those whose lives have been filled by its inspiration and devoted to its service. What they have endured;—what the Exalted Founder himself,—what his immediate followers,—what their successors through a long series of ages, until even to us, as to a later birth, their word came;—what they all have wrought and suffered among rude and superstitious nations, animated only by the gladdening and inspiring truth which had risen upon their souls and become the ruling impulse of their lives, —I shall not here call to mind. his Age is not ignorant of these things; it brings them sufficiently into notice, in order that it may laugh at the fanaticism which is all it can discover in them. Only through Christianity; through the vast miracle in which it had its origin, and by which it was ushered into the world, has this change been effected. It is no doubt quite conceivable that after the Truth has once been proclaimed, and in consequence of its numerous adherents has even acquired an authority among men, we may by peaceful inquiry investigate its foundations, reconstruct it by the power of our own understanding,and so,in a certain sense, rediscover it: hut whence the great Founder obtained courage boldly to confront the phantom which had been consecrated by the universal assent of all former Ages, and the very thought of which had paralysed every exertion, and to discover that it was not, but that instead of it there was only Happiness and Love:—this was the miracle. So far as regards the representatives of this Age, it is very certain, if we may judge by other proofs of their acuteness and penetration, that it is not this acuteness, but only the unacknowledged influence exercised over them by this very tradition,—an influence which they deride wherever their dull eye can reach it,—to which they owe it that they do not, even to the present day, smite their faces before idols of wood, and pass their children through the fire to Moloch. Whether you can forbear from passing a sentence of A approval on the sacrifice of personal enjoyment for the sake of Ideas manifested in all these examples, is the question which I must now leave you to answer for yourselves, and also to draw from this phenomenon the inferences which, as we formerly maintained, must necessarily follow from it.
This approval is,as we formerly explained, the immediate effect of the contemplation of the Life in Idea merely in conception, and as a condition foreign to ourselves. We added that the existence of this Life, not in conception only, but in living reality, was the source of an infinite self-enjoyment, which is Blessedness; and we promised a description of this state, which may indeed prove but weak and inadequate, as every mere picture of a living reality must prove.
This is the place more definitely to explain the peculiar nature of the Idea as such;—an explanation for which we have endeavoured to prepare the way by our previous course of thought.
I say, then, that the Idea is an independent, living, matterinspiring Thought.
First,—an independent Thought: Terein, indeed, consists the perverted way of thinking of the Third Age, and generally every perverted way of thinking,—that it ascribes independence, self-reliance, and self-subsistence to mere dead and torpid matter, and then superadds to that the quite superfluous quality of thought, one knows not why or how. No! Thought itself is alone truly independent and self-existent;— not indeed the thought whicli belongs to the single thinking Individual, which truly cannot be self-existent—but the One Eternal Thought, in which all Individuals are but Thoughts. The innermost root of this world is not Death,—Death which, by gradual _ restriction and limitation of its power, may be refined and subtilized into Life;—but, on the contrary, Life is the root of the World, and what there seems to be Death is but a feebler form of Life. A living Thought: as is obvious at once, for Thought is by its very nature living, even as self-existence is by its very nature living; and thus Thought can only be conceived of as self-existent, and self-existence can only be ascribed to Thought,: inasmuch as both bear within them the Idea of Life. A matterinspiring Thought:-—and this in a two-fold sense: All material Life is the expression of the Idea;—for matter itself is but the reflection of a latent Idea, from which it derives the motion and vitality it contains. But where the Idea breaks through this external covering, reveals itself openly and distinctly as Idea, and bursts forth in its own peculiar self-sustaining Life, then the lower grade of life, where the Idea lies latent, disappears in the higher, which now alone fills the individual life, and lives its own Life therein;—and then arises, in a word, that phenomenon which has shown itself mm all our previous descriptions, —the phenomenon of the sacrifice of the personal, 7 e. of the undeveloped ideal life, to the Life of the Idea distinctly revealed as such. Thus, I say, it is with Life:—not the flesh liveth but the spirit; and this fundamental truth, which the speculative philosopher can prove by the necessary laws of thought, has been verified and proved in his own person by every one in whom the Idea has assumed a determinate living form, although it may be that he himself has not been clearly conscious of it. To raise this direct proof from personal experience into the.
clearness of distinct consciousness, and so bring it home to every one, is the business of popular-philosophical teaching, and here especially it is mine.
We said that where the Idea manifests itself in its proper and independent Life, the lower form of life, namely the sensuous, entirely disappears in it and is for ever superseded and extinguished. The love of this lower form of life for itself, and its interest in itself, is annihilated. But all our wants arise only from the existence of this interest, and all our griefs from wounding it. The Life in the Idea is forever secured against all disturbance in this respect, for it has withdrawn itself from the sphere in which alone such disturbance is possible. For this Life there is no self-denial and no sacrifice;—the self which has to be denied, and the desires which have to be sacrificed, are withdrawn from its sight, and its love for them has disappeared. This self-denial and these sacrifices excite astonishment only in him for whom their objects still possess value, because he himself has not yet relinquished them;—when they are once relinquished they vanish into oblivion, and he finds that, in truth, he has lost nothing. The stern and authoritative Law of Duty, which presupposes vicious inclinations, and only exists that it may scare back the first movements of desire into the dim obscurities of thouglit, is abolished in the Life in the Idea. ‘Ce nest que le premier pas qui coitte. This higher Life once attained, that which at first was enforced upon man as the stern command of Duty becomes his spontaneous rule of conduct, the end for which alone he desires to live,—his sole joy, love, and blessedness. Thus, it is only ignorance which dreams that a profound philosophy would recall the gloomy morality of self-crucifixion and martyrdom. Oh no!—it invites man to cast from him that which can afford no enjoyment, in order that the source of infinite enjoyment may approach him, and fill his being with its presence.
The Idea is independent, self-sufficient, self-existent; it lives and has its being absolutely for its own sake alone; and scorns every outward and adventitious object. Hence it does not value and love its Life according to the foreign standard of any result, use, or advantage which may arise therefrom. As in the Life of the Race the Idea strives constantly towards absolute worth, not mere welfare,—worth in itself, not mere deserving;—so when it nourishes the individual life of man it is wholly satisfied with this worth, without demanding any ulterior results. The uncertainty of such results can thus never cloud its inward brightness, nor the actual want of them cause it grief; for it has never counted upon outward consequences, but on the contrary has resigned them along with every other desire of sense. How could sorrow, pain, or disturbance ever enter within the circle of a Life thus strictly comprehended within itself?
The Idea is sufficient in itself for the living, active Life which eternally flows forth from it, without need of aught else, and without allowing aught else to exercise an influence within it. The consciousness of this ever-present independence; this self-sufficiency for infinite and unceasing activity; the purity of this sacred, self-fed flame, which with steady and unvarying power burns onward through Eternity,—is the love’of the Life of Reason for itself, its self-enjoyment, its Blessedness. No idle brooding over its own image, no contemplation of its own excellence;—for reflection is swallowed up in fact, and the unresting, ever-burning flame of real Life, having annihilated the Past and sunk it into the depths of oblivion, leaves neither time nor opportunity again to tecall it thence.; To those in whom the Idea has never attained to life in any form, such delineations of the Blessedness of the Life in Idea are wholly unintelligible—tones from another world; and—since they necessarily deny the existence of any world but their own,—dreams, folly, and fanaticism. But are we not entitled to calculate with some measure of certainty that in cultivated society every one has in some way or other come into contact with Ideas?
As the Idea is simple in its nature,so is the Blessedness of the Life in the Idea everywhere one and the same;— namely, theimmediate consciousness of original spontaneous Energy. It is only in relation to the objects on which this Energy descends, and in which it reveals itself within our own sense and consciousness, that the one Idea assumes different forms;—which different forms are then themselves named Ideas. I say expressly,—within our own sense and consciousness; for only in consciousness do these manifestations of the Idea differ from each other: beyond that they are but one.
The first form assumed among men by this efflyence of Original Energy,—that in which it has manifested itself in the earliest Ages, and in which it is most widely active at the present day, is its expression in outward matter by means of our own material power;—and in this expression of the Idea the Fine Arts consist. Efluence of Original Energy, I have said,—flowing forth from itself, and sufficient for itself, independent of experience or observation of the external world. This latter gives us only individual, and*therefore ignoble and hateful, conceptions, which in having attained reality in one instance, have attained it once too often already;—the. repetition and multiplication of which by Art would be but an evil service to humanity. In outward matter, I said,—irrespective of its peculiarities:—whether the physical representation of one lost in the Idea (for this alone is the true object of Art) stand fixed in marble, or glow upon the canvass; or the emotions of an inspired soul find an utterance in music, or the feelings and thoughts of such a mind speak themselves simply in words;—still it is the effluence of Original Energy in -outward matter.
The true Artist, in the sense in which we have spoken of him, finds in the practice of his Art the highest enjoyment of the Blessedness we have described; for his whole being goes forth in free self-sufficient activity, and in the consciousness of this activity. And is there any one, then, to whom every way is closed of participating in the enjoyment of such creations; and so, in a certain sense, and in a far inferior degree, becoming a joint-creator of them;, and in this way at least perceiving that there is a delight which immeasurably transcends every enjoyment of sense?
Another and higher form of the Idea, which however manifests itself in fewer individuals, is the effluence of Original Energy in the Social relations of Mankind; the source ‘of all great world-embracing political Ideas; in life the parent of Heroism, and the author of all Law and Order among men. What power this Idea confers upon man, we have already seen; with what Blessedness it fills the soul devoted to its service, follows from what we have said; and whoever amongst you can think of the world and his country, and can devote his life to’ their service in forgetfulness of self, knows it from’ his -own experience.
A third form of the Idea is the balciice of he Original Energy in the building up and reconstructing the Universe from itself, z.e. from Thought,—in other words Science; for whenever Science has shown itself among men, it has been essentially this which I have said, and so it must be forever. The high enjoyment which Science ensures to her votaries has been already described:—we have but to add that this pleasure is more spiritual, and hence higher and more exquisite, than any other ideal enjoyment, because here the Idea-js not only present, but is felt and enjoyed as Jdea,—. as Thought itself rising into visibility from the depths of its own nature;—and this is without doubt the highest Blessedness to which mortal can attain here below. It is only in their outward influence that the Fine Arts have an advantage over Science, inasmuch as they are able at times to raise even the uninitiated to their own height by the magic of spiritual sympathy, and so give him a foretaste of perfect enjoyment; while the secrets of Science are accessible only to those for whom they have ceased to be secrets.
Finally:—the most comprehensive, all-embracing and universally comprehensible form of the Idea;—the con- 64 LECTURE LY.
scious dwelling of all activity and all life in the One, Ever-Present Source of Life, the Godhead;—or Meligion. He in whom this consciousness arises with immediate and unalterable certitude and becomes the soul of all his other knowledge, thoughts, and feelings,—he has entered into possession of a happiness which can never be disturbed. Whatever he encounters, is a form of that original source of Life which in all its forms is holy and good, and which he cannot but love in every shape it may assume; for it is, as he may express it in other words, the Will of God, with which his Will is always at one. Whatever he may be called upon to do, however difficult, mean, or ignoble it may seem, is the living form of that fountain of Life within him, to be the expression of which constitutes bis greatest bappiness;—it is the Will of God with him; and to be the instrument of God is his supreme delight. He who ploughs his field in this Faith and Love is infinitely more blessed than he who, without them, removes mountains.
These are the materials for the picture of the One Life according to Reason, to the delineation of which we have devoted the last and the present lecture. Let us now gather together these materials into one conception.
We said that the different forms into which the conception of the One Eternal Original Energy separates itself in our consciousness, and of which we have now indicated the most remarkable,are nevertheless, beyond this consciousness of ours, only one and the same Energy. Wherever this Energy enters into life in any one of these forms, it nevertheless, in and by virtue of that form, embraces itself as a whole, loves itself as a whole, and develops itself as a whole, only without its own knowledge or consciousness; nowhere separated into parts, but always the One, undivided Energy repeated and reproduced in different shapes; everywhere the One Life, the fountain of whose Being is in itself Alone, ceaselessly producing itself anew in its own primitive unity, and in its movement rolling forth the one undivided stream of Time. ‘This One Idea, in the form of the Fine Arts, impresses upon the lifeelements which hie around us the outward image of a Humanity lost in the Idea,—to this end only, whether conscious of it or not, that thereby future generations, even on awakening to life, may be surrounded by representations of what is excellent and worthy, and thus receive a sympathetic education of the outward sense, whereby an efficient preparation is made for the cultivation of the inward life;—and so, in this particular form, the Idea struggles towards itself, and labours for itself, as a Whole. Or, the same One Idea, in the form of Religion,—of the soaring of all Earthly Life and activity towards the One, Eternal, Ever-pure, Ever-good, Everblessed Source of Life,—what is it? What noble mind, thoroughly aware of the true character of the Earthly Life, and no longer attracted by it, could prevail upon itself to pursue this Life without that relation to the One, Eternal, and Abiding Life which Religion offers to its view? And thus it is again the One, Undivided Idea which in this form of Religion upholds itself and its final issues, and resolves the otherwise indissoluble contradictions between the feelings which it inspires and the burdens which it cannot help imposing. And so it is with every other form of the Idea which we have named, and with every other possible form;—the elucidation of which J] must leave to your own reflection.
Thus, I said, does the One, Tera Self-comprehensive, Self-existent Idea roll forth in the undivided Stream of Time. And, I add, that in every individual moment of this Time-stream it comprehends and pervades itself, being throughout all Time eternally present to itself What takes place in it at any moment of time, 7s now, only lecause the Past has been, and because the Future Eternity shall be. Nothing in this system is lost. Worlds produce : worlds, Ages produce new Ages, which stand in contemplation over those which have gone before, and bring to light the secret bond of connexion which unites causes and consequences within them. Then the grave opens, —not that which men heap together on the earth, but the grave of impenetrable darkness wherewith the first life has surrounded us,—and from out it arises the mighty power of Ideas, which sees in a new light the Endin the Beginning, the Perfect in the Partial; every work however humble which springs from Faith in the Eternal is revealed, and the secret aspirations which are here imprisoned and bound down to earth soar upwards on unfettered pinions into a new and purer ether.
In one word: As when the breath of Spring enlivens the air the strong and fixed ice, which but a moment before imprisoned each atom within itself and shut up each neighbouring atom in similar isolation, now no longer maintains its rigid bondage but flows forth in one free, animated, and glowing flood; as the powers of Nature, which were before divided, and in their separation and antagonism produced only devastation and death, now rush together, embrace and interpenetrate each other, and in this free communion send forth a living balsam upon every sense; so does the Spirit-World not indeed flow together at the breath of Love, for in it there is no Winter, but there all is and abddes in eternal communion with the mighty Whole. Nothing individual can live in itself or for itself, but all live in the Whole, and this Whole unceasingly dies for itself in unspeakable love, that it may rise again in new Life. This is the law of the spiritual world:—All that comes into existence falls a sacrifice to an eternally increasing and ascending Life; and this law constantly rules over all, without waiting for the consent of any. Here alone lies the distinction;— whether man allow himself to be led, with the halter round his head, like a beast, to the slaughter; or freely and nobly bring his life a gift to the altar of the Eternal Life, in the full fore-enjoyment of the new Life which is to arise from his ashes.
So is it:—under this sacred Legislation, willing or unwilling, asked or unasked, we all stand;—and it is but a heavy fever-dream which weighs upon the brain of the -Egoist when he thinks that he may live for himself alone, whereby he cannot change the nature of things, but only does himself a wrong. Might there some more gladdening dream from out the Infinite Silence at times refresh the slumberer in the cradle of Eternity!—might there, from time to time, prophetic whispers fall upon his ear, that there is a Light and a Day!
( 69 ) FARTHER DELINEATION OF THE THIRD AGE, RETURNING from a digression through which we promised ourselves additional light wpon our way, we resume the straight path of our inquiry. Let us once more cast a glance over the purpose of this inquiry as a whole.
It is the end of the Earthly Life of the Human Race to order all its relations with Freedom according to Reason. To do this with Freedom, with a Freedom of which the Race shall be conscious, and which it shall recognise as its own, presupposes a condition in which this Freedom had not yet appeared;—not that the relations of the Race have at any time not been ordered according to Reason, for in that case there could have been no Race; but only that this ordering has not been accomplished dy Freedom, but by Reason as a blind power; that is, by Reason as Instinct. Instinct is blind; its opposite, Freedom, must therefore be seeing;—that is, must be a Knowledge of the laws of Reason according to which the Race is to order its relations by means of its own unconstrained activity and art. In order that the Race may be able to attain to Reason as Knowledge, and from thence to Reason as Art, it must in the first place set itself free from the blind dominion of Reason as Instinct. But far from having even a wish to free itself from this constraint, Humanity cannot help loving it, in so far as it rules as an unconscious power within Humanity itself. Hence this constraint must, in the first place, assume the form of an External Authority, and impose itself on Humanity with outward compulsion and power, as the foreign Instinct of a few Individuals; against which External Authority, Humanity now rises in opposition and sets itself free — primarily from this External Authority itself, but, at the same time, from Reason also in the form of Instinct; and — since Reason has not yet appeared in any other form,—from Reason altogether.
From this principle we arrived at five great and only possible Epochs, exhausting the whole Earthly Life of the Human Race:— First, That in which human affairs are governed by Reason as Instinct without violence or constraint. Second, That in which this Instinct has become weaker, and now only manifests itself in a few chosen Individuals, and thereby becomes an External Ruling Authority for all the rest. Third, That in which this Authority is thrown off; and, with it, Reason in every shape which it has yet assumed. Fourth, That in which Reason in the shape of Knowledge appears among men. Fifth, That in which Art associates itself with Knowledge, in order to mould Human Life with a firmer and surer hand into harmony with Knowledge, and in which the ordering of all the relations of Man according to Reason is, by means of this Art, freely accomplished, the object of the Earthly Life attained, and our Race enters upon the higher spheres of another World.
We chose for the principal subject-matter of these discourses the charactenstics of the Third of the Epochs above mentioned, in consequence of the opinion which we expressed that the Present Age stands in this Third Epoch: ——of the correctness or incorrectness of which opinion we left you entirely to judge for yourselves.
This Third Epoch, as the declared foe of all blind Instinct FARTHER DELINEATION OF THE THIRD AGE. 71 and of all Authority, takes this maxim as its motto:-— ‘ Accept nothing but what is understood,—that is, understood immediately, and by means of the previously existing and hereditary Common Sense. Could we lay open the true nature of this Common Sense, which the Third Epoch assumes as the standard of all its thoughts and opinions, we should then have a clear analysis of its whole system of thought and opinion.
This also we have accomplished. Reason in whatever shape it reveals itself, whether as Instinct or as Knowledge, always necessarily embraces the Life of the Race as a Race; —Reason being thrown off and extinguished, nothing remains but the mere individual, personal life. Hence in the Third Age, which has set itself free from Reason, there is nothing remaining but this latter life; nothing, wherever the Age has thoroughly manifested itself and arrived at clearness and consistency, except pure, naked Egoism; and hence it naturally follows that the inborn and established Common Sense of the Third Age can be nothing else, and can contain nothing else, than the wisdom which provides for its personal well-being.
The means of the support and well-being of the personal life can only be discovered by Experience, since man has no direct guide thereto, either in an animal instinct such as the beasts possess; or in Reason which has for its object only the Life of the Race: and hence the assumption of Experience as the only source of knowledge is a characteristic trait of such an Age.
From this principle there arise further those views of Knowledge, of Art, of the Social Relations of Men, of Morality, and of Religion, which we have in like manner adduced as prevailing characteristics of such an Age.
In one word: the permanent and fundamental peculiarity and characteristic of such an Age is this,—that every genuine product of it thinks and does all that he actually thinks and does solely for himself and for his own peculiar ie LECTURE VY.
advantage;—just as the opposite principle, that of a Life according to Reason, consists herein,—that each Individual ought to devote his own personal life to the Life of the Race; or in other words,—as it afterwards appeared that the form in which this Life of the Race enters into consciousness and becomes an active power in the life of the Individual is called Idea,—that each Individual ought to place his personal life, and power, and all enjoyment thereof, in Ideas. In order to make clearer our farther characterization of the Third Age, by contrasting it with the Life according to Reason, we have in our last two lectures entered upon a delineation of this Life, and with respect to that matter, I have now only to add the following remarks:— In the first’ place: Herein,—namely, in the distinction which we have pointed out between a life devoted to mere personal well-being, and a life devoted to the Idea,—lies the difference between the Life opposed to Reason and the Life according to Reason; and it is of no importance here whether, in the latter case, the Idea reveal itself in the obscurity of mere Instinct, as in the First Epoch; or be imposed by External Authority, as in the Second; or stand bright and clear in the fulness of Knowledge, as in the Fourth; or rule in the equally clear realization of Art, as in the Fifth;—and in this respect the Third Age does not stand opposed to any one of the others in particular; but, as being essentially and throughout contrary to Reason, it stands opposed to all other Time, as essentially and in substance in accordance with Reason though from Age to Age under various forms.
Tn the particular manifestations of the Idea, and its mode of working, which we have adduced in our last two lectures, it appears only in the form of Instinct; for we have there described only the Time which precedes the Third Age, which indeed first makes the existence of that Age possible, —and when Time in general has not yet advanced to the FARTHER DELINEATION OF THE THIRD AGE, 73 manifestation of the Idea in clear consciousness. Let this distinction be henceforth kept in view to prevent misunderstanding.
Now should any one reject and repudiate our delineation of a mode of thought in which everything is dedicated to Ideas, as well as this mode of thought itself; should fret over it, attempt to decry it, and represent it as unnatural, (always to himself of course) and as a foolish fanaticism;— against such a repudiation we can do nothing, and would do nothing if we could. The more frequently, loudly, and openly this is done, the more thoroughly is there developed, and the more quickly will pass away a mode of thought through which humanity must necessarily pass; and, I may add, the more clearly does it appear that I have Jit my mark. But I wish that this repudiation were honestly, openly, and unequivocally avowed; and in so far as it lies with me, I would remove every pretence behind which such a repudiation can take shelter while something else seems to occupy its place. In this way I desire to do everything and am conscious of having hitherto done everything in my power to take away the pretext that these discourses have not been thoroughly understood; and that if they were they would be at once assented to. These discourses still exist precisely as they were delivered: the meaning of the language, the sequence of thought, the definition of each individual thought by other thoughts,—upon which the clearness of a discourse depends,—all these things have their well-defined rules; and it may still be determined whether these rules have been followed; and I, for my own part,