ON THE WILL IN NATURE. [190] (continued 3)

But another different consequence of the clear separation of the will from the intellect—therefore of the motive from the action,—which first appears in the human race, is the deceptive illusion of freedom in our individual actions. Where, as in inorganic nature, causes, or, as in [303] the vegetable kingdom, stimuli, call forth the effect, the causal connection is so simple, that there is not even the slightest semblance of freedom. But already in animal life, where that which till then had manifested itself as cause or as stimulus, now appears as a motive—and a new world, that of representation, consequently presents itself, and cause and effect lie in different spheres—the causal connection between both, and with it the necessity, are less evident than they were in plants and in inorganic Nature. Nevertheless they are still unmistakable in animals, whose merely intuitive representation stands midway between organic functions induced by stimuli and the deliberate acts of Man. The animal's actions infallibly follow as soon as the perceptible motive is present, unless counter-acted by some equally perceptible counter-motive or by training; yet here representation is already distinct from the act of volition and comes separately into consciousness. But in Man—whose representation has enhanced itself even to abstract conception and who now derives motives and counter-motives for his actions from a whole invisible thought-world which he carries about with him in his brain and which makes him independent of presence and of perceptible surroundings—this connection no longer exists at all for observation from outside, and even for inward observation it is only knowable through abstract and mature reflection. For these abstract motives, when observed from outside, give an impress of deliberation to all his movements, by which they acquire a semblance of independence that manifestly distinguishes them from those of animals, yet which after all only bears evidence to the fact, that Man is actuated by a class of representations in which animals do not share. Then again, in self-consciousness, the act of volition is known to us in the most immediate way, but the motive in most cases very indirectly, being often even intentionally veiled, out of consideration for [304] our self-knowledge. This process therefore, in coincidence with the consciousness of that true freedom which belongs to the will, as thing in itself outside phenomenon, produces the deceptive illusion that even the single act of volition is unconditioned and free: that is, without a reason; whereas, when the character is given and the motive recognised, every act of volition really follows with the same strict necessity as the changes of which mechanics teach us the laws, and, to use Kant's words, were character and motive exactly known, might be calculated with precisely the same certainty as an eclipse of the moon; or again, to place a very heterogeneous authority by the side of Kant, as Dante says, who is older than Buridan:—

[305]

PHYSICAL ASTRONOMY.

No part of my doctrine could I have less hoped to see corroborated by empirical science than that, in which the fundamental truth, that Kant's thing in itself (Ding an sich) is the Will, is applied by me even to inorganic Nature, and in which I show the active principle in all fundamental forces of Nature to be absolutely identical with what is known to us within ourselves as the Will.—It has therefore been particularly gratifying to me to have found that an eminent empiricist, yielding to the force of truth, had gone so far as to express this paradox in the exposition of his scientific doctrine. I allude to Sir John Herschel and to his "Treatise on Astronomy," the first edition of which appeared in 1833, and a second enlarged one in 1849, under the title "Outlines of Astronomy." Herschel,—who, as an astronomer, was acquainted with gravity, not only in the one-sided and really coarse part which it acts on earth, but also in the nobler one performed by it in universal Space, where the celestial bodies play with each other, betray mutual inclination, exchange as it were amorous glances, yet never allow themselves to come into rude contact, and thus continue dancing their dignified minuet to the music of the spheres, while they keep at a respectful distance from one another—when he comes to the statement of the law of gravitation in the seventh chapter,[261] expresses himself as follows:—

[306] "All bodies with which we are acquainted, when raised into the air and quietly abandoned, descend to the earth's surface in lines perpendicular to it. They are therefore urged thereto by a force or effort, the direct or indirect result of a consciousness and a will existing somewhere, though beyond our power to trace, which force we term gravity."[262]

The writer who reviewed Herschel's book in the October number of the "Edinburgh Review" of 1833, anxious, as a true Englishman, before all things to prevent the Mosaic record[263] from being imperilled, takes great umbrage at this passage, rightly observing that it cannot refer to the will of God Almighty, who has called Matter and all its properties into being; he utterly refuses to recognise the validity of the proposition itself, and denies that it follows consistently from the preceding § upon which Herschel wishes to found it. My opinion is, that it undoubtedly would logically follow from that § (because the contents of a conception are determined by its origin), but that the antecedent itself is false. It asserts namely, that the origin of the conception of causality is experience, more especially such experience as we ourselves make in acting by means of our [307] own efforts upon bodies belonging to the outer world. It is only in countries like England, where the light of Kantian philosophy has not yet begun to dawn, that the conception of causality can be thought of as originating in experience (professors of philosophy who pooh-pooh Kant's doctrines and think me beneath their notice being left out of the question); least of all can it be thought of by those who are acquainted with my proof of the à priority of that conception, which differs completely from Kant's proof and rests upon the fact, that knowledge of causality must necessarily precede all perception of the outer world itself as its condition; since perception is only brought about through the transition—effected by the understanding—from the sensation in the organ of sense to its cause, which cause now presents itself as an object in Space, itself likewise an à priori intuition. Now, as the perception of objects must be anterior to our conscious action upon them, the experience of that conscious action cannot be the origin of the conception of causality; for, before I can act upon things, they must first have acted upon me as motives. I have entered fully into all that has to do with this in my chief work,[264] and in the second edition of my treatise on the Principle of Sufficient Reason, § 21,[265] where the assumption adopted by Herschel finds special refutation; it is therefore useless to enter into it once more here. But it would be even quite possible to refute this assumption empirically, since it would necessarily follow from it, that a man who came into the world without arms or legs, could never attain any knowledge of causality or perception of the outer world. Now Nature has effectually disproved this by a case, of which I have reproduced the account from its original source in the above-mentioned chapter of my chief [308] work, p. 40.[266]—In this assertion of Herschel's therefore, we have another instance of a right conclusion drawn from wrong premisses. Now this always happens when we have obtained immediate insight into a truth by a right aperçu but are at a loss to find out and clearly define our reasons for knowing it, owing to our inability to bring them to clear consciousness. For, in all original insight, conviction exists before proof: the proof being invariably excogitated afterwards.

The immediate manifestation of gravity is more evident in each part of liquid, than of solid, matter, owing to the perfect freedom of motion of the parts among each other. In order therefore to penetrate into this aperçu, which is the true source of Herschel's assertion, let us look attentively at a torrent dashing headlong over rocks and ask ourselves whether so determined an impetus, so boisterous a vehemence, can arise without an exertion of strength, and whether an exertion of strength is conceivable without will. And so it is precisely in every case in which we become aware of anything moving spontaneously, of any primary, uncommunicated force: we are constrained to think its innermost essence as will.—This much at any rate is certain, that Herschel, like all the empiricists in so many different branches of science whose evidence I have quoted above, had arrived here at the limit where nothing more is left behind the Physical but the Metaphysical; that this had brought him to a standstill, and that he, as well as the rest of them, was unable to find anything beyond that limit, but the will.

Herschel moreover, like most of these empiricists, is here still hampered by the opinion that will is inseparable from consciousness. As I have expatiated enough above upon this fallacy, and its correction through my doctrine, it is needless for me to enter into it here again.

[309] The attempt has repeatedly been made, since the beginning of this century, to ascribe vitality to the inorganic world. Quite wrongly: for living and inorganic are convertible conceptions, and with death the organic ceases to be organic. But no limit in the whole of Nature is so sharply drawn as the line which separates the organic from the inorganic: that is to say, the line between the region in which Form is the essential and permanent, Matter the accidental and changing,—and the region in which this relation is entirely reversed. This is no vacillating boundary like that perhaps between animals and plants, between solid and liquid, between gas and steam: to endeavour to destroy it therefore, is intentionally to bring confusion into our ideas. On the other hand, I am the first who has asserted that a will must be attributed to all that is lifeless and inorganic. For, with me, the will is not, as has hitherto been assumed, an accident of cognition and therefore of life: but life itself is manifestation of will. Knowledge, on the contrary, is really an accident of life, and life of Matter. But Matter itself is only the perceptibility of the phenomena of the will. Therefore we are compelled to recognise volition in every effort or tendency which proceeds from the nature of a material body, and properly speaking constitutes that nature, or manifests itself as phenomenon by means of that nature; and there can consequently be no Matter without manifestation of will. The lowest and on that account most universal manifestation of will is gravity, wherefore it has been called a primary and essential property of Matter.

The usual view of Nature assumes two fundamentally different principles of motion, therefore it supposes that the movement of a body may have two different origins: i.e., that it proceeds either from the inside, in which case it is attributed to the will; or from the outside, and then it is occasioned by causes. This principle is generally [310] taken for granted as a matter of course and only occasionally brought explicitly into prominence; nevertheless, in order to make the case quite certain, I will point out a few passages from the earliest to the latest authors in which it is specially stated. In Phædrus,[267] Plato makes the distinction between that which moves spontaneously from inside (soul) and that which receives movement only from outside (body)—τὸ ὑφ' ἑαυτοῦ κινούμενον καὶ τό, ᾧ ἔξωθεν τὸ κινεῖσθαι.[268]—Aristotle establishes the principle in precisely the same way: ἅπαν τὸ φερόμενον ἢ ὑφ' ἑαυτοῦ κινεῖται, ἢ ὐπ' ἄλλου (quidquid fertur a se movetur, aut ab alio).[269] He returns to the subject in the next Book, chap. 4 and 5, and connects it with some explanatory details which lead him into considerable perplexity, on account precisely of the fallacy of the antithesis.[270]—In more recent times again J. J. Rousseau brings forward the same antithesis with great naïveté and candour in his famous "Profession de foi du vicaire Savoyard:"[271] "J'aperçois dans les corps deux sortes de mouvement, savoir: mouvement communiqué et mouvement spontané ou volontaire: dans le premier la cause motrice est étrangère au corps mû; et dans le second elle est en lui-même."—But even in our time and in the stilted, puffed-up style which is peculiar to it, Burdach holds forth as follows:[272] "The cause that determines a movement lies either inside or outside of that which [311] moves. Matter is external existence; it has powers of motion, but it only brings them into play under certain spacial conditions and external oppositions: the soul alone is an ever active and internal thing, and only those bodies which have souls find within themselves inducement to move, and move of their own free will, independently of outer mechanical circumstances."

Now here however I must say, as Abélard once did: si omnes patres sic, at ego non sic: for, in opposition to this principle, however great may be its antiquity and universality, my doctrine maintains, that there are not two origins of movement differing fundamentally from one another; that movement does not proceed either from inside, when it is ascribed to the will, or from outside, when it is brought about by causes; but that both things are inseparable and take place simultaneously with every movement made by a body. For movement which is admitted to arise from the will, always presupposes a cause also: this cause, in beings that have knowledge, is a motive; but without it, even in these beings, movement is impossible. On the other hand, the movement of a body which is admitted to have been brought about by an outward cause, is nevertheless in itself a manifestation of the will of that body which has only been evoked by that cause. Accordingly there is only one, uniform, universal and exceptionless principle of all movement, whose inner condition is will and whose outer occasion is cause, which latter may also take the form of a stimulus or of a motive, according to the nature of the thing moved.

All that is known to us of things in a merely empirical or à posteriori, way, is in itself will; whereas, so far as they can be determined à priori, things belong exclusively to representation, to mere phenomenon. Natural phenomena therefore become proportionately less easy to comprehend, the more distinctly the will manifests itself [312] in them, i.e. the higher they stand on the scale of beings; whereas, they become more and more comprehensible the smaller the amount of their empirical content, because they remain more and more within the sphere of mere representation, the forms of which, known to us à priori, are the principle of comprehensibility. Accordingly, it is only so long as we limit ourselves to this sphere—that is to say, only when we have before us mere representation, mere form without empirical content—that our comprehension is complete and thorough: that is, in the à priori sciences, Arithmetic, Geometry, Phoronomy and Logic. Here everything is in the highest degree comprehensible; our insight is quite clear and satisfactory: it leaves nothing to be desired, since we are even unable to conceive that anything could be otherwise than it is. This comes from our having here exclusively to do with the forms of our own intellect. Thus the more we are able to comprehend in a relation, the more it consists of mere phenomenon and the less it has to do with the thing in itself. Applied Mathematics, Mechanics, Hydraulics, &c. &c., deal with the lowest degrees of objectification of the will, in which the largest part still remains within the sphere of mere representation; nevertheless even here there is already an empirical element which stands in the way of entire comprehension, which makes the transparency less complete, and in which the inexplicable shows itself. For the same reason, only few departments of Physics and of Chemistry continue to admit of a mathematical treatment; whereas higher up in the scale of beings this has to be entirely done away with, precisely because of the preponderance of content over form in these phenomena. This content is will, the à posteriori, the thing in itself, the free, the causeless. Under the heading "Physiology of Plants," I have shown how—in beings that live and have knowledge—motive and act of will, representation and volition, separate [313] and detach themselves more and more distinctly one from the other, the higher we ascend in the scale of beings. Now, in inorganic Nature also, the cause separates itself from the effect in just the same proportion, and the purely empirical—which is precisely phenomenon of the will—detaches itself more and more prominently; but, just with this, comprehensibility diminishes. This point merits fuller investigation, and I request my readers to give their whole and undivided attention to what I am about to say, as it is calculated to place the leading thought of my doctrine in the strongest possible light, both as to comprehensibility and cogency. But this is all I can do; for it is beyond my power to induce my contemporaries to prefer thoughts to verbiage; I can only console myself for not being the man of the age.

On the lowest step of the scale of Nature, cause and effect are quite homogeneous and quite equivalent. Here therefore we have perfect comprehension of the causal connection: for instance, the cause of the movement of one ball propelled by impact, is the movement of another, which loses just as much movement as the first one receives. Here causality is in the highest degree intelligible. What notwithstanding still remains mysterious, is restricted to the possibility of the passage of movement—of a thing incorporeal—from one body to another. The receptivity of bodies in this mode is so slight, that the effect to be produced has to pass over completely from its cause. The same holds good of all purely mechanical influences; and if they are not all just as instantaneously understood, it is either because they are hidden from us by accessory circumstances, or because we are confused by the complicated connection of many causes and effects. In itself, mechanical causality is everywhere equally, that is, in the highest degree, comprehensible; because cause and effect do not differ here as to quality, and because where [314] they differ as to quantity, as in the lever, mere Space and Time relations suffice to make the thing clear. But as soon as weights come also into play, a second mysterious element supervenes, gravity: and, where elastic bodies are concerned, elasticity also.—Things change as soon as we begin to ascend in the scale of phenomena. Heat, considered as cause, and expansion, liquefaction, volatilization or crystallization, as effects, are not homogeneous; therefore their causal connection is not intelligible. The comprehensibility of causality has diminished: what a lower degree of heat caused to liquefy, a higher degree makes evaporate: that which crystallizes with less heat, melts when the heat is augmented. Warmth softens wax and hardens clay; light whitens wax and blackens chloride of silver. And, to go still further, when two salts are seen to decompose each other mutually and to form two new ones, elective affinity presents itself to us as an impenetrable mystery, and the properties of the two new bodies are not a combination of the properties of their separate elements. Nevertheless we are still able to follow the process and to indicate the elements out of which the new bodies are formed; we can even separate what has been united and restore the original quantities. Thus noticeable heterogeneousness and incommensurability between cause and effect have here made their appearance: causality has become more mysterious. And this becomes still more apparent when we compare the effects of electricity or of the Voltaic pile with their causes, i.e. with the friction of glass, or the piling and oxidation of the plates. Here all similarity between cause and effect at once vanishes; causality becomes shrouded in a thick veil, which men like Davy, Faraday and Ampère have strenuously endeavoured to lift. The only thing now discernible through that veil, are the laws ruling its mode of action, which may be brought into a schema such as + E - E, communication, [315] distribution, shock, ignition, analysis, charging, isolation, discharging, electric current, &c. &c., to this schema we are able to reduce and even to direct the effect; but of the process itself we know nothing: that remains an x. Here therefore cause and effect are completely heterogeneous, their connection is unintelligible, and we see bodies show great susceptibility to causal influences, the nature of which remains a secret for us. Moreover in proportion as we mount higher in the scale, the effect seems to contain more, the cause less. When we reach organic Nature therefore, in which the phenomenon of life presents itself, this is the case in a far higher degree still. If, as is done in China, we fill a pit with decaying wood, cover it with leaves from the same tree as the wood, and pour a solution of sulphur repeatedly over it, an abundant crop of edible mushrooms will spring up. A world of rapidly moving infusoria will arise from a little hay well watered. What a difference lies here between effect and cause! How much more does the former seem to contain than the latter! When we compare the seed, sometimes centuries, nay even thousands of years old, with the tree, or the soil with the specifically and strikingly different juices of innumerable plants—some healthy, some poisonous, some again nutritious—which spring from the same earth, upon which the same sun shines and the same rain falls, all resemblance ceases, and with it all comprehensibility for us. For here causality already appears in increased potency: that is, as stimulus and as susceptibility for stimulus. The schema of cause and effect alone has remained; we know that this is cause, that effect; but we know nothing whatever of the nature and disposition of causality. Between cause and effect there is not only no qualitative resemblance, but no quantitative relation: the relatively greater importance of the effect as compared with its cause increases more and more; the effect of the [316] stimulus too does not augment in proportion with the enhancement of that stimulus; in fact just the contrary often takes place. Finally, when we come to the sphere of beings which have knowledge, there is no longer any sort of resemblance or relation between the action performed and the object which, as representation, evokes it. Animals, however, as they are restricted to perceptible representations, still need the presence of the object acting as a motive, which action is then immediate and infallible (if we leave training, i.e. habit enforced by fear, out of the question). For animals are unable to carry about with them conceptions that might render them independent of present impressions, enable them to reflect, and qualify them for deliberate action. Man can do this. Therefore when at last we come to rational beings, the motive is even no longer a present, perceptible, actually existing, real thing, but a mere conception having its present existence only in the brain of the person who acts, but which is extracted from many multifarious perceptions, from the experience of former years, or has been handed down in words. Here the separation between cause and effect is so wide, the effect has grown so much stronger as compared with the cause, that the vulgar mind no longer perceives the existence of a cause at all, and the acts of the will appear to it to be unconditioned, causeless: that is to say, free. This is just why, when we reflect upon them from outside, the movements of our own body present themselves as if they took place without cause, or to speak more properly, by a miracle. Experience and reflection alone teach us that these movements, like all others, are only possible as the effects of causes, here called motives, and that, on this ascending scale, it is only as to material reality that the cause has failed to keep pace with the effect; whereas it has kept pace with it as to dynamical reality, energy.—At this degree of the scale therefore—the highest in Nature—causality [317] has become less intelligible to us than ever. Nothing but the bare schema, taken in a quite general sense, now remains, and the ripest reflection is needed to recognise its applicability and the necessity that schema brings with it everywhere.

In the Grotto of Pausilippo, darkness continues to augment as we advance towards the interior; but when once we have passed the middle, day-light again appears at the other end and shows us the way; so also in this case: just at the point where the outwardly directed light of the understanding with its form of causality, gradually yielding to increasing darkness, had been reduced to a feeble, flickering glimmer, behold! we are met by a totally different light proceeding from quite another quarter, from our own inner self, through the chance circumstance, that we, the judges, happen here to be the very objects that are to be judged. The growing difficulty of the comprehension of the causal nexus, at first so clear, had now become so great for perception and for the understanding—the agent in it—that, in animal actions, the very existence of that nexus seemed almost doubtful and those actions appeared to be a sort of miracle. But, just at this point, the observer receives from his own inner self the direct information that the agent in them is the will—that very will, which he knows better and more intimately than anything that external perception can ever supply. This knowledge alone must be the philosopher's key to an insight into the heart of all those processes in unconscious Nature, concerning which causal explanation—although, here, to be sure, more satisfactory than in the processes last considered, and the clearer, the farther those processes were removed from these—nevertheless had still left an unknown x, and could never quite illumine the inside of the process, even in a body propelled by impact or attracted by gravity. This x had continued expanding till [318] finally, on the highest degrees of the scale, it had wholly repelled causal explanation. But then, just when the power of causal explanation had been reduced to a minimum, that x revealed itself as the will—reminding us of Mephistopheles when, yielding to Faust's learned exorcisms, he steps forth out of the huge grown poodle whose kernel he was. In consequence of the considerations I have here set forth at length, we can surely hardly avoid recognising the identity of this x, even on the lowest degrees of the scale, where it was but faintly perceptible; then higher up, where it extended its obscurity more and more; and finally on the highest degrees, where it cast a shadow upon all things—till, at the very top, it reveals itself to our consciousness in our own phenomenal being, as the will. The two primarily different sources of our knowledge, that is to say the inward and the outward source, have to be connected together at this point by reflection. It is quite exclusively out of this connection that our comprehension of Nature, and of our own selves arises; but then the inner side of Nature is disclosed to our intellect, which by itself alone can never reach further than to the mere outside; and the mystery which philosophy has so long tried to solve, lies open before us. For then indeed we clearly see what the Real and the Ideal (the thing in itself and the phenomenon) properly are; and this settles the principal question which has engaged the attention of philosophers since Descartes: that is to say, the question as to the relation between these two, whose complete diversity Kant had shown most thoroughly and with unexampled depth, yet whose absolute identity was immediately afterwards proclaimed by humbugs on the credit of intellectual intuition. But if we decline to avail ourselves of this insight, which is really the one strait gate to truth, we can never acquire comprehension of the intrinsic essence of Nature, to which absolutely no other road leads; [319] for then indeed we fall into an irremovable error. Then, as I have already said, we maintain the view, that motion has two radically different primary principles with a solid partition-wall between them: i.e. movement by means of causes, and movement by means of the will. The first of these must then remain for ever incomprehensible as to its innermost essence, because, after all its explanations, there is still left that unknown x which contains the more, the higher the object under consideration stands in the scale of beings; while the second, movement by the will, presents itself as entirely disconnected from the principle of causality; as without reason; as freedom in individual actions: in other words, as completely opposed to Nature and utterly unexplainable. On the other hand, if the above-mentioned union of our external and internal knowledge has once been accomplished at the point where both meet, we then recognise two identities in spite of all accidental differences. That is to say, we recognise the identity of causality with itself on every degree of the scale of beings, and the identity of the x, which at first was unknown (i.e. of physical forces and vital phenomena), with the will which is within us. We recognise, I say, firstly the essential identity of causality under the various forms it is forced to assume on the different degrees of the scale, as it may manifest itself, now as a mechanical, chemical, or physical cause, now as a stimulus, and again as a perceptible or an abstract motive: we know it to be one and the same, not only when a propelling body loses as much movement as it imparts by impact, but also when in the combats of thought against thought, the victorious one, as the more powerful motive, sets Man in motion, a motion which follows with no less necessity than that of the ball which is struck. Where we ourselves are the things set in motion, where therefore the kernel of the process is well and intimately known to us, [320] instead of allowing ourselves to be dazzled and confused by this light and thereby losing sight of the causal connection as it lies before us everywhere else in the whole of Nature; instead of shutting out this insight for ever, we now apply the new knowledge we have acquired from within as a key to the knowledge of things outside us, and then we recognise the second identity, that of our will with the hitherto mysterious x that remains over after all causal explanation as an insoluble residue. Consequently we then say: even in cases in which the effect is brought about by the most palpable cause, the mysterious x in the process, the real innermost core of it, the true agent, the in-itself of all phenomena—which, after all, is only given us as representation and according to the forms and laws of representation—is essentially one and the same with what is known to us immediately and intimately as the will in the actions of our own body, which body is likewise given us as intuition and representation.—This is (say what you will) the basis of true philosophy, and if the present age does not see this, many following ages will. Tempo è galant' uomo! (se nessun altro).—Thus, just as, on the one hand, the essence of causality, which appears most clearly only on the lowest degree of the objectification of the will, is recognised by us again at every ascending step, even at the highest; so also, on the other hand, is the essence of the will recognised by us at every descending step in that ladder, even at the lowest, although this knowledge is only immediately acquired at the very highest. The old error asserts, that where there is will, there is no causality; and that where there is causality, there is no will. But we say: everywhere where there is causality, there is will; and no will acts without causality. The punctum controversiæ therefore, is, whether will and causality can and must subsist together in one and the same process at the same time. What [321] makes the knowledge, that this is indeed the case, so difficult, is the circumstance, that we know causality and will in two fundamentally different ways: causality entirely from outside, quite indirectly, quite through the understanding; will entirely from inside, quite directly; and that accordingly the clearer the knowledge of the one in each given instance, the less clear is the knowledge of the other. Therefore we recognise the essence of the will least readily, where causality is most intelligible; and, where the will is most unmistakably evident, causality becomes so obscured, that the vulgar mind could venture to deny its existence altogether.—Now, as Kant has taught us, causality is nothing but the form of the understanding itself, knowable à priori: that is, the essence of representation, as such, which is one side of the world; the other side is will: which is the thing in itself. That relative increase and decrease of clearness in inverse proportion of causality and of the will, that mutual advancing and receding of both, depends consequently upon the fact, that the more a thing is given us as mere phenomenon, i.e. as representation, the more clearly does the à priori form of representation, i.e. causality, manifest itself: this is the case in inanimate Nature; conversely, the more immediate our knowledge of the will, the more does the form of representation recede into the background: this is the case with ourselves. That is: the nearer one side of the world approaches to us, the more do we lose sight of the other.

[322]

LINGUISTIC.

All that I have to record under this head is an observation of my own, made within the last few years, which seems hitherto to have escaped notice. Yet, that it is worthy of consideration, is attested by Seneca's utterance:[273] Mira in quibusdam rebus verborum proprietas est, et consuetudo sermonis antiqui quædam efficacissimis notis signat. Lichtenberg too says: "If one thinks much oneself, one finds a good deal of wisdom deposited in language. It is hardly likely that we have laid it all there ourselves, but rather that a great deal of wisdom really lies there."

In many, perhaps in all, languages, the action even of those bodies which are without intellect, nay of inanimate bodies, is expressed by the words to will, so that the existence of a will in these bodies is thus taken for granted; but they are never credited with a faculty for knowing, representing, perceiving or thinking: I know of no expression which conveys this.

Seneca, when speaking of lightning shot down from heaven, says:[274] "In his, ignibus accidit, quod arboribus: quarum cacumina, si tenera sunt, ita deorsum trahi possunt, ut etiam terram attingant; sed quum permiseris, in locum suum exsilient. Itaque non est quod eum spectes cujusque rei habitum, qui illi non ex voluntate est. Si ignem permittis ire quo velit, cœlum repetet." In a more [323] general sense Pliny says: nec quærenda in ulla parte naturæ ratio, sed voluntas.[275] Nor do we find Greek less fertile in instances. Aristotle, when explaining gravity, says: μικρὸν μὲν μόριον τῆς γῆς, ἐὰν μετεωρισθὲν ἀφεθῇ, φέρεται, καὶ μένειν οὐκ ἐθέλει (parva quædam terræ pars, si elevata dimittitur, neque vult manere).[276] And: Δεῖ δὲ ἕκαστον λέγειν τοιοῦτον εἶναι, ὃ φύσει βούλεται εἶναι, καὶ ὃ ὑπάρχει, ἀλλὰ μὴ ὃ βίᾳ καὶ παρὰ φύσιν (unumquodque autem tale dicere oportet, quale naturâ suâ esse vult, et quod est; sed non id quod violentiâ et præter naturam est).[277] Of great and more than merely linguistic importance is what Aristotle says in his "Ethica magna,"[278] where not only animals, but inanimate beings (fire striving upwards and earth downwards) are explicitly in question, and he asserts that they may be obliged to do something contrary to their nature or their will: παρὰ φύσιν τι, ἢ παρ' ἃ βούλονται ποιεῖν,—and therefore rightly places παρ' ἃ βούλονται as a paraphrase of παρὰ φύσιν.—Anacreon, in his 29th Ode, εἰς Βάθυλλον, in ordering the portrait of his lady-love, says of her hair: Ἕλικας δ' ἐλευθέρους μοι πλοκάμων, ἄτακτα συνθείς, ἄφες, ὡς θέλωσι, κεῖσθαι (capillorum cirros incomposite jungens, sine utut volunt jacere).[279] In German, Bürger says: "hinab will der Bach, nicht hinan" (the brook will go downwards not upwards). In daily life we constantly hear: "the water boils, it will run over,"—"the glass will break,"—"the ladder will not stand;"—"le feu ne veut pas brûler."—"la corde, une fois tordue, veut toujours se retordre."—In English, the verb 'to [324] will' is even the auxiliary of the future of all the other verbs, thus expressing the notion, that there lies a will at the bottom of every action. In English moreover, the endeavours of all inanimate and unconscious things, are expressly designated by the word want, which denotes every sort of human desire or endeavour: "the water wants to get out,"—"the steam wants to find an issue."—In Italian too we have "vuol piovere;" "quest' orologio non vuol andare."—The conception of willing is besides so deeply rooted in this last language, that it seems to indicate everything that is requisite or necessary: "ci vuol un contrappeso;" "ci vuol pazienza."

A very striking instance of this is to be found even in Chinese—a language which differs fundamentally from all those belonging to the Sanskrit family—it is in the commentary to the Y-King,[280] accurately rendered by Peter Regis as follows: "Yang, seu materia cœlestis, vult rursus ingredi, vel (ut verbis doctoris Tsching-tse utar) vult rursus esse in superiore loco; scilicet illius naturæ ratio ita fert, seu innata lex."

The following passage from Liebig[281] has decidedly much more than a linguistic signification, for it expresses an intimate feeling and comprehension of the way in which a chemical process takes place. "Aldehyd arises, which with the same avidity as sulphurous acid, combines directly with oxygen to form acetic acid."—And again:[282] "Aldehyd, which absorbs oxygen from the air with great avidity." As Liebig uses this expression twice in speaking of the same phenomenon, it can hardly be by chance, but rather because it was the only adequate expression for the thing.[283] [325] That most immediate stamp of our thoughts, language, shows us therefore, that every inward impulse must necessarily be conceived as volition; but it by no means ascribes knowledge to things as well. The agreement on this point between all languages, perhaps without a single exception, proves that here we have to do with no mere figure of speech, but that the verbal expression is determined by a deeply-rooted feeling of the inner nature of things.

[326]

ANIMAL MAGNETISM AND MAGIC.

In 1818, when my chief work first appeared, Animal Magnetism had only begun to struggle into existence. But, as to its explanation—although, to be sure, some light had been thrown upon the passive side of it, that is, upon what goes on within the patient, by the contrast between the cerebral and the ganglionic systems, to which Reil had drawn attention, having been taken for the principle of explanation—the active side, the agent proper by means of which the magnetiser evokes all these phenomena, was still completely shrouded in darkness. People groped about among all sorts of material principles of explanation, such as Mesmer's all-permeating ether, or the exhalations from the magnetiser's skin, assumed by Stieglitz to be the cause, &c. &c. At the utmost a nerve-spirit had been recognised and, after all, this was but a word for an unknown thing. The truth had scarcely begun to dawn upon a few persons, whom practice had more deeply initiated. But I was still far from hoping for any direct corroboration of my doctrine from Magnetism.

Dies diem docet however, and the great teacher, experience, has since brought to light an important fact concerning this deep-reaching agent which, proceeding from the magnetiser, produces effects apparently so contrary to the regular course of Nature that the long lasting doubt as to their existence, the stiff-necked incredulity, the condemnation of a Committee of which Lavoisier and Franklin were members, in short, the whole opposition that Magnetism encountered both in its first and second period (with the sole [327] exception of the coarse, unintelligent condemnation without inquiry, which till very lately, prevailed in England) is quite excusable. The fact I allude to is, that this agent is nothing but the will of the magnetiser. To-day not a doubt exists on this point, I believe, among those who combine practice with insight; therefore I think it superfluous to quote the numerous assertions of magnetisers in corroboration of it.[284] Time has thus not only verified Puységur's watchword and that of the older French magnetisers: "Veuillez et croyez!" i.e. "Will with belief!" but this very watchword has even developed into a correct insight of the process itself.[285] From Kieser's "Tellurismus," still probably the most thorough and detailed text book of Animal Magnetism we have, it clearly results, that no act of Magnetism can take effect without the will; on the other hand the bare will, without any outward action, is able to produce every magnetic effect. Manipulation seems to be only a means of fixing, and so to say incorporating, the will and its direction. In this sense Kieser says: "Inasmuch as the human hand—being the organ by which Man's outward activity is most visibly expressed—is the efficient organ in magnetising, manipulation arises." De Lausanne, a French magnetiser, pronounces himself with still greater precision on this point in the Fourth Book of his "Annales du Magnétisme Animal" (1814-1816), where he says: "L'action du magnétisme dépend de la seule volonté, il est vrai; mais l'homme ayant une forme extérieure et sensible, tout ce qui est à son usage, tout ce qui doit agir sur lui, doit nécéssairement [328] en avoir une, et pour que la volonté agisse, il faut qu'elle employe un mode d'action." As, according to my doctrine, the organism is but the mere phenomenon, the visibility, the objectivity of the will; nay, as it is properly speaking only the will itself, viewed as representation in the brain: so also does the outward act of manipulation coincide with the inward act of the will. But where magnetic effects are produced without manipulation, they take place as it were artificially, in a roundabout way, the imagination taking the place of the outer act and even occasionally that of personal presence: wherefore it is much more difficult and succeeds less frequently. Kieser accordingly alleges that the word "Sleep!" or "You must!" said aloud, has a more powerful effect upon a somnambulist than the mere inward willing of the magnetiser.—On the other hand manipulation, and in general outward action, is really an infallible means of fixing the magnetiser's will and promoting its activity; precisely because outward acts are quite impossible apart from all will, the body and its organs being nothing but the visibility of the will itself. This explains the fact, that magnetisers at times magnetise without any conscious effort of volition and almost without thinking, and yet produce the desired effect. On the whole, it is not the consciousness of volition, reflection upon it, that acts magnetically, but pure volition itself, as detached as possible from all representation. In Kieser's directions to magnetisers therefore,[286] we find all thinking and reflecting upon their respective doing and suffering, all conversation between them, forbidden both to physician and patient; also all outward impressions which arouse representations, the presence of strangers, and even daylight. He advises that everything should proceed as unconsciously as possible, as is likewise recommended in charm-cures. The true reason of all this is, that [329] here the will operates in its primariness, as thing in itself; and this demands the exclusion, as far as possible, of representation, as a different sphere, as secondary to the will. Facts to prove that the real agent in magnetising is the will and each outward act only its vehicle, may be found in all the more recent and more trustworthy writings upon Magnetism, and it would be needless prolixity to repeat them here. Nevertheless I will quote one case, not as being especially striking, but as furnished by a remarkable person and having a peculiar interest as his testimony. Jean Paul says in a letter:[287] "Twice in a large company I have made Frau von K. nearly go to sleep by merely looking at her with a firm will, no one else knowing anything about it, and before that, I had brought on palpitation of the heart and pallor to such a degree that Dr. S. had to be summoned to her assistance."[288] Nowadays too, merely laying and keeping hold of the patient's hands while fixing [330] the eye steadily upon him, is frequently substituted with complete success for the customary manipulation; precisely because even this outward act is suited to fix the will in a determined direction. But this immediate power which the will can exercise over other persons, is brought to light best of all by the admirable experiments made, even in public, by M. Dupotet and his pupils in Paris, in which a stranger is guided and determined at pleasure by the magnetiser's mere will, aided by a few gestures, and is even forced into the most extraordinary contortions. An apparently quite honestly written pamphlet, entitled "First glance into the wonder-world of Magnetism," by Karl Scholl (1853), contains a brief account of this.

In the "Communications concerning the somnambulist, Auguste K. in Dresden" (1843), we find the truth in question confirmed in another way by what the somnambulist herself says, p. 53: "I was half asleep and my brother [331] wished to play a piece he knew. As I did not like it, I requested him not to play it; nevertheless he tried to do so and then, by means of my firm will that he should not, I succeeded in making him unable to remember the piece, in spite of all his endeavours."—The thing is however brought to a climax when this immediate power of the will is extended even to inanimate bodies. However incredible this may appear, we have nevertheless two accounts of it coming from entirely different quarters. In the book just mentioned,[289] it is related and testified by witnesses, that Auguste K. caused the needle of the compass to deviate at one time 7° and at another 4°, this experiment moreover being repeated four times. She did this moreover without any use of her hands, through her mere will, by looking steadily at it.—The Parisian somnambulist, Prudence Bernard, again in a public séance in London, at which Mr. Brewster, the physicist's son and two other gentlemen from among the spectators acted as jurors, made the compass needle deviate and follow her movements by simply turning her head round.[290]

Now, if we thus see the will—stated by me to be the thing in itself, the only real thing in all existence, the kernel of Nature—accomplish through the human individual, in Animal Magnetism and even beyond it, things which cannot be explained according to the causal nexus, i.e. in the regular course of Nature; if we find it in a sense even annulling Nature's laws and actually performing actio in distans, consequently manifesting a supernatural, that is, metaphysical, mastery over Nature—what corroboration better founded on fact could I desire for my doctrine? Was not even Count Szapary, a magnetiser [332] who certainly did not know my philosophy, led by the results of his own experience, after writing the title of his book: "A word about Animal Magnetism, soul-bodies and vital essence,"[291] to add the following remarkable explanatory words: "or physical proofs that the current of Animal Magnetism is the element, and the will the principle of all spiritual and corporeal life?"[292]—According to this, Animal Magnetism presents itself directly as practical Metaphysic, which was the term used by Bacon of Verulam[293] to define Magic in his classification of the sciences: it is empirical or experimental Metaphysic.—Further, because the will manifests itself in Animal Magnetism downright as the thing in itself, we see the principium individuationis (Space and Time), which belongs to mere phenomenon, at once annulled: its limits which separate individuals from one another, are destroyed; Space no longer separates magnetiser and somnambulist; community of thoughts and of motions of the will appears; the state of clairvoyance overleaps the relations belonging to mere phenomenon and conditioned by Time and Space, such as proximity and distance, the present and the future.

In consequence of these facts, notwithstanding many reasons and prejudices to the contrary, the opinion has gradually gained ground, nay almost raised itself to certainty, that Animal Magnetism and its phenomena are identical with part of the Magic of former times, of that ill-famed occult art, of whose reality not only the Christian ages by which it was so cruelly persecuted, but all, not excepting even savage, nations on the whole of the earth, [333] have been equally convinced throughout all ages. The Twelve Tables of the Romans,[294] the Books of Moses, and even Plato's Eleventh Book on Laws, already made its practice punishable by death, and Apuleius' beautiful speech[295] before the court of justice, when defending himself against the charge of practising magic by which his life was menaced, proves how seriously this matter was taken even in the most enlightened Roman period, under the Antonines; since he merely tries to clear himself personally from the charge in question, but by no means contests the possibility of witchcraft and even enters into a host of absurd details such as are wont to figure in all the mediæval trials for witchcraft. The eighteenth century makes an exception as regards this belief in Magic, and this is mainly because Balthasar Becker, Thomasius and some others, with the good intention of putting an end once for all to the cruel trials for witchcraft, declared all magic to be impossible. Favoured by the philosophy of the age, this opinion soon gained the upper hand, although only among the learned and educated classes. The common people have never ceased to believe in witchcraft, even in England; though here the educated classes contrive to unite a degrading religious bigotry with the firm incredulity of a Saint Thomas (or of a Thomasius) as to all facts transcending the laws of impact and counter-impact, acids and alkalis, and refuse to lend an ear to their great countryman, when he tells them that 'there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in their philosophy.' One branch of Magic is still notoriously preserved and practised among the lower orders, being tolerated on account of its beneficent purpose. This is curing by charms (sympathetische Kuren, as they are called in German), the reality of which can hardly be doubted. Charming away warts, [334] is one of the commonest forms of this practice, and of this Bacon of Verulam, cautious and empirical though he was, attests the efficacy from personal experience.[296] The charming away of erisypelas in the face by a spell, is another instance, and so often succeeds, that it is easy to convince oneself of its existence. Fever too is often successfully combated by spells, &c. &c.[297]—That, in all this, the real agents are not the meaningless words and ceremonies, but that it is the will of the operator which acts, as in Animal Magnetism, needs no further explanation after what has been said above. For such as are still unacquainted with charm-cures, instances may be found in Kieser.[298]—These two facts therefore, Animal Magnetism and Charm-curing, bear empirical evidence to the possibility of magical, as opposed to physical, influence, which possibility had been so peremptorily rejected by the past century; since it refused to recognise as possible any other [335] than physical influences brought about in the way of the intelligible nexus of causality.

It is a fortunate circumstance, that the rectification of this view in our time should have come from medical science; because it ensures us at the same time against the danger of the pendulum of opinion receiving too strong an impulse in the contrary direction, and thus carrying us back to the superstition of ruder ages. Besides, as I have said, Animal Magnetism and Charm-curing only save the reality of a part of Magic, which included a good deal more, a considerable portion of which must, for the present at least, remain under the old sentence of condemnation or be left in uncertainty; whereas another portion will at any rate have to be conceived as possible, through its analogy to Animal Magnetism. For Animal Magnetism and Charm-cures are but salutary influences exercised for curative purposes, like those recorded in the "History of Magic" as practised by the so-called (Spanish) Saludadores,[299] who nevertheless were also condemned by the Church; whereas Magic was far oftener practised with an evil intent. Nevertheless, to judge by analogy, it is more than probable, that the same inherent force which, by acting directly upon another individuality, can exercise a salutary influence, will be at least as powerful to exercise a prejudicial and pernicious one. If therefore there was reality in any part of ancient Magic beyond what may be referred to Animal Magnetism and curing by charms, it must assuredly have been in that which is called maleficium and fascinatio, the very thing that gave rise to most of the trials for witchcraft. In Most's book, too, already mentioned,[300] a few facts are related which must [336] undoubtedly be ascribed to maleficium; in Kieser,[301] also we find instances of diseases which had been transmitted, especially to dogs, who died of them. In Plutarch[302] we find that fascinatio was already known to Democritus, who tried to explain it as a fact. Now admitting these stories to be true, they give us the key to the crime of witchcraft, the zealous persecution of which would therefore not have been quite without reason. For even if in most cases it may have been founded upon error and abuse, we are still not authorized to look upon our forefathers as having been so utterly benighted, as to persecute with the utmost vigour and cruelty for so many ages an absolutely impossible crime. From this point of view moreover, we can also understand that the common people should still even to the present day persist in attributing certain cases of illness to a maleficium, and are not to be dissuaded from this conviction. Now if we are thus induced by the progress of the age to modify the extreme view adopted by the last century concerning the absolute nullity of this ill-famed art—at any rate with respect to some part of it—still nowhere is caution more necessary than here, in order to fish out from the chaos of fraud, falsehood and absurdity contained in the writings of Agrippa von Nettesheim, Wierus, Bodinus, Delrio, Bindsfeldt, &c. &c., the few isolated truths that may lie in them. For, frequent though they may be throughout the world, nowhere have lies and deceit freer play than where Nature's laws are avowedly set aside, nay declared invalid. Here therefore we find the wildest fictions, the strangest freaks of the imagination worked up into an edifice, lofty as the skies, on the narrow foundation of the slight particle of truth there may have been in Magic, and in consequence of this, the [337] most sanguinary atrocities perpetrated age after age. In contemplating such things, the psychological reflection on the unlimited capability of the human intellect for accepting the most incredible absurdities and the readiness of the human heart to set its seal to them by cruelty, prevails over every other.

Yet the modification which has taken place of late in the views of German savants respecting magic, is not due exclusively to Animal Magnetism. The deep foundations of it had already been laid by the change in philosophy wrought by Kant, which makes German culture differ fundamentally from that of the rest of Europe, with respect to philosophy as well as to other branches of knowledge.—For a man to be able to smile beforehand at all occult sympathies, let alone magical influences, he must find the world very, nay completely, intelligible. But this is only possible if he looks at it with the utterly superficial glance which puts away from it all suspicion that we human beings are immersed in a sea of riddles and mysteries and have no exhaustive knowledge or understanding either of things or of ourselves in any direct way. Nearly all great men have been of the opposite frame of mind and therefore, whatever age or nation they belonged to, have always betrayed a slight tinge of superstition. If our natural mode of knowing were one that handed over to us things in themselves immediately and consequently gave us the absolutely true relations and connections of things, we might then, no doubt, be justified in rejecting à priori, therefore unconditionally, all prescience of future events, all apparitions of absent, of dying, let alone of deceased persons, and all magical influence. But if all that we know is, as Kant teaches, mere phenomenon, the forms and laws of which do not extend to things in themselves, it must be obviously premature to reject all foreknowledge, all apparitions and all magic; since that [338] rejection is based upon laws, whose à priori character precisely restricts them to phenomena; whereas things in themselves, to which even our own inner self must belong, remain untouched by them. But it is quite possible for these very things in themselves to have relations with us from which the above-mentioned occurrences may have arisen, concerning which accordingly we have to wait for the decision à posteriori, and must not forestall it. That the English and French should persist in denying à priori all such occurrences, comes at the bottom from the influence of Locke's philosophy, under which these nations still stand as to all essential points, and by which we are taught that, after merely subtracting sensation, we know things in themselves. According to this view therefore, the laws of the material world are held to be ultimate, and no other influence than influxus physicus is admitted. Consequently these nations believe, it is true, in a physical, but not in a metaphysical, science, and therefore reject all other than so-called "Natural Magic:" a term which contains the same contradictio in adjecto as "Supernatural Physics," but is nevertheless constantly used quite seriously, while the latter was used but once, and then in joke, by Lichtenberg. On the other hand, the common people, with their universal readiness to give credit to supernatural influences, express by it in their own way the conviction, that all things which we perceive and comprehend are mere phenomena, not things in themselves; although, with them, conviction is only felt. I quote the following passage from Kant's "Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten," as a proof that this is not saying too much: "There is an observation requiring no great subtlety of reflection, which we may on the contrary suppose the most ordinary understanding capable of making, albeit in its own way and by an obscure distinction of the faculty of judgment, which it calls feeling. It is this: that all our [339] involuntary representations (such as those of the senses) give us no further knowledge of objects than as they affect us, whereby we are left in ignorance as to what those objects may be in themselves; that, as far as this sort of representation is concerned therefore, we are still only able by this means to attain knowledge of phenomena, but never of things in themselves, even by dint of the utmost clearness and the most strenuous attention the understanding is able to give to this point. When once this distinction is made, however, it stands to reason, that the existence of something else behind these phenomena, something which is not phenomenon, i.e. the thing in itself, has still to be admitted and assumed."[303]

When we read D. Tiedemann's "History of Magic,"[304] we are astonished at the persistency with which mankind have clung to the thought of Magic in all places and at all times, notwithstanding frequent failure; and we come to the conclusion, that this thought must, to say the least, be deeply rooted in human nature, if not in things in general, and cannot be a mere arbitrary creation of the fancy. Although Magic is differently defined by the various authors who have treated of it, the fundamental thought which predominates in all its definitions is nevertheless unmistakeable. For the opinion, that there must be another quite different way of producing changes in the world besides the regular one through the causal nexus between bodies, and one moreover which is not founded at all upon that nexus, has found favour in all ages and countries. Therefore also the means belonging to this second way appeared absurd, when they were viewed in the same light as the first; since the cause applied was obviously not suited [340] to the effect intended and a causal nexus between them was impossible. But here it was assumed, that apart from the outer connection between the phenomena of this world on which the nexus physicus is founded, there must exist another besides, passing through the very essence in itself of all things: a subterranean connection as it were, by means of which immediate action was possible from one point of the phenomenon on to every other point, through a nexus metaphysicus;

that accordingly, it must be possible to act upon things from inside, instead of from outside, as is usual;

that it must be possible for phenomenon to act upon phenomenon by means of that being in itself, which is one and the same in all phenomena;

that, just as we act causally as natura naturata, we might probably be able to act also as natura naturans, and momentarily to enable the microcosm to play the part of the macrocosm;

that, however firm the partition walls of individuation and separation might be, they might nevertheless occasionally permit a communication to take place as it were behind the scenes, or like a secret game under the table; and

that, just as a neutralisation of individual isolation takes place in somnambulistic clairvoyance, so likewise might a neutralisation of the will in the individual be possible. Such a thought as this cannot have arisen empirically, nor can it have been confirmation through experience that has preserved it throughout all ages and in all countries: for in the majority of cases experience must result downright unfavourably to it. I opine therefore, that the origin of this thought, which has universally held its ground with the whole of mankind and, in spite of so much conflicting experience, in defiance of common sense, has never been eradicated, must be sought at great depth: namely in the inward feeling of the omnipotence of the will in itself—of [341] that will, which constitutes at once the inner essence of Man and of the whole of Nature—and in the assumption connected with it that, somehow or other, this omnipotence might possibly for once make itself felt, even when proceeding from the individual. People were unable to investigate and distinguish the difference between the capabilities of the will as thing in itself and the same will in its individual manifestation; but they assumed without further ado, that under certain circumstances, the will might be enabled to break through the barriers of individuation. For the above-mentioned feeling rebelled obstinately against the knowledge forced upon it by experience, that

According to the fundamental thought just expounded, we find that the physical medium used in all attempts at magic, never was regarded in any other light than in that of a vehicle for a thing metaphysical; otherwise it could evidently stand in no relation whatever to the effect contemplated. These media consisted in cabalistic words, symbolical actions, traced figures, wax images, &c. &c. We see too that, according to the original feeling, what this vehicle conveyed, was in the last resort always an act of volition that had been connected with it. The very natural inducement to do this, was the observation, that every moment men became aware of a completely unaccountable, that is, evidently metaphysical, agency of the will, in the movements of their own bodies. Might not this agency, they thought, be extended to other bodies also? To find out a way to annul the isolation in which the will finds itself in each individual, and to extend the immediate sphere of the will's action beyond the organism of the person willing, was the aim of Magic.

[342] A great deal was nevertheless still wanting ere this fundamental thought, from which Magic seems properly to have sprung, could pass over at once into distinct consciousness and be recognised in abstracto, and ere Magic could at once understand itself. Only a few thoughtful and learned writers of former ages—as I mean soon to prove by quotations—express the distinct thought, that it is in the will itself that the magic power lies, and that the strange signs and acts together with the senseless words that accompanied them, which passed for the means of exorcising and the connecting link with demons, are in fact merely vehicles and means for fixing the will, by which the act of volition, which is to act magically, ceases to be mere wish and becomes deed, or, to use the language of Paracelsus, "receives a corpus," and the individual will in a sense distinctly proclaims that it is now acting as general will, as will in itself. For in every act of Magic—charm-cure or whatever else it may be—the outward action (the connecting link) is exactly what the passes are in magnetising: i.e. not what is really essential, but the mere vehicle, that by which the will, the only real agent, is directed and fixed in the material world and enters into reality. As a rule therefore, it is indispensable.—From the rest of the writers of those times we gather that, in conformity with that fundamental thought of Magic, their only aim was to obtain absolute, arbitrary power over Nature. But they were unable to elevate themselves to the thought that this power must be a direct one; they conceived it, on the contrary, absolutely as an indirect one. For all religions in all countries had placed Nature under the dominion of gods and of demons. Now, it was the magician's endeavour to subject these gods and demons to his will, to induce, nay, to force them to serve him; and he attributed all that he succeeded in achieving to their agency, just as Mesmer attributed the success of his Magnetism to the magnetic [343] rods he held in his hands, instead of to his will which was the real agent. It was in this sense that all polytheistic nations took the matter, and even Plotinus,[305] but more especially Iamblichus, understood Magic: that is, as Theurgy, an expression which Porphyry was the first to use. That divine aristocracy, Pantheism, was favourable to this interpretation, since it distributed the dominion over the different forces of Nature among as many gods and demons—mostly mere personifications of natural forces—and the magician, by persuasion or by force, subjected now one, now the other of these divinities to his power and made them do his bidding. But in a Divine Monarchy, where all Nature obeys a single ruler, the thought of contracting a private alliance with the Almighty, let alone of exercising sovereignty over him, would have been too audacious. Therefore where Judaism, Christianity or Islam prevailed, the omnipotence of the one God stood in the way of this interpretation of Magic: an omnipotence which the magician could not venture to attack. He had no alternative therefore, but to take refuge with the Devil, and with this rebellious spirit—perhaps even direct descendant of Ahriman—to whom some power over Nature was still attributed, he now entered into a compact, by which he ensured to himself his assistance. This was "necromancy" (the 'black art'). Its antithesis, 'white Magic,' was opposed to it by the circumstance that, in it, the magician did not make friends with the Devil, but rather solicited the permission, not to say co-operation, of the Almighty himself, to intercede with the angels; oftener still, he invoked devils by pronouncing the rarer Hebrew names and titles of the One God, such as Adon-Ai, &c. &c., and compelled them to obey him, without promising [344] them anything in return for their services, in a hell-compulsion[306] (Höllenzwang).—But all these mere interpretations and outward trappings of the thing were received so entirely as its essence and as objective processes, that writers like Bodinus, Delrio, Bindsfeldt, &c., whose knowledge of magic was second-hand and not derived from personal experience, all assert the essential characteristic of Magic to be, that it does not act either through forces of Nature or in a natural way, but through the assistance of the Devil. This view was, and long remained, current everywhere, locally modified according to the religions which prevailed in different countries. The laws against sorcery and the trials for witchcraft were based upon it; likewise, wherever the possibility of Magic was contested, the attacks were generally directed against this opinion. An objective view, such as this, was an inevitable consequence of the decided Realism which prevailed throughout ancient and mediæval Europe and which Descartes was the first to disturb. Till then, Man had not learnt to direct the light of speculative thought towards the mysterious depths of his own inner self, but, on the contrary, had sought everything outside himself. Above all the thought of making the will he found within him rule over Nature, was so bold, that people would have been alarmed by it: therefore it was made to rule over fictitious beings, supposed by the prevailing superstition to have command over Nature, in order through them to obtain at least indirect mastery over Nature. Every sort of god or demon moreover, is always a hypostasis, by which believers of all sects and colours bring to their own comprehension the Metaphysical, that which lies behind Nature, that which gives her existence and consistence and consequently rules over her. Thus, when it is said, that Magic acts by the help of demons, [345] the meaning which lies at the bottom of this thought still is, that it is an agency which is not physically, but metaphysically exercised: that it is not a natural, but a supernatural, agency. Now if, in the small amount of fact which speaks in favour of the reality of Magic: that is, in Animal Magnetism and charm-cures, we still do not recognise anything but an immediate action of the will which here manifests its direct power outside, instead of inside, the individual; if moreover, as I am about to show and to substantiate by decisive, unequivocal citations, those who are more deeply initiated into ancient Magic, derive all its effects from the magician's will alone: this is surely strong empirical evidence in support of my doctrine, that the Metaphysical in general, that which alone exists apart from representation, the thing in itself of the universe—is nothing but what is known to us within ourselves as the will.

Now, if the direct power which may occasionally be exercised over Nature by the will, was conceived by those magicians as a merely indirect one, acquired by the help of demons, this still could not prevent its efficiency wherever and whenever it may have taken place. For, precisely because, in things of this kind, the will acts in itself, in its primariness, therefore apart from representation, its efficiency cannot be frustrated by erroneous conceptions of the intellect; on the contrary, the distance here is a wide one between theory and practice: the errors of the former do not stand in the way of the latter, nor does a correct theory qualify for practice. Mesmer, in the beginning, attributed his agency to the magnetic rods he held in his hands and later on explained the wonders of Animal Magnetism by a materialistic theory of a subtle, all-permeating fluid; nevertheless he produced wonderfully powerful effects. I once myself knew the proprietor of an estate, whose peasants were wont by tradition to have their feverish attacks dispelled by a spell of their master's. Now, [346] although he believed he had convinced himself of the impossibility of all such things, yet he continued good-naturedly to comply with their wish as usual, and indeed often succeeded in relieving them. This success he ascribed to his peasants' firm belief, forgetting that a similar faith ought also to bring success to the medical treatment which is so often applied with complete inefficacy to believing patients.

Now, if Theurgy and Demonomagic, as described above, were but the mere interpretation and outward trappings of the thing, the mere husk, at which the majority were content to stop short: there were nevertheless some, who went below the surface and quite recognised that the agent in influences supposed to proceed from magic, was absolutely nothing but the will. We must not however look for such deeper observers as these among the discountenancers and antagonists of Magic, and the majority of the writers on this subject belong precisely to these: they derived their knowledge exclusively from Courts of Justice and from the examination of witnesses, so that they merely describe the outside of the matter; and, if at any time they chanced, through confessions, to gain an insight into the inner processes they took good care not to betray that knowledge, lest, by doing so, they should contribute to diffuse the terrible vice of sorcery. To this class belong Bodinus, Delrio, Bindsfeldt, and others. For information as to the real nature of the thing, we must on the contrary go to philosophers and investigators of Nature, who wrote in those times of prevailing superstition. Now, from what they say, it clearly follows, that the real agent in Magic, just as in Animal Magnetism, is nothing but the will. Here I must quote some passages in support of this assertion.[307] Theophrastus Paracelsus especially disclosed [347] perhaps more concerning the inner nature of Magic than any other writer, and does not even hesitate to give a minute description of the processes used in it.[308]—He says:[309] "To be observed concerning wax images: if I bear malice in my will against anyone, that malice must be carried out by some medium or corpus. Thus it is possible for my spirit to stab or wound another person without help from my body in using a sword, merely by my fervent desire. Therefore it is also possible for me to convey my opponent's spirit into the image by my will and then to deform or paralyze it at pleasure.—You must know, that the influence of the will is a great point in medicine. For if a man hate another and begrudge him anything good, it is possible that if he curse him, that curse may take effect.—This occurs also with animals and more easily than with men; for the spirit of man has far greater power of resistance than that of animals."

And p. 375: "It follows from this, that one image has magic power over another, not by virtue of the characters or anything of that kind impressed on the virgin wax; but the imagination overcomes its own constellation, so as to become a means for fulfilling the will of its heaven, i.e. of its man."

p. 334: "All the imagining of man comes from his heart. The heart is the sun of the microcosm. And all the imagining of man passes from the small sun of the microcosm into the sun of the great Universe, into the heart of the macrocosm. Thus the imaginatio of the microcosm is a seed which becomes material," &c.

[348] p. 364: "It suffices for you to know what rigorous imagination does, which is the beginning of all magical works."

p. 789: "Even my thought therefore is a looking at a mark. Now I must not turn my eye with my hands in this or that direction; but my imagination turns it as I wish. And this is also to be understood of walking: I desire, I propose to myself, therefore my body moves, and the firmer my thoughts, the more sure it is that I shall run. Thus imaginatio alone is an impulse for my running."

p. 837: "Imaginatio used against me may be employed with such rigour, that I may be killed by the imaginatio of another person."

Vol. ii. p. 274: "Imagination comes from longing and desire: envy, hatred, proceed from longing, for they do not arise unless you long for them. As soon as you wish, the act of the imagination follows. This longing must be quick, ardent, lively, as that of a pregnant woman, &c. &c.—A general curse is commonly verified. Why? It comes from the heart, and the seed lies and is born in that coming from the heart. Thus parents' curses also come from the heart. The curse of the poor is likewise imaginatio. The prisoner's curse, also mere imaginatio, comes from the heart.... Thus too, when one man wishes to stab or paralyze, &c., another by means of his imaginatio, he must first attract the thing and instrument to himself and then he can impress it (with his wish): for whatever enters into it, may also go out of it again by the medium of thought as well as by that of the hands.... In such imagining, women outdo men ... for they are more ardent in revenge."

p. 298: "Magica is a great occult wisdom; just as Reason is a great, open folly.... No armour avails against sorcery, for it wounds the inner man, the vital spirit.... Some magicians make an image in the shape [349] of a man they intend [to harm], knock a nail into the sole of its foot, and the man is invisibly struck with lameness, until the nail is removed."

p. 307: "We ought to know, that we may convey the spirit of any man into an image, solely by faith and by our strong imagination.—No incantation is needed, and the ceremonies, drawing of circles, fumigations, seals, &c. &c. are mere humbug to mislead.—Homunculi and images are made, &c. &c. ... by which all the operations, powers and will of man are carried out.... The human heart is indeed so great a thing, that no one can express it: as God is eternal and imperishable, so also is the heart of man. If we men thoroughly recognised our heart, nothing would be impossible for us on earth.... Perfect imagination, coming from the stars (astris) arises from the heart."

p. 513: "Imaginatio is confirmed and rendered perfect by the belief that it really takes place: for every doubt injures the effect. Faith must confirm the imagination, for faith decides the will.... But just the fact that man does not always perfectly imagine, perfectly believe, causes acts to be called uncertain, which nevertheless may certainly and quite well exist." A passage from Campanella's book, "De sensu rerum et magia," may serve to elucidate this last sentence. Efficiunt alii ne homo possi futuere, si tantum credat: non enim potest facere quod non credit posse facere (l. iv. c. 18).

Agrippa von Nettesheim[310] speaks in the same sense. "Non minus subjicitur corpus alieno animo, quam alieno corpori;" and:[311] "Quidquid dictat animus fortissime odientis habet efficaciam nocendi et destruendi; similiter in ceteris, quæ affectat animus fortissimo desiderio. Omnia enim quæ tunc agit et dictat ex characteribus, figuris, verbis, gestibus et ejusmodi, omnia sunt adjuvantia appetitum animæ et acquirunt mirabiles quasdam virtutes, tum ab anima laborantis [350] in illa hora, quando ipsum appetitus ejusmodi maxime invadit, tum ab influxa cœlesti animum tunc taliter movente."[312]—"Inest hominum animis virtus quædam immutandi et ligandi res et homines ad id quod desiderat, et omnes res obediunt illi, quando fertur in magnum excessum alicujus passionis, vel virtutis, in tantum, ut superet eos, quos ligat. Radix ejusmodi ligationis ipsa est affectio animæ vehemens et exterminata."

And likewise Jul. Cæs. Vanninus, "De admir. naturæ arcan." L. iv. dial. 5, § 435: "Vehementem imaginationem, cui spiritus et sanguis obediunt, rem mente conceptam realiter efficere, non solum intra, sed et extra."[313]

Just so Joh. Bapt. Van Helmont, who takes great pains to explain away as much as possible of the Devil's influence, in order to attribute it to the will. I quote a few passages from the voluminous collection of his works, Ortus Medicinæ:

Recepta injecta. § 12. Quum hostis naturæ (diabolus) [351] ipsam applicationem complere ex se nequeat, suscitat ideam fortis desiderii et odii in saga, ut, mutuatis istis mentalibus et liberis mediis, transferat suum velle per quod quodque afficere intendit.[315] Quorsum imprimis etiam execrationes, cum idea desiderii et terroris, odiosissimis suis scrofis præscribit.—§ 13. Quippe desiderium istud, ut est passio imaginantis, ita quoque creat ideam, non quidem inanem, sed executivam atque incantamenti motivam.—§ 19. prout jam demonstravi, quod vis incantamenti potissima pendeat ab idea naturali sagæ.

De injectis materialibus. § 15. Saga, per ens naturale, imaginative format ideam liberam, naturalem et nocuam.... Sagæ operantur virtute naturali.... Homo etiam dimittit medium aliud executivum, emanativum et mandativum ad incantandum hominem; quod medium est Idea fortis desiderii. Est nempe desiderio inseparabile ferri circa optata.

De sympatheticis mediis. § 2. Ideæ scilicet desiderii, per modum influentiarum cœlestium, jaciuntur in proprium objectum, utcunque localiter remotum. Diriguntur nempe a desiderio objectum sibi specificante.

De magnetica vulnerum curatione. § 76. Igitur in sanguine est quædam potestas exstatica, quæ, si quando ardenti desiderio excita fuerit, etiam ad absens aliquod objectum, exterioris hominis spiritu deducenda sit: ea autem potestas in exteriori homine latet, velut in potentia; nec ducitur ad actum, nisi excitetur, accensa imaginatione ferventi desiderio, vel arte aliqua pari.—§ 98. Anima, prorsum spiritus, nequaquam posset spiritum vitalem (corporeum equidem), multo minus carnem et ossa movere aut concitare, nisi vis illi quæpiam naturalis, magica tamen et spiritualis, ex anima in spiritum et corpus descenderet. Cedo, quo pacto obediret spiritus corporeus jussui animæ, nisi jussus spiritum, [352] et deinceps corpus movendo foret? At extemplo contra hanc magicam motricem objicies, istam esse intra concretum sibi, suumque hospitium naturale, idcirco hanc etsi magam vocitemus, tantum erit nominis detorsio et abusus, siquidem vera et superstitiosa magica non ex anima basin desumit; cum eadem hæc nil quidquam valeat, extra corpus suum movere, alterare aut ciere. Respondeo, vim et magicam illam naturalem animæ, quæ extra se agat, virtute imaginis Dei, latere jam obscuram in homine, velut obdormire (post prævaricationem), excitationisque indigam: quæ eadem, utut somnolenta, ac velut ebria, alioqui sit in nobis quotidie: sufficit tamen ad obeunda munia in corpore suo: dormit itaque scientia et potestas magica, et solo nutu actrix in homine.—§ 102. Satan itaque vim magicam hanc excitat (secus dormientem et scientia exterioris hominis impeditam) in suis mancipiis, et inservit eadem illis, ensis vice in manu potentis, id est sagæ. Nec aliud prorsus Satan ad homicidium affert, præter excitationem dictæ potestatis somnolentæ.—§ 106. Saga in stabulo absente occidit equum: virtus quædam naturalis a spiritu sagæ, et non a Satana, derivatur, quæ opprimat vel strangulet spiritum vitalem equi.—§ 139. Spiritus voco magnetismi patronos, non qui ex cœlo demittuntur, multoque minus de infernalibus sermo est; sed de iis, qui fiunt in ipso homine, sicut ex silice ignis; ex voluntate hominis nempe aliquantillum spiritus vitalis influentis desumitur, et id ipsum assumit idealem entitatem, tanquam formam ad complementum. Qua nacta perfectione, spiritus mediam sortem inter corpora et non corpora assumit. Mittitur autem eo, quo voluntas ipsum dirigit; idealis igitur entitas ... nullis stringitur locorum, temporum aut dimensionum imperiis, ea nec dæmon est, nec ejus ullus effectus; sed spiritualis quædam est actio illius, nobis plane naturalis et vernacula.—§ 168. Ingens mysterium propalare hactenus distuli, ostendere videlicet, ad manum in homine sitam esse energiam, qua, solo nutu et phantasia sua, queat [353] agere extra se et imprimere virtutem aliquam, influentiam deinceps perseverantem, et agentem in objectum longissime absens.

P. Pomponatius also says: Sic contigit, tales esse homines, qui habeant ejusmodi vires in potentia, et per vim imaginativam et desiderativam cum actu operantur, tales virtus exit ad actum, et afficit sanguinem et spiritum, quæ per evaporationem petunt ad extra et producunt tales effectus.[316]

Jane Leade, an English mystic visionary of Cromwell's time and pupil of Pordage, has given us some very curious disclosures of this kind. She is led to Magic in a very singular way. For, as the doctrine of their becoming one with the God of their religion is a fundamental characteristic of all Mystics, so is it with Jane Leade also. Now, with her however, the human will has its share in the omnipotence of the Divine will as a consequence of the two having become one, and accordingly acquires magic power. What other magicians therefore believe to be due to a compact with the Devil, she attributes to her becoming one with her God. Her Magic is therefore in the highest sense 'white Magic.' Besides, this alters nothing as to the practice and results. She is reserved and mysterious, as people had to be in those times; still it is easy to see that the thing is not a mere theoretical corollary, but that it has sprung from knowledge and experience obtained in another way.

It is in her "Revelation of Revelations"[317] that we find the chief passage; but the following one, which is rather an abridgment than a literal quotation and is contained in Horst's "Zauberbibliothek,"[318] comes from the same book: "Magic power enables its possessor to rule over [354] and to renew the creation—i.e. the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms—so that, were many to co-operate in one magical power, Nature might be created anew as a paradise.... How is this magic power to be acquired? By renascence through faith: that is, by our will harmonizing with the divine will. For faith subjects the world to us, inasmuch as our own will, when it is in harmony with the divine will, results, as St. Paul tells us, in making everything submit to and obey us." Thus far Horst.—p. 131 of the "Revelation, &c.," Jane Leade shows that it was by the force of his will that Christ worked miracles, as, for instance, when he said to the leper: "I will; be thou clean." Sometimes however he left it to the will of those who, he saw, believed in him, saying to them: "'What will ye that I shall do unto you?' in which cases no less was done for them than they had desired in their will that the Lord should do. These words of our Saviour's are well deserving of notice, since the highest Magia lies in the will, so far as it is in union with the will of the Almighty: when these two wheels fit into each other, becoming in a sense one, they are, &c."—Again, p. 132, she says: "For what could resist that which is united with the will of God? The power of such a will is so great, that it always achieves its end. It is no naked will deprived of its clothing, or power; on the contrary, it brings with it an irresistible omnipotence, which enables it to uproot, to plant, to put to death and to bring to life, to bind and to loose, to heal and to injure, which power will be collected and concentrated in its entirety in the royal, free-born will. Of this power we shall attain knowledge, when we shall have been made one with the Holy Ghost. or when we shall be united in one spirit and being."—Again, p. 133: "We must quench or drown altogether the many multifarious wills which arise out of the mixed essence of souls, and they must lose themselves in the [355] abysmal depth from which there will then arise and present itself the virgin will, which was never the slave of anything belonging to degenerate man; on the contrary, it stands in connection with the Almighty Power, quite free and pure, and will infallibly produce fruits and results quite similar to those of the divine will ... wherefrom the burning oil of the Holy Ghost flows up in Magic, as it emits its fiery sparks."

Jacob Böhme too[319] speaks of Magic precisely in the sense here described. Among other things he says: "Magic is the mother of the essence of all beings: for it creates itself and is understood in desire.... True Magic is not a being, but the desiring spirit of the being.—In fine: Magic is action in the will's spirit."

In corroboration, or at any rate in explanation, of the above view of the will as the real agent in magic, a curious and interesting anecdote, related by Campanella, from Avicenna, may here find its place.[320] "Mulieres quædam condixerunt, ut irent animi gratia in viridarium. Una earum non ivit. Ceteræ colludentes arangium acceperunt et perforabant eum stilis acutis, dicentes: ita perforamus mulierem talem, quæ nobiscum venire detrectavit, et, projecto arangio intra fontem, abierunt. Postmodum mulierem illam dolentem invenerunt, quod se transfigi quasi clavis acutis sentiret, ab ea hora, qua arangium ceteræ; perforarunt: et cruciata est valde donec arangii clavos extraxerunt imprecantes bona et salutem."

Krusenstern[321] gives a very curious and minute description [356] of maleficent sorcery as practised, it is said successfully, by the priests of the savage tribes on the island of Nukahiva, the procedure in which is exactly similar to that of our cures by charms.—This fact is especially remarkable on account of the identity of the thing, notwithstanding the distance from all European tradition. With it ought to be compared Bende Bendsen's account of a headache he caused in another person by sorcery, through the medium of some of that person's hair which had been cut off. He concludes with the following words: "As far as I can learn, what is called witchcraft consists simply in preparing and applying noxious magnetic charms combined with a maleficent influence of the will: this is the detestable league with Satan."[322]

The agreement of all these writers, not only among themselves, but with the convictions to which Animal Magnetism has led in latter years, and finally even with what might be concluded from my speculative doctrine on this point, is surely a most remarkable phenomenon. This [357] much is at any rate certain, that at the bottom of all the experiments, successful or unsuccessful, which have ever been made in Magic, there lies an anticipation of my Metaphysic. For in them is expressed the consciousness, that the causal law only connects phenomena, while the inner nature of things remains independent of it; and also, that if any direct influence on Nature be possible from within, it can only take place through the will itself. But even if Magic were to be ranked as practical Metaphysic, according to Bacon's classification, it is certain that no other theoretical Metaphysic would stand in the right relation to it but mine, by which the world is resolved into Will and Representation.

The zealous cruelty with which Magic has always been persecuted by the Church and to which the papal malleus maleficarum bears terrible evidence, seems not to have for its sole basis the criminal purposes often associated with the practice of Magic or the part assumed to be played by the Devil, but rather to proceed partly from a vague foreboding and fear lest Magic should trace back its original power to its true source; whereas the Church has assigned to it a place outside Nature.[323] The detestation shown by the cautious clergy of England towards Animal Magnetism[324] tends to confirm this supposition, and also the active zeal with which they oppose table-turning, which at any rate is harmless, yet which, for the same [358] reason, has been violently assailed by the anathemas of the French, and even of the German, clergy.[325]

[359]

SINOLOGY.

Nothing perhaps points more directly to a high degree of civilization in China than the almost incredible density of its population, now rated, according to Gützlaff, at 367 millions of inhabitants.[326] For whether we compare countries or ages, we find on the whole that civilization keeps pace with population.

The pertinacious zeal with which the Jesuit missionaries of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries strove to inculcate their own relatively new doctrines into the minds of this very ancient nation, and their futile endeavours to discover early traces of their own faith in that country, left them no time for a profound study of the belief which prevails there. Therefore Europe has only lately obtained some slight knowledge of the religious state of the Chinese. We now know, that is to say, that in China there exists first of all a worship of Nature, which is universally professed, and dates from the earliest times, even, it is alleged, from before the discovery of fire, wherefore [360] animals were sacrificed raw. The sacrifices offered up publicly at certain seasons or after great events by the Chinese Emperor and the chief dignitaries of the Empire, belong to this worship. These sacrifices are dedicated first and foremost to the blue sky and to the earth—to the blue sky in the winter solstice, to the earth in the summer solstice—and, after these, to every possible power of Nature: the sea, mountains, rivers, winds, thunder, rain, fire, &c. &c. A genius presides over each of these, and each genius has several temples. On the other hand, each genius presiding over every single province, town, village, or street, nay over family funerals and even sometimes over a merchant's warehouse, has also temples; only, in the two last cases they are destined exclusively for private worship. But public worship is besides offered up to former illustrious Emperors, founders of dynasties and to heroes, i.e. to all such as have benefited (Chinese) mankind by word or deed. Even these have their temples: Confucius alone having no less than 1,650 dedicated to him. This therefore accounts for the great number of small temples found throughout the Empire. With this hero-worship too, is associated the private worship offered up by every respectable family on the tombs of their ancestors.—Now besides this worship of Nature and of heroes, which is universal, there are three other prevailing religious doctrines in China, more with a dogmatical intent. First among these is the doctrine of Taossee, founded by Laotse, an older contemporary of Confucius. This is the doctrine of Reason, as the inner order of the Universe or inherent principle of all things, of the great One, the sublime Gable-Beam (Taiki) which supports all the Rafters, yet is above them (properly the all-pervading Soul of the World) and of Tao, i.e. the Way, namely to salvation: that is, to redemption from the world and its misery. We have an exposition of this doctrine taken from the fountain-head in [361] Stanislas Julien's translation (1842) of Laotse's Taoteking, in which we find that the Tao-doctrine completely harmonizes with Buddhism both in meaning and in spirit. This sect however seems to have fallen very much into the background, and its teachers to be now looked down upon.—Secondly, we find the wisdom of Confucius, which has special attractions for Chinese savants and statesmen. Judging from translations, it is a rambling, commonplace, predominantly political, moral philosophy, without any metaphysical support, which has something peculiarly insipid and tiresome about it.—Finally, there exists for the bulk of the nation Buddha's sublime doctrine full of love. The name, or rather title, of Buddha in China is Fo or Fhu, whilst in Tartary the "Victoriously-Perfect" is more frequently called by his family-name, Shakia-Muni, and also Burkhan-Bakshi; in Birma and Ceylon, he is generally called Gótama or Tagátata, but his original name was Prince Siddharta.[327] This religion which, on account of its intrinsic [362] excellence and truth, as well as of the great number of its followers, may be considered as ranking highest among all religions on earth, prevails throughout the greater part of Asia, and according to the latest investigator, Spence [363] Hardy, numbers 369 millions of believers: that is, far more than any other.—These three religions, the most widely diffused of which, Buddhism, subsists without any protection whatever from the State, by its own power alone—a circumstance which speaks greatly in its favour—are far from being hostile to one another, and exist quietly side by side, nay, harmonize even to a certain extent, perhaps by reciprocal influence, so that the sentence: "The three doctrines are only one", has become proverbial. The Emperor, as such, professes all three; still many of the Emperors, even up to the most recent times, have been especially devoted to Buddhism. This is shown by their profound respect for the Dalaï-Lama, nay, even for the Teshoo-Lama, to whom they unhesitatingly yield precedence.—These three religions are neither monotheistic nor polytheistic, nor are they even pantheistic—Buddhism, at any rate, is not; since Buddha did not look upon a world sunk in sin and suffering, whose tenants, all subject to death, only subsist for a short time by devouring each other, as a manifestation of God. Moreover the word Pantheism, properly speaking, contains a contradiction; for it denotes a self-destroying conception, and has therefore never been understood otherwise than as a polite term of expression by those who know what seriousness means. It accordingly never entered into the heads of the clever, acute philosophers of the eighteenth century, not to take Spinoza for an Atheist, on account of his having called the world Deus; on the contrary, this discovery was reserved for the sham philosophers of our own times, who know nothing [364] but words: they even pique themselves on the achievement and accordingly talk about Acomism, the wags! But I would humbly suggest leaving their meanings to words—in short, calling the world, the world; and gods gods.