Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher

plain this

question, 'It

?' thy answer

Beau

hah

so far as to say that all the activity of man, the practical as well as the theoretical, is an attempt to establish a modus vivendi between his environment and himself. And such an attempt rests on the assumption that there is some ground common to both of the struggling powers within and without, some principle that manifests itself both in man and in nature. So that all men are philosophers to the extent of postulating a unity, which is deeper than all differences; and all are alike trying to d

relation between man and the world, have a special right to a respectful hearing; for

safely mock a

ared the sapping

's strife with

on e

rd de Ma

l truth:-"Fichte, in the bright triumphant flight of his idealism, supported by faith in a moral order of the world which works for righteousness, turning his back on the darker ethics of self-torture and mortification, and rushing into the political and social fray, proclaiming the duties of patriotism, idealizing the soldier, calling to and exercising an active philanthrophy, living with his nation, and continually urging it upwards to

auer, by Pr

ts uselessness; for, even if it saves man from the bitterness of petty disappointments, it does so only by making the misery universal. There is no need to specify, when "All is vanity." The drowning man does not feel the discomfort of being wet. But yet, if we reflect on the problem of evil, we shall find that there is no neutral ground, and shall ultimately be driven t

ving how far it is applicable to the facts of human life. As I have previously said, he strives hard to come into fair contact with the misery of man in all its sadness; and, after doing so, he claims, not as a matter of poetic sentiment, but as a matter of strict truth, that good is the heart and reality of it all. It is true that he cannot demonstrate the truth of his princ

Master k

presence mult

t of the b

ncis F

g for his faith in the present; although he acknowledges that the "

gh th

and, this momen

t is, permit

shall

I

or in love, he confidently thinks we h

is based upon love and which professes to start from experi

say that love blushes in the rose, or breaks into beauty in the clouds, that it shows its strength in the storm, and sets the stars in the sky, and that it is in all things the source of order and law, may imply a p

nk I appreh

ameless shrug, p

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tifled in th

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all this we ar

y no other than

the Book-Canon C

are asked to put "Love" in the place of physical energy, and, by assuming it as a principle, to regard as unreal all the infinite misery of humanity and the degradation of intellect and character from which it arises, common-sense seems at once to take the side of the doleful sage of Chels

regards the substance of it. The presence of an idealistic element in things is recognized even by ordinary thought; and no man's world is so poor that it would not be po

first to be made by mind, out of the results of nervous excitation. In a word, modern psychology as well as modern metaphysics, is demonstrating more and more fully the dependence of the world, as it is known, on the nature and activity of man's mind. Every explanation of the world is found to be, in this sense, idealistic; and in this respect, there is no difference whatsoever between the interpretation given by science and that of poetry, or religion, or philosophy. If we say that a thing is a "substance," or has "a cause"; if, with the physicist, we assert the principle of the transmutation of energy, or make use of the idea of evolution with the biologist or geologist; nay, if we speak of time and space with the mathematician, we use principles of unity derived from self-consciousness, and interpret nature in terms of ourselves, just as truly as the poet or philosopher, who makes love, or reason, the constitutive element in things. If the p

ts as we know them exist; and we cannot be concerned with any other objects. The laws which scientific investigation discovers are not only ideas that can be written in books, but also principles which explain the nature of things. In other words, the hypotheses of the natural sciences, or their categories, are po

kn

sts in openi

risoned splend

ecting entr

to be w

arac

e one is objective and the other subjective. The true distinction is that the principles upon which the latter proceed are less abstract than those of science. "Reason" and "love" are higher principles for the explanation of the nature of things than "substance" or "cause"; but both are forms of the unity of thought. And if the latter seem to have nothing to do with the self, it is only because they

as already hinted, there is no doubt that science is becoming increasingly aware of the conditions, under which alone its results may be held as valid. At first, it drove "mind" out of the realm of nature, and offered to explain both it and man in physical and mathematical terms. But, in our day, the man of science has become too cautious to make such rash extensions of the principles he uses.

the interests and activities of man, other than those which are physical or physiological. And some of them are even aware, that if they could find the physical equation of man, or, through their knowledge of physiology, actually produce in man the sensations, thoughts, and notions now ascribed to the intelligent life within him, the question of the spiritual or material nature of man and the world, would remain precisely where it was. The explanation would still begin with mind and end there. The principles of the materialistic e

er, show a tendency to acquiesce in a kind of dualism of matter and spirit, and to leave morality and religion, art and philosophy to pursue their own ends undisturbed. Mr. Huxley, for instance, and some others, offer two ph

us consequences. It would require considerable hardihood to suggest that natural science should be swept away in favour of psychology, which would be done if the one view held by Mr. Huxley w

hat, if these rival lines of thought lead us to deny either the outer world of things, or the world of thought and morality, then they must both be wrong. They are not "explanations" but false theories, if they lead

sopher, is now known by most people to end in self-contradiction; and materialism is also known to begin with it. And there are not many people sanguine enough to believe with Mr. Huxley and Mr. Herbert Spencer, that, if we add two self-contradictory theories together, or hold them alternately, we shall find the truth. Modern science, that is, the science which does not philosophize, and modern philosophy are with tolerable unanimity denying this absolute dualism. They do not kn

le tendency of modern science implies the opposite of such a conception. History is striving to trace continuity between the civilized man and the savage. Psychology is making towards a junction with physiology and general biology, biology with chemistry, and chemistry with physics. That there is an unbroken continuity in existence is becoming a postulate of modern science, almost as truly as the "universality of law" or "the uniformity of nature." Nor is the postulate held less firmly because the evidence for the continuity of nature is not yet complete. Chemistry has not yet quite lapsed into physics; biology at present shows no sign of giving up its characteristic conception of life, and the former sc

en natural and self-conscious life; as if the validity of religion depended upon the maintenance of their separating boundaries. But no religion that is free from superstitious elements has anything to gain from the failure of knowledge to relate things to each other. It is difficult to see how breaks in the continuity of being can be established, when every living plant confutes the absolute difference between the organic and inorganic, and, by the very fact of living, turns the latter into the former; and it is difficult to deny the conti

the idea that the continuity asserted by evolution, is obtained by resolving the higher forms of existence into the lower. It is believed that, if the application of development to facts were successfully carried out, the organic woul

ophy, and it is not a superfluous one. But, so long as the employment of the categories in the special province of a particular science yields valid results, scientific explorers and those who attach, and rightly attach, so much value to their discoveries, are very unwilling to believe that these categories are not valid universally. The warning voice of philosophy is not heeded, when it charges natural science with applying its conceptions to materials to which they are inadequate; and its examination of the categories of thought is regarded as an innocent, but also a useless, activity. For, it is argued, what goo

tion of the relation of objects to each other, and in pointing to other and higher connecting ideas. And this consideration should go some way towards convincing evolutionists that, though they may be able successfully to apply the idea of development to particular facts, this does not guarantee the soundness o

ntrol of Mind by Matter. Trace the line of life backwards and see it approaching more and more to what we call the purely physical condition."B And then, rising to the height of his subject, or even above it, he proclaims, "By an intellectual necessity I cross the boundary of the experimental evidence, and discern in that Matter which we, in our ignorance of its latent powers, and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of all terrestrial life."C A little further on, speaking in the name of science, and on behalf of his scientific fellow-workers (with what right is a little doubtful), he adds-"We claim, an

Philosophy of Ka

British Associat

st Addre

the gods, but they sent

r to drink, and blue fie

f the President's Address,

at eating and drinking "illustrate the control of mind by matter," and "that the line of life traced backwards leads to

ead th

and thereof

whereon to pl

Hohenstiel

n refusal of consciousness to be resolved into natural force, and its power of constructing for itself a world of symbols, giv

s to the level

stand at ease t

al Nothing

ion of some ol

dista

Hohenstiel

superstition and ghost-worship of savages; and then it has been contended that it is, in essence, nothing more than superstition and ghost-worship. And, in like manner, morality, with its categorical imperative of duty, has been traced back, without a br

rs deduce y

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and forewent h

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er-savage, c

use of going

ve to prosecu

Blouhram

neral," the conduct of an "infusorium or a cephalopod," or even of wind-mills or water-wheels, it is not surprising if the authority of the moral la

antian doctrine of "things in themselves," -a doctrine which placed God and the soul beyond the power of speculative reason either to prove or disprove. It is, however, already recognized that the attempt of Mansel and Hamilton to degrade human reason for the behoof of faith was really a veiled agnosticism; and a little reflection must show that the idea of evolution, truly interpreted, in no wise threatens the degradation of man, or the overthrow of his spiritual interests. On the contrary, this idea is, in all the history of thought, the first constructive hypothesis which is adequate to the uses of ethics and religion. By means of it,

ow how, so far from degrading man to the level of the brute condition, and running life down into "purely physical condit

man himself. We must not be deterred from this universal application by the fact that we cannot, as yet, prove its truth in every detail. No scientific hypothesis ever has exhausted its details. I consider, therefore, that Mr. Tyndall had a complete right to "cross the boundary of the experimental evidence by an intellectual necessity"; for the necessity comes from the assumption of a possible explanation by the aid of the hypothesis. It is no argument against such a procedure to insist that, as yet, t

to lift himself by his own waist-band." Our states of self-consciousness are symbols only-symbols of an outside entity, whose real nature we can never know. We know only these states; we only infer "that anything answering to our impressions exists outside of ourselves." And it is impossible to justify even that inference; for, if we can only know states of consciousness, we cannot say that they are symbols of anything, or that there is anything to be

the phantom of the individual's mind." I prefer the science of Mr. Tyndall (and of Mr. Huxley, too) to his philosophy; and he would have escaped materialism more effectively, if he had remained faithful to his th

those of a naturally-evolved agent, are revelations of the potency of the primal matter, just as truly as are the buds, flowers, and fruits of a tree. No doubt, we cannot as yet "comprehend the connection" between nervous action and sensation, any more than we can comp

houghts, the other of things-which are absolutely exclusive of each other, but one universe in which thought and reality meet. Mr. Tyndall thinks that it is an inference (and an inference over an impassable gulf!) that anything answering to our impressions exists outside ourselves. "The question of the external world is the great battleground of metaphysics," he quotes approvingly from Mr. J.S. Mill. But the question of the external world is not whether that world exists; it is, how are we to accou

een thought and things is there to begin with, whether we can account for it or not; if it were not, then natural science would be impossible. It would be palpably irrational even to try to find out the nature of things by thinking. The only science would be

hen science breaks its sword, religion assails it, with the fragment. It is not at once evident that if this chasm were shown to exist, knowledge would be a chimera; for there would be no outer world at all, not even a phenomenal one, to supply an object

it plant, child, or biological kingdom-is, at every stage from lowest to highest, a concrete unity of all its differences; and in the whole history of its process its actual content is always the same. The environment of the plant evokes that content, but it adds nothing to it. No addition of anything absolutely new, no external aggregation, no insert

inciple of explanation, either the beginning, or the end of the process of development. We may say of the simple and crass, "There is all that your rich universe really means"; or we may say of the spiritual activities of man, "This is

y something much greater? If "crass matter" contains all this promise and potency, by what right do we still call it "crass"? It is manifestly impossible to treat the potencies, assumed to lie in a thing that grows, as if they were of no significance; first, to assert that such potencies exist, in saying that the object develops

e light of the end, and not vice versa. In a word, it follows the ways of nature, the footsteps of fact, instead of inventing a wilful backward path of its own. And nature explains by gradually expanding. If we hearken to nature, and not to the voice of illusory preconceptions, we shall hear her proclaim at the last stage, "Here is the meaning of the seedling. Now it is clear what it re

cy into actuality, then we must add that the ultimate interpretation even of the lowest existence in the world cannot be given except on principles which are adequate to explain the highest. We must

The Critical Philo

atural phenomenon. Instead of degrading man, it lifts nature into a manifestation of spirit. If it were established, if every link of the endless chain were discovered and the continuity of existence were irrefragably proved, science would not overthrow

is at once a law of thought and a law of things as known. Each category, successively adopted, lifts nature more to the level of man; and the last category of modern thought, namely, development, constrains us so to modify our views of nature, as to regard it as finally explicable only in the terms of spirit. Thus, the movement of science is towards idealism. Instead of lowering man, it elevates nature into a potency of that which i

d direction. I have already quoted a few passages which indicate that he had detected the false

why and wheref

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sprung from w

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insect, reptile

ined to be a

e. And if this

he natural

Hohenstiel

terrupts the man of scien

ght He should ha

e cave, the hut

nd the palace

e first, befor

i' the

I

at is, the way of development, so far from lowering us to the brute level, i

time, give me

cture of a

, a prince wi

o social grade

ntate should b

better he wa

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sweeps the

Hohenstiel

, we have no time to ma

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ugh your part as

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man pass his apprenticeship in all

o follow

ness, repine if

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d enlargement,

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of having been thus evolved from inan

any a

confess to,

re: animate

he whole, there'

somehow meets

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He sees each higher stage carrying within it the lower, the present storing up the past; he recognizes that the process is a self-enriching one. He knows it to be no degradation of the higher that

o last of lod

the place that

Hohenstiel

ase. The lowest ceases to be lowest, except in the sense that its promise is not fulfilled and its potency not actualized; for, throughout the whole process, the activity streams from the highest.

g this highest, this last which is a

ells i

inute beginnin

onsummation

completion o

lif

arac

id, after reviewing the whole

ced, all has it

pleted man

ency t

I

rous presence is seen in all the processes of nature, His power and knowledge

een nature and spirit, between man and God, does not baffle the poet. At the

ntary reflu

the inferior g

step in th

I

d into thought, bu

escried, imp

on all life

I

rwise meaningless manifold, the dispersed activities of nature, are lifted into a kosmos by the activity of intel

fusedly eve

tures, and all

t dimly the

es too fair to

appears

arac

in a broader light what went before,-just as we know the seedling after it is grown; just as, with every advance in life, we

nded, I

or loss

ashes, what s

ll weigh

its praise

dispute; I shall

bi Ben

does the unconscious process of nature

within

ted o'er i

abl

mpare, prono

was right

uiescenc

I

ut his discoveries. The harmonies are in the organ, if the artist only knows how to elicit them. Nay, the connection is still more intimate. It is in the thought of man that silent natur

to be ma

h all the spi

Eme

and chaos, but show that there never was chance or chaos. The poet does not make the world beautiful, but finds the beauty that is dwelling there. Without him, indeed, the beauty would not be, any more than the life of the tree is beautiful until it has

e w

voices, waili

utter, or a q

less gust now

commune and hav

ey assemble

drops behind

enterprise, de

triumph takes

ansport ripen

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arac

nge into something rich and strange"; and yet the imagination, when loyal to itself, onl

ns through man; and in all "the wide compass which is fetched," through the infinite variety of forms of being, love is the permanent element and the true essence. Nature is on its way back to God, gathering treasure as it goes. The static view is not true to facts; it is development that for the poet explains the nature of

ntal forms that have already been sweeping the sea and creeping in the mud." And the same way of thought applies to man as a spiritual agent. If spirit be higher than matter, and if love be spirit at its best, then the principle of evolution leaves no option to the scientific thinker, but to regard all things as potentially spirit, and all the phenomena of the world as manifestations of love. Evolution necessarily combines all the objects to which it is applied into a unity. It knits all the infinite forms of natural life into an organism of organisms, so that it is a universal life which really lives in all animate beings. "Each animal or vege

he principle on which all modern speculation rests. His conclusions may shock common-sense; and they may seem to stultify not only our observation of facts, but the testimony of our moral consciousness. But I do not know of any principle of speculation which, when elevated into a universal principle of thought, will not do the same; and this is why the greatest poets and philosophers seem

of science, only in the extent of its range and the breadth of its results. It is not "idealism," but the scepticism which, in our day, conceals its real nature under the name of dualism or agnosticism, that is at war with the inner spirit of science. "Not only," we may say of Browning as it was said of Emerson by Professor Tyndall, "is his religious sense entirely undaunted by the discoveries of science; but all such discoveries he comprehends and assimilates. By him scientific conceptions are continually transmuted into the finer forms and warmer hues of an ideal world." And this he does without any distortion of t