Leibnitz
had said, our ideas that
?
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Madame de Stael - Germany
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handle.
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? KANT.
S7
the comer-stone, is raised the doctrine of
duty; for if man is free, he ought to create
to himself motives powerful enough to com-
bat against the operation of exterior objects,
and to set his will free from the narrow tram-
mels of selfishness. Duty is at once the proof
and the security of the metaphysical inde-
pendence of man.
In the following chapters, we shall exa-
mine Kant's arguments against morality as
founded upon self-interest, and the sublime
theory which he substitutes in the place of
this hypocritical sophism, or perverse doc-
trine. Different opinions may be enter-
tained as to Kant's first work, "The Exa-
**. minalion of pure Reason:" having himself
acknowledged reasoning to be insufficient
and contradictory, he ought to have antici-
pated that it would be made use of against
him; but it appears to me impossible not to
read with respect his "Examination ofprac-
"tical Reason," and the different works that
he has written on morality. ,
Not only are Kant's principles of morality
austere and pure, as might be expected from
the inflexibility of a philosopher, but he al-
ways connects the evidence of the heart with
that of the understanding, and is singularly
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? 88 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
happy in making his abstract theory, as to
the nature of the understanding, serve as a
support to sentiments at once the most
simple and the most powerful.
A conscience acquired by sensations may
be stifled by them; and the dignity of duty
is degraded, in being made to depend on
exterior objects. Kant, therefore, is inces-
santly labouring to show, that a deep sense
of this dignity is the necessary condition of
our moral being, the law by which it exists.
The empire of sensations, and the bad actions,
to the commission of which they lead, can
no more destroy in us the notion of good or
of evil, than the idea of space and time can
be changed by an erroneous application of
it. There is always, in whatever situation
we may be placed, a power of re-action
against circumstances, which springs from
the bottom of the soul; and we cannot but
feel, that neither the laws of the understand-
ing, moral liberty, nor conscience* are the
result of experience.
In his treatise on the sublime and beautiful,
entitled, " The "Examination of the Judgment,"
Kant applies to the pleasures Of the ima-
gination the system from which he has
developed such fruitful deductions in the
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? KANT
89
sphere of intelligence and of sentiment; or
rather it is the same soul which he examines,
and which shows itself in the sciences, in
morality, and in the fine arts. Kant main-
tains, that there are in poetry, and in the arts
which are capable, as poetry is, of painting
sentiments by images, two kinds of beauty:
one which may be referred to time and to
this life; the other, to eternity and infinity.
And so impossible is it to say, that what
is infinite and eternal is intelligible to our
minds, that one is often tempted to take even
what is finite and transient for a dream; for
thought can see no limits to any thing,
neither can being have a conception of non-
existence. We cannot search deeply into
the exact sciences themselves, without meet-
ing, even there, with what is infinite and
eternal; and those things which are the most
completely matters of fact, do, under some
relations, belong to this infinity and eternity,
as much as sentiment and imagination.
From this application of the feeling of
infinity to the fine arts, arises the system
of ideal beauty, that is to say, of beauty con-
sidered, not as the assemblage and imitation
of whatever is most worthy in nature, but
as the realization of that image which is
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? 90 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
constantly present to the soul. Materialists
judge of the beautiful according to the agree-
able impression which it causes, and there-
fore place it in the empire of sensations:
immaterialists, who ascribe every thing to
reason, see in the beautiful what they call
the perfect, and find in it some analogy to
the useful and the good, which they con-
sider to be the first degrees of perfection.
Kant has rejected both these explanations.
Beauty, considered only as an agreeable
thing, would be confined to the sphere of sen-
sations, and consequently subject to the dif-
ference of tastes; it could never claim that
universal acknowledgment, which is the true
character of beaut}': beauty, again, consi-
dered as perfection, would require a sort of
judgment, like that on which esteem isfounded:
the enthusiasm that ought to be inspired by
the beautiful, belongs neither to , sensations
nor to judgment; it is an innate disposition,
like the feeling of duty, and those ideas which
are essential to the understanding; and we
discover beauty when we see it, because it is
the outward image of that ideal beauty, the
type of which exists in our mind. Difference
of tastes may be applied to what is agreeable,
for our sensations are the source of that kind
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? KANT. 91
of pleasure; but all men must admire what
is beautiful, whether in art or in nature;
because they have in their souls sentiments
of celestial origin, which beauty awakens,
and of which it excites the enjoyment.
Kant passes from the theory of the beau-
tiful to that of the sublime; and this second
part of his " Examination of the Judgment"
is even more remarkable than the first: he
makes the sublime, in moral liberty, consist
in the struggles of man with his destiny, or
with his nature. Unlimited power excites
our fear, greatness overwhelms us; yet, by
the vigour of the will, we escape from the
sensation of our physical weakness. The
power of destiny, and the immensity of
nature, are placed in endless opposition to
the miserable dependence of the creature
upon earth; but one spark of the sacred fire
in our bosoms triumphs over the universe;
since with that one spark we are enabled to
resist the impressions which all the powers
in the world could make upon us.
The first effect of the sublime is to over-
whelm a man, and the second to exalt
him. When we contemplate a storm curling
the billows of the sea, and seeming to
threaten both earth and heaven, terror at
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? 92 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
first takes possession of us, although we may
be out of the reach of any personal danger;
but when the clouds, that have gathered,
burst over oar heads, when all the fury of
nature is displayed, man feels an inward
energy, which frees him from every fear, by
his will, or by resignation, by the exercise, or
by the relinquishment of his moral liberty;
and. this consciousness of what is within him
animates and encourages him.
When we hear of a generous action, when
we learn that men have borne unheard-of
misfortunes to remain faithful to their opinion,
even to the smallest swerving; at first the
description of the miseries they have suffered
confuses our ideas; but, by degrees, we
regain our strength, and the sympathy that
we feel excited within ourselves, by great-
ness of soul, makes us hope that we ourselves
could triumph over the miserable sensations
of this life to remain faithful, noble, and
proud to our latest day.
Besides, no one can define, if I may so
say, that which is at the summit of our
existence; " We are too much elevated in
4* respect to ourselves, to comprehend our-
"selves," says St. Augustin. He must be
very poor in imagination who should think
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? KANT. 93
himself able to exhaust the contemplation
even of the simplest flower; how then could
we arrive at the knowledge of all that is
comprised in the idea of the sublime?
I do not certainly flatter myself that I
have been able, in a few pages, to give an
account of a system which, for twenty years,
has occupied all thinking heads in Germany;
but I hope to have said enough to show the
general spirit of the philosophy of Kant, and
to enable me to explain, in the following
chapters, the influence which it has bad
upon literature, science, and morality.
In order to reconcile experimental and
ideal philosophy, Kant has not made the
one subordinate to the other, but he has
given to each of the two, separately, a new
degree of force. Germany was threatened
by that cold doctrine which regarded all
enthusiasm as an error, and classed amongst
prejudices those sentiments which form the
consolation of our existence. It was a great
satisfaction for men, at once so philosophical
and so poetical, so capable of study and of
exaltation, to see all the fine affections of
the soul defended with the strictness -of the
most abstract reasonings. The force of the
mind can never be long in a negative state;
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? 94 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
that is, it cannot long consist principally, in
not believing, in not understanding, and in
what it disdains. We must have a philo-
sophy of belief, of enthusiasm, a philosophy
which confirms by reason, what sentiment
reveals to us.
The adversaries of Kant have accused him
of having merely repeated the arguments of
the ancient idealists; they have pretended
that the doctrine of the German philosopher
was only an old system in a new language.
This reproach has no foundation. There are
not only new ideas, but a particular character,
in the doctrine of Kant.
It savours of the philosophy of the eigh-
teenth century, although it was intended to re-
fute the doctrines of that philosophy, because
it is natural to man always to catch the spirit
of the age in which he lives, even when his
intention is to oppose it. The philosophy of
Plato is more poetical than that of Kant,
the philosophy of Mallebranche more reli-
gious; but the great merit of the German
philosopher has been to raise up moral dig-
nity, by setting all that is fine in the heart,
on the basis of a theory deduced from the
strongest reasoning. The opposition which
it has been endeavoured to show between
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? KANT. 95
reason and sentiment, necessarily leads rea-
son on to selfishness, and reduces sentiment
to folly; but Kant, who seemed to be called
to conclude all the grand intellectual al-
liances, has made the soul one focus, in
which all our faculties are in contact with
each other.
The polemical part of the works of Kant,
that in which he attacks the philosophy of
the materialists, would be of itself a master-
piece. That philosophy has struck its roots
so deeply into the mind, so much irreligion
and selfishness has been the result of it, that
those men ought to be regarded as benefac-
tors to their country, who have even com-
batted a system so pernicious, and revived
the ideas of Plato, of Descartes, and of
Leibnitz: but the philosophy of the new
German school contains a crowd of ideas
which are peculiar to it; it is founded upon
the greatest extent of scientific knowledge,
which has been increasing every day, and
upon a singularly abstract and logical mode
of reasoning; for, although Kant blames
the use of such reasoning, in the examina-
tion of truths which are out of the circle of
experience, he shows in his writings a power
of mind, on metaphysical subjects, which
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? 96 PHILOSOPHI' AND MORALS.
places him, in that respect, in the first rank
of thinkers.
It cannot be denied that the style of Kant,
in his " Examination of pure Reason," de-
serves almost all the reproaches with which
his adversaries have treated it. He has made
use of a phraseology very difficult to under-
stand, and of the most tiresome new crea-
tion of words. He lived alone with his own
thoughts, and persuaded himself that it was
necessary to have new words for new ideas,
and yet there are words to express every
thing.
In those objects which are in themselves
the most clear, Kant is frequently guided by
a very obscure system of metaphysics; and
it is only in those regions of thought where
darkness prevails in general, that he displays
the torch of light: like the Israelites, who
had for their guide a column of fire by night,
and a pillar of a cloud by day.
No one in France would give himself
the trouble of studying works so thickly set
with difficulties, as those of Kant; but he
had to do with patient and persevering
readers. This, certainly, was not a reason
for his abusing their patience; perhaps,
however, he would not have been able to
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? KANT. 97
search so deeply into the science of the hu*.
man understanding, if he had attached more
importance to the choice of the expressions
which he made use of in explaining it.
The ancient philosophers always divided
their doctrines into two distinct parts; one
which they reserved for the initiated, and
another which they professed in public.
Kant's manner of writing is quite different,
when his theory, or the application of it, is
the subject.
In his metaphysical treatises, he makes use
of words as arithmetical figures, and gives
them whatever value he pleases, without
troubling himself with that which they have
derived from custom. This appears to me a
great error; for the attention of the reader
is exhausted in efforts to understand the
language, before he arrives at the ideas, and
what is known never serves as a step to what
is unknown.
We must nevertheless give Kant the jus-
tice he deserves, even as a writer, when he
lays aside his scientific language. In speak-
ing of the arts, and still more of morality,
his style is almost always "perfectly clear,
energetic, and simple. How admirable does
his doctrine then appear! How well does
VOL. III. H
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? 98 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
he express the sentiment of the beautiful and
the love of duty! With what force does he
separate them both from all calculations of
interest or of utility! How he ennobles
actions by their source, and not by their suc-
cess! In a word, what grandeur of morality
docs he not give to man, whether he exa-
mines him in himself, or whether he considers
him in his relations towards others;--to man,
that exile of heaven, that prisoner upon
earth, so great as an exile, so miserable as a
captive!
We might extract from the writings of
Kant a multitude of brilliant ideas on all
subjects; perhaps, indeed, it is to this doc-
trine alone, that, at the present day, we
must look for conceptions at once ingenious
and new; for the notions of the materialists
no longer offer, in any thing, what is interest-
ing or original. Smartness of wit against
what is serious, noble, and divine, is worn
out; and in future it will be impossible to
restore to the human race any of the qualities
of youth, but by returning to religion by the
road of philosophy, and to sentiment by the
way of reason.
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 99
CHAPTER VII.
Of the most celebrated Philosophers before
and after Kant.
The spirit of philosophy, from its nature,
cannot be generally diffused in any country.
In Germany, however, there is such a tend-
ency towards habits of reflection, that the
German nation may be considered, by dis-
tinction, as the nation of metaphysics. It
possesses so many men capable of under-
standing the mo3t abstract questions, that
even the public are found to take an interest
in the arguments usually employed in dis-
cussions of that nature.
Every man of talent has his own way of
thinking on philosophical questions. Writers
of the second and third rank, in Germany,
are sufficiently deep to be of the first rank in
other countries. Those who are rivals, have
the same hatred towards one another there
as elsewhere; but no one would dare to
enter the lists, without having evinced, by
serious study, a real love for the science in
h2
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? 100 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
which he was engaged. It is not enough
ardently to desire success; it must be de-
served, before the candidate can be even
admitted to start for it. The Germans, how-
ever indulgent they may be to defects of
form in a work, are unmerciful with respect
to its real value; and, when they perceive
any thing superficial, in the mind, the feel-
ing, or the knowledge of a writer, they try
to borrow the very pleasantry of the French,
to turn what is frivolous into ridicule.
It is my intention to give, in this chapter,
a hasty glimpse of the principal opinions
of the philosophers who have attracted no-
tice before and since the time of Kant;
the course which his successors "have taken
cannot well be judged of, without turning
back to see what was the state of opinions
at the time when the doctrines of Kantism
first prevailed in Germany; it was opposed
at the same time to the system of Locke,
as tending 10 materialism, and to the school
of Leibnitz, as reducing every thing to ab-
straction.
The ideas of Leibnitz were lofty; but his
disciples, Wolf at their head, have encum-
bered them with forms of logic and meta-
physics.
Leibnitz had said, our ideas that
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 101
come by the senses are confused, and that
those only which belong to the immediate
perceptions of the mind are clear: without
doubt his intention by that was to show,
that truths, which are invisible, are more
certain and more in harmony with our
moral nature, than all that we learn by the
evidence of the senses. Wolf and his dis-
ciples have drawn this consequence from it,
that every thing, about which our mind can.
be employed, must be reduced into abstract
ideas. Kant inspired interest and warmth
into this lifeless idealism; he assigned to ex-
perience, as well as to the innate faculties,
its just proportion; and the art with which
he applied his theory to every thing that
is interesting to mankind, to morality, to
poetry, and to the fine arts, extended the
influence of it.
Three leading men, Lessing, Hemsterhuis,
and Jacobi, preceded Kant in the career of
philosophy. They had no school, because
they founded no system; but they began the
attack against the doctrine of the materialists.
Of these three, Lessing is the one whose opi-
nions, on this point, are the least decided;
^however, he had too enlarged a mind to be
confined within the narrow circle which is so
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? 102 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
easily drawn, when we renounce the highest
truths. Lessing's all-powerful polemics dis-
closed doubt upon the most important ques-
tions, and led to new inquiries of every kind.
Lessing himself cannot be considered either
as a materialist or as an idealist; but the
necessity of examination and study to
the acquisition of knowledge, was the main
spring of his doctrine. "If the Almighty/'
said he, " were to hold Truth in one hand,
"and the Search after truth in the other,
"it is the latter I should ask of him in pre-
"ference. "
Lessing was not orthodox in religion.
Christianity, in him, was not a necessary
thing, like sentiment; and yet he was ca-
pable of admiring it philosophically. He
understood its relations with the human
heart, and he ever considers all the different
ways of thinking, from a point of view,
where he is able to see them all. Nothing
intolerant, no exclusion, is to be found in
his writings. When we take our stand, in
the centre of universal ideas, we never
fail to have sincerity, depth, and extent of
mind. Whatever is unjust, vain, and nar-
row, is derived from the desire of refer-
ring every thing to certain partial views,
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 10$
which we have taken and appropriated to
ourselves, and which we make the objects of
our self-love.
Lessing expresses, in an acute and plain
style, opinions full of warmth. Hemsterhuis,
a Dutch philosopher, was the first who, in
the middle of the eighteenth century, showed,
in his writings, the greater part of the liberal
ideas, upon which the new German school is
founded. His works are also very remark-
able, for the contrast which there is between
the character of his style, and the thoughts
which it conveys. Lessing is an enthusiast,
with an ironical manner; Hemsterhuis, an
enthusiast, with the language of a mathema-
tician. Writers who devote the most abstract
metaphysics to the defence of the most ex-
alted systems, and who conceal the liveliness
of imagination under the austerity of logic,
are a phenomenon which is scarcely to be
found, except amongst the German nations.
Men, who are always upon their guard
against imagination, when they have it not,
are more ready to trust those writers who
banish talent and sensibility from philoso-
phical discussions, as if it were not, at least,
as easy to be absurd, upon such subjects, in
syllogisms as with eloquence. For a syllo-
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? 104 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
gism, which always takes for its basis that
such a thing is or is not, reduces the im-
mense crowd of our impressions to a simple
alternative, in every case; whilst eloquence
embraces them all together. Nevertheless,
although Hemsterhuis has too frequently ex-
pressed philosophical truths,' in an algebraic
manner, there is a sentiment of morality, a
real love of the beautiful, in his writings,
which cannot but be admired; he was one of
the first to feel the union which exists be-
tween idealism, or (as I should rather say)
the free-will of man, and the stoic morality;
and it is in this point of view, above all, that
the new doctrine of the Germans is of great
importance.
Even before the writings of Kant had ap-
peared, Jacobi had attacked the philosophy
of sensation, and still more victoriously the
system of morality founded upon interest.
He flid not confine himself strictly, in his
philosophy, to abstract forms of reasoning.
His analysis of the human soul is full of elo-
quence and of charms. In the following
chapters, I shall examine the finest part of
his works, that which relates to morality;
but, as a philosopher, he deserves separate
honour. Better instructed than any one else
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 105
in the history of ancient and modern philo-
sophy, he devoted his studies to the support
of the most simple truths. The first amongst
the philosophers of his day, he made religious
feeling the foundation of our whole intellec-
tual nature; and, it may be said, that he
has only learnt the language of metaphysi-
cians and learned men, to do homage, in it,
to virtue and divinity.
Jacobi has shown himself the opposer of
the philosophy of Kant, but he does not
attack it as if he was himself the partisan of
the philosophy of sensation *. On the con-
trary, his objection to Kant is, that he does
not rely sufficiently upon the support of re-
ligion, considered as the only possible phi-
losophy in those truths which are beyond the
reach of experience.
The doctrine of Kant has met with many
other opponents in Germany; but it has not
been attacked by those who have not under-
stood it, or by those who opposed the opi-
nions of Locke and Condillac, as a complete
answer to it. Leibnitz still retained too
great an ascendant over the minds of his
countrymen, for them not to pay respect to
* This philosophy has, in Germany, generally received
the name of The Empiric Philosophy.
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? 106 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
any opinion which was analogous to his. A
long list of writers have, for ten years, been
incessantly engaged in writing commentaries
on the works of Kant. But, at the present
day, the German philosophers, although
agreeing with Kant as to the spontaneous
activity of thought, have adopted each a
system of his own on that point. In fact,
who is there who has never endeavoured,
according to his abilities, to understand him-
self? But, because man has given an innu-
merable variety of explanations of his nature,
does it therefore follow that such a philoso-
phical examination is useless? Certainly not.
This variety itself is a proof of the interest
which such an examination ought to inspire.
In our days, people would be glad to have
done with moral nature, and would readily
pay its reckoning to hear no more of it.
Some say, the language was fixed on such a
day of such a month, and that, from that
moment, the introduction of a new word
became a barbarism; others affirm, that the
rules of the drama were definitely settled
in such a year (and it is a great pity that a
genius, which would now set about making
any change in them, was not born before
that year), in which every literary discus-
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHER*. 107
sion, past, present, and future, was deter-
mined without appeal. At last, it has been
decided in metaphysics above all, that since
the days of Condillac it has been impossible
to take a single step more, without going
out of the way. It is allowed that the phy-
sical sciences are making progress, because it
cannot be denied; but, in the career of phi-
losophy and literature, the human mind is to
be obliged to be incessantly running the ring
of vanity around the same circle.
To remain attached to that experimental
philosophy which offers a species of evi-
dence, false in principle, although specious
in form, is by no means to simplify the sys-
tem of the universe. By considering every
thing as not existing which is beyond the
reach of our sensations, it is easy to give light
enough to a system, the limits of which we
ourselves prescribe; it is a work which de-
pends upon the doer of it. But does every
thing beyond those limits exist the less, be-
cause it is counted as nothing? The imper-
fect truth of speculative philosophy is ever
much nearer to the essence of things, than
that apparent light which belongs to the
art of solving difficulties of a certain order.
When one reads in the philosophical writings
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? 108 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
of the last century these phrases so frequently
repeated, this is all the truth that exists,
every thing else is chimerical, it puts one in
mind of the well-known story of a French
actor, who, before he would fight with a
man much fatter than himself, proposed to
chalk out on his adversary's body a line, the
hits on the outside of which should go for
nothing. Yet there was the same nature
without that line as within it, and equally
capable of receiving a mortal wound. In the
same manner, those who place the pillars of
Hercules on the boundary of their horizon,
cannot prevent the existence of a nature be-
yond their own, in which there exists a
higher degree of life, than in the sphere of
matter to which they would confine us.
TKe two most celebrated philosophers who
have succeeded Kant, are Fichte and Schel-
ling. They too pretended to simplify his
system; but it was by putting in its place a
species of philosophy more elevated even than
his, that they hoped to accomplish it.
Kant had, with a firm hand, separated the
two empires of the soul and of the senses.
This philosophical duality was fatiguing to
minds which love to repose in simple ideas.
From the days of the Greeks to our own*
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 109
this axiom has often been repeated, that every
thing is one, and the efforts of philosophers
have always been directed to find in one
single principle, either in the soul or in na-
ture, an explanation of the world. I shall,
nevertheless, venture to sav, that it appears
to me to be one of the titles which Kant's
philosophy has to the confidence of enlight-
ened men, that it affirms, what we feel to be
the case, that there exists both a soul and an
external nature, and that they act mutually
one upon the other by such or such laws. I
know not why a greater degree of philoso-
phical elevation is to be found in the idea of
one single principle, whether material or in-
tellectual; . there being one, or two, does not
render the universe more easy of comprehen-
sion, and our feeling agrees better with those
systems that acknowledge a distinction be-
tween physics and morality.
Fichte and Schelling have divided between
them the empire which Kant acknowledged
to be a divided one, and each has chosen
that his own half should be the whole. Both
have gone out of the sphere of ourselves, and
have been desirous of rising to a knowledge
of the system of the universe. Very dif-
ferent in that from Kant, who has applied as
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? 110 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
much power of mind so show those things,
at the knowledge of which the human mind
can never arrive, as to explain those which
are within its reach.
No philosopher, however, before Fichte,
had extended the system of idealism with
such scientific strictness; he makes the whole
universe consist of the activity of mind. All
conception, all imagination, proceeds from
that; it is on account of this system that
he has been suspected of unbelief. He was
heard to say, that, in his next lesson, he
should create God, and the world was scan-
dalized with reason at such an expression. --
What he meant by it was, that he should
show how the idea of the Divinity arose, and
was developed in the mind of man. The
principal merit of Fichte's philosophy is, the
incredible attention that it implies; for he is
not contented with referring every thing to the
inward existence of man, to the self which
forms the basis of every thing, but he goes
on to distinguish in this self what is
transient and what is permanent. In fact,
when we reflect on the operations of the
understanding, we think ourselves eye-wit-
nesses of our own thoughts; we think we
see them pass before us like a stream,
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. Ill
whilst the portion of self, which is con-
templating them, is immoveable. It often
happens to those who unite an impassioned
character to an observing mind, to sec
themselves suffer, and to feel within them-
selves a being superior to its own pain,
which observes it, and reproves or pities it
by turns. ,
We are subject to continual changes from
the external circumstances of our life, and
yet we always have the feeling of our iden-
tity. What is it, then, that attests this
identity, if not that self ', always the same,
which sees another self, modified by im-
pressions from without, pass before its tri-
bunal?
It is to this immoveable soul, the witness
of the moveable soul, that Fichte attributes
the gift of immortality, and the power of
creating, or (to translate more exactly) of
drawing to a focus in itself the image of the
universe. This system, which makes every
thing rest on the summit of our existence,
and places a pyramid on its point, is . singu-
larly difficult to follow. It strips our ideas
of the colours which so well enable us to
understand them; and the fine arts, poetry,
and the contemplation of nature, disappear
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? 112 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
in abstractions which are without any mix-
ture of imagination or sensibility.
Fichte considers the exterior world only
as a boundary of our existence, on which
thought is at work. In his system, this
boundary is created by the soul itself, the
activity of which is constantly exerted on
the web it has formed. What Fichte has
written upon the metaphysical self', is a little
like the waking of Pygmalion's statue, which,
touching alternately itself and the stone on
which it was placed, says, by turns, This is I,
and This is not I; but when, taking the hand
of Pygmalion, it exclaims, This indeed is I--
that excites a sentiment which is much be-
yond the sphere of abstract ideas. Idealism,
stripped of sentiment, has nevertheless the
advantage of exciting, to the highest degree,
the activity of the mind; but nature and
love, by this system, lose all their charms;
for, if the objects which we see, and the
beings whom we love, are nothing but the
works of our own ideas, it is man himself
that may be considered as the great cceliba-
tary of the world.
It must be acknowledged, however, that
the system of Fichte has two great advan-
tages; the one is its stoic morality, which"
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 113
admits of no excuses; for, every thing pro-
ceeding from self, it is self alone which has
to answer for the use it makes of the will:
the other is an exercise of thought, at once
so severe and so subtile, that a man who had
mastered the system, even though he should
not adopt it, would have acquired a capacity
of attention, and a sagacity in analysis, which
would afterwards make any other kind of
study a plaything to him.
In whatever manner the utility of meta-
physics is judged of, it cannot be denied, that
it is the gymnastic exercise of the mind. It
is usual to set children on different kinds of
wrestling in their earliest years, although it
may never be necessary for them to fight in
that manner. It may be truly said, that the
study of the "ideal system of metaphysics is
almost a certain means of developing the
moral faculties of those who devote them-
selves to it.
? KANT.
S7
the comer-stone, is raised the doctrine of
duty; for if man is free, he ought to create
to himself motives powerful enough to com-
bat against the operation of exterior objects,
and to set his will free from the narrow tram-
mels of selfishness. Duty is at once the proof
and the security of the metaphysical inde-
pendence of man.
In the following chapters, we shall exa-
mine Kant's arguments against morality as
founded upon self-interest, and the sublime
theory which he substitutes in the place of
this hypocritical sophism, or perverse doc-
trine. Different opinions may be enter-
tained as to Kant's first work, "The Exa-
**. minalion of pure Reason:" having himself
acknowledged reasoning to be insufficient
and contradictory, he ought to have antici-
pated that it would be made use of against
him; but it appears to me impossible not to
read with respect his "Examination ofprac-
"tical Reason," and the different works that
he has written on morality. ,
Not only are Kant's principles of morality
austere and pure, as might be expected from
the inflexibility of a philosopher, but he al-
ways connects the evidence of the heart with
that of the understanding, and is singularly
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? 88 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
happy in making his abstract theory, as to
the nature of the understanding, serve as a
support to sentiments at once the most
simple and the most powerful.
A conscience acquired by sensations may
be stifled by them; and the dignity of duty
is degraded, in being made to depend on
exterior objects. Kant, therefore, is inces-
santly labouring to show, that a deep sense
of this dignity is the necessary condition of
our moral being, the law by which it exists.
The empire of sensations, and the bad actions,
to the commission of which they lead, can
no more destroy in us the notion of good or
of evil, than the idea of space and time can
be changed by an erroneous application of
it. There is always, in whatever situation
we may be placed, a power of re-action
against circumstances, which springs from
the bottom of the soul; and we cannot but
feel, that neither the laws of the understand-
ing, moral liberty, nor conscience* are the
result of experience.
In his treatise on the sublime and beautiful,
entitled, " The "Examination of the Judgment,"
Kant applies to the pleasures Of the ima-
gination the system from which he has
developed such fruitful deductions in the
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? KANT
89
sphere of intelligence and of sentiment; or
rather it is the same soul which he examines,
and which shows itself in the sciences, in
morality, and in the fine arts. Kant main-
tains, that there are in poetry, and in the arts
which are capable, as poetry is, of painting
sentiments by images, two kinds of beauty:
one which may be referred to time and to
this life; the other, to eternity and infinity.
And so impossible is it to say, that what
is infinite and eternal is intelligible to our
minds, that one is often tempted to take even
what is finite and transient for a dream; for
thought can see no limits to any thing,
neither can being have a conception of non-
existence. We cannot search deeply into
the exact sciences themselves, without meet-
ing, even there, with what is infinite and
eternal; and those things which are the most
completely matters of fact, do, under some
relations, belong to this infinity and eternity,
as much as sentiment and imagination.
From this application of the feeling of
infinity to the fine arts, arises the system
of ideal beauty, that is to say, of beauty con-
sidered, not as the assemblage and imitation
of whatever is most worthy in nature, but
as the realization of that image which is
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? 90 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
constantly present to the soul. Materialists
judge of the beautiful according to the agree-
able impression which it causes, and there-
fore place it in the empire of sensations:
immaterialists, who ascribe every thing to
reason, see in the beautiful what they call
the perfect, and find in it some analogy to
the useful and the good, which they con-
sider to be the first degrees of perfection.
Kant has rejected both these explanations.
Beauty, considered only as an agreeable
thing, would be confined to the sphere of sen-
sations, and consequently subject to the dif-
ference of tastes; it could never claim that
universal acknowledgment, which is the true
character of beaut}': beauty, again, consi-
dered as perfection, would require a sort of
judgment, like that on which esteem isfounded:
the enthusiasm that ought to be inspired by
the beautiful, belongs neither to , sensations
nor to judgment; it is an innate disposition,
like the feeling of duty, and those ideas which
are essential to the understanding; and we
discover beauty when we see it, because it is
the outward image of that ideal beauty, the
type of which exists in our mind. Difference
of tastes may be applied to what is agreeable,
for our sensations are the source of that kind
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? KANT. 91
of pleasure; but all men must admire what
is beautiful, whether in art or in nature;
because they have in their souls sentiments
of celestial origin, which beauty awakens,
and of which it excites the enjoyment.
Kant passes from the theory of the beau-
tiful to that of the sublime; and this second
part of his " Examination of the Judgment"
is even more remarkable than the first: he
makes the sublime, in moral liberty, consist
in the struggles of man with his destiny, or
with his nature. Unlimited power excites
our fear, greatness overwhelms us; yet, by
the vigour of the will, we escape from the
sensation of our physical weakness. The
power of destiny, and the immensity of
nature, are placed in endless opposition to
the miserable dependence of the creature
upon earth; but one spark of the sacred fire
in our bosoms triumphs over the universe;
since with that one spark we are enabled to
resist the impressions which all the powers
in the world could make upon us.
The first effect of the sublime is to over-
whelm a man, and the second to exalt
him. When we contemplate a storm curling
the billows of the sea, and seeming to
threaten both earth and heaven, terror at
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? 92 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
first takes possession of us, although we may
be out of the reach of any personal danger;
but when the clouds, that have gathered,
burst over oar heads, when all the fury of
nature is displayed, man feels an inward
energy, which frees him from every fear, by
his will, or by resignation, by the exercise, or
by the relinquishment of his moral liberty;
and. this consciousness of what is within him
animates and encourages him.
When we hear of a generous action, when
we learn that men have borne unheard-of
misfortunes to remain faithful to their opinion,
even to the smallest swerving; at first the
description of the miseries they have suffered
confuses our ideas; but, by degrees, we
regain our strength, and the sympathy that
we feel excited within ourselves, by great-
ness of soul, makes us hope that we ourselves
could triumph over the miserable sensations
of this life to remain faithful, noble, and
proud to our latest day.
Besides, no one can define, if I may so
say, that which is at the summit of our
existence; " We are too much elevated in
4* respect to ourselves, to comprehend our-
"selves," says St. Augustin. He must be
very poor in imagination who should think
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? KANT. 93
himself able to exhaust the contemplation
even of the simplest flower; how then could
we arrive at the knowledge of all that is
comprised in the idea of the sublime?
I do not certainly flatter myself that I
have been able, in a few pages, to give an
account of a system which, for twenty years,
has occupied all thinking heads in Germany;
but I hope to have said enough to show the
general spirit of the philosophy of Kant, and
to enable me to explain, in the following
chapters, the influence which it has bad
upon literature, science, and morality.
In order to reconcile experimental and
ideal philosophy, Kant has not made the
one subordinate to the other, but he has
given to each of the two, separately, a new
degree of force. Germany was threatened
by that cold doctrine which regarded all
enthusiasm as an error, and classed amongst
prejudices those sentiments which form the
consolation of our existence. It was a great
satisfaction for men, at once so philosophical
and so poetical, so capable of study and of
exaltation, to see all the fine affections of
the soul defended with the strictness -of the
most abstract reasonings. The force of the
mind can never be long in a negative state;
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? 94 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
that is, it cannot long consist principally, in
not believing, in not understanding, and in
what it disdains. We must have a philo-
sophy of belief, of enthusiasm, a philosophy
which confirms by reason, what sentiment
reveals to us.
The adversaries of Kant have accused him
of having merely repeated the arguments of
the ancient idealists; they have pretended
that the doctrine of the German philosopher
was only an old system in a new language.
This reproach has no foundation. There are
not only new ideas, but a particular character,
in the doctrine of Kant.
It savours of the philosophy of the eigh-
teenth century, although it was intended to re-
fute the doctrines of that philosophy, because
it is natural to man always to catch the spirit
of the age in which he lives, even when his
intention is to oppose it. The philosophy of
Plato is more poetical than that of Kant,
the philosophy of Mallebranche more reli-
gious; but the great merit of the German
philosopher has been to raise up moral dig-
nity, by setting all that is fine in the heart,
on the basis of a theory deduced from the
strongest reasoning. The opposition which
it has been endeavoured to show between
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? KANT. 95
reason and sentiment, necessarily leads rea-
son on to selfishness, and reduces sentiment
to folly; but Kant, who seemed to be called
to conclude all the grand intellectual al-
liances, has made the soul one focus, in
which all our faculties are in contact with
each other.
The polemical part of the works of Kant,
that in which he attacks the philosophy of
the materialists, would be of itself a master-
piece. That philosophy has struck its roots
so deeply into the mind, so much irreligion
and selfishness has been the result of it, that
those men ought to be regarded as benefac-
tors to their country, who have even com-
batted a system so pernicious, and revived
the ideas of Plato, of Descartes, and of
Leibnitz: but the philosophy of the new
German school contains a crowd of ideas
which are peculiar to it; it is founded upon
the greatest extent of scientific knowledge,
which has been increasing every day, and
upon a singularly abstract and logical mode
of reasoning; for, although Kant blames
the use of such reasoning, in the examina-
tion of truths which are out of the circle of
experience, he shows in his writings a power
of mind, on metaphysical subjects, which
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? 96 PHILOSOPHI' AND MORALS.
places him, in that respect, in the first rank
of thinkers.
It cannot be denied that the style of Kant,
in his " Examination of pure Reason," de-
serves almost all the reproaches with which
his adversaries have treated it. He has made
use of a phraseology very difficult to under-
stand, and of the most tiresome new crea-
tion of words. He lived alone with his own
thoughts, and persuaded himself that it was
necessary to have new words for new ideas,
and yet there are words to express every
thing.
In those objects which are in themselves
the most clear, Kant is frequently guided by
a very obscure system of metaphysics; and
it is only in those regions of thought where
darkness prevails in general, that he displays
the torch of light: like the Israelites, who
had for their guide a column of fire by night,
and a pillar of a cloud by day.
No one in France would give himself
the trouble of studying works so thickly set
with difficulties, as those of Kant; but he
had to do with patient and persevering
readers. This, certainly, was not a reason
for his abusing their patience; perhaps,
however, he would not have been able to
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? KANT. 97
search so deeply into the science of the hu*.
man understanding, if he had attached more
importance to the choice of the expressions
which he made use of in explaining it.
The ancient philosophers always divided
their doctrines into two distinct parts; one
which they reserved for the initiated, and
another which they professed in public.
Kant's manner of writing is quite different,
when his theory, or the application of it, is
the subject.
In his metaphysical treatises, he makes use
of words as arithmetical figures, and gives
them whatever value he pleases, without
troubling himself with that which they have
derived from custom. This appears to me a
great error; for the attention of the reader
is exhausted in efforts to understand the
language, before he arrives at the ideas, and
what is known never serves as a step to what
is unknown.
We must nevertheless give Kant the jus-
tice he deserves, even as a writer, when he
lays aside his scientific language. In speak-
ing of the arts, and still more of morality,
his style is almost always "perfectly clear,
energetic, and simple. How admirable does
his doctrine then appear! How well does
VOL. III. H
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? 98 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
he express the sentiment of the beautiful and
the love of duty! With what force does he
separate them both from all calculations of
interest or of utility! How he ennobles
actions by their source, and not by their suc-
cess! In a word, what grandeur of morality
docs he not give to man, whether he exa-
mines him in himself, or whether he considers
him in his relations towards others;--to man,
that exile of heaven, that prisoner upon
earth, so great as an exile, so miserable as a
captive!
We might extract from the writings of
Kant a multitude of brilliant ideas on all
subjects; perhaps, indeed, it is to this doc-
trine alone, that, at the present day, we
must look for conceptions at once ingenious
and new; for the notions of the materialists
no longer offer, in any thing, what is interest-
ing or original. Smartness of wit against
what is serious, noble, and divine, is worn
out; and in future it will be impossible to
restore to the human race any of the qualities
of youth, but by returning to religion by the
road of philosophy, and to sentiment by the
way of reason.
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 99
CHAPTER VII.
Of the most celebrated Philosophers before
and after Kant.
The spirit of philosophy, from its nature,
cannot be generally diffused in any country.
In Germany, however, there is such a tend-
ency towards habits of reflection, that the
German nation may be considered, by dis-
tinction, as the nation of metaphysics. It
possesses so many men capable of under-
standing the mo3t abstract questions, that
even the public are found to take an interest
in the arguments usually employed in dis-
cussions of that nature.
Every man of talent has his own way of
thinking on philosophical questions. Writers
of the second and third rank, in Germany,
are sufficiently deep to be of the first rank in
other countries. Those who are rivals, have
the same hatred towards one another there
as elsewhere; but no one would dare to
enter the lists, without having evinced, by
serious study, a real love for the science in
h2
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? 100 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
which he was engaged. It is not enough
ardently to desire success; it must be de-
served, before the candidate can be even
admitted to start for it. The Germans, how-
ever indulgent they may be to defects of
form in a work, are unmerciful with respect
to its real value; and, when they perceive
any thing superficial, in the mind, the feel-
ing, or the knowledge of a writer, they try
to borrow the very pleasantry of the French,
to turn what is frivolous into ridicule.
It is my intention to give, in this chapter,
a hasty glimpse of the principal opinions
of the philosophers who have attracted no-
tice before and since the time of Kant;
the course which his successors "have taken
cannot well be judged of, without turning
back to see what was the state of opinions
at the time when the doctrines of Kantism
first prevailed in Germany; it was opposed
at the same time to the system of Locke,
as tending 10 materialism, and to the school
of Leibnitz, as reducing every thing to ab-
straction.
The ideas of Leibnitz were lofty; but his
disciples, Wolf at their head, have encum-
bered them with forms of logic and meta-
physics.
Leibnitz had said, our ideas that
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 101
come by the senses are confused, and that
those only which belong to the immediate
perceptions of the mind are clear: without
doubt his intention by that was to show,
that truths, which are invisible, are more
certain and more in harmony with our
moral nature, than all that we learn by the
evidence of the senses. Wolf and his dis-
ciples have drawn this consequence from it,
that every thing, about which our mind can.
be employed, must be reduced into abstract
ideas. Kant inspired interest and warmth
into this lifeless idealism; he assigned to ex-
perience, as well as to the innate faculties,
its just proportion; and the art with which
he applied his theory to every thing that
is interesting to mankind, to morality, to
poetry, and to the fine arts, extended the
influence of it.
Three leading men, Lessing, Hemsterhuis,
and Jacobi, preceded Kant in the career of
philosophy. They had no school, because
they founded no system; but they began the
attack against the doctrine of the materialists.
Of these three, Lessing is the one whose opi-
nions, on this point, are the least decided;
^however, he had too enlarged a mind to be
confined within the narrow circle which is so
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? 102 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
easily drawn, when we renounce the highest
truths. Lessing's all-powerful polemics dis-
closed doubt upon the most important ques-
tions, and led to new inquiries of every kind.
Lessing himself cannot be considered either
as a materialist or as an idealist; but the
necessity of examination and study to
the acquisition of knowledge, was the main
spring of his doctrine. "If the Almighty/'
said he, " were to hold Truth in one hand,
"and the Search after truth in the other,
"it is the latter I should ask of him in pre-
"ference. "
Lessing was not orthodox in religion.
Christianity, in him, was not a necessary
thing, like sentiment; and yet he was ca-
pable of admiring it philosophically. He
understood its relations with the human
heart, and he ever considers all the different
ways of thinking, from a point of view,
where he is able to see them all. Nothing
intolerant, no exclusion, is to be found in
his writings. When we take our stand, in
the centre of universal ideas, we never
fail to have sincerity, depth, and extent of
mind. Whatever is unjust, vain, and nar-
row, is derived from the desire of refer-
ring every thing to certain partial views,
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 10$
which we have taken and appropriated to
ourselves, and which we make the objects of
our self-love.
Lessing expresses, in an acute and plain
style, opinions full of warmth. Hemsterhuis,
a Dutch philosopher, was the first who, in
the middle of the eighteenth century, showed,
in his writings, the greater part of the liberal
ideas, upon which the new German school is
founded. His works are also very remark-
able, for the contrast which there is between
the character of his style, and the thoughts
which it conveys. Lessing is an enthusiast,
with an ironical manner; Hemsterhuis, an
enthusiast, with the language of a mathema-
tician. Writers who devote the most abstract
metaphysics to the defence of the most ex-
alted systems, and who conceal the liveliness
of imagination under the austerity of logic,
are a phenomenon which is scarcely to be
found, except amongst the German nations.
Men, who are always upon their guard
against imagination, when they have it not,
are more ready to trust those writers who
banish talent and sensibility from philoso-
phical discussions, as if it were not, at least,
as easy to be absurd, upon such subjects, in
syllogisms as with eloquence. For a syllo-
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? 104 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
gism, which always takes for its basis that
such a thing is or is not, reduces the im-
mense crowd of our impressions to a simple
alternative, in every case; whilst eloquence
embraces them all together. Nevertheless,
although Hemsterhuis has too frequently ex-
pressed philosophical truths,' in an algebraic
manner, there is a sentiment of morality, a
real love of the beautiful, in his writings,
which cannot but be admired; he was one of
the first to feel the union which exists be-
tween idealism, or (as I should rather say)
the free-will of man, and the stoic morality;
and it is in this point of view, above all, that
the new doctrine of the Germans is of great
importance.
Even before the writings of Kant had ap-
peared, Jacobi had attacked the philosophy
of sensation, and still more victoriously the
system of morality founded upon interest.
He flid not confine himself strictly, in his
philosophy, to abstract forms of reasoning.
His analysis of the human soul is full of elo-
quence and of charms. In the following
chapters, I shall examine the finest part of
his works, that which relates to morality;
but, as a philosopher, he deserves separate
honour. Better instructed than any one else
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 105
in the history of ancient and modern philo-
sophy, he devoted his studies to the support
of the most simple truths. The first amongst
the philosophers of his day, he made religious
feeling the foundation of our whole intellec-
tual nature; and, it may be said, that he
has only learnt the language of metaphysi-
cians and learned men, to do homage, in it,
to virtue and divinity.
Jacobi has shown himself the opposer of
the philosophy of Kant, but he does not
attack it as if he was himself the partisan of
the philosophy of sensation *. On the con-
trary, his objection to Kant is, that he does
not rely sufficiently upon the support of re-
ligion, considered as the only possible phi-
losophy in those truths which are beyond the
reach of experience.
The doctrine of Kant has met with many
other opponents in Germany; but it has not
been attacked by those who have not under-
stood it, or by those who opposed the opi-
nions of Locke and Condillac, as a complete
answer to it. Leibnitz still retained too
great an ascendant over the minds of his
countrymen, for them not to pay respect to
* This philosophy has, in Germany, generally received
the name of The Empiric Philosophy.
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? 106 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
any opinion which was analogous to his. A
long list of writers have, for ten years, been
incessantly engaged in writing commentaries
on the works of Kant. But, at the present
day, the German philosophers, although
agreeing with Kant as to the spontaneous
activity of thought, have adopted each a
system of his own on that point. In fact,
who is there who has never endeavoured,
according to his abilities, to understand him-
self? But, because man has given an innu-
merable variety of explanations of his nature,
does it therefore follow that such a philoso-
phical examination is useless? Certainly not.
This variety itself is a proof of the interest
which such an examination ought to inspire.
In our days, people would be glad to have
done with moral nature, and would readily
pay its reckoning to hear no more of it.
Some say, the language was fixed on such a
day of such a month, and that, from that
moment, the introduction of a new word
became a barbarism; others affirm, that the
rules of the drama were definitely settled
in such a year (and it is a great pity that a
genius, which would now set about making
any change in them, was not born before
that year), in which every literary discus-
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHER*. 107
sion, past, present, and future, was deter-
mined without appeal. At last, it has been
decided in metaphysics above all, that since
the days of Condillac it has been impossible
to take a single step more, without going
out of the way. It is allowed that the phy-
sical sciences are making progress, because it
cannot be denied; but, in the career of phi-
losophy and literature, the human mind is to
be obliged to be incessantly running the ring
of vanity around the same circle.
To remain attached to that experimental
philosophy which offers a species of evi-
dence, false in principle, although specious
in form, is by no means to simplify the sys-
tem of the universe. By considering every
thing as not existing which is beyond the
reach of our sensations, it is easy to give light
enough to a system, the limits of which we
ourselves prescribe; it is a work which de-
pends upon the doer of it. But does every
thing beyond those limits exist the less, be-
cause it is counted as nothing? The imper-
fect truth of speculative philosophy is ever
much nearer to the essence of things, than
that apparent light which belongs to the
art of solving difficulties of a certain order.
When one reads in the philosophical writings
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? 108 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
of the last century these phrases so frequently
repeated, this is all the truth that exists,
every thing else is chimerical, it puts one in
mind of the well-known story of a French
actor, who, before he would fight with a
man much fatter than himself, proposed to
chalk out on his adversary's body a line, the
hits on the outside of which should go for
nothing. Yet there was the same nature
without that line as within it, and equally
capable of receiving a mortal wound. In the
same manner, those who place the pillars of
Hercules on the boundary of their horizon,
cannot prevent the existence of a nature be-
yond their own, in which there exists a
higher degree of life, than in the sphere of
matter to which they would confine us.
TKe two most celebrated philosophers who
have succeeded Kant, are Fichte and Schel-
ling. They too pretended to simplify his
system; but it was by putting in its place a
species of philosophy more elevated even than
his, that they hoped to accomplish it.
Kant had, with a firm hand, separated the
two empires of the soul and of the senses.
This philosophical duality was fatiguing to
minds which love to repose in simple ideas.
From the days of the Greeks to our own*
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 109
this axiom has often been repeated, that every
thing is one, and the efforts of philosophers
have always been directed to find in one
single principle, either in the soul or in na-
ture, an explanation of the world. I shall,
nevertheless, venture to sav, that it appears
to me to be one of the titles which Kant's
philosophy has to the confidence of enlight-
ened men, that it affirms, what we feel to be
the case, that there exists both a soul and an
external nature, and that they act mutually
one upon the other by such or such laws. I
know not why a greater degree of philoso-
phical elevation is to be found in the idea of
one single principle, whether material or in-
tellectual; . there being one, or two, does not
render the universe more easy of comprehen-
sion, and our feeling agrees better with those
systems that acknowledge a distinction be-
tween physics and morality.
Fichte and Schelling have divided between
them the empire which Kant acknowledged
to be a divided one, and each has chosen
that his own half should be the whole. Both
have gone out of the sphere of ourselves, and
have been desirous of rising to a knowledge
of the system of the universe. Very dif-
ferent in that from Kant, who has applied as
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? 110 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
much power of mind so show those things,
at the knowledge of which the human mind
can never arrive, as to explain those which
are within its reach.
No philosopher, however, before Fichte,
had extended the system of idealism with
such scientific strictness; he makes the whole
universe consist of the activity of mind. All
conception, all imagination, proceeds from
that; it is on account of this system that
he has been suspected of unbelief. He was
heard to say, that, in his next lesson, he
should create God, and the world was scan-
dalized with reason at such an expression. --
What he meant by it was, that he should
show how the idea of the Divinity arose, and
was developed in the mind of man. The
principal merit of Fichte's philosophy is, the
incredible attention that it implies; for he is
not contented with referring every thing to the
inward existence of man, to the self which
forms the basis of every thing, but he goes
on to distinguish in this self what is
transient and what is permanent. In fact,
when we reflect on the operations of the
understanding, we think ourselves eye-wit-
nesses of our own thoughts; we think we
see them pass before us like a stream,
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. Ill
whilst the portion of self, which is con-
templating them, is immoveable. It often
happens to those who unite an impassioned
character to an observing mind, to sec
themselves suffer, and to feel within them-
selves a being superior to its own pain,
which observes it, and reproves or pities it
by turns. ,
We are subject to continual changes from
the external circumstances of our life, and
yet we always have the feeling of our iden-
tity. What is it, then, that attests this
identity, if not that self ', always the same,
which sees another self, modified by im-
pressions from without, pass before its tri-
bunal?
It is to this immoveable soul, the witness
of the moveable soul, that Fichte attributes
the gift of immortality, and the power of
creating, or (to translate more exactly) of
drawing to a focus in itself the image of the
universe. This system, which makes every
thing rest on the summit of our existence,
and places a pyramid on its point, is . singu-
larly difficult to follow. It strips our ideas
of the colours which so well enable us to
understand them; and the fine arts, poetry,
and the contemplation of nature, disappear
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? 112 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
in abstractions which are without any mix-
ture of imagination or sensibility.
Fichte considers the exterior world only
as a boundary of our existence, on which
thought is at work. In his system, this
boundary is created by the soul itself, the
activity of which is constantly exerted on
the web it has formed. What Fichte has
written upon the metaphysical self', is a little
like the waking of Pygmalion's statue, which,
touching alternately itself and the stone on
which it was placed, says, by turns, This is I,
and This is not I; but when, taking the hand
of Pygmalion, it exclaims, This indeed is I--
that excites a sentiment which is much be-
yond the sphere of abstract ideas. Idealism,
stripped of sentiment, has nevertheless the
advantage of exciting, to the highest degree,
the activity of the mind; but nature and
love, by this system, lose all their charms;
for, if the objects which we see, and the
beings whom we love, are nothing but the
works of our own ideas, it is man himself
that may be considered as the great cceliba-
tary of the world.
It must be acknowledged, however, that
the system of Fichte has two great advan-
tages; the one is its stoic morality, which"
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 113
admits of no excuses; for, every thing pro-
ceeding from self, it is self alone which has
to answer for the use it makes of the will:
the other is an exercise of thought, at once
so severe and so subtile, that a man who had
mastered the system, even though he should
not adopt it, would have acquired a capacity
of attention, and a sagacity in analysis, which
would afterwards make any other kind of
study a plaything to him.
In whatever manner the utility of meta-
physics is judged of, it cannot be denied, that
it is the gymnastic exercise of the mind. It
is usual to set children on different kinds of
wrestling in their earliest years, although it
may never be necessary for them to fight in
that manner. It may be truly said, that the
study of the "ideal system of metaphysics is
almost a certain means of developing the
moral faculties of those who devote them-
selves to it.
