{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_The_Religious_Aspect_of_Philosophy_Chapter_10/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_The_Religious_Aspect_of_Philosophy_Chapter_10","id":"wikisource_The_Religious_Aspect_of_Philosophy_Chapter_10","license":"Public Domain / CC-BY-SA (see source)","rights_basis":"wikisource_site_inclusion_policy","source":"wikisource","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Religious_Aspect_of_Philosophy/Chapter_10","summary":null,"tags":["Headers_applying_DefaultSort_key","Subpages"],"text":"CHAPTER X.\n\nIDEALISM.\n\n\u0395\u1f30\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u1f45\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u03bf\u1f50\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u1f78\u03bd \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03b2\u03bb\u03ad\u03c8\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f13\u03bd \u03b5\u1f36\u03bd\u03b1\u03af \u03c6\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03bd.\nAristotle, concerning the doctrine of Xenophanes.\n\nStill we are seeking the Eternal. Postulates\nabout it we must indeed make, or else we shall do\nnothing. But can we not go beyond the mere\npostulates? Is there no other road open to the heart of\nthings? In fact many other ways have been\nsuggested. The religiously interesting efforts towards\na suggestion of such ways have been the special work\nof philosophical Idealism in the past. Let us then\nsee to what results philosophical Idealism offers to\nlead us.\n\nI.\n\n\u201cThe world of dead facts is an illusion. The\ntruth of it is a spiritual life.\u201d That is what\nphilosophical idealism says. This spiritual life may be\ndefined in many ways. But the multitude of the\nways of defining it do not altogether obscure the\nsense of the doctrine. Plato and St. Augtistine and\nBerkeley and Fichte and Hegel give us very various\naccounts of the spiritual life that is to be at the\nheart of things, but they agree about the general\nthought. As to the proof of the doctrine, very many writers have presented this idealism as a sort of prod-\nuct of poetical fantasy, and have thereby helped to\nbring it into disrepute. We profess no such enthu-\nsiasm. If we are to give any foundation for our\npostulates by means of an idealistic doctrine, then\nthis foundation must be no mere poetic fancy, but a\nwell-framed philosophic doctrine, able to stand crit-\nicism, and to satisfy very unemotional aims, as well\nas the higher moral aims themselves. But if ideal-\nism is to receive rigid theoretical tests, we may still,\nin view of our present discussion and its needs, be\nhelped on our way more directly if we first consider\nvery generally and briefly what idealism could do\nfor us if it were established, thereafter going on to\nthe theoretical consideration of its claims.\n\nThat the Eternal is a world of spiritual life is\nwhat the idealists of the past have maintained, and\nthe religious force of their doctrine lay not so much\nin the insight that was thus offered concerning the\nnature of the powers that are in the world, as in an-\nother insight. Just here idealistic doctrine and its\noutcome has been seldom comprehended, even by\nthe idealists themselves. The world, merely viewed\nas a heap of warring Powers, cannot be a world of\nspiritual life. If the real world is nevertheless a\nworld of such spiritual life, it must be so because,\nbeyond and above the Powers, there is this higher\nspiritual Life that includes them and watches over\nthem as the spectator watches the tragedy, \u2014 a Life\nin which they live and move and have their being.\nThe characters in a tragedy do not constitute as war-\nring powers, in their separate existence, the signifiPage:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/360 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/361 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/362 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/363 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/364 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/365 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/366 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/367 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/368 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/369 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/370 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/371 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/372 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/373 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/374 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/375 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/376 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/377 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/378 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/379 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/380 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/381 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/382 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/383 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/384 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/385 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/386 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/387 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/388 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/389 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/390 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/391 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/392 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/393 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/394 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/395 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/396 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/397 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/398 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/399 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/400 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/401 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/402 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/403 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/404 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/405 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/406 Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/407 late, when we have a more serious doctrine behind.\nThe inveterate prejudices and misunderstandings to\nwhich idealistic theories fall prey, furnish our excuse\nfor trying to reconcile ourselves to an imperfect form\nof idealism as a mere postulate, before going on to\nset forth an absolute idealism as a demonstrable\ntheory.\n\nNotes","title":"The Religious Aspect of Philosophy/Chapter 10","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":826}