The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour Part 5

Just consider what effort was required to enable an Aryan man to say, "It is warm." We shall say nothing of "it"; it may be a simple demonstrative stem, which needed little for its formation. But before this "i-t" or "id"

could become an impersonal "it," long-continued abstraction, or, if you prefer, long-continued polishing, was required. Take the word _is_. Whence comes such a verbal form, Sanskrit _as-ti_, Greek ?st?, Latin _est_? Was the abstract "to be" onomatopoetically imitated? Often, of course, we cannot answer such questions at all. In this case, however, it is possible. The root _as_ in _asti_, that we now translate as _is_, means as we see from _as-u_, breath, originally _to breathe_. Whoever likes may see in _as_, to breathe, an imitation of hissing breath. We neither gain or lose anything by this; for the critical step always remains to be taken from a single imitation of a single act, to the comprehension of many such acts, at various places, and at various times, as one and the same, which is called abstraction or the forming of a concept.

This may appear to be a very small step, just as the first slight deviation in a railroad track is scarcely a finger's breadth, but in time changes the course of the train to an entirely different part of the world. The formation of an idea, such as to be, or to become, or to take a still simpler one, such as four or eight, appears to us to be a very small matter, and yet it is this very small matter that distinguishes man from the animal, that pushed man forward and left the animal behind on his old track. Nay, more, this "concept" has caused much shaking of the head among philosophers of all times. That one and one are two, two and two, four, four and four, eight, eight and eight, sixteen, etc., appears to be so very easy, that we do not understand how such things can const.i.tute an eternally intended distinction between man and animal. I have myself seen an ape so well trained that as the word "seven" was spoken, he picked up seven straws. But what is such child's play in comparison with the first formation of the idea of seven? Do you not see that the formation of such an abstract idea, isolating mere quant.i.ty apart from all qualities, requires a power of abstraction such as has never been displayed by an animal? If there were any languages now that actually had no word for seven, it would be a valuable confirmation of this view. I doubt only, whether the speakers of such languages could not call composition to their aid, and attain the idea of seven by two, two, two, plus one. We still know too little of these languages and of those who speak them. Of what takes place in animals we know absolutely nothing, and nowhere would a dose of agnosticism be more useful than here. Sense-impressions an animal certainly has; whether quite the same as man must remain uncertain. And sense-impressions enable an animal to accomplish much, especially in the realm of feeling; but language-never.

This fact, as a bare undeniable fact, should have startled the Darwinians, even as it startled the venerable Darwin, when I simply set the facts before him, and he immediately drew the necessary consequences. Of any danger there could be no fear. The facts are there and show us the right path. And it is not only simple facts, but the consequences of preexisting conditions which render every so-called transition from animal to man absolutely unthinkable. Language-as ethnologists should have learned-has neither originated from artificial signs, nor from imitation of sounds.

That we can communicate with signs without saying a word, that we even now use signs in our speech, is best learned in southern races, and in such pantomimes as _L'enfant prodigue_. We have long known that imitations of sound exist in greater or lesser numbers in every language, and how far they can reach has probably never been shown in such detail as by myself.(49) But that our Aryan tongues, and also the Semitic, and all others that have been studied scientifically, originated from roots, is now generally known and recognised. That these roots may in remote times have contained an element of imitation, we may readily concede, for it is really self-evident; only we should not from the beginning bar our way by conceiving them as mere imitations of sound. If this were so, the problem of language would long since have been solved, and the first formation of ideas would require no further reflection. It must be conceded on the other side that the origin of roots still contains much that is obscure, and that even Noire's _clamor concomitans_ does not explain every case.

Only it is firmly established that a scientific a.n.a.lysis of language leaves a certain number of roots which are not mere sound-imitations, such as "bow wow," or "moo moo." There are people who have taken much pains to discover whether the roots ever had an independent existence, or if they have merely been scientifically abstracted, or sh.e.l.led out of the words in which they occur. These are vain questions, for we can never of course come at the matter historically, and the attempt to prove the necessity of the one or the other view is a useless undertaking. It appears to be the most reasonable plan to a.s.sume for the Aryan languages a period that approaches the Chinese, in which roots had the same sound and the same form as the corresponding noun, adjective, and verb. Even in Sanskrit roots appear at times still unchanged, although it is quite right that as soon as they take on grammatical functions, they should no longer be called roots. Much may be said in favour of both views, without arriving one step nearer our goal. If we now only remember that the whole Sanskrit language has been reduced to 121 primitive ideas, and that the roots denoting these (which are of course much more numerous) are not imitations of sound in the strict sense of the word, but sounds about whose origin we may say much but can prove little, we have at least a p?? st? for our researches. I myself, like my deceased friend Noire, have looked upon roots as _clamor concomitans_, that is, not as sound-imitations, but as actual sounds, uttered by men in common occupations, and to be heard even now. Why, however, the Aryans used and retained _ad_ for eat, _tan_ for stretch, _mar_ for rub, _as_ for breathe, _sta_ for stand, _ga_ for go, no human thought can find out; we must be content with the fact that it was so, and that a certain number of such roots-of course much greater than the 121 ideas expressed by them-const.i.tute the kernels from which has sprouted the entire flora of the Indian mind.

If we now return, to our _is_,-Sanskrit _as-ti_, Greek ?st?, Latin _est_,-we see that it originally meant "to breathe out." This blowing or breathing was then used for "life," as in _as-u_, breath of life, and from life it lost its content until it could be applied to everything existing, and meant nothing more than the abstract "to be." There are languages that possess no such pale word as "be" and could not form such a sentence as "It is warm." The auxiliary verb "to have" is also lacking in many languages, especially the ancient, such as Sanskrit, Greek, and even cla.s.sical Latin. If the words failed, the ideas failed as well, and such languages had to try and fulfil their requirements in other ways. If there was no such word as "be," "stand" was employed; where there was no word for "have," then "hold," _tenere_, would render the same, or at least similar service. But this implied not only different speech, but different thought.

But here I should like to call attention to the long process through which a language must pa.s.s, before it could reduce "breathe" to "be" and form such a sentence as "It is warm." Even an animal feels warmth, and can in various ways make known if it is overheated. But in all this it is only a question of feelings, not to ideas, and still less of language. Let us consider "warm." Of course "warm" may represent a mere feeling, and then a simple panting would suffice to express it. That is communication, but not language. To think a word like warm, a root and an idea are necessary.

Probably, and in spite of a few phonetic difficulties, the root was in this case _ghar_ (in _gharma_, ?e???), and this meant at first to be bright, to glitter, to shine, then to burn, to heat, to be warm; that is to say, the observing mind of man was able to abstract brightness from the sense-impressions produced by sun, fire, gold, and many other objects, and, letting everything else drop, to reach the idea of shining, then of being warm. These ideas, of course, do not exist on their own account anywhere in the world; they must be and have been constructed by man alone, never by an animal. Why? Because an animal does not possess what man possesses: the faculty of grasping the many as one, so as to form an idea and a word. Light or lighting, warmth or warming, exist nowhere in the world, and are nowhere given in sentient experience. Every object of sense exists individually, and is perceived as such individually, such as the sun, a torch, a stove; but heat in general, like everything general, is the product of our thought; its name is made by us, and is not given us.

Of all this, of course, when we learn to speak as children, we have no suspicion. We learn the language made by others who came before us, and proceed from words to ideas, not from ideas to words. Whether the relation between ideas and words was a succession, it is hard to say, because no idea exists without a word, any more than a word without an idea. Word and idea exist through each other, beside each other, with each other; they are inseparable. We could as easily try to speak without thinking, as to think without speaking. It is at first difficult to grasp this. We are so accustomed to think silently, before speaking aloud, that we actually believe that the same is true, even of the first formation of ideas and words. Our so-called thinking _before_ speaking, however, refers simply to reflection, or deliberation. It is something quite different, and occurs only with the aid of silent words that are in us, even if they are not uttered. Every person, particularly in his youth, believes that he cherishes within himself inexpressible feelings, or even thoughts. These are chiefly obscure feelings, and the expression of feelings has always been the most difficult task to be performed by language, because they must first pa.s.s through a phase of conception. If, however, they are actually ideas, they are such as have an old expression that is felt to be inconvenient, or inadequate, and must be replaced by a new one. We cannot do enough to rid ourselves of the old error, that thought is possible without words. We can, of course, repeat words without meaning; but that is not speaking, only making a noise. If any one, however, tells us that he can think quite well without words, let this silent thinker be suddenly interrupted, ask him of what he has thought in silence, and he will have to admit that it was of a dog, a horse, or a man-in short, of something that has a name. He need not utter these words-that has never been maintained, but he must have the ideas and their signs, otherwise there are not, and there cannot be for him, either ideas or things. How often we see children move their lips while they are thinking, that is, speaking without articulation. We can, of course, in case of necessity, use other signs; we can hold a dog on high and show him, but if we ask what is shown, we shall find that the actual dog is only a subst.i.tute for the abstract word "dog," not the reverse, for a dog that is neither a spaniel, poodle, dachshund, etc., is nowhere to be found, _in rerum natura_, or in domestic life. These things, that give us so much trouble, were often quite clear to the ancient Hindus, for their usual word for "thing" is _padartha_; that is, meaning or purpose of the word. But men persist that they are able to think without speaking aloud, or in silence. They persist that thought comes first, and then speech; they persist that they can speak without thinking,-and that is often quite true,-and that they can also think without speaking, which must first be proved. Consider only what is necessary to form so simple a word as "white." The idea of white must be formed at the same time, and this can only be done by dropping everything but the colour from the sense-perceptions of such things as snow, snowdrop, cloud, chalk, or sugar, then marking this colour, and, by means of a sign (in this case a vocal one), elevating it to a comprehensible idea, and at the same time to a word. How this vocal token originates it is often difficult, often quite impossible, to say. The simplest mode is, for example, if there be a word for snow, to take this and to generalise it, and then to call sugar, for instance, snow, or snowy, or snow-white. But the prior question, how snow was named, only recedes for a while, and must of course be answered for itself. Given a word for snow, it can easily be generalised. But how did we name snow? I believe that snow, which forms into b.a.l.l.s in melting and coheres, was named _nix nivis_, from a root _snigh_ or _snu_, denoting everything which melted and yet stuck together or cohered. But these are mere possibilities that may be true or false; yet their truth or falsity leave undisturbed the fundamental truth, that each individual perception, as, for example, this snow or this ice, first had to be brought under a general conception, before it could be clearly marked, or elevated to a word. In such a case men formed, by living and working together, a general conception and a root, for an oft-repeated action, such as forming into b.a.l.l.s; and under this general concept they then conceived an individual impression like snow; that is, that which is formed into a ball, so that they had the sign, and with the sign the concept of snow, both inseparable in reality, distinguishable as they are in their origin. Having this, they could extend the concept in the vocal sign for snow, and speak of snowy things, just as they spoke of rosy cheeks. Only we must not imagine that it will ever be possible to make the origin of root sounds perfectly clear. This goes back to times that are entirely withdrawn from our observation. It goes back to times in which the first general ideas were formed, and thereby the first steps were taken in the development of the human mind.

How is it possible that any recollection should have remained of such early times, or even any understanding of these mental processes? We may settle many things, but in the end nothing is left but to say: It is so, and remains so, whether we can explain it or not. The first general concept may no doubt have been, as Noire affirmed, an often repeated action, such as striking, going, rubbing, chewing-acts that spontaneously present themselves to consciousness, as manifold and yet single, that is, as continually repeated, in which the mind consequently found the first natural stimulus to the formation of concepts. Why, however, rub was denoted by _mar_, eat by _ad_, go by _ga_, strike by _tud_, we may perhaps apprehend by feeling, but we could not account for or even conceive it.

Here we must be content with the facts, especially as in other families of languages we find entirely different vocal signs. No doubt there was a reason for all of them; but this reason, even if we could prove it historically, would always remain incomprehensible to us, and only as fact would it have any significance for science.

At any rate, we can now understand in what manner language offers us really historical doc.u.ments of the oldest stages which we can reach in the development of the human mind. I say, "which we can reach," for what lies beyond language does not exist for us. Nothing remains of the history of _h.o.m.o alalus_. But every word represents a deed, an acquisition of the mind. If we take such a word as the Vedic _deva_, there may have been many older words for G.o.d, but let us not imagine that a fetish or totem, whose etymology is or should be known, belongs to them. But at all events we know from _deva_ and the Latin _deus_, that even before the Aryan separation a root _dyu_ or _div_ had been formed, as well as the conception "shine." If this root was first used actively for the act of shedding light, of striking a spark, of shining, it was a step farther to transfer this originally active root to the image which the sky produces in us, and to call it a "shiner," _dyu_ (nom. _dyaus_), and then with a new upward tendency to call all bright and shining beings, _deva_, _deus_.

Man started, therefore, from a generalisation, or an idea, and then under this idea grouped other single presentations, such as sun, moon, and stars, from which "shining" had been withdrawn, or abstracted, and thus obtained as a mental acquisition a sign for the idea "shine," and further formations such as _Dyaus_ (shiner) and _deva_ (shining). Now observe how _Dyaus_, as "shiner," at the same time a.s.sumed the significance of an otherwise unknown agent or author of light, and developed into the ancient Dyaus, into Zeus and Jove; that is, into the oldest personal G.o.d of the still united Aryans. These are the true stages of the development of the human mind, which are susceptible of doc.u.mentary proof in the archives of language.

All this occurred, of course, on exclusively Aryan ground, while the Semitic and other branches went their own way in the formation of ideas, and of sounds for their ideas. Physiologically all these branches may have one and the same origin, but linguistically they have various beginnings, and have not, at least as far as scientific proof is possible, sprung from one and the same source. The common origin of all languages is not impossible, but it is and remains undemonstrable, and to science that is enough, _sapienti sat_. If we a.n.a.lyse the Semitic and other languages, we shall find in them as many ancient doc.u.ments of the development of the human mind as in the Aryan. And just as we can clearly and plainly trace back the French _dieu_, the Latin _deus_, the Sanskrit _deva_, divine, to the physical idea _div_, "shine," so we can with thousands of other words, of which each indicates an act of will, and each gives us an insight into the development of our mind. Whether the Aryans were in possession of other ideas and sounds for "shine," etc., before the formation of _div_, _Dyaus_, and _deva_, must be left uncertain; at all events we see how naturally the first consciousness of G.o.d developed in them, how the idea conditioned the language, and the language the idea, and both originated and continued inseparable one from the other.

If we take any root of the Aryan language, we shall be astonished at the enormous number of its derivatives and the shades in their meaning. Here we see very plainly how thought has climbed forward upon words. We find, for instance, in the list of Sanskrit roots, the root _bhar_ with the simple meaning to bear. This we see plainly in _bharami_, in _bibharmi_, in _bibharti_ (I bear, he bears), also in _bharas_ or _bhartar_ (a bearer), and _bharas_ (load) and _bharman_ and _bharti_ (bearing), etc.

But these forms, with all their cases and persons and tenses, give us no idea of the fruitfulness of a root, especially if we follow its ramifications in the cognate languages. In Greek we have f???, in Latin _fero_, in Gothic _bairan_, in English _to bear_. The princ.i.p.al meanings which this root a.s.sumes are, to carry, carry hither, carry away, carry in, to support, to maintain, to bring forth, etc. We find simple derivatives such as the German _Bahre_, English _bier_ (French _biere_, borrowed), and also f??et??? and _feretrum_, as well as _ferculum_ (a litter). On the other hand there is f??et??? (a porter's wages), and fa??t?a (quiver). And _barrow_ in wheel-barrow has the same origin. _Burden_ is that which is borne, then a load, as, for instance, the burden of years. A step farther takes us to fe?t?? (bearable) and ?fe?t?? (unbearable). We also find in Greek d?sf????, which corresponds exactly to the Sanskrit _durbhara_, with the meaning "heavy to bear." In Latin, however, _fertus_ signifies fruitful, like _fertilis_, _ferax_. We say, "The earth bears" (_tragt_), and _Getreide_ (grain) meant originally that borne (_getragen_) by the earth (hence in Middle High German _Getragede_). So we have also _far_, the oldest corn grown by the Romans, derived from _fero_, and along with it _farina_ (flour), if it stands for _farrina_. _Far_ may originally, however, have also meant food, maintenance, and the Anglo-Saxon _bere_, the English _barley_, are again related to it. Of course we have the same root in derivatives, such as _lucifer_, _frugifer_, in Greek ?a?p?f???? or fe???a?p??. In German it becomes a mere suffix, as _fruchtbar_, _dankbar_, _scheinbar_, _urbar_. Like f????, f??? means also what is carried or brought, hence specially tribute, duty, tax. To bear a child was used in the sense of to bring forth, and from this we have many derivatives such as _birth_, _born_, and Gothic _berusjos_ (parents), _parentes_ and _barn_ (the child), like the Greek f??a.

If d?f??? (carriage) stands for d?f????, it means originally a carriage for two persons, just as ?f??e??, Latin _amphora_, was a vessel with two handles. We should scarcely believe that the same root is concealed in the German _Zuber_ (tub) and _Eimer_ (bucket). But _Zuber_ was originally _Zwiber_, a vessel with two handles, and _Eimer_ was _Einber_, a bucket with one bail. We may compare _manubrium_ (handle) and derivatives like _candelebrum_, _lugubris_, as well as _luctifer_. If _bhartri_ meant bearer and then husband, as _bhary[~a]_ meant wife, _i.e._ the one to be maintained, we are probably justified in seeing in _bhratar_ (brother) the original meaning of helper, protector. Although the wife is to be maintained and sustained, she, too, brings something to the household, and that is the f???? (dowry). The Middle Latin expression _paraphernalia_ is properly dowry, though it has now a.s.sumed an entirely different meaning.

"To be carried" easily takes the meaning of being torn away, _s'emporter_, and this we find in the Greek represented by f??es?a?, in the Sanskrit in the secondary form _bhur_ (to hasten), yielding _bhuranyu_, _bhurni_ (hasty, violent), and other derivatives.

We have already seen how f???? and f??? signified that which is contributed, then duty, tribute. This is the Gothic _gabaur_, that is, _gebuhr_ (due), and consequently all things that are proper or becoming.

_Offerre_ (bring before) leads to _Opfer_ (sacrifice) and to the simpler _offrir_, as _sufferre_ to _souffrir_ (suffer).

It has been usual to derive _Fors_, _Fortuna_, from _ferre_,(50) the G.o.ddess who brings, although she takes away as well. The ancients had no doubts of this derivation, and t? f???? (fate) and t? fe??e??? (chance) seem to substantiate it. But the old divine character of _Fors_, _Fortuna_ (as related to Harit), points to other sources, which had already entirely vanished from the consciousness of the ancients. Yet the expression, _es tragt sich zu_ (it happens), the old _gaburjan_, Anglo-Saxon _gebyrian_, and _kipuri_ (_zufallig_, casual), must be taken into account, and forms such as _forte_, _forsan_, _forta.s.sis_ (_forte an si vis_), _fortuitus_, are very remote from their supposed mythological meaning. If _ferre_ were the root, we should have further proof of the immeasurable fertility to which we owe such words as _fortune_ and _misfortune_.

It would lead us too far if we tried to collect all the meanings which our roots had in the various ancient Aryan tongues in combination with prepositions. It must suffice to select a small number from a modern language such as French, which give us an idea of the endless modifications to which every root is more or less adapted. Thus from _circ.u.mferre_ we have _circonference_, also _peripherie_, from _conferre_, _conference_ and also _confortable_, from _deferre_ _deference_, from _differre_ _difference_, from _praeferre_ _preference_, from _proferre_ _proferer_, from _referre_ _reference_, each word again with numerous offshoots. We are not at the end yet, and still less when we keep in view also the parallel formations _tuli_ and _latum_, or _portare_. We then see what a root in this language has to signify, whether considered as a concrete word or as a mere abstraction. This is prolific of contention and has been much disputed; the main thing is to know the facts. From these we may infer how in all this multiplicity the unity of the root element can be best explained.

I do not say that all ideas can be so clearly traced to their origin as in this root. In some the intermediate forms have been lost, and the etymologies become uncertain, often impossible. But the result on the whole remains the same. Wherever we can see clearly, we see that what we call mind and thought consists in this, that man has the power not only to receive presentations like an animal, but to discover something general in them. This element he can eliminate and fix by means of vocal signs; and he can further cla.s.sify single presentations under the same general concepts, and mark them by the same vocal signs. What we call derivative forms, such as _deva_ besides _div_, are originally varieties in the formation of words, that in time proved useful, and through repeated employment obtained their special application. Often, too, there are real compounds, just as the German _bar_ in _fruchtbar_, _furchtbar_, etc., was originally the same word that we have in _Bahre_ (bier), but was very different from _bar_ in _Nachbar_ (neighbour), which in spite of the similarity in sound comes from an entirely different root, seen in _bauen_ (build), _bebauen_ (cultivate), _bauer_ (peasant), and in the English neighbour.

If we have the ideas and the words, the process of thought, as Hobbes has taught us, is nothing but an addition and subtraction of ideas. We add when we say, A is B; when we say, for instance, man, or Caius, is mortal, adding Caius, or man, to all that we call mortal; we subtract when we say, A is not B; that is, when we abstract Enoch from all that we call mortal.

Everything that man has ever thought, humiliating as it may sound, consists in these two operations; just as the most abstruse operations of mathematics go back in the end to addition and subtraction. To what else could they go back? Whether these mental operations are true or false, is another question, with which the method of the thinker has nothing to do; any more than formal logic inquires whether all men are mortal, but only infers on the basis of these premises that Caius, because he is a man, is also mortal.

We see, therefore, how language and thought go hand in hand; where there is as yet no word, there is not yet an idea. The thinking capacity of the mind has its source in language, lives in language, and develops continuously in language. The human mind is human language, and as animals possess no language, they do not _ipso facto_ possess what philosophers understand by mind. We need not for this reason ascribe any special faculty to men. Speech and thought are only a wider development of the faculty of presentation such as an animal may have; but in an animal it never develops any farther, for an animal has no general ideas; it remains at the individual, and never attains unity in plurality. It knows, as Plato would say, a horse, but not "horsedom." If we wish to say that the perceiving self is present in animals as in men, there is no objection, though in all such, questions relating to animals we are always groping in the dark. But the fact remains that the step, whether small or vast, that leads from the individual to the general, from the concrete to the abstract, from perceiving (that is, being acted upon) to conceiving, thinking, speaking, that is, to acting, is for the animal impossible. An animal might speak, but it cannot; a stone might grow, but it cannot; a tree might walk, but it cannot. Why not? Because there are natural boundaries that are apparently easy to pa.s.s, and yet impa.s.sable. The tree grows up a tree, the animal an animal, but no farther, just as man never surpa.s.ses the human, and therefore can never think except through language, which often is very imperfect.

In one sense, therefore, the Horseherd is quite right. The mind is a development, an eternal, ceaseless development; but when he calls it a function possessed by all living organisms, even a goose and a chicken, he goes far beyond the facts. No goose speaks, although it cackles, and although by cackling it apprised the Romans of the important fact that their Capitol was in danger. How much a dog could tell us if he could speak! As if this capacity or incapacity is not as much the result of intention as every other capacity and incapacity in nature! If we translate this ability by _facultas_, that is _facilitas_, we need not for that reason a.s.sume in man a faculty, or as the Horseherd calls it, a phantom, but the thing remains the same. We can speak, and an animal cannot; we can think, and an animal cannot.

But it must not be supposed that because we deny thought and speech to animals, we wish to degrade them. Everything that has been told us of the ingenious tricks of animals, even the most incredible, we shall gladly believe, only not that _bos locutus est_, or that an actual utterance lies hidden in the bark of a dog. A man who sees no difference between language and communication will of course continue to say that a dog speaks, and explain in how many dialects he barks, when he is hungry, when he wants to go out with his master, when he hears burglars in the house, or when he has been whipped and whines. It would be more natural if scientists confined themselves to facts, without asking for reasons, and primarily to the great fact that no animal, with the exception of man, speaks, or ever has spoken. The next duty of the observer is to ask: Why is this? There is no physical impossibility. A parrot can imitate all words. There must therefore be a non-physical cause why there has never been a parrot or dog language. Is that true or false? And if we now call that non-physical cause mind, or still better the Logos, namely, the gatherer of the many into the one, comprehending, conceiving, is our argument so erroneous if we seek the distinction between man and animal in the Logos, in speech and thought, or in mind? This mind is no ghost, as the Horseherd a.s.serts, nor is it a mere phantom of the brain as is imagined by so many scientists. It is something real, for we see its effects. It is born, like everything that belongs to our ego, of the self-conscious Self, which alone really and eternally exists and abides.

So far I hope to have answered the second objection of the Horseherd or Horseherds, that the mind is a function possessed also by a goose or a chicken. Mind is language, and language is mind, the one the _sine qua non_ of the other, and so far no goose has yet spoken, but only cackled.

CHAPTER V.

The Reasonableness Of Religion

The most difficult and at all events the th.o.r.n.i.e.s.t problem that was presented to me by the Horseherd still remains unanswered, and I have long doubted whether I should attempt to answer it in so popular a periodical as the _Deutsche Rundschau_.

There are so many things that have been so long settled among scholars that they are scarcely mentioned, while to a great majority of even well-informed people they are still enveloped in a misty gloom. To this cla.s.s belong especially the so-called articles of faith. We must not forget that with many, even with most men, faith is not faith, but acquired habit. Why otherwise should the son of a Jew be a Jew, the son of a Parsi a Parsi? Moreover, no one likes to be disturbed in his old habits.

There are questions, too, on which mankind as it is now const.i.tuted will never reach a common understanding, because they lie outside the realm of science or the knowable. Concerning such questions it is well to waste no more words. But it is on just such a question, namely, the true nature of revelation, that the Horseherd and his companions particularly wish to know my views. The current theory of revelation is their greatest stumbling block, and they continually direct their princ.i.p.al attack against this ancient stronghold. On the other hand there is nothing so convenient as this theory, and many who have no other support cling fast to this anchor. The Bible is divine revelation, say they, therefore it is infallible and una.s.sailable, and that settles everything.

Now we must, above all things, come to an understanding as to what is meant by revelation before we attribute revelation to the Bible. There are not many now who really believe that an angel in bodily form descended from heaven and whispered into the ear of the apostles, in rather bad Greek, every verse, every word, even every letter of our Gospels. When Peter in his second Epistle (i. 18) a.s.sures us that he heard a voice from heaven, that is a fact that can only be confirmed, or invalidated, by witnesses. But when he immediately after says (i. 21) that "holy men of G.o.d spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit," he presents to us a view of inspiration that is easily intelligible, the possibility or truth of which must yet be first determined by psychologists. If it be conceded, however, that holy men may partake of such an inspiration, even then it is plain that it requires a much higher inspiration to declare others to be divinely inspired than to make such a claim for oneself alone. This theory, that the Gospels are inspired by G.o.d, and therefore are infallible and una.s.sailable, has gained more and more currency since the time of the Reformation. The Bible was to be the only authority in future for the Christian faith. Pope and ecclesiastical tradition were cast aside, and a greater stress was consequently laid on the _litera scripta_ of the New Testament. This naturally led to a very laborious and detailed criticism of these records, which year by year a.s.sumed a wider scope, and was finally absorbed in so many special investigations that its original purpose of establishing the authority of the Scriptures of the New Testament seems to have quite pa.s.sed out of sight. These critical investigations concerning the ma.n.u.scripts of the New Testament, Codex Sinaiticus, Alexandrimus, and Vatica.n.u.s, down to Number 269, Bentley's Q, are probably of less interest to the Horseherd; they are known to those who make a special study of this subject, and are of no interest outside.

If, as might have happened, without any miracle, the original autograph of the Gospels, as they were written by the apostles or some one else with their own hands, had been carefully preserved in the archives of the first popes, our professors would have been spared much labour. But we nowhere read that these successors and heirs of Peter showed any special solicitude for this prime duty of their office, the preservation of this precious jewel of their treasure, the New Testament. What they neglected, had therefore to be recovered by our philologists. Just as those who wished to study the Peloponnesian war resorted to the ma.n.u.scripts of Thucydides, the Christian scholars, to become acquainted with the origins of Christianity, betook themselves to the ma.n.u.scripts of the New Testament. And as the ma.n.u.scripts of Thucydides vary widely from one another and in certain pa.s.sages leave us quite helpless, so do the ma.n.u.scripts of the New Testament. Bentley speaks of thirty thousand _variae lectiones_ in the New Testament; but since his time their number must have increased fourfold. The ma.n.u.scripts of the New Testament are more numerous than those of any cla.s.sic. Two thousand are known and have been described, and more yet may lie buried in libraries. Now while this large number of ma.n.u.scripts and various readings have given the philologists of the New Testament greater difficulties than the cla.s.sical philologist encounters, still on the other hand the New Testament has the advantage over all cla.s.sical texts, in that some of its ma.n.u.scripts are much older than those of the majority of cla.s.sical writers. We have, for instance, no complete ma.n.u.scripts of Homer earlier than the thirteenth century, while the oldest ma.n.u.scripts of the New Testament descend from the fourth and fifth centuries. It is frequently said that all these things are of no importance for the understanding of the New Testament, and that theologians need not trouble themselves about them. But this is saying too much. There are _variae lectiones_, which are certainly not without importance for the facts and the doctrines of Christianity, and in which the last word belongs not to the theologian, but to the philologist. No one would say that it makes no difference if Mark xvi. 9-20 is omitted or not; no one would declare that the authenticity or spuriousness of the section on the adulteress (John vii. 53-viii. 11) was entirely indifferent. When we consider what contention there has been over the seventh verse of the fifth chapter of the first Epistle of John, and how the entire doctrine of the Trinity has been based on that ("For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one"), it will hardly be maintained that the ma.n.u.scripts are of no importance for Christian dogma. Whether in the first Epistle to Timothy iii. 16, we read ?S for TS, that is, ?e??, is also not quite immaterial. Still I admit that in comparison to the problems presented to me by the Horseherd and his comrades, these _variae lectiones_ will not rack our brains nearly so badly. I have been reproached for still owing my friends an answer to the attacks which they directed exclusively against Christian religion. It was, however, impossible to deal thoroughly with these matters, without first taking into consideration their objections against all religion.

I therefore first endeavoured to make clear to my unknown friends two things, which const.i.tute the foundation of all religion: first, that the world is rational, that it is the result of thought, and that in this sense only is it the creation of a being which possesses reason, or is reason itself (the Logos); and secondly, that mind or thought cannot be the outcome of matter, but on the contrary is the _prius_ of all things.

To this end a statement of the results of the philosophy of language was absolutely necessary, partly to establish more clearly the relation of thought to speech, partly to comprehend the true meaning of the Logos or the Word in the New Testament, and understand in how easily intelligible and perfectly reasonable a sense the term "Word" (Logos) can be applied to the Son of G.o.d.

I am not one of those who pretend to find no difficulties in all these questions. On the contrary, I have wrestled with them for years, and remember well the joy I felt when first the true historical meaning of the opening of the Fourth Gospel, "In the beginning was the word," became clear to me. It is true that I turned no somersaults like the Horseherd, but I was well satisfied. I do not therefore consider the objections raised by him as unfounded or without justification; on the contrary, it were better if others would speak with the same freedom as he has done, although a calmer tone in such matters would be more effective than the fortissimo of the Horseherd.

What aided me most in the solution of these religious or theological difficulties, was a comparative study of the religions of mankind. In spite of their differences, they are all afflicted with the same ailments, and when we find that we encounter the same difficulties in other religions as those with which we are ourselves contending, it is safe to consider them as deeply rooted in human nature, and in this same nature, be it weak or strong, to seek their solution. As comparative philology has proved that many of the irregular nouns and verbs are really the most regular and ancient, so it is with the irregular, that is, the miraculous occurrences in the history of religion. Indeed, we may now say that it would be a miracle if there were anywhere any religion without miracles, or if the Scriptures on which any religion is based were not presented by the priests and accepted by the believers as of superhuman, even divine origin, and therefore infallible. In all these matters we must seek for the reasons, and in this manner endeavour to understand their truth as well as error.

Whether or not I have succeeded in proving that the world is rational, and that mind is the _prius_ of matter, I must leave to the decision of the Horseherd and his friends. Fortunately these questions are of that nature that we may entertain different opinions upon them without accusing each other of heresy. Many Darwinians, for instance, Romanes, and even Huxley, have always considered themselves good Christians, although they believed the doctrine of Darwin to be the only way of salvation. If, however, we take up such questions as were propounded to me by the Horseherd, and which have more to do with Christian theology than Christian religion, there is an immediate change of tone, and unfortunately the difference of view becomes at once a difference of aim. The moral element enters immediately, and those who _believe_ otherwise are designated unbelievers, though we do not at once stamp those who _think_ otherwise as incapable of thought. Here lies the great difficulty in considering and treating calmly religious, or rather, theological questions. There is little hope of reaching a mutual understanding when the first attack is characterised by such vigour as was shown by the Horseherd and many of his comrades. He speaks at once of tales of fraud and deceit, and of the fantasies of the Christian religion. He says that he is full of bloodthirstiness against the Jewish idea of G.o.d, and believes that since the writings of Hume and Schopenhauer, positive Christianity has become a sheer impossibility, and more of the same import. This is certainly "fortissimo," but not therefore by any means "verissimo."

Other correspondents, such as Agnosticus, declare all revelation a chimera; in short, there has been no lack of expressions subversive of Christianity, and, in fact, of all revealed religion.

At this point a glance at the development of the religion of the Hindus may be of great service to us. Nowhere is the idea of revelation worked out so carefully as in their literature. They have a voluminous literature, treating of religion and philosophy, and they draw a very sharp distinction between revealed and unrevealed works (_S_ruti and Sm_ri_ti). Here much depends upon the name. Revealed meant originally nothing more than plain and clear, and when we speak of a revelation, in ordinary life, this is not much more than a communication. But erelong "reveal" was used in the special sense of a communication from a superhuman to a human being. The question of the possibility of such a communication raised little difficulty. But this possibility depends naturally on the prior conception of superhuman beings and of their relationship to human beings. So long as it was imagined that they occasionally a.s.sumed human form, and could mingle in very human affairs, a communication from a Not-man, I will not say a monster, presents no great difficulties. The Greeks went so far as to ascribe to men of earlier times a closer intercourse with the G.o.ds. But even with them the idea that man should not enter too closely into the presence of the G.o.ds breaks forth here and there, and Semele, who wished to be embraced by Zeus in all his glory, found her destruction in this ecstasy. As soon as the Deity was conceived in less human fashion, as in the Old Testament, intercourse between G.o.d and man became more and more difficult. In Genesis this intercourse is still represented very simply and familiarly, as when G.o.d walks about in the Garden of Eden, and Adam and Eve are ashamed of their nakedness before Him. Soon, however, a higher conception of G.o.d enters, so that Moses, for example (Exodus x.x.xiii. 23), may not see the face of Jehovah, but still ventures at least to look upon His back. The writer of the Fourth Gospel goes still farther and declares (i. 18), "No man hath seen G.o.d at any time, the only begotten son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared Him." Here we clearly see that the possibility of intercourse between man and G.o.d, and a revelation of G.o.d to man, depends chiefly or exclusively on the conception which man has previously formed of G.o.d and man. In all theological researches we must carefully bear in mind that the idea of G.o.d is _our_ idea, which we have formed in part through tradition, and in part by our own thinking; and we must not forget that existence formed an essential attribute of this idea, whatever opposition may have been raised against the ontological proof in later times. After what we have seen of the true relationship between thought and speech, it follows that the name, and with it the idea of a divine being, can only proceed from man. G.o.d is and remains _our_ G.o.d. We can have a knowledge of Him only through our inner consciousness, not through our senses. G.o.d Himself has no more imparted His name to mankind than the fixed stars and planets to which we have given names, although we only see, but do not hear or touch them. This must be absolutely clear to us before we dare speak of the possibility or impossibility of a revelation.

Now it is very useful, before we treat of our own idea of a revelation emanating from G.o.d, to look round among other nations and see how they reached the idea of a revelation. We see in India that a number of hymns in an ancient dialect and in fixed metres were preserved by oral tradition-the method was wonderful, but is authenticated by history-before there could have been a thought of reducing them to writing. These hymns contain very little that would appear to be too high or too deep for an ordinary human poet. They are of great interest to us because they make known, as clearly as possible, the sound of the oldest Aryan language, and the nature of the oldest Aryan G.o.ds. As Professor Deussen, in his valuable History of Philosophy says, (I, 83), the Vedic religion, which he at the same time calls the oldest philosophy, is richer in disclosures than any other in the world. In this sense he very properly calls the study of the Rigveda the high school of the science of religion, so that as he says no one can discuss these matters without a knowledge of it. This unique distinction rests, as he truly remarks, on the fact, "That the process on which originally all G.o.ds depend, the personification of the phenomena of nature, while it is more or less obscured by all other religions, in the Rigveda still takes place, so to speak, before our eyes visibly and palpably." I have long preached this in vain. All who have studied the Rigveda say this, and all who have not studied it say just the contrary, and lay especial stress upon the fact that these hymns contain ideas that once and for all they declare as modern. But no one has ever contended that this is not so. What is historically the oldest, may from a higher point of view be quite modern, and there are scholars who even look upon Adam as a reformer of mankind. Those who best know the Rigveda have often shown that it stands at a tolerably advanced stage, and here and there casts a distant glance into its own past. I myself have often said that I would give much if I could escape from my own proofs of the age of this collection of hymns, and could clearly show that at least some of these Vedic hymns had been added later.

These hymns, therefore, just because, judging from their language and metre, they are older than everything else in India, or even in the entire Aryan world, and because they are mainly concerned with the ancient G.o.ds of nature, appeared to the Hindus themselves as _apaurusheya_, that is, not wrought by man. They were called _S_ruti, (that which was heard), in distinction from other literature, which was designated as Sm_ri_ti, or recollection.

All this is easily intelligible. There followed a period, however, during which the true understanding of the hymns became considerably obscured, and a new series of works, the so-called Brahma_n_as, arose. These were very different from the hymns. They are composed in a younger language and in prose. They treat of the sacrifice, so full of significance in India, at which the hymns were employed, and which seems to me to have been originally designed for measuring time, and thus served to mark the progress of civilisation. They explain the meaning of the hymns, often quite erroneously; but they contain some interesting information upon the condition of India, long after the period when the hymns first appeared, and yet before the rise of Buddhism in the sixth century before Christ. It has been supposed that, as the Brahma_n_as were composed in prose, they were originally written, according to the hypothesis of Wolf, that prose everywhere presupposes the knowledge of writing. I cannot admit this in the case of India; at any rate, there is no trace of any acquaintance with writing in the whole of this extensive ma.s.s of literature. It was throughout a mnemonic literature, and just because the art of writing was unknown, the memory was cultivated in a manner of which we have no idea.

At all events, the Brahmans themselves knew nothing of the Brahma_n_as in written form, and included them with the hymns under the names Veda and _S_ruti; that is, they regarded them, in our phraseology, as revealed, and not the work of men.

The remarkable thing, however, is that they did not a.s.sume, like the Romans in the case of Numa and Egeria, a communication from the Vedic G.o.ds of nature to ordinary men, but contented themselves with declaring that the Veda had been seen by the Rishis, whose name Rishi they explained etymologically as "seer."

It is clear, therefore, that what the Brahmans understood under _S_ruti was nothing more than literature composed in an ancient language (for the Brahma_n_as are also composed in an ancient language, though not as ancient as that of the hymns), and treating of matters on which apparently man alone can establish no authority. For how could ordinary man take on himself to speak about the G.o.ds or to give directions for the sacrifice, to make promises for the reward of pious works, or even to decide what is morally right or wrong? More than human authority was necessary for this, and so the Brahma_n_as, as well as the hymns, were declared to be _apaurusheya_, that is, not human, though by no means divine, in the sense of having been imparted by one of the Devas.

We see, therefore, that the idea of the _S_ruti, while approaching to our idea of revelation as _apaurusheya_, that is, not human, does not quite coincide with it. What was ancient and incomprehensible, was called superhuman, and soon became infallible and beyond a.s.sault. If we look at other religions, we find that Buddhism denied the Veda every authority, and in conformity with its own character especially excluded every idea of superhuman revelation. In China, too, we look in vain for revelation. In Palestine, however, we find the idea that the Lord Himself spoke with Moses, who delivered His commands to Israel, and the tables of the commandments were even written by G.o.d's own fingers on both sides. But this must not be confounded with written literature. The idea that the entire Old Testament was written or revealed by Jehovah is absolutely not of ancient Jewish origin, whatever respect may have been shown to the holy books as recognised in the Synagogue.

As for Islam, the Koran is looked upon as communicated to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel, even as Zoroaster in the Avesta claims to have received certain communications in conversation with Ahuramazda.

In Christianity, in whose history the theory of revelation has played so great a part, there is in fact-and this is frequently overlooked-no declaration on the subject by Christ or the apostles themselves. That the Gospels, as they have come down to us, have been revealed, is nowhere stated in them, nor can it be gathered from the Acts of the Apostles or the Epistles. No one has ever maintained that any New Testament Scripture was known to Christ or even to the apostles.(51) On the contrary, if we take the t.i.tles of the Gospels in their natural meaning, they do not purport to have been written down by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John themselves: they are simply the sacred history as it was recorded by others according to each of these men. Attempts have indeed been made to reason away the meaning of ?at?, "according to," and interpret it as "by,"