The object therefore of philosophy is the inner mental life (geistige Leben), not
merely this or that individual faculty in any partial direction, but man's spiritual life
with all its rich and manifold energies. With respect to form and method: the philosophy
of life sets out from a singte assumption- that of life, or in other words, of a
consciousness to a certain degree awakened and manifoldly developed by experience -since
it has for its object, and purposes to make known the entire consciousness and not merely
a single phase of it. Now, such an end would be hindered rather than promoted by a highly
elaborate or minutely exhaustive form and a painfully artificial method; and it is herein
that the difference lies between a philosophy of life and the philosophy of the school....
Now, the distinction between the philosophy of life and the philosophy of the school
will appear in very different lights according to the peculiarity of view which
predominates in the several philosophical systems. That species of philosophy which
revolves in the dialectical orbit of abstract ideas, according to its peculiar character
presupposes and requires a well-practised talent of abstraction, perpetually ascending
through higher grades to the very highest, and even then boldly venturing a step beyond.
In short, as may be easily shown in the instance of modern German science, the being
unintelligible is set up as a kind of essential characteristic of a true and truly
scientific philosophy. 1, for my part, must confess, that I feel a great distrust of that
philosophy which dwells In inaccessible light, where the inventor indeed asserts of
himself, that he finds himself in an unattainable certainty and clearness of insight,
giving us all the while to understand thereby, that he does see well enough how of all
other mortals scarcely any, or perhaps, strictly speaking, no one, understands or is
capable of understanding him. In all such cases it is only the false light of some
internal ignis fatuus that produces this illusion of the unintelligible, or rather
of nonsense. In this pursuit of wholly abstract and unintelligible thought, the philosophy
of the school is naturally enough esteemed above every other, and regarded as
pre-eminently the true science-i.e., the unintelligible....
But the true living philosophy has no relation or sympathy with this continuous advance
up to the unintelligible heights of empty abstraction. Since the objects it treats of are
none other than those which every man of a cultivated mind and in any degree accustomed to
observe his own consciousness, both has and recognizes within himself, there is nothing to
prevent its exposition being throughout clear, easy, and forcible. Here the relation is
reversed. In such a system the philosophy of life is the chief and paramount object of
interest; while the philosophy of the school, or the scientific teaching of it in the
schools, however necessary and valuable in its place, is still, as compared with the whole
thing itself, only secondary and subordinate. In the philosophy of life, moreover, the
method adopted must also be a living one. Consequently it is not, by any means, a thing to
be neglected. But still it need not to be applied with equal rigour throughout, or to
appear prominently in every part, but on all occasions must be governed in these respects
by what the particular end in view may demand....
* * . But in order to illustrate this simple method of studying life from its true
central point, which is intermediate between the two wrong courses already indicated, and
in order to make by contrast my meaning the plainer, 1 would here in a few words,
characterize the false starting-point from which the prevailing philosophy of a
day-whether that of France in the eighteenth century or the more recent systems of
Germany-has hitherto for the most part proceeded.
False do I call it, both on account of the results to which it has led, and also of its
own intrinsic nature. In one case as well as in the other, the starting-point was
invariably some controverted point of the reason - some opposition or other to the
legitimacy of the reason; under which term, however, little else generally was understood,
than an opposition of the reason itself to some other principle equally valid and
extensive. The principal, or rather only way which foreign philosophy took in this
pursuit, was to reduce every thing to sensation as opposed to reason, and to derive every
thing from it alone, so as to make the reason itself merely a secondary faculty, no
original and independent power, and ultimately nothing else than a sort of chemical
precipitate and residuum from the material impressions....
Briefly to recapitulate what has been said: The existence of the brutes is simple,
because in them the soul is completely mixed up and merged in the organic body, and is one
with it; on the destruction of the latter it reverts to the elements, or is absorbed in
the general soul of nature. Twofold, however, is the nature of created spirits, who
besides this ethereal body of light are nothing but mind or spirit; but threefold is the
nature of man, as consisting of spirit, soul, and body. And this triple constitution and
property, this threefold life of man, is, indeed, not in itself that pre-eminence,
although it Is closely connected with that superior excellence which ennobles and
distinguishes man from all other created beings. I allude to that prerogative by which he
alone of ;all created beings is invested with the Divine image and likeness. This
threefold principle is the simple basis of all philosophy; and the philosophical system
which is constructed on such a foundation is the philosophy of life, which therefore has
even "words of life." It is no idle speculation, and no unintelligible
hypothesis. It is not more difficult, and needs not to be more obscure, than any other
discourse on spiritual subjects; but it can and may be as easy and as clear as the reading
of a writing, the observation of nature, and the study of history. For it is in truth
nothing else than a simple theory of spiritual life, drawn from life itself, and the
simple understanding thereof. If, however, it becomes abstract and unintelligible, this is
invariably a consequence, ;and for the most part an infallible proof of its having fallen
into error. When in thought we place before us the whole composite human individual, then,
after spirit and soul, the organic body is the third constituent, or the third element out
of which, in combination with the other two?, the whole man consists and is compounded.
But the structure of the organic body, its powers and laws, must be left to physical
science to investigate. Philosophy is the science of consciousness alone; it has,
therefore, primarily to occupy itself with soul and spirit or 'mind, and must carefully
guard against transgressing its limits in any respect. But the third constituent beside
mind and soul, in which these two jointly carry on their operations, needs not always, as
indeed the above instance proves, to be an organic body. In other relations of life, this
third, in which both are united, or which they in unison produce, may be the word, the
deed, life itself, or the divine order on, which both are dependent. These, then, are the
subjects which I have proposed for consideration. But in order to complete this scale of
life, I will further observe: triple is the nature of man, but four-fold is the human
consciousness. For the spirit or mind, like the soul, divides and falls asunder, or rather
is split and divided into two powers or halves-the mind, namely, into understanding and
will, the soul into reason and fancy. These are the four extreme points, or, if the
expression be preferred, the four quarters of the inner world of consciousness. All other
faculties of the soul, or powers of mind, are merely subordinate ramifications of the four
principal branches; but the living centre of the whole is the thinking soul.
Source:
From F. Von Schlegel, The Philosophy of Life and Philosophy of Language in a
Course of Lectures, trans. A. J. W. Morrison (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1847), pp.
4-6, 8-12, 16-17, 21-22.
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