Would God be for this less at liberty, would it less
become Him to take immediate charge of the temporal fortunes of any
people out of this perishable race?
become Him to take immediate charge of the temporal fortunes of any
people out of this perishable race?
Literary and Philosophical Essays- French, German and Italian by Immanuel Kant
The taste of the Hibernian monks for making maritime
pilgrimages through the archipelago of the Scottish and Irish seas,
everywhere dotted with monasteries, [Footnote: The Irish saints
literally covered the Western seas. A very considerable number of
the saints of Brittany, St. Tenenan, St. Renan, etc. , were emigrants
from Ireland. The Breton legends of St. Malo, St. David, and of St.
Pol of Leon are replete with similar stories of voyages to the
distant isles of the West. ] and the memory of yet more distant
voyages in Polar seas, furnished the framework of this curious
composition, so rich in local impressions. From Pliny (IV. xxx. 3)
we learn that, even in his time, the Bretons loved to venture their
lives upon the high seas, in search of unknown isles. M. Letronne
has proved that in 795, sixty-five years consequently before the
Danes, Irish monks landed in Iceland and established themselves on
the coast. In this island the Danes found Irish books and bells; and
the names of certain localities still bear witness to the sojourn of
those monks, who were known by the name of Papae (fathers). In the
Faroe Isles, in the Orkneys, and the Shetlands, indeed in all parts
of the Northern seas, the Scandinavians found themselves preceded by
those Papas, whose habits contrasted so strangely with their own.
[Footnote: On this point see the careful researches of Humboldt in
his History of the Geography of the New Continent, vol. ii. ] Did
they not have a glimpse too of that great land, the vague memory of
which seems to pursue them, and which Columbus was to discover,
following the traces of their dreams? It is only known that the
existence of an island, traversed by a great river and situated to
the west of Ireland, was, on the faith of the Irish, a dogma for
mediaeval geographers.
The story went that, towards the middle of the sixth century, a monk
called Barontus, on his return from voyaging upon the sea, came and
craved hospitality at the monastery of Clonfert. Brandan the abbot
besought him to give pleasure to the brothers by narrating the
marvels of God that he had seen on the high seas. Barontus revealed
to them the existence of an island surrounded by fogs, where he had
left his disciple Mernoc; it is the Land of Promise that God keeps
for his saints. Brandan with seventeen of his monks desired to go in
quest of this mysterious land. They set forth in a leather boat,
bearing with them as their sole provision a utensil of butter,
wherewith to grease the hides of their craft. For seven years they
lived thus in their boat, abandoning to God sail and rudder, and
only stopping on their course to celebrate the feasts of Christmas
and Easter on the back of the king of fishes, Jasconius. Every step
of this monastic Odyssey is a miracle, on every isle is a monastery,
where the wonders of a fantastical universe respond to the
extravagances of a wholly ideal life. Here is the Isle of Sheep,
where these animals govern themselves according to their own laws;
elsewhere the Paradise of Birds, where the winged race lives after
the fashion of monks, singing matins and lauds at the canonical
hours. Brandan and his companions celebrate mass here with the
birds, and remain with them for fifty days, nourishing themselves
with nothing but the singing of their hosts. Elsewhere there is the
Isle of Delight, the ideal of monastic life in the midst of the
seas. Here no material necessity makes itself felt; the lamps light
of themselves for the offices of religion, and never burn out, for
they shine with a spiritual light. An absolute stillness reigns in
the island; every one knows precisely the hour of his death; one
feels neither cold, nor heat, nor sadness, nor sickness of body or
soul. All this has endured since the days of St. Patrick, who so
ordained it. The Land of Promise is more marvellous still; there an
eternal day reigns; all the plants have flowers, all the trees bear
fruits. Some privileged men alone have visited it. On their return a
perfume is perceived to come from them, which their garments keep
for forty days.
In the midst of these dreams there appears with a surprising
fidelity to truth the feeling for the picturesque in Polar voyages,-
-the transparency of the sea, the aspect of bergs and islands of ice
melting in the sun, the volcanic phenomena of Iceland, the sporting
of whales, the characteristic appearance of the Norwegian fiords,
the sudden fogs, the sea calm as milk, the green isles crowned with
grass which grows down to the very verge of the waves. This
fantastical nature created expressly for another humanity, this
strange topography at once glowing with fiction and speaking of
truth, make the poem of St. Brandan one of the most extraordinary
creations of the human mind, and perhaps the completest expression
of the Celtic ideal. All is lovely, pure, and innocent; never has a
gaze so benevolent and so gentle been cast upon the earth; there is
not a single cruel idea, not a trace of frailty or repentance. It is
the world seen through the crystal of a stainless conscience, one
might almost say a human nature, as Pelagius wished it, that has
never sinned. The very animals participate in this universal
mildness. Evil appears under the form of monsters wandering on the
deep, or of Cyclops confined in volcanic islands; but God causes
them to destroy one another, and does not permit them to do hurt to
the good.
We have just seen how, around the legend of a monk the Irish
imagination grouped a whole cycle of physical and maritime myths.
The Purgatory of St. Patrick became the framework of another series
of fables, embodying the Celtic ideas concerning the other life and
its different conditions. [Footnote: See Thomas Wright's excellent
dissertation, Saint Patrick's Purgatory (London, 1844), and
Calderon's The Well of Saint Patrick. ] Perhaps the profoundest
instinct of the Celtic peoples is their desire to penetrate the
unknown. With the sea before them, they wish to know what lies
beyond; they dream of a Promised Land. In the face of the unknown
that lies beyond the tomb, they dream of that great journey which
the pen of Dante has celebrated. The legend tells how, while St.
Patrick was preaching about Paradise and Hell to the Irish, they
confessed that they would feel more assured of the reality of these
places, if he would allow one of them to descend there, and then
come back with information St. Patrick consented. A pit was dug, by
which an Irishman set out upon the subterranean journey. Others
wished to attempt the journey after him. With the consent of the
abbot of the neighbouring monastery, they descended into the shaft,
they passed through the torments of Hell and Purgatory, and then
each told of what he had seen. Some did not emerge again; those who
did laughed no more, and were henceforth unable to join in any
gaiety. Knight Owen made a descent in 1153, and gave a narrative of
his travels which had a prodigious success.
Other legends related that when St. Patrick drove the goblins out of
Ireland, he was greatly tormented in this place for forty days by
legions of black birds. The Irish betook themselves to the spot, and
experienced the same assaults which gave them an immunity from
Purgatory. According to the narrative of Giraldus Cambrensis, the
isle which served as the theatre of this strange superstition was
divided into two parts. One belonged to the monks, the other was
occupied by evil spirits, who celebrated religious rites in their
own manner, with an infernal uproar. Some people, for the expiation
of their sins, voluntarily exposed themselves to the fury of those
demons. There were nine ditches in which they lay for a night,
tormented in a thousand different ways. To make the descent it was
necessary to obtain the permission of the bishop. His duty it was to
dissuade the penitent from attempting the adventure, and to point
out to him how many people had gone in who had never come out again.
If the devotee persisted, he was ceremoniously conducted to the
shaft. He was lowered down by means of a rope, with a loaf and a
vessel of water to strengthen him in the combat against the fiend
which he proposed to wage. On the following morning the sacristan
offered the rope anew to the sufferer. If he mounted to the surface
again, they brought him back to the church, bearing the cross and
chanting psalms. If he were not to be found, the sacristan closed
the door and departed. In more modern times pilgrims to the sacred
isles spent nine days there. They passed over to them in a boat
hollowed out of the trunk of a tree. Once a day they drank of the
water of the lake; processions and stations were performed in the
beds or cells of the saints. Upon the ninth day the penitents
entered into the shaft. Sermons were preached to them warning them
of the danger they were about to run, and they were told of terrible
examples. They forgave their enemies and took farewell of one
another, as though they were at their last agony. According to
contemporary accounts, the shaft was a low and narrow kiln, into
which nine entered at a time, and in which the penitents passed a
day and a night, huddled and tightly pressed against one another.
Popular belief imagined an abyss underneath, to swallow up the
unworthy and the unbelieving. On emerging from the pit they went and
bathed in the lake, and so their Purgatory was accomplished. It
would appear from the accounts of eye-witnesses that, to this day,
things happen very nearly after the same fashion.
The immense reputation of the Purgatory of St. Patrick filled the
whole of the Middle Ages. Preachers made appeal to the public
notoriety of this great fact, to controvert those who had their
doubts regarding Purgatory. In the year 1358 Edward III. gave to a
Hungarian of noble birth, who had come from Hungary expressly to
visit the sacred well, letters patent attesting that he had
undergone his Purgatory. Narratives of those travels beyond the tomb
became a very fashionable form of literature; and it is important
for us to remark the wholly mythological, and as wholly Celtic,
characteristics dominant in them. It is in fact evident that we are
dealing with a mystery or local cult, anterior to Christianity, and
probably based upon the physical appearance of the country. The idea
of Purgatory, in its final and concrete form, fared specially well
amongst the Bretons and the Irish. Bede is one of the first to speak
of it in a descriptive manner, and the learned Mr. Wright very
justly observes that nearly all the descriptions of Purgatory come
from Irishmen, or from Anglo-Saxons who have resided in Ireland,
such as St. Fursey, Tundale, the Northumbrian Dryhthelm, and Knight
Owen. It is likewise a remarkable thing that only the Irish were
able to behold the marvels of their Purgatory. A canon from Hemstede
in Holland, who descended in 1494, saw nothing at all. Evidently
this idea of travels in the other world and its infernal categories,
as the Middle Ages accepted it, is Celtic. The belief in the three
circles of existence is again to be found in the Triads, [Footnote:
A series of aphorisms under the form of triplets, which give us,
with numerous interpolations, the ancient teaching of the bards, and
that traditional wisdom which, according to the testimony of the
ancients, was transmitted by means of mnemonic verses in the schools
of the Druids. under an aspect which does not permit one to see any
Christian interpolation. ]
The soul's peregrinations after death are also the favourite theme
of the most ancient Armorican poetry. Among the features by which
the Celtic races most impressed the Romans were the precision of
their ideas upon the future life, their inclination to suicide, and
the loans and contracts which they signed with the other world in
view. The more frivolous peoples of the South saw with awe in this
assurance the fact of a mysterious race, having an understanding of
the future and the secret of death. Through the whole of classical
antiquity runs the tradition of an Isle of Shadows, situated on the
confines of Brittany, and of a folk devoted to the passage of souls,
which lives upon the neighbouring coast. In the night they hear dead
men prowling about their cabin, and knocking at the door. Then they
rise up; their craft is laden with invisible beings; on their return
it is lighter. Several of these features reproduced by Plutarch,
Claudian, Procopius, [Footnote: A Byzantine historian of the fifth
and sixth centuries. ] and Tzetzes [Footnote: A Greek poet and
grammarian of the twelfth century. ] would incline one to believe
that the renown of the Irish myths made its way into classical
antiquity about the first or second century. Plutarch, for example,
relates, concerning the Cronian Sea, fables identical with those
which fill the legend of St. Malo. Procopius, describing the sacred
Island of Brittia, which consists of two parts separated by the sea,
one delightful, the other given over to evil spirits, seems to have
read in advance the description of the Purgatory of St. Patrick,
which Giraldus Cambrensis was to give seven centuries later. It
cannot be doubted for a moment, after the able researches of Messrs.
Ozanam, Labitte, and Wright, that to the number of poetical themes
which Europe owes to the genius of the Celts, is to be added the
framework of the Divine Comedy.
One can understand how greatly this invincible attraction to fables
must have discredited the Celtic race in the eyes of nationalities
that believed themselves to be more serious. It is in truth a
strange thing, that the whole of the mediaeval epoch, whilst
submitting to the influence of the Celtic imagination, and borrowing
from Brittany and Ireland at least half of its poetical subjects,
believed itself obliged, for the saving of its own honour, to slight
and satirise the people to which it owed them. Even Chretien de
Troyes, for example, who passed his life in exploiting the Breton
romances for his own purposes, originated the saying--
"Les Gallois sont tous par nature
Plus sots que betes de pature. "
Some English chronicler, I know not who, imagined he was making a
charming play upon words when he described those beautiful
creations, the whole world of which deserved to live, as "the
childish nonsense with which those brutes of Bretons amuse
themselves. " The Bollandists [Footnote: A group of Jesuits who
issued a collection of "Lives of the Saints". The first five volumes
were edited by John Bolland. ] found it incumbent to exclude from
their collection, as apocryphal extravagances, those admirable
religious legends, with which no Church has anything to compare. The
decided leaning of the Celtic race towards the ideal, its sadness,
its fidelity, its good faith, caused it to be regarded by its
neighbours as dull, foolish, and superstitious. They could not
understand its delicacy and refined manner of feeling. They mistook
for awkwardness the embarrassment experienced by sincere and open
natures in the presence of more artificial natures. The contrast
between French frivolity and Breton stubbornness above all led,
after the fourteenth century, to most deplorable conflicts, whence
the Bretons ever emerged with a reputation for wrong-headedness.
It was still worse, when the nation that most prides itself on its
practical good sense found confronting it the people that, to its
own misfortune, is least provided with that gift. Poor Ireland, with
her ancient mythology, with her Purgatory of St. Patrick, and her
fantastic travels of St. Brandan, was not destined to find grace in
the eyes of English puritanism. One ought to observe the disdain of
English critics for these fables, and their superb pity for the
Church which dallies with Paganism, so far as to keep up usages
which are notoriously derived from it. Assuredly we have here a
praiseworthy zeal, arising from natural goodness; and yet, even if
these flights of imagination did no more than render a little more
supportable many sufferings which are said to have no remedy, that
after all would be something. Who shall dare to say where, here on
earth, is the boundary between reason and dreaming? Which is worth
more, the imaginative instinct of man, or the narrow orthodoxy that
pretends to remain rational, when speaking of things divine? For my
own part, I prefer the frank mythology, with all its vagaries, to a
theology so paltry, so vulgar, and so colourless, that it would be
wronging God to believe that, after having made the visible world so
beautiful he should have made the invisible world so prosaically
reasonable.
In presence of the ever-encroaching progress of a civilisation which
is of no country, and can receive no name, other than that of modern
or European, it would be puerile to hope that the Celtic race is in
the future to succeed in obtaining isolated expression of its
originality. And yet we are far from believing that this race has
said its last word. After having put in practice all chivalries,
devout and worldly, gone with Peredur in quest of the Holy Grail and
fair ladies, and dreamed with St. Brandan of mystical Atlantides,
who knows what it would produce in the domain of intellect, if it
hardened itself to an entrance into the world, and subjected its
rich and profound nature to the conditions of modern thought? It
appears to me that there would result from this combination,
productions of high originality, a subtle and discreet manner of
taking life, a singular union of strength and weakness, of rude
simplicity and mildness. Few races have had so complete a poetic
childhood as the Celtic; mythology, lyric poetry, epic, romantic
imagination, religious enthusiasm--none of these failed them; why
should reflection fail them? Germany, which commenced with science
and criticism, has come to poetry; why should not the Celtic races,
which began with poetry, finish with criticism? There is not so
great a distance from one to the other as is supposed; the poetical
races are the philosophic races, and at bottom philosophy is only a
manner of poetry. When one considers how Germany, less than a
century ago, had her genius revealed to her, how a multitude of
national individualities, to all appearance effaced, have suddenly
risen again in our own days, more instinct with life than ever, one
feels persuaded that it is a rash thing to lay down any law on the
intermittence and awakening of nations; and that modern
civilisation, which appeared to be made to absorb them, may perhaps
be nothing more than their united fruition.
THE EDUCATION OF THE HUMAN RACE
BY
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSINO
TRANSLATED BY
F. W. ROBERTSON
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Lessing's life has been sketched in the introduction to his "Minna
von Barnhelm" in the volume of Continental Dramas in The Harvard
Classics.
"The Education of the Human Race" is the culmination of a bitter
theological controversy which began with the publication by Lessing,
in 1774-1778, of a series of fragments of a work on natural religion
by the German deist, Reimarus. This action brought upon Lessing the
wrath of the orthodox German Protestants, led by J. M. Goeze, and in
the battle that followed Lessing did his great work for the
liberalising of religious thought in Germany. The present treatise
is an extraordinarily condensed statement of the author's attitude
towards the fundamental questions of religion, and gives his view of
the signification of the previous religious history of mankind,
along with his faith And hope for the future.
As originally issued, the essay purported to be merely edited by
Lessing; but there is no longer any doubt as to his having been its
author. It is an admirable and characteristic expression of the
serious and elevated spirit in which he dealt with matters that had
then, as often, been degraded by the virulence of controversy.
THE EDUCATION OF THE HUMAN RACE
1
That which Education is to the Individual, Revelation is to the
Race.
2
Education is Revelation coming to the Individual Man; and Revelation
is Education which has come, and is yet coming, to the Human Race.
3
Whether it can be of any advantage to the science of instruction to
contemplate Education in this point of view, I will not here
inquire; but in Theology it may unquestionably be of great
advantage, and may remove many difficulties, if Revelation be
conceived of as the Educator of Humanity.
4
Education gives to Man nothing which he might not educe out of
himself; it gives him that which he might educe out of himself, only
quicker and more easily. In the same way too, Revelation gives
nothing to the human species, which the human reason left to itself
might not attain; only it has given, and still gives to it, the most
important of these things earlier.
5
And just as in Education, it is not a matter of indifference in what
order the powers of a man are developed, as it cannot impart to a
man all at once; so was God also necessitated to maintain a certain
order, and a certain measure in His Revelation.
6
Even if the first man were furnished at once with a conception of
the One God; yet it was not possible that this conception, imparted,
and not gained by thought, should subsist long in its clearness. As
soon as the Human Reason, left to itself, began to elaborate it, it
broke up the one Immeasurable into many Measurables, and gave a note
or sign of mark to every one of these parts.
7
Hence naturally arose polytheism and idolatry. And who can say how
many millions of years human reason would have been bewildered in
these errors, even though in all places and times there were
individual men who recognized them as errors, had it not pleased God
to afford it a better direction by means of a new Impulse?
8
But when He neither could nor would reveal Himself any more to each
individual man, He selected an individual People for His special
education; and that exactly the most rude and the most unruly, in
order to begin with it from the very commencement.
9
This was the Hebrew People, respecting whom we do not in the least
know what kind of Divine Worship they had in Egypt. For so despised
a race of slaves was not permitted to take part in the worship of
the Egyptians; and the God of their fathers was entirely unknown to
them.
10
It is possible that the Egyptians had expressly prohibited the
Hebrews from having a God or Gods, perhaps they had forced upon them
the belief that their despised race had no God, no Gods, that to
have a God or Gods was the prerogative of the superior Egyptians
only, and this may have been so held in order to have the power of
tyrannising over them with a greater show of fairness. Do Christians
even now do much better with their slaves?
11
To this rude people God caused Himself to be announced first, simply
as "the God of their fathers," in order to make them acquainted and
familiar with the idea of a God belonging to them also, and to begin
with confidence in Him.
12
Through the miracles with which He led them out of Egypt, and
planted them in Canaan, He testified of Himself to them as a God
mightier than any other God.
13
And as He proceeded, demonstrating Himself to be the Mightiest of
all, which only One can be, He gradually accustomed them thus to the
idea of THE ONE.
14
But how far was this conception of The One, below the true
transcendental conception of the One which Reason learnt to derive,
so late with certainty, from the conception of the Infinite One?
15
Although the best of the people were already more or less
approaching the true conception of the One only, the people as a
whole could not for a long time elevate themselves to it. And this
was the sole true reason why they so often abandoned their one God,
and expected to find the One, i. e. , as they meant, the Mightiest,
in some God or other, belonging to another people.
16
But of what kind of moral education was a people so raw, so
incapable of abstract thoughts, and so entirely in their childhood
capable? Of none other but such as is adapted to the age of
children, an education by rewards and punishments addressed to the
senses.
17
Here too Education and Revelation meet together. As yet God could
give to His people no other religion, no other law than one through
obedience to which they might hope to be happy, or through
disobedience to which they must fear to be unhappy. For as yet their
regards went no further than this earth. They knew of no immortality
of the soul; they yearned after no life to come. But now to reveal
these things to one whose reason had as yet so little growth, what
would it have been but the same fault in the Divine Rule as is
committed by the schoolmaster, who chooses to hurry his pupil too
rapidly, and boast of his progress, rather than thoroughly to ground
him?
18
But, it will be asked, to what purpose was this education of so rude
a people, a people with whom God had to begin so entirely from the
beginning? I reply, in order that in the process of time He might
employ particular members of this nation as the Teachers of other
people. He was bringing up in them the future Teachers of the human
race. It was the Jews who became their teachers, none but Jews; only
men out of a people so brought up, could be their teachers.
19
For to proceed. When the Child by dint of blows and caresses had
grown and was now come to years of understanding, the Father sent it
at once into foreign countries: and here it recognised at once the
Good which in its Father's house it had possessed, and had not been
conscious of.
20.
While God guided His chosen people through all the degrees of a
child-like education, the other nations of the earth had gone on by
the light of reason. The most part had remained far behind the
chosen people. Only a few had got before them. And this too, takes
place with children, who are allowed to grow up left to themselves:
many remain quite raw, some educate themselves even to an
astonishing degree.
21
But as these more fortunate few prove nothing against the use and
necessity of Education, so the few heathen nations, who even appear
to have made a start in the knowledge of God before the chosen
people, prove nothing against a Revelation. The Child of Education
begins with slow yet sure footsteps; it is late in overtaking many a
more happily organised child of nature; but it does overtake it; and
thenceforth can never be distanced by it again.
22
Similarly--Putting aside the doctrine of the Unity of God, which in
a way is found, and in a way is not found, in the books of the Old
Testament--that the doctrine of immortality at least is not
discoverable in it, is wholly foreign to it, that all doctrine
connected therewith of reward and punishment in a future life,
proves just as little against the Divine origin of these books.
Notwithstanding the absence of these doctrines, the account of
miracles and prophecies may be perfectly true. For let us suppose
that these doctrines were not only wanting therein, but even that
they were not at all true; let us suppose that for mankind all was
over in this life; would the Being of God be for this reason less
demonstrated?
Would God be for this less at liberty, would it less
become Him to take immediate charge of the temporal fortunes of any
people out of this perishable race? The miracles which He performed
for the Jews, the prophecies which He caused to be recorded through
them, were surely not for the few mortal Jews, in whose time they
had happened and been recorded: He had His intentions therein in
reference to the whole Jewish people, to the entire Human Race,
which, perhaps, is destined to remain on earth forever, though every
individual Jew and every individual man die forever.
23
Once more, The absence of those doctrines in the writings of the Old
Testament proves nothing against their Divinity. Moses was sent from
God even though the sanction of his law only extended to this life.
For why should it extend further? He was surely sent only to the
Israelitish people of that time, and his commission was perfectly
adapted to the knowledge, capacities, yearnings of the then existing
Israelitish people, as well as to the destination of that which
belonged to the future. And this is sufficient.
24
So far ought Warburton to have gone, and no further. But that
learned man overdrew his bow. Not content that the absence of these
doctrines was no discredit to the Divine mission of Moses, it must
even be a proof to him of the Divinity of the mission. And if he had
only sought this proof in the adaptation of such a law to such a
people!
But he betook himself to the hypothesis of a miraculous system
continued in an unbroken line from Moses to Christ, according to
which, God had made every individual Jew exactly happy or unhappy,
in the proportion to his obedience or disobedience to the law
deserved. He would have it that this miraculous system had
compensated for the want of those doctrines (of eternal rewards and
punishments, &c. ), without which no state can subsist; and that such
a compensation even proved what that want at first sight appeared to
negative.
25
How well it was that Warburton could by no argument prove or even
make likely this continuous miracle, in which he placed the
existence of Israelitish Theocracy! For could he have done so, in
truth, he could then, and not till then, have made the difficulty
really insuperable, to me at least. For that which was meant to
prove the Divine character of the Mission of Moses, would have
rendered the matter itself doubtful, which God, it is true, did not
intend then to reveal; but which on the other hand, He certainly
would not render unattainable.
26
I explain myself by that which is a picture of Revelation. A Primer
for children may fairly pass over in silence this or that important
piece of knowledge or art which it expounds, respecting which the
Teacher judged, that it is not yet fitted for the capacities of the
children for whom he was writing. But it must contain absolutely
nothing which blocks up the way towards the knowledge which is held
back, or misleads the children from it. Rather far, all the
approaches towards it must be carefully left open; and to lead them
away from even one of these approaches, or to cause them to enter it
later than they need, would alone be enough to change the mere
imperfection of such a Primer into an actual fault.
27
In the same way, in the writings of the Old Testament those primers
for the rude Israelitish people, unpractised in thought, the
doctrines of the immortality of the soul, and future recompenses,
might be fairly left out: but they were bound to contain nothing
which could have even procrastinated the progress of the people, for
whom they were written, in their way to this grand truth. And to say
but a small thing, what could have more procrastinated it than the
promise of such a miraculous recompense in this life? A promise made
by Him who promises nothing that He does not perform.
28
For although unequal distribution of the goods of this life, Virtue
and Vice seem to be taken too little into consideration, although
this unequal distribution docs not exactly afford a strong proof of
the immortality of the soul and of a life to come, in which this
difficulty will be reserved hereafter, it is certain that without
this difficulty the human understanding would not for a long time,
perhaps never, have arrived at better or firmer proofs. For what was
to impel it to seek for these better proofs? Mere curiosity?
29
An Israelite here and there, no doubt, might have extended to every
individual member of the entire commonwealth, those promises and
threatenings which belong to it as a whole, and be firmly persuaded
that whosoever should be pious must also be happy, and that whoever
was unhappy must be bearing the penalty of his wrong-doing, which
penalty would forthwith change itself into blessing, as soon as he
abandoned his sin. Such a one appears to have written Job, for the
plan of it is entirely in this spirit.
30
But daily experience could not possibly be permitted to confirm this
belief, or else it would have been all over, for ever, with people
who had this experience, so far as all recognition and reception was
concerned of the truth as yet unfamiliar to them. For if the pious
were absolutely happy, and it also of course was a necessary part of
his happiness that his satisfaction should be broken by no uneasy
thoughts of death, and that he should die old, and satisfied with
life to the full: how could he yearn after another life? and how
could he reflect upon a thing after which he did not yearn? But if
the pious did not reflect thereupon, who then should reflect? The
transgressor? he who felt the punishments of his misdeeds, and if he
cursed this life, must have so gladly renounced that other
existence?
31
Much less would it signify if an Israelite here and there directly
and expressly denied the immortality of the soul and future
recompense, on account of the law having no reference thereto. The
denial of an individual, had it even been a Solomon, did not arrest
the progress of the general reason, and was even in itself a proof
that the nation had now come a great step nearer the truth For
individuals only deny what the many are bringing into consideration;
and to bring into consideration that, concerning which no one
troubled himself at all before, is half way to knowledge.
32
Let us also acknowledge that it is a heroic obedience to obey the
laws of God simply because they are God's laws, and not because He
has promised to reward the obedience to them here and there; to obey
them even though there be an entire despair of future recompense,
and uncertainty respecting a temporal one.
33
Must not a people educated in this heroic obedience towards God have
been destined, must they not have been capable beyond all others of
executing Divine purpose? of quite a special character? Let the
soldier, who pays blind obedience to his leader, become also
convinced of his leader's wisdom, and then say what that leader may
not undertake to achieve with him.
34
As yet the Jewish people had reverenced in their Jehovah rather the
mightiest than the wisest of all Gods; as yet they had rather feared
Him as a Jealous God than loved Him: a proof this too, that the
conception which they had of their eternal One God was not exactly
the right conception which we should have of God. However, now the
time was come that these conceptions of theirs were to be expanded,
ennobled, rectified, to accomplish which God availed Himself of a
quite natural means, a better and more correct measure, by which it
got the opportunity of appreciating Him.
35
Instead of, as hitherto, appreciating Him in contrast with the
miserable idols of the small neighboring peoples, with whom they
lived in constant rivalry, they began, in captivity under the wise
Persians, to measure Him against the "Being of all Beings" such as a
more disciplined reason recognized and reverenced.
36
Revelation had guided their reason, and now, all at once, reason
gave clearness to their Revelation.
37
This was the first reciprocal influence which these two (Reason and
Revelation) exercised on one another; and so far is the mutual
influence from being unbecoming to the Author of them both, that
without it either of them would have been useless.
38
The child, sent abroad, saw other children who knew more, who lived
more becomingly, and asked itself, in confusion, "Why do I not know
that too? Why do I not live so too? Ought I not to have been taught
and admonished of all this in my father's house? " Thereupon it again
sought out its Primer, which had long been thrown into a corner, in
order to throw off a blame upon the Primer. But behold, it discovers
that the blame does not rest upon the books, that the shame is
solely its own, for not having long ago, known this very thing, and
lived in this very way.
39
Since the Jews, by this time, through the medium of the pure Persian
doctrine, recognized in their Jehovah, not simply the greatest of
all national deities, but GOD; and since they could, the more
readily find Him and indicate Him to others in their sacred
writings, inasmuch as He was really in them; and since they
manifested as great an aversion for sensuous representations, or at
all events, were instructed in these Scriptures, to have an aversion
to them as great as the Persians had always felt; what wonder that
they found favor in the eyes of Cyrus, with a Divine Worship which
he recognized as being, no doubt, far below pure Sabeism, but yet
far above the rude idolatries which in its stead had taken
possession of the forsaken land of the Jews.
40
Thus enlightened respecting the treasures which they had possessed,
without knowing it, they returned, and became quite another people,
whose first care it was to give permanency to this illumination
amongst themselves. Soon an apostacy and idolatry among them was out
of the question. For it is possible to be faithless to a national
deity, but never to God, after He has once been recognised.
The theologians have tried to explain this complete change in the
Jewish people in a different way; and one, who has well demonstrated
the insufficiency of these explanations, at last was for giving us,
as a true account--"the visible fulfilment of the prophecies which
had been spoken and written respecting the Babylonish captivity and
the restoration from it. " But even this reason can be only so far
the true one, as it presupposes the, by this time, exalted ideas of
God. The Jews must by this time have recognised that to do miracles,
and to predict the future, belonged only to God, both of which they
had ascribed formerly to false idols, by which it came to pass that
even miracles and prophecies had hitherto made so weak an impression
upon them.
42
Doubtless, the Jews were made more acquainted with the doctrine of
immortality among the Chaldeans and Persians. They became more
familiar with it too in the schools of the Greek Philosophers in
Egypt.
43
However, as this doctrine was not in the same condition in reference
to their Scriptures that the doctrines of God's Unity and Attributes
were--since the former were entirely overlooked by that sensual
people, while the latter would be sought for:--and since too, for
the former, previous exercising was necessary, and as yet there had
been only hints and allusions, the faith in the immortality of the
soul could naturally never be the faith of the entire people. It was
and continued to be only the creed of a certain section of them.
44
An example of what I mean by "previous exercising" for the doctrine
of immortality, is the Divine threatenings of punishing the misdeeds
of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth
generation. This accustomed the fathers to live in thought with
their remotest posterity, and to feel, as it were, beforehand, the
misfortune which they had brought upon these guiltless ones.
45
By an allusion I mean that which was intended only to excite
curiosity and to occasion questions. As, for instance, the oft-
recurring mode of expression, describing death by "he was gathered
to his fathers. "
By a "hint" I mean that which already contains any germ, out of
which the, as yet, held back truth allows itself to be developed. Of
this character was the inference of Christ from the naming of God
"the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. " This hint appears to me to
be unquestionably capable of being worked out into a strong proof.
47
In such previous exercitations, allusions, hints, consists the
positive perfection of a Primer; just as the above-mentioned
peculiarity of not throwing difficulties or hindrances in the way to
the suppressed truth constitutes the negative perfection of such a
book.
48
Add to all this the clothing and style.
1. The clothing of abstract truths, which were not entirely to be
passed over, in allegories and instructive single circumstances,
which were narrated as actual occurrences. Of this character are the
Creation under the image of growing Day; the Origin of Evil in the
story of the Forbidden Tree; the source of the variety of languages
in the history of the Tower of Babel, &c.
49 2. The style--sometimes plain and simple, sometimes poetical,
throughout full of tautologies, but of such a kind as practised
sagacity, since they sometimes appear to be saying something else,
and yet the same thing; sometimes the same thing over again, and yet
to signify or to be capable of signifying at the bottom, something
else:--
50
And then you have all the properties of excellence which belong to a
Primer for a childlike people, as well as for children.
51
But every Primer is only for a certain age. To delay the child, that
has outgrown it, longer in it than it was intended for, is hurtful.
For to be able to do this is a way in any sort profitable, you must
insert into it more than there is really in it, and extract from it
more than it can contain. You must look for and make too much of
allusions and hints; squeeze allegories too closely; interpret
examples too circumstantially; press too much upon words. This gives
the child a petty, crooked, hair splitting understanding: it makes
him full of mysteries, superstitions; full of contempt for all that
is comprehensible and easy.
52
The very way in which the Rabbins handled their sacred books! The
very character which they thereby imparted to the character of their
people!
53
A Better Instructor must come and tear the exhausted Primer from the
child's hands. CHRIST came!
54
That portion of the human race which God had willed to comprehend in
one Educational plan, was ripe for the Second step of Education. He
had, however, only willed to comprehend on such a plan, one which by
language, mode of action, government, and other natural and
political relationships, was already united in itself.
55
That is, this portion of the human race was come so far in the
exercise of its reason, as to need, and to be able to make use of
nobler and worthier motives of moral action than temporal rewards
and punishments, which had hitherto been its guides. The child had
become a youth. Sweetmeats and toys have given place to the budding
desire to go as free, as honored, and as happy as its elder brother.
56
For a long time, already, the best individuals of that portion of
the human race (called above the elder brother); had been accustomed
to let themselves be ruled by the shadow of such nobler motives. The
Greek and Roman did everything to live on after this life, even if
it were only in the remembrance of their fellow-citizens.
57
It was time that another true life to be expected after this should
gain an influence over the youth's actions.
58
And so Christ was the first certain practical Teacher of the
immortality of the soul.
59
The first certain Teacher. Certain, through the prophecies which
were fulfilled in Him; certain, through the miracles which He
achieved; certain, through His own revival after a death through
which He had sealed His doctrine. Whether we can still prove this
revival, these miracles, I put aside, as I leave on one side who the
Person of Christ was. All that may have been at that time of great
weight for the reception of His doctrine, but it is now no longer of
the same importance for the recognition of the truth of His
doctrine.
60
The first practical Teacher. For it is one thing to conjecture, to
wish, and to believe the immortality of the soul, as a philosophic
speculation: quite another thing to direct the inner and outer acts
by it.
61
And this at least Christ was the first to teach. For although,
already before Him, the belief had been introduced among many
nations, that bad actions have yet to be punished in that life; yet
they were only such actions as were injurious to civil society, and
consequently, too, had already had their punishment in civil
society. To enforce an inward purity of heart in reference to
another life, was reserved for Him alone.
62
His disciples have faithfully propagated these doctrines: and if
they had even had no other merit, than that of having effected a
more general publication, among other nations, of a Truth which
Christ had appeared to have destined only for the Jews, yet would
they have even on that account alone, to be reckoned among the
Benefactors and Fosterers of the Human Race.
63
If, however, they transplanted this one great Truth together with
other doctrines, whose truth was less enlightening, whose usefulness
was of a less exalted character, how could it be otherwise. Let us
not blame them for this, but rather seriously examine whether these
very commingled doctrines have not become a new impulse of
directions for human reason.
64
At least, it is already clear that the New Testament Scriptures, in
which these doctrines after some time were found preserved, have
afforded, and still afford, the second better Primer for the race of
man.
65
For seven hundred years past they have exercised human reason more
than all other books, and enlightened it more, were it even only
through the light which the human reason itself threw into them.
66
It would have been impossible for any other book to become so
generally known among different nations: and indisputably, the fact
that modes of thought so diverse from each other have been occupied
on the same book, has helped on the human reason more than if every
nation had had its own Primer specially for itself.
67
It was also highly necessary that each people for a period should
hold this Book as the ne plus ultra of their knowledge. For the
youth must consider his Primer as the first of all books, that the
impatience to finish this book, may not hurry him on to things for
which he has, as yet, laid no basis.
68
And one thing is also of the greatest importance even now. Thou
abler spirit, who art fretting and restless over the last page of
the Primer, beware! Beware of letting thy weaker fellow scholars
mark what thou perceivest afar, or what thou art beginning to see!
Until these weaker fellow scholars are up with thee, rather return
once more into this Primer, and examine whether that which thou
takest only for duplicates of the method, for a blunder in the
teaching, is not perhaps something more.
70
Thou hast seen in the childhood of the human race, respecting the
doctrine of God's unity, that God makes immediate revelations of
mere truths of reason, or has permitted and caused pure truths of
reason to be taught, for some time, as truths of immediate
revelation, in order to promulgate them the more rapidly, and ground
them the more firmly.
71
Thou experiencest in the boyhood of the Race the same thing in
reference to the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. It is
preached in the better Primer as a Revelation, instead of taught as
a result of human reason.
72
As we by this time can dispense with the Old Testament, in reference
to the doctrine of the unity of God, and as we are by degrees
beginning also to be less dependent on the New Testament, in
reference to the immortality of the soul: might there not in this
Book also be other truths of the same sort prefigured, mirrored, as
it were, which we are to marvel at, as revelations, exactly so long
as until the time shall come when reason shall have learned to educe
them, out of its other demonstrated truths and bind them up with
them?
73
For instance, the doctrine of the Trinity. How if this doctrine
should at last, after endless errors, right and left, only bring men
on the road to recognise that God cannot possibly be One in the
sense in which finite things are one, that even His unity must be a
transcendental unity, which does not exclude a sort of purality?
Must not God at least have the most perfect conception of Himself,
i. e. , a conception in which is found everything which is in Him?
But would everything be found in it which is in Him, if a mere
conception, a mere possibility, were found even of his necessary
Reality as well as of His other qualities? This possibility exhausts
the being of His other qualities. Does it that of His necessary
Reality? I think not. Consequently God can either have no perfect
conception of himself at all, or this perfect conception is just as
necessarily real, i. e. , actually existent, as He Himself is.
Certainly the image of myself in the mirror is nothing but an empty
representation of me, because it only has that of me upon the
surface of which beams of light fall. But now if this image had
everything, everything without exception, which I have myself, would
it then still be a mere empty representation, or not rather a true
reduplication of myself? When I believe that I recognise in God a
familiar reduplication, I perhaps do not so much err, as that my
language is insufficient for my ideas: and so much at least for ever
incontrovertible, that they who wish to make the idea thereof
popular for comprehension, could scarcely have expressed themselves
more intelligibly and suitably than by giving the name of a Son
begotten from Eternity.
74
And the doctrine of Original Sin. How, if at last everything were to
convince us that man standing on the first and lowest step of his
humanity, is not so entirely master of his actions as to be able to
obey moral laws?
75
And the doctrine of the Son's satisfaction. How, if at last, all
compelled us to assume that God, in spite of that original
incapacity of man, chose rather to give him moral laws, and forgive
him all transgressions in consideration of His Son, i. e. , in
consideration of the self-existent total of all His own perfections,
compared with which, and in which, all imperfections of the
individual disappear, than not to give him those laws, and then to
exclude him from all moral blessedness, which cannot be conceived of
without moral laws.
Let it not be objected that speculations of this description upon
the mysteries of religion are forbidden. The word mystery signified,
in the first ages of Christianity, something quite different from
what it means now: and the cultivation of revealed truths into
truths of reason, is absolutely necessary, if the human race is to
be assisted by them. When they were revealed they were certainly no
truths of reason, but they were revealed in order to become such.
They were like the "that makes"--of the ciphering master, which he
says to the boys, beforehand, in order to direct them thereby in
their reckoning. If the scholars were to be satisfied with the "that
makes," they would never learn to calculate, and would frustrate the
intention with which their good master gave them a guiding clue in
their work.
77
And why should not we too, by the means of a religion whose
historical truth, if you will, looks dubious, be conducted in a
familiar way to closer and better conceptions of the Divine Being,
our own nature, our relation to God, truths at which the human
reason would never have arrived of itself?
78
It is not true that speculations upon these things have ever done
harm or become injurious to the body politic. You must reproach, not
the speculations, but the folly and the tyranny of checking them.
You must lay the blame on those who would not permit men having
their own speculations to exercise them.
79
On the contrary, speculations of this sort, whatever the result, are
unquestionably the most fitting exercises of the human heart,
generally, so long as the human heart, generally, is at best only
capable of loving virtue for the sake of its eternal blessed
consequences.
80
For in this selfishness of the human heart, to will to practice the
understanding too, only on that which concerns our corporal needs,
would be to blunt rather than to sharpen it. It absolutely will be
exercised on spiritual objects, if it is to attain its perfect
illumination, and bring out that purity of heart which makes us
capable of loving virtue for its own sake alone.
81
Or, is the human species never to arrive at this highest step of
illumination and purity? --Never?
82
Never? --Let me not think this blasphemy, All Merciful! Education has
its goal, in the Race, no less than in the Individual. That which is
educated is educated for something.
83
The flattering prospects which are open to the people, the Honor and
Well-being which are painted to him, what are they more than the
means of educating him to become a man, who, when these prospects of
Honor and Well-being have vanished, shall be able to do his Duty?
84
This is the aim of human education, and should not the Divine
education extend as far? Is that which is successful in the way of
Art with the individual, not to be successful in the way of Nature
with the whole? Blasphemy! Blasphemy! !
85
No! It will come! it will assuredly come! the time of the
perfecting, when man, the more convinced his understanding feels
itself of an ever better Future, will nevertheless not be
necessitated to borrow motives of action from this Future; for he
will do the Right because it is right, not because arbitrary rewards
are annexed thereto, which formerly were intended simply to fix and
strengthen his unsteady gaze in recognising the inner, better,
rewards of well-doing.
86
It will assuredly come! the time of a new eternal Gospel, which is
promised us in the Primer of the New Testament itself!
87
Perhaps even some enthusiasts of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries had caught a glimpse of a beam of this new eternal Gospel,
and only erred in that they predicted its outburst at so near to
their own time.
88
Perhaps their "Three Ages of the World" were not so empty a
speculation after all, and assuredly they had no contemptible views
when they taught that the New Covenant must become as much
antiquated as the old has been. There remained by them the
similarity of the economy of the same God. Ever, to let them speak
my words, ever the self-same plan of the Education of the Race.
89
Only they were premature. Only they believed that they could make
their contemporaries, who had scarcely outgrown their childhood,
without enlightenment, without preparation, men worthy of their
Third Age.
90
And it was just this which made them enthusiasts. The enthusiast
often casts true glances into the future, but for this future he
cannot wait. He wishes this future accelerated, and accelerated
through him. That for which nature takes thousands of years is to
mature itself in the moment of his existence. For what possession
has he in it if that which he recognises as the Best does not become
the best in his lifetime? Does he come back? Does he expect to come
back? Marvellous only that this enthusiastic expectation does not
become more the fashion among enthusiasts. 91
Go thine inscrutable way, Eternal Providence! Only let me not
despair in Thee, because of this inscrutableness. Let me not despair
in Thee, even if Thy steps appear to me to be going back. It is not
true that the shortest line is always straight.
92
Thou hast on Thine Eternal Way so much to carry on together, so much
to do! So many aside steps to take! And what if it were as good as
proved that the vast flow wheel which brings mankind nearer to this
perfection is only put in motion by smaller, swifter wheels, each of
which contributes its own individual unit thereto?
93
It is so! The very same Way by which the Race reaches its
perfection, must every individual man--one sooner--another later--
have travelled over. Have travelled over in one and the same life?
Can he have been, in one and the self-same life, a sensual Jew and a
spiritual Christian? Can he in the self-same life have overtaken
both?
94
Surely not that! But why should not every individual man have
existed more than once upon this World?
95
Is this hypothesis so laughable merely because it is the oldest?
Because the human understanding, before the sophistries of the
Schools had dissipated and debilitated it, lighted upon it at once?
Why may not even I have already performed those steps of my
perfecting which bring to man only temporal punishments and rewards?
pilgrimages through the archipelago of the Scottish and Irish seas,
everywhere dotted with monasteries, [Footnote: The Irish saints
literally covered the Western seas. A very considerable number of
the saints of Brittany, St. Tenenan, St. Renan, etc. , were emigrants
from Ireland. The Breton legends of St. Malo, St. David, and of St.
Pol of Leon are replete with similar stories of voyages to the
distant isles of the West. ] and the memory of yet more distant
voyages in Polar seas, furnished the framework of this curious
composition, so rich in local impressions. From Pliny (IV. xxx. 3)
we learn that, even in his time, the Bretons loved to venture their
lives upon the high seas, in search of unknown isles. M. Letronne
has proved that in 795, sixty-five years consequently before the
Danes, Irish monks landed in Iceland and established themselves on
the coast. In this island the Danes found Irish books and bells; and
the names of certain localities still bear witness to the sojourn of
those monks, who were known by the name of Papae (fathers). In the
Faroe Isles, in the Orkneys, and the Shetlands, indeed in all parts
of the Northern seas, the Scandinavians found themselves preceded by
those Papas, whose habits contrasted so strangely with their own.
[Footnote: On this point see the careful researches of Humboldt in
his History of the Geography of the New Continent, vol. ii. ] Did
they not have a glimpse too of that great land, the vague memory of
which seems to pursue them, and which Columbus was to discover,
following the traces of their dreams? It is only known that the
existence of an island, traversed by a great river and situated to
the west of Ireland, was, on the faith of the Irish, a dogma for
mediaeval geographers.
The story went that, towards the middle of the sixth century, a monk
called Barontus, on his return from voyaging upon the sea, came and
craved hospitality at the monastery of Clonfert. Brandan the abbot
besought him to give pleasure to the brothers by narrating the
marvels of God that he had seen on the high seas. Barontus revealed
to them the existence of an island surrounded by fogs, where he had
left his disciple Mernoc; it is the Land of Promise that God keeps
for his saints. Brandan with seventeen of his monks desired to go in
quest of this mysterious land. They set forth in a leather boat,
bearing with them as their sole provision a utensil of butter,
wherewith to grease the hides of their craft. For seven years they
lived thus in their boat, abandoning to God sail and rudder, and
only stopping on their course to celebrate the feasts of Christmas
and Easter on the back of the king of fishes, Jasconius. Every step
of this monastic Odyssey is a miracle, on every isle is a monastery,
where the wonders of a fantastical universe respond to the
extravagances of a wholly ideal life. Here is the Isle of Sheep,
where these animals govern themselves according to their own laws;
elsewhere the Paradise of Birds, where the winged race lives after
the fashion of monks, singing matins and lauds at the canonical
hours. Brandan and his companions celebrate mass here with the
birds, and remain with them for fifty days, nourishing themselves
with nothing but the singing of their hosts. Elsewhere there is the
Isle of Delight, the ideal of monastic life in the midst of the
seas. Here no material necessity makes itself felt; the lamps light
of themselves for the offices of religion, and never burn out, for
they shine with a spiritual light. An absolute stillness reigns in
the island; every one knows precisely the hour of his death; one
feels neither cold, nor heat, nor sadness, nor sickness of body or
soul. All this has endured since the days of St. Patrick, who so
ordained it. The Land of Promise is more marvellous still; there an
eternal day reigns; all the plants have flowers, all the trees bear
fruits. Some privileged men alone have visited it. On their return a
perfume is perceived to come from them, which their garments keep
for forty days.
In the midst of these dreams there appears with a surprising
fidelity to truth the feeling for the picturesque in Polar voyages,-
-the transparency of the sea, the aspect of bergs and islands of ice
melting in the sun, the volcanic phenomena of Iceland, the sporting
of whales, the characteristic appearance of the Norwegian fiords,
the sudden fogs, the sea calm as milk, the green isles crowned with
grass which grows down to the very verge of the waves. This
fantastical nature created expressly for another humanity, this
strange topography at once glowing with fiction and speaking of
truth, make the poem of St. Brandan one of the most extraordinary
creations of the human mind, and perhaps the completest expression
of the Celtic ideal. All is lovely, pure, and innocent; never has a
gaze so benevolent and so gentle been cast upon the earth; there is
not a single cruel idea, not a trace of frailty or repentance. It is
the world seen through the crystal of a stainless conscience, one
might almost say a human nature, as Pelagius wished it, that has
never sinned. The very animals participate in this universal
mildness. Evil appears under the form of monsters wandering on the
deep, or of Cyclops confined in volcanic islands; but God causes
them to destroy one another, and does not permit them to do hurt to
the good.
We have just seen how, around the legend of a monk the Irish
imagination grouped a whole cycle of physical and maritime myths.
The Purgatory of St. Patrick became the framework of another series
of fables, embodying the Celtic ideas concerning the other life and
its different conditions. [Footnote: See Thomas Wright's excellent
dissertation, Saint Patrick's Purgatory (London, 1844), and
Calderon's The Well of Saint Patrick. ] Perhaps the profoundest
instinct of the Celtic peoples is their desire to penetrate the
unknown. With the sea before them, they wish to know what lies
beyond; they dream of a Promised Land. In the face of the unknown
that lies beyond the tomb, they dream of that great journey which
the pen of Dante has celebrated. The legend tells how, while St.
Patrick was preaching about Paradise and Hell to the Irish, they
confessed that they would feel more assured of the reality of these
places, if he would allow one of them to descend there, and then
come back with information St. Patrick consented. A pit was dug, by
which an Irishman set out upon the subterranean journey. Others
wished to attempt the journey after him. With the consent of the
abbot of the neighbouring monastery, they descended into the shaft,
they passed through the torments of Hell and Purgatory, and then
each told of what he had seen. Some did not emerge again; those who
did laughed no more, and were henceforth unable to join in any
gaiety. Knight Owen made a descent in 1153, and gave a narrative of
his travels which had a prodigious success.
Other legends related that when St. Patrick drove the goblins out of
Ireland, he was greatly tormented in this place for forty days by
legions of black birds. The Irish betook themselves to the spot, and
experienced the same assaults which gave them an immunity from
Purgatory. According to the narrative of Giraldus Cambrensis, the
isle which served as the theatre of this strange superstition was
divided into two parts. One belonged to the monks, the other was
occupied by evil spirits, who celebrated religious rites in their
own manner, with an infernal uproar. Some people, for the expiation
of their sins, voluntarily exposed themselves to the fury of those
demons. There were nine ditches in which they lay for a night,
tormented in a thousand different ways. To make the descent it was
necessary to obtain the permission of the bishop. His duty it was to
dissuade the penitent from attempting the adventure, and to point
out to him how many people had gone in who had never come out again.
If the devotee persisted, he was ceremoniously conducted to the
shaft. He was lowered down by means of a rope, with a loaf and a
vessel of water to strengthen him in the combat against the fiend
which he proposed to wage. On the following morning the sacristan
offered the rope anew to the sufferer. If he mounted to the surface
again, they brought him back to the church, bearing the cross and
chanting psalms. If he were not to be found, the sacristan closed
the door and departed. In more modern times pilgrims to the sacred
isles spent nine days there. They passed over to them in a boat
hollowed out of the trunk of a tree. Once a day they drank of the
water of the lake; processions and stations were performed in the
beds or cells of the saints. Upon the ninth day the penitents
entered into the shaft. Sermons were preached to them warning them
of the danger they were about to run, and they were told of terrible
examples. They forgave their enemies and took farewell of one
another, as though they were at their last agony. According to
contemporary accounts, the shaft was a low and narrow kiln, into
which nine entered at a time, and in which the penitents passed a
day and a night, huddled and tightly pressed against one another.
Popular belief imagined an abyss underneath, to swallow up the
unworthy and the unbelieving. On emerging from the pit they went and
bathed in the lake, and so their Purgatory was accomplished. It
would appear from the accounts of eye-witnesses that, to this day,
things happen very nearly after the same fashion.
The immense reputation of the Purgatory of St. Patrick filled the
whole of the Middle Ages. Preachers made appeal to the public
notoriety of this great fact, to controvert those who had their
doubts regarding Purgatory. In the year 1358 Edward III. gave to a
Hungarian of noble birth, who had come from Hungary expressly to
visit the sacred well, letters patent attesting that he had
undergone his Purgatory. Narratives of those travels beyond the tomb
became a very fashionable form of literature; and it is important
for us to remark the wholly mythological, and as wholly Celtic,
characteristics dominant in them. It is in fact evident that we are
dealing with a mystery or local cult, anterior to Christianity, and
probably based upon the physical appearance of the country. The idea
of Purgatory, in its final and concrete form, fared specially well
amongst the Bretons and the Irish. Bede is one of the first to speak
of it in a descriptive manner, and the learned Mr. Wright very
justly observes that nearly all the descriptions of Purgatory come
from Irishmen, or from Anglo-Saxons who have resided in Ireland,
such as St. Fursey, Tundale, the Northumbrian Dryhthelm, and Knight
Owen. It is likewise a remarkable thing that only the Irish were
able to behold the marvels of their Purgatory. A canon from Hemstede
in Holland, who descended in 1494, saw nothing at all. Evidently
this idea of travels in the other world and its infernal categories,
as the Middle Ages accepted it, is Celtic. The belief in the three
circles of existence is again to be found in the Triads, [Footnote:
A series of aphorisms under the form of triplets, which give us,
with numerous interpolations, the ancient teaching of the bards, and
that traditional wisdom which, according to the testimony of the
ancients, was transmitted by means of mnemonic verses in the schools
of the Druids. under an aspect which does not permit one to see any
Christian interpolation. ]
The soul's peregrinations after death are also the favourite theme
of the most ancient Armorican poetry. Among the features by which
the Celtic races most impressed the Romans were the precision of
their ideas upon the future life, their inclination to suicide, and
the loans and contracts which they signed with the other world in
view. The more frivolous peoples of the South saw with awe in this
assurance the fact of a mysterious race, having an understanding of
the future and the secret of death. Through the whole of classical
antiquity runs the tradition of an Isle of Shadows, situated on the
confines of Brittany, and of a folk devoted to the passage of souls,
which lives upon the neighbouring coast. In the night they hear dead
men prowling about their cabin, and knocking at the door. Then they
rise up; their craft is laden with invisible beings; on their return
it is lighter. Several of these features reproduced by Plutarch,
Claudian, Procopius, [Footnote: A Byzantine historian of the fifth
and sixth centuries. ] and Tzetzes [Footnote: A Greek poet and
grammarian of the twelfth century. ] would incline one to believe
that the renown of the Irish myths made its way into classical
antiquity about the first or second century. Plutarch, for example,
relates, concerning the Cronian Sea, fables identical with those
which fill the legend of St. Malo. Procopius, describing the sacred
Island of Brittia, which consists of two parts separated by the sea,
one delightful, the other given over to evil spirits, seems to have
read in advance the description of the Purgatory of St. Patrick,
which Giraldus Cambrensis was to give seven centuries later. It
cannot be doubted for a moment, after the able researches of Messrs.
Ozanam, Labitte, and Wright, that to the number of poetical themes
which Europe owes to the genius of the Celts, is to be added the
framework of the Divine Comedy.
One can understand how greatly this invincible attraction to fables
must have discredited the Celtic race in the eyes of nationalities
that believed themselves to be more serious. It is in truth a
strange thing, that the whole of the mediaeval epoch, whilst
submitting to the influence of the Celtic imagination, and borrowing
from Brittany and Ireland at least half of its poetical subjects,
believed itself obliged, for the saving of its own honour, to slight
and satirise the people to which it owed them. Even Chretien de
Troyes, for example, who passed his life in exploiting the Breton
romances for his own purposes, originated the saying--
"Les Gallois sont tous par nature
Plus sots que betes de pature. "
Some English chronicler, I know not who, imagined he was making a
charming play upon words when he described those beautiful
creations, the whole world of which deserved to live, as "the
childish nonsense with which those brutes of Bretons amuse
themselves. " The Bollandists [Footnote: A group of Jesuits who
issued a collection of "Lives of the Saints". The first five volumes
were edited by John Bolland. ] found it incumbent to exclude from
their collection, as apocryphal extravagances, those admirable
religious legends, with which no Church has anything to compare. The
decided leaning of the Celtic race towards the ideal, its sadness,
its fidelity, its good faith, caused it to be regarded by its
neighbours as dull, foolish, and superstitious. They could not
understand its delicacy and refined manner of feeling. They mistook
for awkwardness the embarrassment experienced by sincere and open
natures in the presence of more artificial natures. The contrast
between French frivolity and Breton stubbornness above all led,
after the fourteenth century, to most deplorable conflicts, whence
the Bretons ever emerged with a reputation for wrong-headedness.
It was still worse, when the nation that most prides itself on its
practical good sense found confronting it the people that, to its
own misfortune, is least provided with that gift. Poor Ireland, with
her ancient mythology, with her Purgatory of St. Patrick, and her
fantastic travels of St. Brandan, was not destined to find grace in
the eyes of English puritanism. One ought to observe the disdain of
English critics for these fables, and their superb pity for the
Church which dallies with Paganism, so far as to keep up usages
which are notoriously derived from it. Assuredly we have here a
praiseworthy zeal, arising from natural goodness; and yet, even if
these flights of imagination did no more than render a little more
supportable many sufferings which are said to have no remedy, that
after all would be something. Who shall dare to say where, here on
earth, is the boundary between reason and dreaming? Which is worth
more, the imaginative instinct of man, or the narrow orthodoxy that
pretends to remain rational, when speaking of things divine? For my
own part, I prefer the frank mythology, with all its vagaries, to a
theology so paltry, so vulgar, and so colourless, that it would be
wronging God to believe that, after having made the visible world so
beautiful he should have made the invisible world so prosaically
reasonable.
In presence of the ever-encroaching progress of a civilisation which
is of no country, and can receive no name, other than that of modern
or European, it would be puerile to hope that the Celtic race is in
the future to succeed in obtaining isolated expression of its
originality. And yet we are far from believing that this race has
said its last word. After having put in practice all chivalries,
devout and worldly, gone with Peredur in quest of the Holy Grail and
fair ladies, and dreamed with St. Brandan of mystical Atlantides,
who knows what it would produce in the domain of intellect, if it
hardened itself to an entrance into the world, and subjected its
rich and profound nature to the conditions of modern thought? It
appears to me that there would result from this combination,
productions of high originality, a subtle and discreet manner of
taking life, a singular union of strength and weakness, of rude
simplicity and mildness. Few races have had so complete a poetic
childhood as the Celtic; mythology, lyric poetry, epic, romantic
imagination, religious enthusiasm--none of these failed them; why
should reflection fail them? Germany, which commenced with science
and criticism, has come to poetry; why should not the Celtic races,
which began with poetry, finish with criticism? There is not so
great a distance from one to the other as is supposed; the poetical
races are the philosophic races, and at bottom philosophy is only a
manner of poetry. When one considers how Germany, less than a
century ago, had her genius revealed to her, how a multitude of
national individualities, to all appearance effaced, have suddenly
risen again in our own days, more instinct with life than ever, one
feels persuaded that it is a rash thing to lay down any law on the
intermittence and awakening of nations; and that modern
civilisation, which appeared to be made to absorb them, may perhaps
be nothing more than their united fruition.
THE EDUCATION OF THE HUMAN RACE
BY
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSINO
TRANSLATED BY
F. W. ROBERTSON
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Lessing's life has been sketched in the introduction to his "Minna
von Barnhelm" in the volume of Continental Dramas in The Harvard
Classics.
"The Education of the Human Race" is the culmination of a bitter
theological controversy which began with the publication by Lessing,
in 1774-1778, of a series of fragments of a work on natural religion
by the German deist, Reimarus. This action brought upon Lessing the
wrath of the orthodox German Protestants, led by J. M. Goeze, and in
the battle that followed Lessing did his great work for the
liberalising of religious thought in Germany. The present treatise
is an extraordinarily condensed statement of the author's attitude
towards the fundamental questions of religion, and gives his view of
the signification of the previous religious history of mankind,
along with his faith And hope for the future.
As originally issued, the essay purported to be merely edited by
Lessing; but there is no longer any doubt as to his having been its
author. It is an admirable and characteristic expression of the
serious and elevated spirit in which he dealt with matters that had
then, as often, been degraded by the virulence of controversy.
THE EDUCATION OF THE HUMAN RACE
1
That which Education is to the Individual, Revelation is to the
Race.
2
Education is Revelation coming to the Individual Man; and Revelation
is Education which has come, and is yet coming, to the Human Race.
3
Whether it can be of any advantage to the science of instruction to
contemplate Education in this point of view, I will not here
inquire; but in Theology it may unquestionably be of great
advantage, and may remove many difficulties, if Revelation be
conceived of as the Educator of Humanity.
4
Education gives to Man nothing which he might not educe out of
himself; it gives him that which he might educe out of himself, only
quicker and more easily. In the same way too, Revelation gives
nothing to the human species, which the human reason left to itself
might not attain; only it has given, and still gives to it, the most
important of these things earlier.
5
And just as in Education, it is not a matter of indifference in what
order the powers of a man are developed, as it cannot impart to a
man all at once; so was God also necessitated to maintain a certain
order, and a certain measure in His Revelation.
6
Even if the first man were furnished at once with a conception of
the One God; yet it was not possible that this conception, imparted,
and not gained by thought, should subsist long in its clearness. As
soon as the Human Reason, left to itself, began to elaborate it, it
broke up the one Immeasurable into many Measurables, and gave a note
or sign of mark to every one of these parts.
7
Hence naturally arose polytheism and idolatry. And who can say how
many millions of years human reason would have been bewildered in
these errors, even though in all places and times there were
individual men who recognized them as errors, had it not pleased God
to afford it a better direction by means of a new Impulse?
8
But when He neither could nor would reveal Himself any more to each
individual man, He selected an individual People for His special
education; and that exactly the most rude and the most unruly, in
order to begin with it from the very commencement.
9
This was the Hebrew People, respecting whom we do not in the least
know what kind of Divine Worship they had in Egypt. For so despised
a race of slaves was not permitted to take part in the worship of
the Egyptians; and the God of their fathers was entirely unknown to
them.
10
It is possible that the Egyptians had expressly prohibited the
Hebrews from having a God or Gods, perhaps they had forced upon them
the belief that their despised race had no God, no Gods, that to
have a God or Gods was the prerogative of the superior Egyptians
only, and this may have been so held in order to have the power of
tyrannising over them with a greater show of fairness. Do Christians
even now do much better with their slaves?
11
To this rude people God caused Himself to be announced first, simply
as "the God of their fathers," in order to make them acquainted and
familiar with the idea of a God belonging to them also, and to begin
with confidence in Him.
12
Through the miracles with which He led them out of Egypt, and
planted them in Canaan, He testified of Himself to them as a God
mightier than any other God.
13
And as He proceeded, demonstrating Himself to be the Mightiest of
all, which only One can be, He gradually accustomed them thus to the
idea of THE ONE.
14
But how far was this conception of The One, below the true
transcendental conception of the One which Reason learnt to derive,
so late with certainty, from the conception of the Infinite One?
15
Although the best of the people were already more or less
approaching the true conception of the One only, the people as a
whole could not for a long time elevate themselves to it. And this
was the sole true reason why they so often abandoned their one God,
and expected to find the One, i. e. , as they meant, the Mightiest,
in some God or other, belonging to another people.
16
But of what kind of moral education was a people so raw, so
incapable of abstract thoughts, and so entirely in their childhood
capable? Of none other but such as is adapted to the age of
children, an education by rewards and punishments addressed to the
senses.
17
Here too Education and Revelation meet together. As yet God could
give to His people no other religion, no other law than one through
obedience to which they might hope to be happy, or through
disobedience to which they must fear to be unhappy. For as yet their
regards went no further than this earth. They knew of no immortality
of the soul; they yearned after no life to come. But now to reveal
these things to one whose reason had as yet so little growth, what
would it have been but the same fault in the Divine Rule as is
committed by the schoolmaster, who chooses to hurry his pupil too
rapidly, and boast of his progress, rather than thoroughly to ground
him?
18
But, it will be asked, to what purpose was this education of so rude
a people, a people with whom God had to begin so entirely from the
beginning? I reply, in order that in the process of time He might
employ particular members of this nation as the Teachers of other
people. He was bringing up in them the future Teachers of the human
race. It was the Jews who became their teachers, none but Jews; only
men out of a people so brought up, could be their teachers.
19
For to proceed. When the Child by dint of blows and caresses had
grown and was now come to years of understanding, the Father sent it
at once into foreign countries: and here it recognised at once the
Good which in its Father's house it had possessed, and had not been
conscious of.
20.
While God guided His chosen people through all the degrees of a
child-like education, the other nations of the earth had gone on by
the light of reason. The most part had remained far behind the
chosen people. Only a few had got before them. And this too, takes
place with children, who are allowed to grow up left to themselves:
many remain quite raw, some educate themselves even to an
astonishing degree.
21
But as these more fortunate few prove nothing against the use and
necessity of Education, so the few heathen nations, who even appear
to have made a start in the knowledge of God before the chosen
people, prove nothing against a Revelation. The Child of Education
begins with slow yet sure footsteps; it is late in overtaking many a
more happily organised child of nature; but it does overtake it; and
thenceforth can never be distanced by it again.
22
Similarly--Putting aside the doctrine of the Unity of God, which in
a way is found, and in a way is not found, in the books of the Old
Testament--that the doctrine of immortality at least is not
discoverable in it, is wholly foreign to it, that all doctrine
connected therewith of reward and punishment in a future life,
proves just as little against the Divine origin of these books.
Notwithstanding the absence of these doctrines, the account of
miracles and prophecies may be perfectly true. For let us suppose
that these doctrines were not only wanting therein, but even that
they were not at all true; let us suppose that for mankind all was
over in this life; would the Being of God be for this reason less
demonstrated?
Would God be for this less at liberty, would it less
become Him to take immediate charge of the temporal fortunes of any
people out of this perishable race? The miracles which He performed
for the Jews, the prophecies which He caused to be recorded through
them, were surely not for the few mortal Jews, in whose time they
had happened and been recorded: He had His intentions therein in
reference to the whole Jewish people, to the entire Human Race,
which, perhaps, is destined to remain on earth forever, though every
individual Jew and every individual man die forever.
23
Once more, The absence of those doctrines in the writings of the Old
Testament proves nothing against their Divinity. Moses was sent from
God even though the sanction of his law only extended to this life.
For why should it extend further? He was surely sent only to the
Israelitish people of that time, and his commission was perfectly
adapted to the knowledge, capacities, yearnings of the then existing
Israelitish people, as well as to the destination of that which
belonged to the future. And this is sufficient.
24
So far ought Warburton to have gone, and no further. But that
learned man overdrew his bow. Not content that the absence of these
doctrines was no discredit to the Divine mission of Moses, it must
even be a proof to him of the Divinity of the mission. And if he had
only sought this proof in the adaptation of such a law to such a
people!
But he betook himself to the hypothesis of a miraculous system
continued in an unbroken line from Moses to Christ, according to
which, God had made every individual Jew exactly happy or unhappy,
in the proportion to his obedience or disobedience to the law
deserved. He would have it that this miraculous system had
compensated for the want of those doctrines (of eternal rewards and
punishments, &c. ), without which no state can subsist; and that such
a compensation even proved what that want at first sight appeared to
negative.
25
How well it was that Warburton could by no argument prove or even
make likely this continuous miracle, in which he placed the
existence of Israelitish Theocracy! For could he have done so, in
truth, he could then, and not till then, have made the difficulty
really insuperable, to me at least. For that which was meant to
prove the Divine character of the Mission of Moses, would have
rendered the matter itself doubtful, which God, it is true, did not
intend then to reveal; but which on the other hand, He certainly
would not render unattainable.
26
I explain myself by that which is a picture of Revelation. A Primer
for children may fairly pass over in silence this or that important
piece of knowledge or art which it expounds, respecting which the
Teacher judged, that it is not yet fitted for the capacities of the
children for whom he was writing. But it must contain absolutely
nothing which blocks up the way towards the knowledge which is held
back, or misleads the children from it. Rather far, all the
approaches towards it must be carefully left open; and to lead them
away from even one of these approaches, or to cause them to enter it
later than they need, would alone be enough to change the mere
imperfection of such a Primer into an actual fault.
27
In the same way, in the writings of the Old Testament those primers
for the rude Israelitish people, unpractised in thought, the
doctrines of the immortality of the soul, and future recompenses,
might be fairly left out: but they were bound to contain nothing
which could have even procrastinated the progress of the people, for
whom they were written, in their way to this grand truth. And to say
but a small thing, what could have more procrastinated it than the
promise of such a miraculous recompense in this life? A promise made
by Him who promises nothing that He does not perform.
28
For although unequal distribution of the goods of this life, Virtue
and Vice seem to be taken too little into consideration, although
this unequal distribution docs not exactly afford a strong proof of
the immortality of the soul and of a life to come, in which this
difficulty will be reserved hereafter, it is certain that without
this difficulty the human understanding would not for a long time,
perhaps never, have arrived at better or firmer proofs. For what was
to impel it to seek for these better proofs? Mere curiosity?
29
An Israelite here and there, no doubt, might have extended to every
individual member of the entire commonwealth, those promises and
threatenings which belong to it as a whole, and be firmly persuaded
that whosoever should be pious must also be happy, and that whoever
was unhappy must be bearing the penalty of his wrong-doing, which
penalty would forthwith change itself into blessing, as soon as he
abandoned his sin. Such a one appears to have written Job, for the
plan of it is entirely in this spirit.
30
But daily experience could not possibly be permitted to confirm this
belief, or else it would have been all over, for ever, with people
who had this experience, so far as all recognition and reception was
concerned of the truth as yet unfamiliar to them. For if the pious
were absolutely happy, and it also of course was a necessary part of
his happiness that his satisfaction should be broken by no uneasy
thoughts of death, and that he should die old, and satisfied with
life to the full: how could he yearn after another life? and how
could he reflect upon a thing after which he did not yearn? But if
the pious did not reflect thereupon, who then should reflect? The
transgressor? he who felt the punishments of his misdeeds, and if he
cursed this life, must have so gladly renounced that other
existence?
31
Much less would it signify if an Israelite here and there directly
and expressly denied the immortality of the soul and future
recompense, on account of the law having no reference thereto. The
denial of an individual, had it even been a Solomon, did not arrest
the progress of the general reason, and was even in itself a proof
that the nation had now come a great step nearer the truth For
individuals only deny what the many are bringing into consideration;
and to bring into consideration that, concerning which no one
troubled himself at all before, is half way to knowledge.
32
Let us also acknowledge that it is a heroic obedience to obey the
laws of God simply because they are God's laws, and not because He
has promised to reward the obedience to them here and there; to obey
them even though there be an entire despair of future recompense,
and uncertainty respecting a temporal one.
33
Must not a people educated in this heroic obedience towards God have
been destined, must they not have been capable beyond all others of
executing Divine purpose? of quite a special character? Let the
soldier, who pays blind obedience to his leader, become also
convinced of his leader's wisdom, and then say what that leader may
not undertake to achieve with him.
34
As yet the Jewish people had reverenced in their Jehovah rather the
mightiest than the wisest of all Gods; as yet they had rather feared
Him as a Jealous God than loved Him: a proof this too, that the
conception which they had of their eternal One God was not exactly
the right conception which we should have of God. However, now the
time was come that these conceptions of theirs were to be expanded,
ennobled, rectified, to accomplish which God availed Himself of a
quite natural means, a better and more correct measure, by which it
got the opportunity of appreciating Him.
35
Instead of, as hitherto, appreciating Him in contrast with the
miserable idols of the small neighboring peoples, with whom they
lived in constant rivalry, they began, in captivity under the wise
Persians, to measure Him against the "Being of all Beings" such as a
more disciplined reason recognized and reverenced.
36
Revelation had guided their reason, and now, all at once, reason
gave clearness to their Revelation.
37
This was the first reciprocal influence which these two (Reason and
Revelation) exercised on one another; and so far is the mutual
influence from being unbecoming to the Author of them both, that
without it either of them would have been useless.
38
The child, sent abroad, saw other children who knew more, who lived
more becomingly, and asked itself, in confusion, "Why do I not know
that too? Why do I not live so too? Ought I not to have been taught
and admonished of all this in my father's house? " Thereupon it again
sought out its Primer, which had long been thrown into a corner, in
order to throw off a blame upon the Primer. But behold, it discovers
that the blame does not rest upon the books, that the shame is
solely its own, for not having long ago, known this very thing, and
lived in this very way.
39
Since the Jews, by this time, through the medium of the pure Persian
doctrine, recognized in their Jehovah, not simply the greatest of
all national deities, but GOD; and since they could, the more
readily find Him and indicate Him to others in their sacred
writings, inasmuch as He was really in them; and since they
manifested as great an aversion for sensuous representations, or at
all events, were instructed in these Scriptures, to have an aversion
to them as great as the Persians had always felt; what wonder that
they found favor in the eyes of Cyrus, with a Divine Worship which
he recognized as being, no doubt, far below pure Sabeism, but yet
far above the rude idolatries which in its stead had taken
possession of the forsaken land of the Jews.
40
Thus enlightened respecting the treasures which they had possessed,
without knowing it, they returned, and became quite another people,
whose first care it was to give permanency to this illumination
amongst themselves. Soon an apostacy and idolatry among them was out
of the question. For it is possible to be faithless to a national
deity, but never to God, after He has once been recognised.
The theologians have tried to explain this complete change in the
Jewish people in a different way; and one, who has well demonstrated
the insufficiency of these explanations, at last was for giving us,
as a true account--"the visible fulfilment of the prophecies which
had been spoken and written respecting the Babylonish captivity and
the restoration from it. " But even this reason can be only so far
the true one, as it presupposes the, by this time, exalted ideas of
God. The Jews must by this time have recognised that to do miracles,
and to predict the future, belonged only to God, both of which they
had ascribed formerly to false idols, by which it came to pass that
even miracles and prophecies had hitherto made so weak an impression
upon them.
42
Doubtless, the Jews were made more acquainted with the doctrine of
immortality among the Chaldeans and Persians. They became more
familiar with it too in the schools of the Greek Philosophers in
Egypt.
43
However, as this doctrine was not in the same condition in reference
to their Scriptures that the doctrines of God's Unity and Attributes
were--since the former were entirely overlooked by that sensual
people, while the latter would be sought for:--and since too, for
the former, previous exercising was necessary, and as yet there had
been only hints and allusions, the faith in the immortality of the
soul could naturally never be the faith of the entire people. It was
and continued to be only the creed of a certain section of them.
44
An example of what I mean by "previous exercising" for the doctrine
of immortality, is the Divine threatenings of punishing the misdeeds
of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth
generation. This accustomed the fathers to live in thought with
their remotest posterity, and to feel, as it were, beforehand, the
misfortune which they had brought upon these guiltless ones.
45
By an allusion I mean that which was intended only to excite
curiosity and to occasion questions. As, for instance, the oft-
recurring mode of expression, describing death by "he was gathered
to his fathers. "
By a "hint" I mean that which already contains any germ, out of
which the, as yet, held back truth allows itself to be developed. Of
this character was the inference of Christ from the naming of God
"the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. " This hint appears to me to
be unquestionably capable of being worked out into a strong proof.
47
In such previous exercitations, allusions, hints, consists the
positive perfection of a Primer; just as the above-mentioned
peculiarity of not throwing difficulties or hindrances in the way to
the suppressed truth constitutes the negative perfection of such a
book.
48
Add to all this the clothing and style.
1. The clothing of abstract truths, which were not entirely to be
passed over, in allegories and instructive single circumstances,
which were narrated as actual occurrences. Of this character are the
Creation under the image of growing Day; the Origin of Evil in the
story of the Forbidden Tree; the source of the variety of languages
in the history of the Tower of Babel, &c.
49 2. The style--sometimes plain and simple, sometimes poetical,
throughout full of tautologies, but of such a kind as practised
sagacity, since they sometimes appear to be saying something else,
and yet the same thing; sometimes the same thing over again, and yet
to signify or to be capable of signifying at the bottom, something
else:--
50
And then you have all the properties of excellence which belong to a
Primer for a childlike people, as well as for children.
51
But every Primer is only for a certain age. To delay the child, that
has outgrown it, longer in it than it was intended for, is hurtful.
For to be able to do this is a way in any sort profitable, you must
insert into it more than there is really in it, and extract from it
more than it can contain. You must look for and make too much of
allusions and hints; squeeze allegories too closely; interpret
examples too circumstantially; press too much upon words. This gives
the child a petty, crooked, hair splitting understanding: it makes
him full of mysteries, superstitions; full of contempt for all that
is comprehensible and easy.
52
The very way in which the Rabbins handled their sacred books! The
very character which they thereby imparted to the character of their
people!
53
A Better Instructor must come and tear the exhausted Primer from the
child's hands. CHRIST came!
54
That portion of the human race which God had willed to comprehend in
one Educational plan, was ripe for the Second step of Education. He
had, however, only willed to comprehend on such a plan, one which by
language, mode of action, government, and other natural and
political relationships, was already united in itself.
55
That is, this portion of the human race was come so far in the
exercise of its reason, as to need, and to be able to make use of
nobler and worthier motives of moral action than temporal rewards
and punishments, which had hitherto been its guides. The child had
become a youth. Sweetmeats and toys have given place to the budding
desire to go as free, as honored, and as happy as its elder brother.
56
For a long time, already, the best individuals of that portion of
the human race (called above the elder brother); had been accustomed
to let themselves be ruled by the shadow of such nobler motives. The
Greek and Roman did everything to live on after this life, even if
it were only in the remembrance of their fellow-citizens.
57
It was time that another true life to be expected after this should
gain an influence over the youth's actions.
58
And so Christ was the first certain practical Teacher of the
immortality of the soul.
59
The first certain Teacher. Certain, through the prophecies which
were fulfilled in Him; certain, through the miracles which He
achieved; certain, through His own revival after a death through
which He had sealed His doctrine. Whether we can still prove this
revival, these miracles, I put aside, as I leave on one side who the
Person of Christ was. All that may have been at that time of great
weight for the reception of His doctrine, but it is now no longer of
the same importance for the recognition of the truth of His
doctrine.
60
The first practical Teacher. For it is one thing to conjecture, to
wish, and to believe the immortality of the soul, as a philosophic
speculation: quite another thing to direct the inner and outer acts
by it.
61
And this at least Christ was the first to teach. For although,
already before Him, the belief had been introduced among many
nations, that bad actions have yet to be punished in that life; yet
they were only such actions as were injurious to civil society, and
consequently, too, had already had their punishment in civil
society. To enforce an inward purity of heart in reference to
another life, was reserved for Him alone.
62
His disciples have faithfully propagated these doctrines: and if
they had even had no other merit, than that of having effected a
more general publication, among other nations, of a Truth which
Christ had appeared to have destined only for the Jews, yet would
they have even on that account alone, to be reckoned among the
Benefactors and Fosterers of the Human Race.
63
If, however, they transplanted this one great Truth together with
other doctrines, whose truth was less enlightening, whose usefulness
was of a less exalted character, how could it be otherwise. Let us
not blame them for this, but rather seriously examine whether these
very commingled doctrines have not become a new impulse of
directions for human reason.
64
At least, it is already clear that the New Testament Scriptures, in
which these doctrines after some time were found preserved, have
afforded, and still afford, the second better Primer for the race of
man.
65
For seven hundred years past they have exercised human reason more
than all other books, and enlightened it more, were it even only
through the light which the human reason itself threw into them.
66
It would have been impossible for any other book to become so
generally known among different nations: and indisputably, the fact
that modes of thought so diverse from each other have been occupied
on the same book, has helped on the human reason more than if every
nation had had its own Primer specially for itself.
67
It was also highly necessary that each people for a period should
hold this Book as the ne plus ultra of their knowledge. For the
youth must consider his Primer as the first of all books, that the
impatience to finish this book, may not hurry him on to things for
which he has, as yet, laid no basis.
68
And one thing is also of the greatest importance even now. Thou
abler spirit, who art fretting and restless over the last page of
the Primer, beware! Beware of letting thy weaker fellow scholars
mark what thou perceivest afar, or what thou art beginning to see!
Until these weaker fellow scholars are up with thee, rather return
once more into this Primer, and examine whether that which thou
takest only for duplicates of the method, for a blunder in the
teaching, is not perhaps something more.
70
Thou hast seen in the childhood of the human race, respecting the
doctrine of God's unity, that God makes immediate revelations of
mere truths of reason, or has permitted and caused pure truths of
reason to be taught, for some time, as truths of immediate
revelation, in order to promulgate them the more rapidly, and ground
them the more firmly.
71
Thou experiencest in the boyhood of the Race the same thing in
reference to the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. It is
preached in the better Primer as a Revelation, instead of taught as
a result of human reason.
72
As we by this time can dispense with the Old Testament, in reference
to the doctrine of the unity of God, and as we are by degrees
beginning also to be less dependent on the New Testament, in
reference to the immortality of the soul: might there not in this
Book also be other truths of the same sort prefigured, mirrored, as
it were, which we are to marvel at, as revelations, exactly so long
as until the time shall come when reason shall have learned to educe
them, out of its other demonstrated truths and bind them up with
them?
73
For instance, the doctrine of the Trinity. How if this doctrine
should at last, after endless errors, right and left, only bring men
on the road to recognise that God cannot possibly be One in the
sense in which finite things are one, that even His unity must be a
transcendental unity, which does not exclude a sort of purality?
Must not God at least have the most perfect conception of Himself,
i. e. , a conception in which is found everything which is in Him?
But would everything be found in it which is in Him, if a mere
conception, a mere possibility, were found even of his necessary
Reality as well as of His other qualities? This possibility exhausts
the being of His other qualities. Does it that of His necessary
Reality? I think not. Consequently God can either have no perfect
conception of himself at all, or this perfect conception is just as
necessarily real, i. e. , actually existent, as He Himself is.
Certainly the image of myself in the mirror is nothing but an empty
representation of me, because it only has that of me upon the
surface of which beams of light fall. But now if this image had
everything, everything without exception, which I have myself, would
it then still be a mere empty representation, or not rather a true
reduplication of myself? When I believe that I recognise in God a
familiar reduplication, I perhaps do not so much err, as that my
language is insufficient for my ideas: and so much at least for ever
incontrovertible, that they who wish to make the idea thereof
popular for comprehension, could scarcely have expressed themselves
more intelligibly and suitably than by giving the name of a Son
begotten from Eternity.
74
And the doctrine of Original Sin. How, if at last everything were to
convince us that man standing on the first and lowest step of his
humanity, is not so entirely master of his actions as to be able to
obey moral laws?
75
And the doctrine of the Son's satisfaction. How, if at last, all
compelled us to assume that God, in spite of that original
incapacity of man, chose rather to give him moral laws, and forgive
him all transgressions in consideration of His Son, i. e. , in
consideration of the self-existent total of all His own perfections,
compared with which, and in which, all imperfections of the
individual disappear, than not to give him those laws, and then to
exclude him from all moral blessedness, which cannot be conceived of
without moral laws.
Let it not be objected that speculations of this description upon
the mysteries of religion are forbidden. The word mystery signified,
in the first ages of Christianity, something quite different from
what it means now: and the cultivation of revealed truths into
truths of reason, is absolutely necessary, if the human race is to
be assisted by them. When they were revealed they were certainly no
truths of reason, but they were revealed in order to become such.
They were like the "that makes"--of the ciphering master, which he
says to the boys, beforehand, in order to direct them thereby in
their reckoning. If the scholars were to be satisfied with the "that
makes," they would never learn to calculate, and would frustrate the
intention with which their good master gave them a guiding clue in
their work.
77
And why should not we too, by the means of a religion whose
historical truth, if you will, looks dubious, be conducted in a
familiar way to closer and better conceptions of the Divine Being,
our own nature, our relation to God, truths at which the human
reason would never have arrived of itself?
78
It is not true that speculations upon these things have ever done
harm or become injurious to the body politic. You must reproach, not
the speculations, but the folly and the tyranny of checking them.
You must lay the blame on those who would not permit men having
their own speculations to exercise them.
79
On the contrary, speculations of this sort, whatever the result, are
unquestionably the most fitting exercises of the human heart,
generally, so long as the human heart, generally, is at best only
capable of loving virtue for the sake of its eternal blessed
consequences.
80
For in this selfishness of the human heart, to will to practice the
understanding too, only on that which concerns our corporal needs,
would be to blunt rather than to sharpen it. It absolutely will be
exercised on spiritual objects, if it is to attain its perfect
illumination, and bring out that purity of heart which makes us
capable of loving virtue for its own sake alone.
81
Or, is the human species never to arrive at this highest step of
illumination and purity? --Never?
82
Never? --Let me not think this blasphemy, All Merciful! Education has
its goal, in the Race, no less than in the Individual. That which is
educated is educated for something.
83
The flattering prospects which are open to the people, the Honor and
Well-being which are painted to him, what are they more than the
means of educating him to become a man, who, when these prospects of
Honor and Well-being have vanished, shall be able to do his Duty?
84
This is the aim of human education, and should not the Divine
education extend as far? Is that which is successful in the way of
Art with the individual, not to be successful in the way of Nature
with the whole? Blasphemy! Blasphemy! !
85
No! It will come! it will assuredly come! the time of the
perfecting, when man, the more convinced his understanding feels
itself of an ever better Future, will nevertheless not be
necessitated to borrow motives of action from this Future; for he
will do the Right because it is right, not because arbitrary rewards
are annexed thereto, which formerly were intended simply to fix and
strengthen his unsteady gaze in recognising the inner, better,
rewards of well-doing.
86
It will assuredly come! the time of a new eternal Gospel, which is
promised us in the Primer of the New Testament itself!
87
Perhaps even some enthusiasts of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries had caught a glimpse of a beam of this new eternal Gospel,
and only erred in that they predicted its outburst at so near to
their own time.
88
Perhaps their "Three Ages of the World" were not so empty a
speculation after all, and assuredly they had no contemptible views
when they taught that the New Covenant must become as much
antiquated as the old has been. There remained by them the
similarity of the economy of the same God. Ever, to let them speak
my words, ever the self-same plan of the Education of the Race.
89
Only they were premature. Only they believed that they could make
their contemporaries, who had scarcely outgrown their childhood,
without enlightenment, without preparation, men worthy of their
Third Age.
90
And it was just this which made them enthusiasts. The enthusiast
often casts true glances into the future, but for this future he
cannot wait. He wishes this future accelerated, and accelerated
through him. That for which nature takes thousands of years is to
mature itself in the moment of his existence. For what possession
has he in it if that which he recognises as the Best does not become
the best in his lifetime? Does he come back? Does he expect to come
back? Marvellous only that this enthusiastic expectation does not
become more the fashion among enthusiasts. 91
Go thine inscrutable way, Eternal Providence! Only let me not
despair in Thee, because of this inscrutableness. Let me not despair
in Thee, even if Thy steps appear to me to be going back. It is not
true that the shortest line is always straight.
92
Thou hast on Thine Eternal Way so much to carry on together, so much
to do! So many aside steps to take! And what if it were as good as
proved that the vast flow wheel which brings mankind nearer to this
perfection is only put in motion by smaller, swifter wheels, each of
which contributes its own individual unit thereto?
93
It is so! The very same Way by which the Race reaches its
perfection, must every individual man--one sooner--another later--
have travelled over. Have travelled over in one and the same life?
Can he have been, in one and the self-same life, a sensual Jew and a
spiritual Christian? Can he in the self-same life have overtaken
both?
94
Surely not that! But why should not every individual man have
existed more than once upon this World?
95
Is this hypothesis so laughable merely because it is the oldest?
Because the human understanding, before the sophistries of the
Schools had dissipated and debilitated it, lighted upon it at once?
Why may not even I have already performed those steps of my
perfecting which bring to man only temporal punishments and rewards?
