CHAPTER X.
IDEALISM.
Εἰς τὸν ὅλον οὐρανὸν ἀποβλέψας τὸ ἓν εἶναί φησι τὸν θεόν.
Aristotle, concerning the doctrine of Xenophanes.
Still we are seeking the Eternal. Postulates
about it we must indeed make, or else we shall do
nothing. But can we not go beyond the mere
postulates? Is there no other road open to the heart of
things? In fact many other ways have been
suggested. The religiously interesting efforts towards
a suggestion of such ways have been the special work
of philosophical Idealism in the past. Let us then
see to what results philosophical Idealism offers to
lead us.
I.
“The world of dead facts is an illusion. The
truth of it is a spiritual life.” That is what
philosophical idealism says. This spiritual life may be
defined in many ways. But the multitude of the
ways of defining it do not altogether obscure the
sense of the doctrine. Plato and St. Augtistine and
Berkeley and Fichte and Hegel give us very various
accounts of the spiritual life that is to be at the
heart of things, but they agree about the general
thought. As to the proof of the doctrine, very many writers have presented this idealism as a sort of prod-
uct of poetical fantasy, and have thereby helped to
bring it into disrepute. We profess no such enthu-
siasm. If we are to give any foundation for our
postulates by means of an idealistic doctrine, then
this foundation must be no mere poetic fancy, but a
well-framed philosophic doctrine, able to stand crit-
icism, and to satisfy very unemotional aims, as well
as the higher moral aims themselves. But if ideal-
ism is to receive rigid theoretical tests, we may still,
in view of our present discussion and its needs, be
helped on our way more directly if we first consider
very generally and briefly what idealism could do
for us if it were established, thereafter going on to
the theoretical consideration of its claims.
That the Eternal is a world of spiritual life is
what the idealists of the past have maintained, and
the religious force of their doctrine lay not so much
in the insight that was thus offered concerning the
nature of the powers that are in the world, as in an-
other insight. Just here idealistic doctrine and its
outcome has been seldom comprehended, even by
the idealists themselves. The world, merely viewed
as a heap of warring Powers, cannot be a world of
spiritual life. If the real world is nevertheless a
world of such spiritual life, it must be so because,
beyond and above the Powers, there is this higher
spiritual Life that includes them and watches over
them as the spectator watches the tragedy, — a Life
in which they live and move and have their being.
The characters in a tragedy do not constitute as war-
ring 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.
The inveterate prejudices and misunderstandings to
which idealistic theories fall prey, furnish our excuse
for trying to reconcile ourselves to an imperfect form
of idealism as a mere postulate, before going on to
set forth an absolute idealism as a demonstrable
theory.
Notes
Uncharted Knowledge
Wisdom From Previous Realities
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