From this application of the feeling of
infinity to the fine arts, arises the system
of ideal beauty, that is to say, of beauty con-
sidered, not as the assemblage and imitation
of whatever is most worthy in nature, but
as the realization of that image which is
?
infinity to the fine arts, arises the system
of ideal beauty, that is to say, of beauty con-
sidered, not as the assemblage and imitation
of whatever is most worthy in nature, but
as the realization of that image which is
?
Madame de Stael - Germany
32044051734390 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www.
hathitrust.
org/access_use#pd-google
? 76 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
Locke had victoriously combated the
doctrine of innate ideas in man; because he
has always represented ideas as making a
part of our experimental knowledge. The
examination of pure reason, that is to say
of the primitive faculties of which the in-
tellect is composed, did not fix his attention.
Leibnitz, as we have said above, pronounced
this sublime axiom : --" There is nothing
"in the intellect which does not come by
"the senses, except the intellect itself. "
Kant has acknowledged, as well as Locke,
that there are no innate ideas; but he has
endeavoured to enter into the sense of the
above axiom, by examining what are the
laws and the sentiments which constitute the
essence of the human soul, independently of
all experience. The "Examination of pure
"Reason" strives to show in what these
laws consist, and what are the objects upon
which they can be exercised.
Scepticism, to which materialism almost
always leads, was carried so far, that Hume
finished by overturning the foundation of all
reasoning, in his search after arguments
against the axiom, "that there is no effect
"without a cause. " And such is the unstea-
diness of himan nature when we do not
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? KANT. 77
place the principle of conviction in the centre
of the soul, that incredulity, which begins
by attacking the existence of the moral
world, at last gets rid of the material world
also, which it first used as an instrument to
destroy the other.
Kant wished to know whether absolute
certainty was attainable by the human un-
derstanding; and he only found it in our
necessary notions--that is to say, in all the
laws of our understanding, which are of such
a nature that we cannot conceive any thing
otherwise than as those laws represent it.
In the first class of the imperative forms
of our understanding are space and time.
Kant demonstrates that all our perceptions
are submitted to these two forms; he con-
cludes, from hence, that they exist in us, and
not in objects; and that, in this respect, it is
our understanding which gives laws to ex-
ternal nature, instead of receiving them from
it. Geometry, which measures space, and
arithmetic, which divides time, are sciences
of perfect demonstration, because they rest
upon the necessary notions of our under-
standing.
Truths acquired by experience never carry
absolute certainty with them: when we say,
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? 73 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
"the sun rises every day,"--" all men are
"mortal," &c. the imagination could 6gure
an exception to these truths, which experi-
ence alone makes us consider indubitable;
but Imagination herself cannot suppose any
thing out of the sphere of space and time;
and it is impossible to regard as the result of
custom (that is to say, of the constant repe-
tition of the same phenomena) those forms
of our thought which we impose upon
things: sensations may be doubtful; but
the prism through which we receive them
is immoveable.
To this primitive intuition of space and
time, we must add, or rather give, as a
foundation, the principles of reasoning, with-
out which we cannot comprehend any thing,
and which are the laws of our understanding;
the connexion of causes and effects--unity,
plurality, totality, possibility, reality, neces-
sity, &c*. Kant considers them all as
equally necessary notions; and he only raises
to the rank of real sciences such as are im-
mediately founded upon these notions, be-
cause it is in them alone that certainty can
* Kant gives the name of Category to the different
necessary notions of the understanding, of which he gives
a list.
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? KANT.
79
exist. The forms of reasoning have no
result, excepting when they are applied to
our judgment of external objects, and in
this application they are liable to error;
but they are not the less necessary in them-
selves ;--that is to say, we cannot depart
from them in any of our thoughts: it is
impossible for us to figure any thing out of
the sphere of the relations of causes and
effects, of possibility, quantity, &c. ; and
these notions are as inherent in our conception
as space and time. We perceive nothing ex-
cepting through the medium of the immove-
able laws of our manner of reasoning; there-
fore these 1 ws also are placed within our-
selves, and not without us.
In the German philosophy, those ideas are
called subjective, which grow out of the na-
ture of our understanding and its faculties;
and all those ideas objective, which are excited
by sensations. Whatever may be the deno-
mination which we adopt in this respect, it
appears to me that the examination of our
intellect agrees with the prevailing thought
of Kant; namely, the distinction he esta-
blishes between the forms of our under-
standing and the objects which we know
according to those forms; afld whether
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? 80 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
he adheres to abstract conceptions, or whe-
ther he appeals, in religion and morals, to
sentiments which he also considers as in-
dependent of experience, nothing is more
luminous than the line of demarcation which
he traces between what comes to us by sen-
sation, and what belongs to the spontaneous
action of our souls.
Some expressions in the doctrine of Kant
having been ill interpreted, it has been pre-
tended that he believed in that doctrine of
innate ideas, which describes them as en-
graved upon the soul before we have dis-
covered them. Other German philosophers,
more allied to the system of Plato, have, in
effect, thought that the type of the world
was in the human understanding, and that
man could not conceive the universe if he
had not in himself the innate image of it;
but this doctrine is not touched upon by
Kant: he reduces the intellectual sciences to
three--logic, metaphysics, and mathematics.
Logic teaches nothing by itself; but as it
rests upon the laws of our understanding, it is
incontestable in its principles, abstractedly
considered: this science cannot lead to truth,
excepting in its application to ideas and
things; its principles are innate, its applica-
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? KANT. 81
tion is experimental. In metaphysics, Kant
denies its existence; because he pretends
that reasoning cannot find a place beyond
the sphere of experience. Mathematics alone
appear to him to depend immediately upon
the notion of space and of time--that is to
say, upon the laws of our understanding an-
terior to experience. He endeavours to prove,
that mathematics are not a simple analysis,
but a synthetic, positive, creative science,
and certain of itself, without the necessity of
our recurring to experience to be assured of
its truth. We may study in the work of
Kant the arguments upon which he supports
this way of thinking; but at least it is true,
that there is no man more adverse to what is
called the philosophy of the dreamers; and
that he must rather have had an inclina-
tion for a dry and didactic mode of think-
ing, although the object of his doctrine
be to raise the human species from its de-
gradation, under the philosophy of ma-
terialism.
Far from rejecting experience, Kant con-
siders the business of life as nothing but the
action of our innate faculties upon the se-
veral sorts of knowledge which come. to us
from without. He believed that experience
would be nothing but a chaos without the
VOL. III. G
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? 82 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
laws of the understanding ; but that the laws
of the understanding have no other object
than the elements of thought afforded it by
experience. It follows, that metaphysics
themselves can teach us nothing beyond
these limits; and that it is to sentiment that
we ought to attribute the foreknowledge and
the conviction of every thing that transcends
the bounds of the visible world.
When it is attempted to use* reasoning
alone for the establishment of religious truths,
it becomes a most pliable instrument, which
can equally attack and defend them; be-
cause we cannot, on this occasion, find any
point of support in experience. Kant places
upon two parallel lines the arguments for
and against the liberty of man, the immor-
tality of the soul, the temporary or eternal
duration of the world ; and it is to sentiment
that he appeals to weigh down the balance,
for the metaphysical proofs appear to him of
equal strength on either side *. Perhaps he
was wrong to push the scepticism of rea-
soning to such an extent; but it was to anni-
hilate this scepticism with more certainty,
by keeping certain questions clear from the
abstract discussions which gave it birth.
? These opposite arguments on great metaphysical ques-
tions are called " Antinomies" in Kant's writings.
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? KANT. 83
It would be unjust to suspect the sincere
piety of Kant, because he has maintained
the equality of the reasonings for and against
the great questions in the transcendental
metaphysics. It appears to me, on the con*
trary, that there is candour in this. avowal.
Such few minds are able to comprehend these
reasonings, and those who are able are so
disposed to combat each other, that it is
rendering a great service to religious faith to
banish metaphysics from all questions that
. relate to the existence of God, to freerwilJ,
to the origin of good and evil.
Some respectable persons have said, that
we ought not to neglect any weapon, and
that metaphysical arguments also ought to
be employed, to persuade those . over whom
they have power; but these arguments lead
to discussion, and discussion to doubt upon
every subject.
The best ceras for the race of man have
ever been those, when truths of a certain
class were uncontested in writing or dis-
course. The passions might then seduce
into culpable acts; but no one called in
question the truth of that religion which he
disobeyed. Sophisms of every kind, tlje
abuses of a certain philosophy, have bje-
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? 84 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
stroyed, in different countries and different
ages, that noble firmness of belief, which
was the source of the devotion of heroes.
Then is it not a fine idea, for a philosopher
to shut, even to the science which he pro-
fesses, the door of the sanctuary, and to
employ all the power of abstraction to prove,
that there are regions from which it ought to
be banished?
Despots and fanatics have endeavoured to
prevent human reason from examining cer-
tain subjects, and Reason has ever burst these
unjust fetters. But the limits which she
imposes on herself, far from enslaving her,
give her a new strength--such strength as
always results from the authority. of laws,
which are freely agreed to by those who are
subjected to them.
A deaf and dumb person, before he had
been under the discipline of the Abbe Sicard,
might feel a full conviction of the existence
of the Divinity. Many men are as far re-
moved from those who think deeply, as the
deaf and dumb are from other men, and still
they are not less capable of experiencing (if
the expression may be allowed) within them-
selves primitive truths, because such truths
spring from sentiment.
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? KANT.
Physicians, in the physical study of man,
recognise the principle which animates him,
and yet no one knows what life is; and if
one set about reasoning, it would be easy to
prove to men (as several Greek philosophers
have done), that they do not live at all. 1$
is the same with God, with conscience, and
with free-will. You must believe, because
you feel: all argument will be inferior to
this fact.
The labours of anatomy cannot be prac-
tised on a living body without destroying it;
analysis, when attempted to be applied to
indivisible truths, destroys them, because its
first efforts are directed against their unity.
We must divide our souls in two, in order
that one half of us may contemplate the
other. In whatever way this division takes
place, it deprives our being of that sublime
identity, without which we have not suffi-
cient strength to believe that of which con-
sciousness alone offers us assurance.
Let a great number of men be assembled
at a theatre or public place, and let some
theorem of reasoning, however general, be
proposed to them ;--as many different opi-
nions will immediately be formed as there are
individuals assembled. But, if any actions,
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? 86 PHILOSOFHY AND MORAL5.
displaying greatness of soul, are related, of
the accents of generosity heard, the general
burst will at once proclaim, that you have
touched that instinct of the soul which is as
lively and as powerful in our beings, as the
instinct which preserves our existence.
In referring to sentiment, which does not
admit of doubts, the knowledge of transcend^
ent truths, in endeavouring to prove that rea-
soning avails only when exerted within the
sphere of sensations, Kant is very far from
considering this faculty of sentiment as an
illusion ; on the contrary, he assigns to it the
first rank in human nature; he makes con-
science the innate principle of our moral
existence; and the feeling of right and
Wrong is, according to his ideas, the primi^
tive law of the heart, as space and time are
of the understanding.
Has not man been led by reasoning to
deny the existence of free-will? and yet he
is so convinced of it* that he surprises him-
self in the act of feeling esteem or dislike
even for the animals that surround him ; so
forcibly does he believe in the spontaneous
choice of good and evil in all beings.
The assurance of our freedom is only the
feeling we have of it; and on this liberty, as
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? KANT.
S7
the comer-stone, is raised the doctrine of
duty; for if man is free, he ought to create
to himself motives powerful enough to com-
bat against the operation of exterior objects,
and to set his will free from the narrow tram-
mels of selfishness. Duty is at once the proof
and the security of the metaphysical inde-
pendence of man.
In the following chapters, we shall exa-
mine Kant's arguments against morality as
founded upon self-interest, and the sublime
theory which he substitutes in the place of
this hypocritical sophism, or perverse doc-
trine. Different opinions may be enter-
tained as to Kant's first work, "The Exa-
**. minalion of pure Reason:" having himself
acknowledged reasoning to be insufficient
and contradictory, he ought to have antici-
pated that it would be made use of against
him; but it appears to me impossible not to
read with respect his "Examination ofprac-
"tical Reason," and the different works that
he has written on morality. ,
Not only are Kant's principles of morality
austere and pure, as might be expected from
the inflexibility of a philosopher, but he al-
ways connects the evidence of the heart with
that of the understanding, and is singularly
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? 88 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
happy in making his abstract theory, as to
the nature of the understanding, serve as a
support to sentiments at once the most
simple and the most powerful.
A conscience acquired by sensations may
be stifled by them; and the dignity of duty
is degraded, in being made to depend on
exterior objects. Kant, therefore, is inces-
santly labouring to show, that a deep sense
of this dignity is the necessary condition of
our moral being, the law by which it exists.
The empire of sensations, and the bad actions,
to the commission of which they lead, can
no more destroy in us the notion of good or
of evil, than the idea of space and time can
be changed by an erroneous application of
it. There is always, in whatever situation
we may be placed, a power of re-action
against circumstances, which springs from
the bottom of the soul; and we cannot but
feel, that neither the laws of the understand-
ing, moral liberty, nor conscience* are the
result of experience.
In his treatise on the sublime and beautiful,
entitled, " The "Examination of the Judgment,"
Kant applies to the pleasures Of the ima-
gination the system from which he has
developed such fruitful deductions in the
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? KANT
89
sphere of intelligence and of sentiment; or
rather it is the same soul which he examines,
and which shows itself in the sciences, in
morality, and in the fine arts. Kant main-
tains, that there are in poetry, and in the arts
which are capable, as poetry is, of painting
sentiments by images, two kinds of beauty:
one which may be referred to time and to
this life; the other, to eternity and infinity.
And so impossible is it to say, that what
is infinite and eternal is intelligible to our
minds, that one is often tempted to take even
what is finite and transient for a dream; for
thought can see no limits to any thing,
neither can being have a conception of non-
existence. We cannot search deeply into
the exact sciences themselves, without meet-
ing, even there, with what is infinite and
eternal; and those things which are the most
completely matters of fact, do, under some
relations, belong to this infinity and eternity,
as much as sentiment and imagination.
From this application of the feeling of
infinity to the fine arts, arises the system
of ideal beauty, that is to say, of beauty con-
sidered, not as the assemblage and imitation
of whatever is most worthy in nature, but
as the realization of that image which is
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? 90 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
constantly present to the soul. Materialists
judge of the beautiful according to the agree-
able impression which it causes, and there-
fore place it in the empire of sensations:
immaterialists, who ascribe every thing to
reason, see in the beautiful what they call
the perfect, and find in it some analogy to
the useful and the good, which they con-
sider to be the first degrees of perfection.
Kant has rejected both these explanations.
Beauty, considered only as an agreeable
thing, would be confined to the sphere of sen-
sations, and consequently subject to the dif-
ference of tastes; it could never claim that
universal acknowledgment, which is the true
character of beaut}': beauty, again, consi-
dered as perfection, would require a sort of
judgment, like that on which esteem isfounded:
the enthusiasm that ought to be inspired by
the beautiful, belongs neither to , sensations
nor to judgment; it is an innate disposition,
like the feeling of duty, and those ideas which
are essential to the understanding; and we
discover beauty when we see it, because it is
the outward image of that ideal beauty, the
type of which exists in our mind. Difference
of tastes may be applied to what is agreeable,
for our sensations are the source of that kind
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? KANT. 91
of pleasure; but all men must admire what
is beautiful, whether in art or in nature;
because they have in their souls sentiments
of celestial origin, which beauty awakens,
and of which it excites the enjoyment.
Kant passes from the theory of the beau-
tiful to that of the sublime; and this second
part of his " Examination of the Judgment"
is even more remarkable than the first: he
makes the sublime, in moral liberty, consist
in the struggles of man with his destiny, or
with his nature. Unlimited power excites
our fear, greatness overwhelms us; yet, by
the vigour of the will, we escape from the
sensation of our physical weakness. The
power of destiny, and the immensity of
nature, are placed in endless opposition to
the miserable dependence of the creature
upon earth; but one spark of the sacred fire
in our bosoms triumphs over the universe;
since with that one spark we are enabled to
resist the impressions which all the powers
in the world could make upon us.
The first effect of the sublime is to over-
whelm a man, and the second to exalt
him. When we contemplate a storm curling
the billows of the sea, and seeming to
threaten both earth and heaven, terror at
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? 92 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
first takes possession of us, although we may
be out of the reach of any personal danger;
but when the clouds, that have gathered,
burst over oar heads, when all the fury of
nature is displayed, man feels an inward
energy, which frees him from every fear, by
his will, or by resignation, by the exercise, or
by the relinquishment of his moral liberty;
and. this consciousness of what is within him
animates and encourages him.
When we hear of a generous action, when
we learn that men have borne unheard-of
misfortunes to remain faithful to their opinion,
even to the smallest swerving; at first the
description of the miseries they have suffered
confuses our ideas; but, by degrees, we
regain our strength, and the sympathy that
we feel excited within ourselves, by great-
ness of soul, makes us hope that we ourselves
could triumph over the miserable sensations
of this life to remain faithful, noble, and
proud to our latest day.
Besides, no one can define, if I may so
say, that which is at the summit of our
existence; " We are too much elevated in
4* respect to ourselves, to comprehend our-
"selves," says St. Augustin. He must be
very poor in imagination who should think
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? KANT. 93
himself able to exhaust the contemplation
even of the simplest flower; how then could
we arrive at the knowledge of all that is
comprised in the idea of the sublime?
I do not certainly flatter myself that I
have been able, in a few pages, to give an
account of a system which, for twenty years,
has occupied all thinking heads in Germany;
but I hope to have said enough to show the
general spirit of the philosophy of Kant, and
to enable me to explain, in the following
chapters, the influence which it has bad
upon literature, science, and morality.
In order to reconcile experimental and
ideal philosophy, Kant has not made the
one subordinate to the other, but he has
given to each of the two, separately, a new
degree of force. Germany was threatened
by that cold doctrine which regarded all
enthusiasm as an error, and classed amongst
prejudices those sentiments which form the
consolation of our existence. It was a great
satisfaction for men, at once so philosophical
and so poetical, so capable of study and of
exaltation, to see all the fine affections of
the soul defended with the strictness -of the
most abstract reasonings. The force of the
mind can never be long in a negative state;
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? 94 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
that is, it cannot long consist principally, in
not believing, in not understanding, and in
what it disdains. We must have a philo-
sophy of belief, of enthusiasm, a philosophy
which confirms by reason, what sentiment
reveals to us.
The adversaries of Kant have accused him
of having merely repeated the arguments of
the ancient idealists; they have pretended
that the doctrine of the German philosopher
was only an old system in a new language.
This reproach has no foundation. There are
not only new ideas, but a particular character,
in the doctrine of Kant.
It savours of the philosophy of the eigh-
teenth century, although it was intended to re-
fute the doctrines of that philosophy, because
it is natural to man always to catch the spirit
of the age in which he lives, even when his
intention is to oppose it. The philosophy of
Plato is more poetical than that of Kant,
the philosophy of Mallebranche more reli-
gious; but the great merit of the German
philosopher has been to raise up moral dig-
nity, by setting all that is fine in the heart,
on the basis of a theory deduced from the
strongest reasoning. The opposition which
it has been endeavoured to show between
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? KANT. 95
reason and sentiment, necessarily leads rea-
son on to selfishness, and reduces sentiment
to folly; but Kant, who seemed to be called
to conclude all the grand intellectual al-
liances, has made the soul one focus, in
which all our faculties are in contact with
each other.
The polemical part of the works of Kant,
that in which he attacks the philosophy of
the materialists, would be of itself a master-
piece. That philosophy has struck its roots
so deeply into the mind, so much irreligion
and selfishness has been the result of it, that
those men ought to be regarded as benefac-
tors to their country, who have even com-
batted a system so pernicious, and revived
the ideas of Plato, of Descartes, and of
Leibnitz: but the philosophy of the new
German school contains a crowd of ideas
which are peculiar to it; it is founded upon
the greatest extent of scientific knowledge,
which has been increasing every day, and
upon a singularly abstract and logical mode
of reasoning; for, although Kant blames
the use of such reasoning, in the examina-
tion of truths which are out of the circle of
experience, he shows in his writings a power
of mind, on metaphysical subjects, which
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? 96 PHILOSOPHI' AND MORALS.
places him, in that respect, in the first rank
of thinkers.
It cannot be denied that the style of Kant,
in his " Examination of pure Reason," de-
serves almost all the reproaches with which
his adversaries have treated it. He has made
use of a phraseology very difficult to under-
stand, and of the most tiresome new crea-
tion of words. He lived alone with his own
thoughts, and persuaded himself that it was
necessary to have new words for new ideas,
and yet there are words to express every
thing.
In those objects which are in themselves
the most clear, Kant is frequently guided by
a very obscure system of metaphysics; and
it is only in those regions of thought where
darkness prevails in general, that he displays
the torch of light: like the Israelites, who
had for their guide a column of fire by night,
and a pillar of a cloud by day.
No one in France would give himself
the trouble of studying works so thickly set
with difficulties, as those of Kant; but he
had to do with patient and persevering
readers. This, certainly, was not a reason
for his abusing their patience; perhaps,
however, he would not have been able to
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? KANT. 97
search so deeply into the science of the hu*.
man understanding, if he had attached more
importance to the choice of the expressions
which he made use of in explaining it.
The ancient philosophers always divided
their doctrines into two distinct parts; one
which they reserved for the initiated, and
another which they professed in public.
Kant's manner of writing is quite different,
when his theory, or the application of it, is
the subject.
In his metaphysical treatises, he makes use
of words as arithmetical figures, and gives
them whatever value he pleases, without
troubling himself with that which they have
derived from custom. This appears to me a
great error; for the attention of the reader
is exhausted in efforts to understand the
language, before he arrives at the ideas, and
what is known never serves as a step to what
is unknown.
We must nevertheless give Kant the jus-
tice he deserves, even as a writer, when he
lays aside his scientific language. In speak-
ing of the arts, and still more of morality,
his style is almost always "perfectly clear,
energetic, and simple. How admirable does
his doctrine then appear! How well does
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? 98 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
he express the sentiment of the beautiful and
the love of duty! With what force does he
separate them both from all calculations of
interest or of utility! How he ennobles
actions by their source, and not by their suc-
cess! In a word, what grandeur of morality
docs he not give to man, whether he exa-
mines him in himself, or whether he considers
him in his relations towards others;--to man,
that exile of heaven, that prisoner upon
earth, so great as an exile, so miserable as a
captive!
We might extract from the writings of
Kant a multitude of brilliant ideas on all
subjects; perhaps, indeed, it is to this doc-
trine alone, that, at the present day, we
must look for conceptions at once ingenious
and new; for the notions of the materialists
no longer offer, in any thing, what is interest-
ing or original. Smartness of wit against
what is serious, noble, and divine, is worn
out; and in future it will be impossible to
restore to the human race any of the qualities
of youth, but by returning to religion by the
road of philosophy, and to sentiment by the
way of reason.
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 99
CHAPTER VII.
Of the most celebrated Philosophers before
and after Kant.
The spirit of philosophy, from its nature,
cannot be generally diffused in any country.
In Germany, however, there is such a tend-
ency towards habits of reflection, that the
German nation may be considered, by dis-
tinction, as the nation of metaphysics. It
possesses so many men capable of under-
standing the mo3t abstract questions, that
even the public are found to take an interest
in the arguments usually employed in dis-
cussions of that nature.
Every man of talent has his own way of
thinking on philosophical questions. Writers
of the second and third rank, in Germany,
are sufficiently deep to be of the first rank in
other countries. Those who are rivals, have
the same hatred towards one another there
as elsewhere; but no one would dare to
enter the lists, without having evinced, by
serious study, a real love for the science in
h2
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? 100 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
which he was engaged. It is not enough
ardently to desire success; it must be de-
served, before the candidate can be even
admitted to start for it. The Germans, how-
ever indulgent they may be to defects of
form in a work, are unmerciful with respect
to its real value; and, when they perceive
any thing superficial, in the mind, the feel-
ing, or the knowledge of a writer, they try
to borrow the very pleasantry of the French,
to turn what is frivolous into ridicule.
It is my intention to give, in this chapter,
a hasty glimpse of the principal opinions
of the philosophers who have attracted no-
tice before and since the time of Kant;
the course which his successors "have taken
cannot well be judged of, without turning
back to see what was the state of opinions
at the time when the doctrines of Kantism
first prevailed in Germany; it was opposed
at the same time to the system of Locke,
as tending 10 materialism, and to the school
of Leibnitz, as reducing every thing to ab-
straction.
The ideas of Leibnitz were lofty; but his
disciples, Wolf at their head, have encum-
bered them with forms of logic and meta-
physics. Leibnitz had said, our ideas that
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 101
come by the senses are confused, and that
those only which belong to the immediate
perceptions of the mind are clear: without
doubt his intention by that was to show,
that truths, which are invisible, are more
certain and more in harmony with our
moral nature, than all that we learn by the
evidence of the senses. Wolf and his dis-
ciples have drawn this consequence from it,
that every thing, about which our mind can.
be employed, must be reduced into abstract
ideas. Kant inspired interest and warmth
into this lifeless idealism; he assigned to ex-
perience, as well as to the innate faculties,
its just proportion; and the art with which
he applied his theory to every thing that
is interesting to mankind, to morality, to
poetry, and to the fine arts, extended the
influence of it.
Three leading men, Lessing, Hemsterhuis,
and Jacobi, preceded Kant in the career of
philosophy. They had no school, because
they founded no system; but they began the
attack against the doctrine of the materialists.
Of these three, Lessing is the one whose opi-
nions, on this point, are the least decided;
^however, he had too enlarged a mind to be
confined within the narrow circle which is so
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? 102 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
easily drawn, when we renounce the highest
truths. Lessing's all-powerful polemics dis-
closed doubt upon the most important ques-
tions, and led to new inquiries of every kind.
Lessing himself cannot be considered either
as a materialist or as an idealist; but the
necessity of examination and study to
the acquisition of knowledge, was the main
spring of his doctrine. "If the Almighty/'
said he, " were to hold Truth in one hand,
"and the Search after truth in the other,
"it is the latter I should ask of him in pre-
"ference. "
Lessing was not orthodox in religion.
Christianity, in him, was not a necessary
thing, like sentiment; and yet he was ca-
pable of admiring it philosophically. He
understood its relations with the human
heart, and he ever considers all the different
ways of thinking, from a point of view,
where he is able to see them all. Nothing
intolerant, no exclusion, is to be found in
his writings. When we take our stand, in
the centre of universal ideas, we never
fail to have sincerity, depth, and extent of
mind. Whatever is unjust, vain, and nar-
row, is derived from the desire of refer-
ring every thing to certain partial views,
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? 76 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
Locke had victoriously combated the
doctrine of innate ideas in man; because he
has always represented ideas as making a
part of our experimental knowledge. The
examination of pure reason, that is to say
of the primitive faculties of which the in-
tellect is composed, did not fix his attention.
Leibnitz, as we have said above, pronounced
this sublime axiom : --" There is nothing
"in the intellect which does not come by
"the senses, except the intellect itself. "
Kant has acknowledged, as well as Locke,
that there are no innate ideas; but he has
endeavoured to enter into the sense of the
above axiom, by examining what are the
laws and the sentiments which constitute the
essence of the human soul, independently of
all experience. The "Examination of pure
"Reason" strives to show in what these
laws consist, and what are the objects upon
which they can be exercised.
Scepticism, to which materialism almost
always leads, was carried so far, that Hume
finished by overturning the foundation of all
reasoning, in his search after arguments
against the axiom, "that there is no effect
"without a cause. " And such is the unstea-
diness of himan nature when we do not
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? KANT. 77
place the principle of conviction in the centre
of the soul, that incredulity, which begins
by attacking the existence of the moral
world, at last gets rid of the material world
also, which it first used as an instrument to
destroy the other.
Kant wished to know whether absolute
certainty was attainable by the human un-
derstanding; and he only found it in our
necessary notions--that is to say, in all the
laws of our understanding, which are of such
a nature that we cannot conceive any thing
otherwise than as those laws represent it.
In the first class of the imperative forms
of our understanding are space and time.
Kant demonstrates that all our perceptions
are submitted to these two forms; he con-
cludes, from hence, that they exist in us, and
not in objects; and that, in this respect, it is
our understanding which gives laws to ex-
ternal nature, instead of receiving them from
it. Geometry, which measures space, and
arithmetic, which divides time, are sciences
of perfect demonstration, because they rest
upon the necessary notions of our under-
standing.
Truths acquired by experience never carry
absolute certainty with them: when we say,
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? 73 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
"the sun rises every day,"--" all men are
"mortal," &c. the imagination could 6gure
an exception to these truths, which experi-
ence alone makes us consider indubitable;
but Imagination herself cannot suppose any
thing out of the sphere of space and time;
and it is impossible to regard as the result of
custom (that is to say, of the constant repe-
tition of the same phenomena) those forms
of our thought which we impose upon
things: sensations may be doubtful; but
the prism through which we receive them
is immoveable.
To this primitive intuition of space and
time, we must add, or rather give, as a
foundation, the principles of reasoning, with-
out which we cannot comprehend any thing,
and which are the laws of our understanding;
the connexion of causes and effects--unity,
plurality, totality, possibility, reality, neces-
sity, &c*. Kant considers them all as
equally necessary notions; and he only raises
to the rank of real sciences such as are im-
mediately founded upon these notions, be-
cause it is in them alone that certainty can
* Kant gives the name of Category to the different
necessary notions of the understanding, of which he gives
a list.
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? KANT.
79
exist. The forms of reasoning have no
result, excepting when they are applied to
our judgment of external objects, and in
this application they are liable to error;
but they are not the less necessary in them-
selves ;--that is to say, we cannot depart
from them in any of our thoughts: it is
impossible for us to figure any thing out of
the sphere of the relations of causes and
effects, of possibility, quantity, &c. ; and
these notions are as inherent in our conception
as space and time. We perceive nothing ex-
cepting through the medium of the immove-
able laws of our manner of reasoning; there-
fore these 1 ws also are placed within our-
selves, and not without us.
In the German philosophy, those ideas are
called subjective, which grow out of the na-
ture of our understanding and its faculties;
and all those ideas objective, which are excited
by sensations. Whatever may be the deno-
mination which we adopt in this respect, it
appears to me that the examination of our
intellect agrees with the prevailing thought
of Kant; namely, the distinction he esta-
blishes between the forms of our under-
standing and the objects which we know
according to those forms; afld whether
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? 80 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
he adheres to abstract conceptions, or whe-
ther he appeals, in religion and morals, to
sentiments which he also considers as in-
dependent of experience, nothing is more
luminous than the line of demarcation which
he traces between what comes to us by sen-
sation, and what belongs to the spontaneous
action of our souls.
Some expressions in the doctrine of Kant
having been ill interpreted, it has been pre-
tended that he believed in that doctrine of
innate ideas, which describes them as en-
graved upon the soul before we have dis-
covered them. Other German philosophers,
more allied to the system of Plato, have, in
effect, thought that the type of the world
was in the human understanding, and that
man could not conceive the universe if he
had not in himself the innate image of it;
but this doctrine is not touched upon by
Kant: he reduces the intellectual sciences to
three--logic, metaphysics, and mathematics.
Logic teaches nothing by itself; but as it
rests upon the laws of our understanding, it is
incontestable in its principles, abstractedly
considered: this science cannot lead to truth,
excepting in its application to ideas and
things; its principles are innate, its applica-
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? KANT. 81
tion is experimental. In metaphysics, Kant
denies its existence; because he pretends
that reasoning cannot find a place beyond
the sphere of experience. Mathematics alone
appear to him to depend immediately upon
the notion of space and of time--that is to
say, upon the laws of our understanding an-
terior to experience. He endeavours to prove,
that mathematics are not a simple analysis,
but a synthetic, positive, creative science,
and certain of itself, without the necessity of
our recurring to experience to be assured of
its truth. We may study in the work of
Kant the arguments upon which he supports
this way of thinking; but at least it is true,
that there is no man more adverse to what is
called the philosophy of the dreamers; and
that he must rather have had an inclina-
tion for a dry and didactic mode of think-
ing, although the object of his doctrine
be to raise the human species from its de-
gradation, under the philosophy of ma-
terialism.
Far from rejecting experience, Kant con-
siders the business of life as nothing but the
action of our innate faculties upon the se-
veral sorts of knowledge which come. to us
from without. He believed that experience
would be nothing but a chaos without the
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? 82 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
laws of the understanding ; but that the laws
of the understanding have no other object
than the elements of thought afforded it by
experience. It follows, that metaphysics
themselves can teach us nothing beyond
these limits; and that it is to sentiment that
we ought to attribute the foreknowledge and
the conviction of every thing that transcends
the bounds of the visible world.
When it is attempted to use* reasoning
alone for the establishment of religious truths,
it becomes a most pliable instrument, which
can equally attack and defend them; be-
cause we cannot, on this occasion, find any
point of support in experience. Kant places
upon two parallel lines the arguments for
and against the liberty of man, the immor-
tality of the soul, the temporary or eternal
duration of the world ; and it is to sentiment
that he appeals to weigh down the balance,
for the metaphysical proofs appear to him of
equal strength on either side *. Perhaps he
was wrong to push the scepticism of rea-
soning to such an extent; but it was to anni-
hilate this scepticism with more certainty,
by keeping certain questions clear from the
abstract discussions which gave it birth.
? These opposite arguments on great metaphysical ques-
tions are called " Antinomies" in Kant's writings.
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? KANT. 83
It would be unjust to suspect the sincere
piety of Kant, because he has maintained
the equality of the reasonings for and against
the great questions in the transcendental
metaphysics. It appears to me, on the con*
trary, that there is candour in this. avowal.
Such few minds are able to comprehend these
reasonings, and those who are able are so
disposed to combat each other, that it is
rendering a great service to religious faith to
banish metaphysics from all questions that
. relate to the existence of God, to freerwilJ,
to the origin of good and evil.
Some respectable persons have said, that
we ought not to neglect any weapon, and
that metaphysical arguments also ought to
be employed, to persuade those . over whom
they have power; but these arguments lead
to discussion, and discussion to doubt upon
every subject.
The best ceras for the race of man have
ever been those, when truths of a certain
class were uncontested in writing or dis-
course. The passions might then seduce
into culpable acts; but no one called in
question the truth of that religion which he
disobeyed. Sophisms of every kind, tlje
abuses of a certain philosophy, have bje-
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? 84 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
stroyed, in different countries and different
ages, that noble firmness of belief, which
was the source of the devotion of heroes.
Then is it not a fine idea, for a philosopher
to shut, even to the science which he pro-
fesses, the door of the sanctuary, and to
employ all the power of abstraction to prove,
that there are regions from which it ought to
be banished?
Despots and fanatics have endeavoured to
prevent human reason from examining cer-
tain subjects, and Reason has ever burst these
unjust fetters. But the limits which she
imposes on herself, far from enslaving her,
give her a new strength--such strength as
always results from the authority. of laws,
which are freely agreed to by those who are
subjected to them.
A deaf and dumb person, before he had
been under the discipline of the Abbe Sicard,
might feel a full conviction of the existence
of the Divinity. Many men are as far re-
moved from those who think deeply, as the
deaf and dumb are from other men, and still
they are not less capable of experiencing (if
the expression may be allowed) within them-
selves primitive truths, because such truths
spring from sentiment.
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? KANT.
Physicians, in the physical study of man,
recognise the principle which animates him,
and yet no one knows what life is; and if
one set about reasoning, it would be easy to
prove to men (as several Greek philosophers
have done), that they do not live at all. 1$
is the same with God, with conscience, and
with free-will. You must believe, because
you feel: all argument will be inferior to
this fact.
The labours of anatomy cannot be prac-
tised on a living body without destroying it;
analysis, when attempted to be applied to
indivisible truths, destroys them, because its
first efforts are directed against their unity.
We must divide our souls in two, in order
that one half of us may contemplate the
other. In whatever way this division takes
place, it deprives our being of that sublime
identity, without which we have not suffi-
cient strength to believe that of which con-
sciousness alone offers us assurance.
Let a great number of men be assembled
at a theatre or public place, and let some
theorem of reasoning, however general, be
proposed to them ;--as many different opi-
nions will immediately be formed as there are
individuals assembled. But, if any actions,
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? 86 PHILOSOFHY AND MORAL5.
displaying greatness of soul, are related, of
the accents of generosity heard, the general
burst will at once proclaim, that you have
touched that instinct of the soul which is as
lively and as powerful in our beings, as the
instinct which preserves our existence.
In referring to sentiment, which does not
admit of doubts, the knowledge of transcend^
ent truths, in endeavouring to prove that rea-
soning avails only when exerted within the
sphere of sensations, Kant is very far from
considering this faculty of sentiment as an
illusion ; on the contrary, he assigns to it the
first rank in human nature; he makes con-
science the innate principle of our moral
existence; and the feeling of right and
Wrong is, according to his ideas, the primi^
tive law of the heart, as space and time are
of the understanding.
Has not man been led by reasoning to
deny the existence of free-will? and yet he
is so convinced of it* that he surprises him-
self in the act of feeling esteem or dislike
even for the animals that surround him ; so
forcibly does he believe in the spontaneous
choice of good and evil in all beings.
The assurance of our freedom is only the
feeling we have of it; and on this liberty, as
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? KANT.
S7
the comer-stone, is raised the doctrine of
duty; for if man is free, he ought to create
to himself motives powerful enough to com-
bat against the operation of exterior objects,
and to set his will free from the narrow tram-
mels of selfishness. Duty is at once the proof
and the security of the metaphysical inde-
pendence of man.
In the following chapters, we shall exa-
mine Kant's arguments against morality as
founded upon self-interest, and the sublime
theory which he substitutes in the place of
this hypocritical sophism, or perverse doc-
trine. Different opinions may be enter-
tained as to Kant's first work, "The Exa-
**. minalion of pure Reason:" having himself
acknowledged reasoning to be insufficient
and contradictory, he ought to have antici-
pated that it would be made use of against
him; but it appears to me impossible not to
read with respect his "Examination ofprac-
"tical Reason," and the different works that
he has written on morality. ,
Not only are Kant's principles of morality
austere and pure, as might be expected from
the inflexibility of a philosopher, but he al-
ways connects the evidence of the heart with
that of the understanding, and is singularly
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? 88 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
happy in making his abstract theory, as to
the nature of the understanding, serve as a
support to sentiments at once the most
simple and the most powerful.
A conscience acquired by sensations may
be stifled by them; and the dignity of duty
is degraded, in being made to depend on
exterior objects. Kant, therefore, is inces-
santly labouring to show, that a deep sense
of this dignity is the necessary condition of
our moral being, the law by which it exists.
The empire of sensations, and the bad actions,
to the commission of which they lead, can
no more destroy in us the notion of good or
of evil, than the idea of space and time can
be changed by an erroneous application of
it. There is always, in whatever situation
we may be placed, a power of re-action
against circumstances, which springs from
the bottom of the soul; and we cannot but
feel, that neither the laws of the understand-
ing, moral liberty, nor conscience* are the
result of experience.
In his treatise on the sublime and beautiful,
entitled, " The "Examination of the Judgment,"
Kant applies to the pleasures Of the ima-
gination the system from which he has
developed such fruitful deductions in the
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? KANT
89
sphere of intelligence and of sentiment; or
rather it is the same soul which he examines,
and which shows itself in the sciences, in
morality, and in the fine arts. Kant main-
tains, that there are in poetry, and in the arts
which are capable, as poetry is, of painting
sentiments by images, two kinds of beauty:
one which may be referred to time and to
this life; the other, to eternity and infinity.
And so impossible is it to say, that what
is infinite and eternal is intelligible to our
minds, that one is often tempted to take even
what is finite and transient for a dream; for
thought can see no limits to any thing,
neither can being have a conception of non-
existence. We cannot search deeply into
the exact sciences themselves, without meet-
ing, even there, with what is infinite and
eternal; and those things which are the most
completely matters of fact, do, under some
relations, belong to this infinity and eternity,
as much as sentiment and imagination.
From this application of the feeling of
infinity to the fine arts, arises the system
of ideal beauty, that is to say, of beauty con-
sidered, not as the assemblage and imitation
of whatever is most worthy in nature, but
as the realization of that image which is
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? 90 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
constantly present to the soul. Materialists
judge of the beautiful according to the agree-
able impression which it causes, and there-
fore place it in the empire of sensations:
immaterialists, who ascribe every thing to
reason, see in the beautiful what they call
the perfect, and find in it some analogy to
the useful and the good, which they con-
sider to be the first degrees of perfection.
Kant has rejected both these explanations.
Beauty, considered only as an agreeable
thing, would be confined to the sphere of sen-
sations, and consequently subject to the dif-
ference of tastes; it could never claim that
universal acknowledgment, which is the true
character of beaut}': beauty, again, consi-
dered as perfection, would require a sort of
judgment, like that on which esteem isfounded:
the enthusiasm that ought to be inspired by
the beautiful, belongs neither to , sensations
nor to judgment; it is an innate disposition,
like the feeling of duty, and those ideas which
are essential to the understanding; and we
discover beauty when we see it, because it is
the outward image of that ideal beauty, the
type of which exists in our mind. Difference
of tastes may be applied to what is agreeable,
for our sensations are the source of that kind
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? KANT. 91
of pleasure; but all men must admire what
is beautiful, whether in art or in nature;
because they have in their souls sentiments
of celestial origin, which beauty awakens,
and of which it excites the enjoyment.
Kant passes from the theory of the beau-
tiful to that of the sublime; and this second
part of his " Examination of the Judgment"
is even more remarkable than the first: he
makes the sublime, in moral liberty, consist
in the struggles of man with his destiny, or
with his nature. Unlimited power excites
our fear, greatness overwhelms us; yet, by
the vigour of the will, we escape from the
sensation of our physical weakness. The
power of destiny, and the immensity of
nature, are placed in endless opposition to
the miserable dependence of the creature
upon earth; but one spark of the sacred fire
in our bosoms triumphs over the universe;
since with that one spark we are enabled to
resist the impressions which all the powers
in the world could make upon us.
The first effect of the sublime is to over-
whelm a man, and the second to exalt
him. When we contemplate a storm curling
the billows of the sea, and seeming to
threaten both earth and heaven, terror at
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? 92 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
first takes possession of us, although we may
be out of the reach of any personal danger;
but when the clouds, that have gathered,
burst over oar heads, when all the fury of
nature is displayed, man feels an inward
energy, which frees him from every fear, by
his will, or by resignation, by the exercise, or
by the relinquishment of his moral liberty;
and. this consciousness of what is within him
animates and encourages him.
When we hear of a generous action, when
we learn that men have borne unheard-of
misfortunes to remain faithful to their opinion,
even to the smallest swerving; at first the
description of the miseries they have suffered
confuses our ideas; but, by degrees, we
regain our strength, and the sympathy that
we feel excited within ourselves, by great-
ness of soul, makes us hope that we ourselves
could triumph over the miserable sensations
of this life to remain faithful, noble, and
proud to our latest day.
Besides, no one can define, if I may so
say, that which is at the summit of our
existence; " We are too much elevated in
4* respect to ourselves, to comprehend our-
"selves," says St. Augustin. He must be
very poor in imagination who should think
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? KANT. 93
himself able to exhaust the contemplation
even of the simplest flower; how then could
we arrive at the knowledge of all that is
comprised in the idea of the sublime?
I do not certainly flatter myself that I
have been able, in a few pages, to give an
account of a system which, for twenty years,
has occupied all thinking heads in Germany;
but I hope to have said enough to show the
general spirit of the philosophy of Kant, and
to enable me to explain, in the following
chapters, the influence which it has bad
upon literature, science, and morality.
In order to reconcile experimental and
ideal philosophy, Kant has not made the
one subordinate to the other, but he has
given to each of the two, separately, a new
degree of force. Germany was threatened
by that cold doctrine which regarded all
enthusiasm as an error, and classed amongst
prejudices those sentiments which form the
consolation of our existence. It was a great
satisfaction for men, at once so philosophical
and so poetical, so capable of study and of
exaltation, to see all the fine affections of
the soul defended with the strictness -of the
most abstract reasonings. The force of the
mind can never be long in a negative state;
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? 94 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
that is, it cannot long consist principally, in
not believing, in not understanding, and in
what it disdains. We must have a philo-
sophy of belief, of enthusiasm, a philosophy
which confirms by reason, what sentiment
reveals to us.
The adversaries of Kant have accused him
of having merely repeated the arguments of
the ancient idealists; they have pretended
that the doctrine of the German philosopher
was only an old system in a new language.
This reproach has no foundation. There are
not only new ideas, but a particular character,
in the doctrine of Kant.
It savours of the philosophy of the eigh-
teenth century, although it was intended to re-
fute the doctrines of that philosophy, because
it is natural to man always to catch the spirit
of the age in which he lives, even when his
intention is to oppose it. The philosophy of
Plato is more poetical than that of Kant,
the philosophy of Mallebranche more reli-
gious; but the great merit of the German
philosopher has been to raise up moral dig-
nity, by setting all that is fine in the heart,
on the basis of a theory deduced from the
strongest reasoning. The opposition which
it has been endeavoured to show between
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? KANT. 95
reason and sentiment, necessarily leads rea-
son on to selfishness, and reduces sentiment
to folly; but Kant, who seemed to be called
to conclude all the grand intellectual al-
liances, has made the soul one focus, in
which all our faculties are in contact with
each other.
The polemical part of the works of Kant,
that in which he attacks the philosophy of
the materialists, would be of itself a master-
piece. That philosophy has struck its roots
so deeply into the mind, so much irreligion
and selfishness has been the result of it, that
those men ought to be regarded as benefac-
tors to their country, who have even com-
batted a system so pernicious, and revived
the ideas of Plato, of Descartes, and of
Leibnitz: but the philosophy of the new
German school contains a crowd of ideas
which are peculiar to it; it is founded upon
the greatest extent of scientific knowledge,
which has been increasing every day, and
upon a singularly abstract and logical mode
of reasoning; for, although Kant blames
the use of such reasoning, in the examina-
tion of truths which are out of the circle of
experience, he shows in his writings a power
of mind, on metaphysical subjects, which
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? 96 PHILOSOPHI' AND MORALS.
places him, in that respect, in the first rank
of thinkers.
It cannot be denied that the style of Kant,
in his " Examination of pure Reason," de-
serves almost all the reproaches with which
his adversaries have treated it. He has made
use of a phraseology very difficult to under-
stand, and of the most tiresome new crea-
tion of words. He lived alone with his own
thoughts, and persuaded himself that it was
necessary to have new words for new ideas,
and yet there are words to express every
thing.
In those objects which are in themselves
the most clear, Kant is frequently guided by
a very obscure system of metaphysics; and
it is only in those regions of thought where
darkness prevails in general, that he displays
the torch of light: like the Israelites, who
had for their guide a column of fire by night,
and a pillar of a cloud by day.
No one in France would give himself
the trouble of studying works so thickly set
with difficulties, as those of Kant; but he
had to do with patient and persevering
readers. This, certainly, was not a reason
for his abusing their patience; perhaps,
however, he would not have been able to
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? KANT. 97
search so deeply into the science of the hu*.
man understanding, if he had attached more
importance to the choice of the expressions
which he made use of in explaining it.
The ancient philosophers always divided
their doctrines into two distinct parts; one
which they reserved for the initiated, and
another which they professed in public.
Kant's manner of writing is quite different,
when his theory, or the application of it, is
the subject.
In his metaphysical treatises, he makes use
of words as arithmetical figures, and gives
them whatever value he pleases, without
troubling himself with that which they have
derived from custom. This appears to me a
great error; for the attention of the reader
is exhausted in efforts to understand the
language, before he arrives at the ideas, and
what is known never serves as a step to what
is unknown.
We must nevertheless give Kant the jus-
tice he deserves, even as a writer, when he
lays aside his scientific language. In speak-
ing of the arts, and still more of morality,
his style is almost always "perfectly clear,
energetic, and simple. How admirable does
his doctrine then appear! How well does
VOL. III. H
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? 98 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
he express the sentiment of the beautiful and
the love of duty! With what force does he
separate them both from all calculations of
interest or of utility! How he ennobles
actions by their source, and not by their suc-
cess! In a word, what grandeur of morality
docs he not give to man, whether he exa-
mines him in himself, or whether he considers
him in his relations towards others;--to man,
that exile of heaven, that prisoner upon
earth, so great as an exile, so miserable as a
captive!
We might extract from the writings of
Kant a multitude of brilliant ideas on all
subjects; perhaps, indeed, it is to this doc-
trine alone, that, at the present day, we
must look for conceptions at once ingenious
and new; for the notions of the materialists
no longer offer, in any thing, what is interest-
ing or original. Smartness of wit against
what is serious, noble, and divine, is worn
out; and in future it will be impossible to
restore to the human race any of the qualities
of youth, but by returning to religion by the
road of philosophy, and to sentiment by the
way of reason.
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 99
CHAPTER VII.
Of the most celebrated Philosophers before
and after Kant.
The spirit of philosophy, from its nature,
cannot be generally diffused in any country.
In Germany, however, there is such a tend-
ency towards habits of reflection, that the
German nation may be considered, by dis-
tinction, as the nation of metaphysics. It
possesses so many men capable of under-
standing the mo3t abstract questions, that
even the public are found to take an interest
in the arguments usually employed in dis-
cussions of that nature.
Every man of talent has his own way of
thinking on philosophical questions. Writers
of the second and third rank, in Germany,
are sufficiently deep to be of the first rank in
other countries. Those who are rivals, have
the same hatred towards one another there
as elsewhere; but no one would dare to
enter the lists, without having evinced, by
serious study, a real love for the science in
h2
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? 100 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
which he was engaged. It is not enough
ardently to desire success; it must be de-
served, before the candidate can be even
admitted to start for it. The Germans, how-
ever indulgent they may be to defects of
form in a work, are unmerciful with respect
to its real value; and, when they perceive
any thing superficial, in the mind, the feel-
ing, or the knowledge of a writer, they try
to borrow the very pleasantry of the French,
to turn what is frivolous into ridicule.
It is my intention to give, in this chapter,
a hasty glimpse of the principal opinions
of the philosophers who have attracted no-
tice before and since the time of Kant;
the course which his successors "have taken
cannot well be judged of, without turning
back to see what was the state of opinions
at the time when the doctrines of Kantism
first prevailed in Germany; it was opposed
at the same time to the system of Locke,
as tending 10 materialism, and to the school
of Leibnitz, as reducing every thing to ab-
straction.
The ideas of Leibnitz were lofty; but his
disciples, Wolf at their head, have encum-
bered them with forms of logic and meta-
physics. Leibnitz had said, our ideas that
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 101
come by the senses are confused, and that
those only which belong to the immediate
perceptions of the mind are clear: without
doubt his intention by that was to show,
that truths, which are invisible, are more
certain and more in harmony with our
moral nature, than all that we learn by the
evidence of the senses. Wolf and his dis-
ciples have drawn this consequence from it,
that every thing, about which our mind can.
be employed, must be reduced into abstract
ideas. Kant inspired interest and warmth
into this lifeless idealism; he assigned to ex-
perience, as well as to the innate faculties,
its just proportion; and the art with which
he applied his theory to every thing that
is interesting to mankind, to morality, to
poetry, and to the fine arts, extended the
influence of it.
Three leading men, Lessing, Hemsterhuis,
and Jacobi, preceded Kant in the career of
philosophy. They had no school, because
they founded no system; but they began the
attack against the doctrine of the materialists.
Of these three, Lessing is the one whose opi-
nions, on this point, are the least decided;
^however, he had too enlarged a mind to be
confined within the narrow circle which is so
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? 102 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
easily drawn, when we renounce the highest
truths. Lessing's all-powerful polemics dis-
closed doubt upon the most important ques-
tions, and led to new inquiries of every kind.
Lessing himself cannot be considered either
as a materialist or as an idealist; but the
necessity of examination and study to
the acquisition of knowledge, was the main
spring of his doctrine. "If the Almighty/'
said he, " were to hold Truth in one hand,
"and the Search after truth in the other,
"it is the latter I should ask of him in pre-
"ference. "
Lessing was not orthodox in religion.
Christianity, in him, was not a necessary
thing, like sentiment; and yet he was ca-
pable of admiring it philosophically. He
understood its relations with the human
heart, and he ever considers all the different
ways of thinking, from a point of view,
where he is able to see them all. Nothing
intolerant, no exclusion, is to be found in
his writings. When we take our stand, in
the centre of universal ideas, we never
fail to have sincerity, depth, and extent of
mind. Whatever is unjust, vain, and nar-
row, is derived from the desire of refer-
ring every thing to certain partial views,
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