The philosophy of life, and philosophy of language, in a course of lectures. Friedrich von Schlegel

altogether to the wants of man, both in form and language, it consists of a collection of occasional and wholly practical compositions derived immediately from, and expressly designed for, life—in a certain sense it consists of nothing but the registers and social statutes either of the prophetic people or of the apostolical community. Accordingly, its contents are of a mixed nature: historical, legal, instructive, hortatory, consolatory, and prophetical, together with a rich abundance of minute and special allusions, while it enters every where into, and with watchful love adapts itself to, individual wants and local peculiarities. And the form of these writings, at once so singular in its kind—and in such marvelous wise, but yet so eminently human—is so far from being inconsistent with the divine character, that the very condescension of the Deity constitutes a new and additional but most characteristic proof of genuine revelation. Only the first foundation-stone and the key and corner-stone form an exception. Embracing within their spacious limits the beginning of nature and the end of the world, they form, as it were, the corner-rings and the bearing-staves of the ark of the covenant of revelation. And while on the one side as well as on the other, in the opening no less than in the closing book, which contain almost as many mysteries as words, the seven-branched candlestick of secret signification is set up, still all else that is inclosed within the holy ark receives therefrom sufficient light for its perfect elucidation. In all other respects the style is that of a plain narrative couched in very appropriate and simple words; and if the masters of criticism in classical antiquity have quoted a few passages from the beginning of Genesis as the most exalted instances of the sublime, still it was in the very simplicity and extreme plainness of the language that they recognized this character of sublimity. From these two ends, moreover—from this first root as well as from the last crown of the book, there proceeds many threads and veins, which, running through the tissue, bind it together more closely into a living unity, on which account, although consisting of so many and such divers books, it is justly considered as one, being called simply the “Book” (Bible). Consequently it would, as already said, be foolish to look for a system of science in the divine book for men. Nevertheless we do meet here and there with single words about nature and her secrets—hints occasionally dropped and seemingly accidental expressions—which, giving a clear and full information as to much that is hidden therein, furnish science consequently with so many keys for unlocking nature. These, indeed, are not scattered throughout in equal measure, but here, perhaps, more thinly, and there again more thickly. In all these passages, and especially those of the Old Testament, which not only depict the external beauties and visible glory of nature, but also touch upon its hidden powers and inmost secrets of life, we may observe a kind of intentional, I might, perhaps, say, cautious reserve and heedful circumspection, amounting at times almost to an indisposition to speak out fully and clearly, lest the abuse or probable misconception of what should be said might give encouragement to the heathenish and wide-spread deification of nature.

      In the New Testament (if we may venture to speak of these things in the same natural and human fashion that Scripture itself employs) the Holy Spirit uses language far more precise and clear. On the whole, the relation in which Holy Writ and divine revelation stand to nature itself, and the science thereof, is a peculiar one. It is eminently tender and wonderful, but not, indeed, intelligible at the first glance, or broadly definable according to any rigorous and established notion. It is one, however, capable of being made clearer by means of a simile borrowed from Scripture itself. Those guileless men whom the Redeemer chose as His instruments for carrying out His great work of the redemption of the world, were endued with miraculous powers, which it was and ever will be apparent, were not of their own strength, but of His. Now, of the first of these apostles it is narrated that a healing power, and, as it were, an invisible stream of life proceeded from him, without his being conscious of, or, at least, without his regarding it, which healed the sick who were brought out and placed within the range of his shadow as he passed by.[20] In the same manner the fiery wain of divine revelation, as it passes on its way, scatters, in single words and images, many a bright spark. The radiant shadow of the word of God, as it falls, is sufficient to kindle and throw a new light over the whole domain of nature, by means of which the true science thereof may be firmly established, its inmost secrets explored and brought into coherence and agreement with all else.

      I have already more than once called your attention to the method which all the philosophers of reason, without exception, pursue. In different ways, according to the special objects they have in view, they all alike presumed to set certain absolute and impassable limits to human reason (which, however, by some slight turn or other, they soon dextrously contrive to transgress) in order to bring within their system of absolute science—which is at best but a dead semblance—all that it will hold, and even what it can not contain. Quite different, however, is it with the truth, and with that living science which we take for the basis of our speculations. For from it it appears that the soul of man, however liable it may be to manifold error, is, nevertheless, capable of receiving the divine communications. Since, then, man can possess as many of these higher branches of knowledge, and can learn as much of divine things as it is given to him to know, and since, at the same time, it is God himself who is the primary source from which all man’s knowledge flows, and his guide to truth—who shall determine the measure and fix the limits—who shall dare to say how much of knowledge and of science God will vouchsafe to man?—who shall venture to prescribe the limits beyond which His illumination can not pass? This, it is evident, is illimitable. It may go on to an extent which, at the beginning, man would not have believed to be possible. In a word, though of himself, and by his own unassisted reason, man is incapable of knowing any thing, yet through God, if it be his will, he may attain to the knowledge of all things. And yet it is true, though in a very different sense from that intended by these philosophers of reason, that man’s knowledge is in reality limited. No absolute limit, indeed, is set to it. Yet because it is a mixed knowledge, composed of outward tradition and inward experience, and is founded on the perceptions of the external and internal senses, therefore is it made up of individual instances, extremely slow in its growth, and in no respect perfect and complete, and scarcely ever free from faults and deficiencies. Consequently, when considered in its totality, and as pretending to be a whole, it is invariably imperfect. But this character of imperfection belongs, in fact, to all real science, as derived from the experience of the senses. Seldom, indeed, is the first impression free from the admixture of error; numberless repeated observations, comparisons, essays, experiments, and corrections, which must often be carried on through many centuries, not to say many tens of centuries, are necessary before a pure and stable result can be attained to. In this way all truly human knowledge is imperfect, and “in part;” and although, on the contrary, the false conceited wisdom may parade itself from the very first as fully ripe and complete, yet in a very brief space indeed will its imperfection and rottenness appear.

      And, indeed, the character of imperfection shows itself, as in all other human things, so also in the science of nature. From its birth among the earliest naturalists of Greece to its boasted maturity among ourselves, it counts an age of two millenniums and a half of unbroken cultivation. But now if, looking beyond the explanation of single isolated facts, we consider rather our knowledge of nature in its universal system and internal constitution, can we say that physical science has, during the time, made more than, perhaps, two steps and a half of progress? And this slow and toilsome advance which, in a certain sense, never arrives at more than “knowing in part,” is the law of every department of human science. Consequently it may be justly said of the development of man’s science, that with God a thousand years are as a day, and one day as a thousand years.[21] All knowledge drawn from the senses and experience is bound by this condition. It may, no doubt, apply immediately and principally to external experience, which is dependent on the lower and ordinary senses, whether we reckon them according to the number of their separate organs as five, or as three in compliance with a more scientific classification. But it also holds equally good of those which we pointed out and described in the last Lecture as being the four superior scientific senses, the organs of a knowledge founded on a higher and internal experience, the sense, viz., of reason, the sense of understanding, the sense for nature or fancy, and the proper sense for God, which lies in the inmost free will of man. Not merely as the faculty of suggestion [Ahndungsvermogen], is fancy to be regarded as the higher and internal sense for nature, or because it is from this side that the affinity of man, and of man’s soul with nature, is most distinctly