examples of cure,\nthrough a moderate fit of anger, of inveterate dyspepsia; and through\nfright,--as in the case of a fire--of rheumatic pains and lameness\napparently incurable. But even dysentery has sometimes resolved an\ninternal stoppage, and the itch has been a cure for melancholy madness\nand insanity: is the itch, for this, less a disease?--is dysentery\ntherefore health.\n\n\n\nS 17.--Indolence of Mind brings about greater Indolence in the Organic\nMovements.\n\n\nAs, according to the testimony of Herr von Haller, activity of mind\nduring the day tends to quicken the pulse towards evening, will not\nindolence of mind make it more sluggish, and absolute inactivity\ncompletely stop it? For, although the circulation of the blood does not\nseem to be so very dependent on the mind, is it altogether unreasonable\nto suppose that the heart, which, in any case, borrows from the brain the\nlarger portion of its strength, must necessarily, when the soul ceases to\nmaintain the action of the brain, suffer thereby a great loss of power?\nA condition of phlegm is accompanied by a sluggish pulse, the blood is\nthin and watery, and the circulation defective in the abdomen. The\nidiots, whom Muzell has described for us [Muzell's \"Medical and Surgical\nConsiderations.\"], breathed slowly and with difficulty, had no\ninclination to eat and drink, nor to the natural functions; the pulse was\nslow, all bodily movements slumberous and indicative of weariness. The\nmental numbness which is the result of terror or wonder is sometimes\naccompanied by a general suspension of all natural physical activity.\nWas the mind the origin of this condition, or was it the body which\nbrought about this torpid state of mind? But these considerations lead\nto subtleties and intricate questions, and, besides, must not be\ndiscussed in this place.\n\n\n\nS 18.--Second Law.\n\n\nAll that has been said of the transferrence of the mental sensations to\nthe animal holds true of the transferrence of animal affections to the\nmental. Bodily sickness--for the most part the natural result of\nintemperance--brings its punishment in the form of bodily pain; but the\nmind also cannot escape a radical attack, in order that a twofold pain\nmay more powerfully impress upon it the necessity of restraint in the\ndesires. In like manner the feeling of bodily health is accompanied by a\nmore lively consciousness of mental improvement, and man is thus the more\nspurred on to maintain his body in good condition. We arrive thus at a\nsecond law of mixed natures--that, with the free action of the bodily\norganism, the sensations and ideas gain a freer flow; and learn that,\nwith a corrupted organism, corruption of the thinking faculty and of the\nsensations inevitably follows. Or, more shortly, that the general\nsensation of a harmonious animal life is the fountain of mental pleasure,\nand that animal pain and sickness is the fountain of mental pain.\n\nIn these different respects, or from their consideration, soul and body\nmay not unaptly be compared with two stringed instruments tuned by the\nsame hand, and placed alongside of one another. When a string of one of\nthem is touched and a certain tone goes forth, the corresponding string\nof the other will sound of itself and give the same tone, only somewhat\nweaker. And, using this comparison, we may say that the string of\ngladness in the body wakes the glad string in the soul, and the sad\nstring the string of sadness. This is that wonderful and noteworthy\nsympathy which unites the heterogeneous principles in man so as to form\none being. Man is not soul and body--but the most inward and essential\nblending of the two.\n\n\n\nS 19.--Moods of Mind result from Moods of Body.\n\n\nHence the heaviness, the incapacity of thought, the discontented temper;\nwhich are the consequence of excess in physical indulgence; hence the\nwonderful effects of wine upon those who always drink in moderation.\n\"When you have drunk wine,\" says Brother Martin, \"you see everything\ndouble, you think doubly easily, you are doubly ready for any\nundertaking, and twice as quickly bring it to a conclusion.\" Hence the\ncomfort and good-humor experienced in fine weather, proceeding partly\nfrom association of ideas, but mostly from the increased feeling of\nbodily health that goes along with it, extending over all the functions\nof our organism. Then it is that people use such expressions as, \"I feel\nthat I am well,\" and at such a season they are more disposed towards all\nmanner of mental labor, and have a heart more open to the humaner\nfeelings, and more prompt to the practice of moral duties. The same may\nbe seen in the national character of different peoples. Those who dwell\nin gloomy regions mourn along with the dismal scenery: in wild and stormy\nzones man grows wild: where his lot is cast in friendly climates he\nlaughs with the sky that is bright above him. Only under the clear\nheaven of Greece lived a Homer, a Plato, a Phidias; there were born the\nMuses and the Graces, while the Lapland mists can hardly bring forth men,\nand never a genius. While our Germany was yet a wild forest or morass,\nthe German was a hunter as wild as the beast whose skin he slung about\nhis shoulders. As soon as industry had changed the aspect of his country\nbegan the epoch of moral progress. I will not maintain that character\ntakes its rise in climate only, but it is certain that towards the\ncivilization of a people one main means is the improvement of their\nskies.\n\nThe disorders of the body may disorder the whole range of our moral\nperceptions, and prepare the way for an outburst of the most evil\npassions. A man whose constitution is ruined by a course of dissipation\nis more easily led to extremes than one who has kept his body as it\nshould be kept. This is, indeed, the horrible plan of those who destroy\nour youths, and that father of robbers must have known man well, who\nsaid, \"We must destroy both body and soul.\" Catiline was a profligate\nbefore he became a conspirator, and Doria greatly erred when he thought\nhe had no cause to fear a voluptuary like Fiesco. On the whole, it is\nvery often remarked that an evil spirit dwells in a sick body.\n\nIn diseases this sympathy is still more striking. All severe illnesses,\nespecially those of malignant nature and arising from the economy of the\nabdominal regions, announce themselves, more or less, by a strange\nrevolution in the character. Even while the disease is still silently\nstealing through the hidden corners of our mechanism, and undermining the\nstrength of nerve, the mind begins to anticipate by dark forebodings the\nfall of her companion. This is a main element in that condition which a\ngreat physician described in a masterly manner under the name of\n\"Horrores.\" Hence their moroseness of disposition, which none can\naccount for, their wavering fancies and inclinations, their disgust at\nwhat used to give them pleasure. The amiable man grows quarrelsome, the\nmerry man cross, and he who used to lose himself, and gladly, in the\nbustle of the world, flies the face of man and retires into a gloomy\nmelancholy. But underneath this treacherous repose the enemy is making\nready for a deadly onslaught. The universal disturbance of the entire\nmechanism, when the disease once breaks forth, is the most speaking proof\nof the wonderful dependence of the soul on the body. The feeling,\nspringing from a thousand painful sensations, of the utter ruin of the\norganism, brings about a frightful mental confusion. The most horrible\nideas and fancies rise from their graves. The villain whom nothing could\nmove yields under the dominant power of mere animal terror. Winchester,\nin dying, yells in the anguish of despair. The soul is under a terrible\nnecessity, it would seem, of snatching at whatever will drag it deeper\ninto darkness, and rejects with obstinate madness every ray of comfort.\nThe string, the tone of pain is in the ascendant, and just as the\nspiritual misery rose in the bodily disorder, so now it turns and renders\nthe disorder more universal and more intense.\n\n\n\nS 20.--Limitations of the foregoing.\n\n\nBut there are daily examples of sufferers who courageously lift\nthemselves above bodily ills: of dying men who, amidst the distressful\nstruggles of the frame, ask, \"Where is thy sting, O death?\" Should not\nwisdom, one might urge, avail to combat the blind terrors of the organic\nnature? Nay, much more than wisdom, should religion have so little power\nto protect her friends against the assaults springing from the dust? Or,\nwhat is the same thing, does it not depend upon the preceding condition\nof the soul, as to how she accepts the alterations of the processes of\nlife?\n\nNow, this is an irrefragable truth. Philosophy, and still more a mind\ncourageous and elevated by religion, are capable of completely weakening\nthe influence of the animal sensations which assault the soul of one in\npain, and able, as it were, to withdraw it from all coherence with the\nmaterial. The thought of God, which is interwoven with death, as with\nall the universe, the harmony of past life, the anticipation of an\never-happy future, spread a bright light over all its ideas; while night\nis drawn round the soul of him who departs in folly and in unbelief. If\neven involuntary pangs force themselves upon the Christian and wise man\n(for is he less a human being?), yet will he resolve the sensations of\nhis dissolving frame into happiness:--\n\n   The soul, secured in her existence, smiles\n   At the drawn dagger and defies its point.\n   The stars shall fade away, the sun himself\n   Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years;\n   But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,\n   Unhurt amidst the war of elements,\n   The wreck of matter, and the crash of worlds.\n\nIt is precisely this unwonted cheerfulness on the part of those who\nare mortally sick which has often a physical reason at the basis, and\nwhich has the most express significance for the practical physician.\nIt is often found in conjunction with the most fatal symptoms of\nHippocrates, and without being attributable to any bygone crisis. Such\na cheerfulness is of bad import. The nerves, which during the height of\nthe fever have been most sharply assailed, have now lost sensation; the\ninflamed members, it is well known, cease to smart as soon as they are\ndestroyed; but it would be a hapless thought to rejoice that the time of\nburning pain were passed and gone. Stimulus fails before the dead\nnerves, and a deathly indolence belies future healing. The soul finds\nherself under the illusion of a pleasant sensation, because she is free\nfrom a long-enduring painful one. She is free from pain, not because the\ntone of her instrument is restored, but because she no more experiences\nthe discord. Sympathy ceases as soon as the connection is lost.\n\n\n\nS 21.--Further Aspects of the Connection.\n\n\nIf I might now begin to go deeper--if I might speak of delirium, of\nslumber, of stupor, of epilepsy and catalepsy, and such like, wherein the\nfree and rational spirit is subjected to the despotism of the body--if I\nmight enlarge especially on the wide field of hysteria and hypochondria--\nif it were allowed me to speak of temperaments, idiosyncrasies, and\nconstitutions, which for physicians and philosophers are an abyss--in one\nword, should I attempt to demonstrate truth of the foregoing from the bed\nof sickness, which is ever a chief school of psychology--my matter would\nbe extended to an endless length. We have, it seems to me, enough to\nprove that the animal nature is throughout mingled with the spiritual,\nand that this combination is perfection.\n\n\n\nPHYSICAL PHENOMENA EXPRESS THE EMOTIONS OF THE MIND.\n\nS 22.--Physiognomy of Sensations.\n\n\nIt is just this close correspondence between the two natures which is the\nbasis of the whole science of physiognomy. By means of this nervous\nconnection (which, as we have seen, lies at the bottom of the\ncommunication of feelings) the most secret movements of the soul are\nrevealed on the exterior of the body, and passion penetrates even through\nthe veil of the hypocrite. Each passion has its specific expressions,\nits peculiar dialect, so to speak, by which one knows it. And, indeed,\nit is an admirable law of Supreme Wisdom, that every passion which is\nnoble and generous beautifies the body, while those that are mean and\nhateful distort it into animal forms. The more the mind departs from the\nlikeness of the Deity, the nearer does the outward form seem to approach\nthe animal, and always that animal which has a kindred proclivity. Thus,\nthe mild expression of the philanthropist attracts the needy, whom the\ninsolent look of the angry man repels. This is an indispensable guide in\nsocial life. It is astonishing what an accordance bodily appearance has\nwith the passions; heroism and fearlessness pour life and strength\nthrough the veins and muscles, the eyes sparkle, the breast heaves, all\nthe limbs arm themselves alike for combat--the man has the appearance of\na war-horse. Fright and fear extinguish the fire in the eyes, the limbs\nsink powerless and heavy, the marrow in the bones seems frozen, the blood\nfalls back on the heart like a stone, a general weakness cripples the\npowers of life.\n\nA great, bold, lofty thought compels us to stand on tiptoe, to hold up\nthe head, to expand the mouth and nose. The feeling of eternity, the\noutlook on a wide open horizon, the sea, etc., make us stretch out our\narms--we would merge ourselves into the eternal: with the mountains, we\nwould grow towards the heavens, rush thither on storms and waves: yawning\nabysses throw us down in giddiness. In like manner, hate is expressed in\nthe body by a repelling force; while, on the contrary, in every pressure\nof the hand, in every embrace, our body will merge into that of our\nfriend, in the same manner as the souls are in harmonious combination.\nPride makes the body erect as the soul rises; pettiness bends the head,\nthe limbs hang down; servile fear is expressed in the cringing walk; the\nthought of pain distorts our face, if pleasurable aspects spread a grace\nover the whole body; anger, on the other hand, will break through every\nstrong opposing cord, and need will almost overcome the impossible. I\nwould now ask through what mechanism it happens that exactly these\nmovements result from these feelings, that just these organs are affected\nby these passions? Might I not just as well want to know why a certain\nwounding of the ligament should stiffen the lower jaw?\n\nIf the passion which sympathetically awakened these movements of the\nframe be often renewed, if this sensation of soul become habitual, then\nthese movements of the body will become so also. If this matured passion\nbe of a lasting character, then these constitutional features of the\nframe become deeply engraved: they become, if I may borrow the\npathologist's word, \"deuteropathetic,\" and are at last organic. Thus, at\nlast, the firm perennial physiognomy of man is formed, so that it is\nalmost easier afterwards to change the soul than the form. In this\nsense, one may also say, without being a \"Stahlian,\" that the soul forms\nthe body; and perhaps the earliest years of youth decide the features of\na man for life, as they certainly are the foundation of his moral\ncharacter. An inert and weak soul, which never overflows in passions,\nhas no physiognomy at all; and want of expression is the leading\ncharacteristic of the countenance of the imbecile. The original features\nwhich nature gave him continue unaltered; the face is smooth, for no soul\nhas played upon it; the eyebrows retain a perfect arch, for no wild\npassion has distorted them; the whole form retains its roundness, for the\nfat reposes in its cells; the face is regular, perhaps even beautiful,\nbut I pity the soul of it!\n\nA physiognomy of (perfect) organic parts, e.g., as to the form and size\nof the nose, eyes, mouth, ears, etc., the color of the hair, the height\nof the neck, and such like, may perhaps possibly be found, but certainly\nnot very easily, however much Lavater should continue to rave about it\nthrough ten quarto volumes. He who would reduce to order the capricious\nplay of nature, and classify the forms which she has punished like a\nstepmother, or endowed as a mother, would venture more than Linnaeus, and\nshould be very careful lest he become one with the original presented to\nhim, through its monstrous sportive variety.\n\nYet one more kind of sympathy deserves to be noticed, since it is of\ngreat importance in physiology. I mean the sympathy of certain\nsensations for the organs from which they sprang. A certain cramp in the\nstomach causes a feeling of disgust; the reproduction of this sensation\nbrings back the cramp. How is this?\n\n\n\nS 23.--The Remains of the Animal Nature is also a Source of Perfection.\n\n\nAlthough the animal part of man preserves for him the many great\nadvantages of which we have already spoken, still, one may say that, in\nanother aspect, it remains always despicable; viz., the soul thus\ndepends, slave-like, on the activity of its tools; the periodical\nrelaxation of these prescribes to the soul an inactive pause and\nannihilation at periods. I mean sleep, which, one cannot deny, robs us\nat least of the third part of our life. Further, our mind is completely\ndependent on the laws of the body, so that the cessation of the latter\nputs a sudden stop to the continuance of thoughts, even though we be on\nthe straight, open path towards truth. If the reason have ever so little\nfixed upon an idea, when the lazy matter refuses to carry it out, the\nstrings of the thinking organs grow weary, if they have been but slightly\nstrained; the body fails us where we need it most. What astonishing\nsteps, one may infer, would man make in the use of his powers if he could\ncontinue to think in a state of unbroken intensity! How he would unravel\nevery idea to its final elements; how he would trace every appearance to\nits most hidden sources, if he could keep them uninterruptedly before his\nmind! But, alas! it is not thus. Why is it not so?\n\n\n\nS 24.--Necessity for Relaxation.\n\n\nThe following will lead us on the track of truth:--\n\n1. Pleasant sensation was necessary to lead man to perfection, and he can\nonly be perfect when he feels comfortable.\n\n2. The nature of a mortal being makes unpleasant feeling unavoidable.\nEvil does not shut man out from the best world, and the worldly-wise find\ntheir perfection therein.\n\n3. Thus pain and pleasure are necessary. It seems harder, but it is no\nless true.\n\n4. Every pain, as every pleasure, grows according to its nature, and\nwould continue to do so.\n\n5. Every pain and every pleasure of a mixed being tend to their own\ndissolution.\n\n\n\nS 25.--Explanation.\n\n\nIt is a well-known law of the connection between ideas that every\nsensation, of whatever kind, immediately seizes another of its kind, and\nenlarges itself through this addition. The larger and more manifold it\nbecomes, so much the more does it awaken similar sensations in all\ndirections through the organs of thought, until, by degrees, it becomes\nuniversally predominant, and occupies the whole soul. Consequently,\nevery sensation grows through itself; every present condition of the\nfeeling power contains the root of a feeling to follow, similar, but more\nintense. This is evident. Now, every mental sensation is, as we know,\nallied to a similar animal one; in other words, each one is connected\nwith more or less movement of the nerves, which take a direction\naccording to the measure of their strength and extension. Thus, as\nmental sensations grow, must the movements in the nervous system increase\nalso. This is no less clear. Now, pathology teaches us that a nerve\nnever suffers alone: and to say, \"Here is a superfluity of strength,\" is\nas much as to say, \"There is want of strength.\" Thus, every nervous\nmovement grows through itself. Now, we have remarked that the movements\nof the nervous system react upon the mind, and strengthen the mental\nsensations;\n\n   [Why, how one weeps when one's too weary!\n           Tears, tears! why we weep,\n   'Tis worth inquiry:--that we've shamed a life,\n   Or lost a love, or missed a world, perhaps?\n   By no means. Simply, that we've walked too far,\n   Or talked too much, or felt the wind in the east, etc.\n                         --Aurora Leigh.]\n\nvice versa, the strengthened sensation of the mind increase and\nstrengthen the motions of the nerves. Thus we have a circle, in which\nsensation must always increase, and nervous movements every moment become\nmore powerful and universal.\n\nNow, we know that the movements of the bodily frame which cause the\nfeeling of pain run counter to the harmony by which it would exist in\nwell-being; that is, that they are diseased. But disease cannot grow\nunceasingly, therefore they end in the total destruction of the frame.\nIn relation to pain, it is thus proved that it aims at the death of the\nsubject.\n\nBut, the motions of the nerves under pleasant sensations being so\nharmonious to the continuance of the machinery that the condition of mind\nwhich constitutes pleasure is that of the greatest bodily well-being,\nshould not rather, then, pleasant sensation prolong the bloom of the body\neternally? This inference is too hasty. In a certain stage of\nmoderation, these nervous motions are wholesome, and really a sign of\nhealth. But if they outgrow this stage, they may be the highest\nactivity, the highest momentary perfection; but, thus, they are excess of\nhealth, no longer health itself.\n\nWe only call that condition of the natural motions health in which the\nroot of similar ones for the future lies, viz., those which confirm the\nperfection of succeeding motions; thus, the destiny of continuance is\nessentially contained in the idea of health. Thus, for example, the body\nof the most debilitated profligate attains to its greatest harmony at the\nmoment of excess; but it is only momentarily, and a so much deeper\nabatement shows sufficiently that overstraining was not health.\nTherefore one may justly accept that an overstrained vigor of physical\naction hastens death as much as the greatest disorder or the worst\nillness. Both pain and pleasure draw us towards an unavoidable death,\nunless something be present which limits their advance.\n\n\n\nS 26.--Excellence of this Abatement.\n\n\nIt is just this (the limit to their growth) which the abatement of the\nanimal nature causes. It must be no other than this limitation of our\nfragile frame (that appeared to have lent to our opponents so strong a\nproof against its perfection) which ameliorates all the evil consequences\nthat the mechanism otherwise makes unavoidable. It is exactly this\nsinking, this lassitude of the organs, over which tinkers complain so\nmuch, that prevents our own strength destroying us in a short time; that\ndoes not permit our positions to be always increasing towards our\ndestruction. This limitation shows each passion the period of its\ngrowth, its height and decline (if indeed the passion does not die out in\na total relaxation of the body), which leaves the excited spirits time to\nresume their harmony, and the organs to recover. Hence, the highest\npitch of rapture, of fear, and of anger, are the same as weariness,\nweakness, or fainting. But sleep vouchsafes more, for as Shakspeare\nsays:--\n\n   Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,\n   The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,\n   Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's sweet restorer.\n                        --Macbeth.\n\nDuring sleep, the vital forces restore themselves to that healthy\nbalance which the continuance of our being so much requires; all the\ncramped ideas and feelings, the overstrained actions which have\ntroubled us through the day, are solved in the entire relaxation of the\nsensorium; the harmony of the motions of the mind are resumed, and the\nnewly-awakened man greets the coming day more calmly.\n\nIn relation to the arrangement of the whole, also, we cannot sufficiently\nadmire the worth and importance of this limitation. The arrangement\nnecessarily causes many, who should be no less happy, to be sacrificed to\nthe general order and to bear the lot of oppression. Likewise, many,\nwhom we perhaps unjustly envy, must expend their mental and bodily\nstrength in restless exertion, so that the repose of the whole be\npreserved. The same with sick persons, the same with unreasoning\nanimals. Sleep seals the eye of care, takes from the prince and\nstatesman the heavy weight of governing; pours new force into the veins\nof the sick man, and rest into his harassed soul; the daylaborer no\nlonger hears the voice of the oppressor, and the ill-used beast escapes\nfrom the tyranny of man. Sleep buries all cares and troubles, balances\neverything, equips every one with new-born powers to bear the joys and\nsorrows of the next day.\n\n\n\nS 27.--Severing of the Connection.\n\n\nAt length arrived at the point in the circle where the mind has fulfilled\nthe aim of its being, an internal, unaccountable mechanism has, at the\nsame time, made the body incapable of being any longer its instrument.\nAll care for the well-being of the bodily state seems to reach but to\nthis epoch. It appears to me that, in the formation of our physical\nnature, wisdom has shown such parsimony, that notwithstanding constant\ncompensations, decline must always keep in the ascendancy, so that\nfreedom misuses the mechanism, and death is germinated in life as out of\nits seed. Matter dissolves again into its last elements, which travel\nthrough the kingdom of nature in other forms and relations, to serve\nother purposes. The mind continues to practise its thinking powers in\nother circles, and to observe the universe from other sides.\n\nWe may truly say that it has not by any means exhausted this actual\nsphere, that it might have left this sphere itself more perfect; but do\nwe know that this sphere is lost to it? We lay many a book aside which\nwe do not understand, but perhaps in a few years we shall understand it\nbetter.","title":"Philosophical Letters of Friedrich Schiller","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":22495}