Elizabeth Davis Leavitt - "The Grasshopper Stories"

Marcel Proust - "A L'Ombre Des Jeunes Filles en Fleur, Volume 1"

Franz Grillparzer - "Ein Bruderzwist in Habsburg"

Mrs. Charles Bryce - "The Ashiel mystery"

Editorial
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws

J >> James Buchanan >> Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws




But the most revolting specimen of that material Pantheism, which is
only another name for absolute Atheism, that has recently appeared,
occurs in the Letters of Atkinson and Martineau: "We require no
supernatural causes, when we can recognize adequate natural causes,
_inherent in the constitution of Nature_;" "nor are more causes to be
admitted than are sufficient to produce any particular change or
effect."--"Man has his place in Natural History; his nature does not
essentially differ from that of the lower animals; he is but a fuller
development, and varied condition, of the same fundamental nature or
cause,--of _that which we contemplate as matter_, and its changes,
relations, and properties. Mind is the consequence or product of the
material man, its existence depending on the action of the brain."--"Its
highest object seems to be, a sense of the infinite and abstract
power,--_the inherent force and principle of Nature_."[134]

From these specimens it must be evident that whatever nominal
distinction may exist between Material Pantheism and avowed Atheism,
they are radically identical, and that, for all practical purposes, they
may be treated as one and the same. From the same specimens we may
derive some useful hints respecting the essential conditions and the
right conduct of the Theistic argument. It is not enough to show that
there must be a self-existent, eternal, and infinite First Cause, for
this is admitted by the advocate of Material Pantheism, who substitutes
Nature for God. It is further necessary to show that the actual
phenomena of the Universe cannot be accounted for by means of any
properties or powers inherent in itself; and that they must be ascribed
to a living, intelligent, and powerful Being, distinct from Nature and
superior to it. The theory of Materialism must be discussed on its own
proper and peculiar merits, and if we find good cause to reject it, the
main pillar of Material Pantheism will fall to the ground. In the mean
time we shall only further observe, that this form of Pantheism cannot
be maintained without the help either of the doctrine of the Eternity of
Matter or of the Theory of Development, or, rather, without the aid of
both; and that, if it could be established, Polytheism would be its
natural product, if not its inevitable result.


SECTION III.

IDEAL PANTHEISM.

We have already seen that the system of Spinoza equally recognized the
two "attributes" of extension and thought, and the two corresponding
"modes" of body and soul, in connection with the one infinite and
eternal "Substance." We have also seen that most of his followers have
taken a one-sided view of the subject, and have either merged the
spiritual into the corporeal, so as to educe a Material or Hylozoic
Pantheism, or have virtually annihilated the material by resolving it
into the mental, so as to educe a system of Ideal or Spiritual
Pantheism.

"In Spinoza," says Mr. Morell, "we see the model upon which the modern
Idealists of Germany have renewed their search into the absolute ground
of all phenomena;" and there can be no doubt that his speculations
contain the germ of Ideal as well as of Material Pantheism. The
historical filiation of modern Pantheism cannot be satisfactorily
explained, in either of its two forms, without reference to his
writings; and yet its precise character, as it is developed in more
recent systems, demands for its full elucidation some knowledge of the
course and progress of philosophical speculation in the interval which
elapsed between the death of Spinoza and the subsequent developments of
his theory.

We cannot here attempt to trace the history of German Idealism, from its
source in the writings of Leibnitz, through the logical school of
Wolfius and his successors, till it reached its culminating point in the
philosophy of Hegel:--we shall content ourselves with a brief reference
to the fundamental principles of Kant's system, which may be justly said
to have contained the prolific germs, or, at least, to have determined
the prevailing character, of all the subsequent speculations of the
German schools. For if modern Pantheism be indebted to Spinoza for its
_substance_, it is equally indebted to Kant for its _form_; and no
intelligible account can be given of the phases which it has
successively assumed, without reference to the powerful influence which
his Philosophy, in one or other of its constituent elements, has exerted
on all his successors in the same field of inquiry.

The Philosophy of Kant has a most important bearing on the whole
question as to the validity of the natural evidence for the being and
perfections of God. We shall confine our attention to those parts of his
system which give rise to the speculations that have issued in the
recent theories of Ideal or Spiritual Pantheism.

In attempting to explain the nature and origin of the whole system of
human knowledge, Kant divides our intellectual being into _three_
distinct faculties,--sensation, understanding, and reason. He supposes
that from sensation we derive the whole _matter_ of our knowledge; that
from the understanding we derive its _form_, or the manner in which it
is conceived of by us; and that from reason we derive certain general or
abstract notions, which are highly useful, since they give a systematic
unity to human thought, but which have no _objective validity_, that is,
either no reality in nature that corresponds to them, or none, at least,
that can be scientifically demonstrated. From this fundamental principle
of his system it follows, that the only part of our knowledge which has
any objective reality is that which is derived from our
sense-perceptions, all else being purely _formal or subjective_, and
arising solely from the laws of our own mental nature, which determine
us to conceive of things in a particular way; and that even that part of
our knowledge which is derived from sense-perception is purely
phenomenal, since we know nothing of any object around us beyond the
bare fact that it exists, and that it appears to us to be as our senses
represent it. Hence the _skeptical_ tendency of Kant's speculations, in
so far as the scientific certainty of our knowledge is concerned. The
_practical utility_ of that knowledge is not disputed, but its
_objective reality_, or the possibility of proving it, is, to a large
extent, denied. Still he admits a primitive _dualism_, and a radical
distinction between _the subject and the object_, between the mind which
thinks and the matter of its thoughts. The _matter_ comes from without,
the _form_ from within; and the senses are the channels through which
the phenomena of nature are poured into the mould of the human mind. All
knowledge implies this combination of _matter_ with _form_, and is
possible only on the supposition of the concurrent action both of the
_object_ and _subject_; not that either of the two is known to us in its
essence, or that their real existence can be scientifically
demonstrated, for we know the subject only in its relation to the
object, and the object only in its relation to the subject; but that
this _relation_ necessarily requires the joint action of both, by which
alone we can acquire the only knowledge of which we are capable, and
which is supposed to be purely phenomenal, relative, and subjective. It
is true that we are capable of forming certain grand ideas, such as that
of God, the universe, and the soul; but these are the pure products of
Reason, the mere personifications of our own modes of thinking, and have
no objective reality, at least none that can be scientifically
demonstrated. But, while "the Speculative Reason" is held to be
incompetent to prove the existence of God, "the Practical Reason" is
appealed to; and in the conscious liberty of the soul, and its sense of
incumbent moral duty,--"the Categorical Imperative,"--Kant finds
materials for reconstructing the basis and fabric of a true Theology,
not scientifically perfect, but practically sufficient for all the
purposes of life.

It was scarcely possible that Philosophy could find a permanent
resting-place in such a theory as this; for, while it recognized both
the "object" and the "subject" as equally indispensable, the one for the
_matter_, the other for the _form_, of human knowledge, it did not hold
the balance even between the two. It assigned so much to the "subject,"
and so little to the "object," and made so large a part of our knowledge
merely formal and subjective, that it could neither be regarded as a
self-consistent system of Skepticism, nor yet as a satisfactory basis
for Scientific Belief. It was almost inevitable that speculative minds,
starting from this point, should diverge into one or other of _three_
courses; either following the line of the "subject" exclusively, and
treating the "object" as a superfluous incumbrance, so as to reach, as
Schulz and Maimon did, a pure Subjective Idealism, akin to utter
Skepticism; or following the line of the "object," and giving it greater
prominence than it had in the system of Kant, so as to lay the
foundation, as Jacobi and Herbart did, of a system of Objective
Certitude; or keeping _both_ in view, and attempting, as Fichte,
Schelling, and Hegel did, to blend the two into one, so as to reduce
them to systematic unity.[135]

In Kant's system a _dualism_ was admitted, a real distinction between
the "subject" and "object" of thought; but he had ascribed so much to
the subject, and so little to the object, that Fichte conceived the idea
of dispensing with the latter altogether, and constructing his whole
philosophy on a purely subjective basis. Since Kant had taught that all
objects are conceived of either according to the forms of our
sensational faculty, or the categories of our understanding, or the
ideas of pure reason, it seemed to be unnecessary to suppose the
existence of any object distinct from the mind itself. For if it be the
mind which furnishes the form of Space, and gives us the idea of
Substance, of Cause, of Being, the mind alone might suffice to account
for the whole sum of human knowledge. Fichte was followed by Schelling,
and Schelling by Hegel, each differing from his predecessor, but all
concurring in the attempt _to identify "Seyn," or absolute Being, with
Thought_, and to represent everything in the universe as a mere mode or
manifestation of one Infinite Essence. The _identity_ of Existence and
Thought is the fundamental principle of Hegel's doctrine. With him,
Being and the Idea of being, are the same; and Being and Thought are
combined in the "Absolute," which is at once ideal and real (l'etre and
l'idee). With him, the idea of God is that of _a logical process of
thought_, "ever unfolding itself, but never unfolded,"--a dialectic
movement rather than a Divine Being, which realizes itself, and reaches
a state of self-consciousness in man. God, nature, and man, are but one
process of thought, considered in different aspects; all finite
personalities are only so many thoughts of one eternal mind; God is in
man, and man is in God, and the progress of humanity, in all its stages,
is a Divine development.

This bare outline of these systems must suffice for our present purpose,
and we now proceed to offer a few remarks on the doctrine of Ideal as
distinguished from Material Pantheism.

1. The whole system of "Idealism," as propounded in the German schools,
is utterly baseless, and contradicts the intuitive, the universal
convictions of the human mind. For what is Idealism? Reduced to its
utmost simplicity, and expressed in the briefest formula, it amounts, in
substance, to this: _that the whole universe is to us a mere process of
thought_, and that nothing exists, or, at least, can be known by us,
beyond _the ideas of our own minds_. And what is the ground on which it
rests? It rests entirely on the assumption, that, since we can know
nothing otherwise than through the exercise of our mental faculties,
these faculties must be the sole sources of all our knowledge, and
altogether independent of any external object. According to this theory,
the mind is not informed or instructed by the universe, but the universe
is created by the mind; the objective is developed from the subjective;
and there is no reality anywhere except in the region of consciousness.
Nature is seen only as it is imaged in the mirror within; and to us it
is a mere phantasmagoria, a series of phenomena, a succession of
thoughts. "The sum total," says Fichte, "is this; there is absolutely
nothing permanent, either without me or within me, but only an unceasing
change. I know absolutely nothing of any existence, not even of my own.
I myself know nothing, and am nothing. Images there are; they constitute
all that apparently exists; and what they know of themselves is after
the manner of images; images that pass and vanish without there being
aught to witness their transition; that consist, in fact, of the images
of images, without significance and without an aim. I myself am one of
these images; nay, I am not even thus much, but only a confused image of
images. All reality is converted into a marvellous dream, without a life
to dream of, and without a mind to dream,--into a dream made up only of
a dream itself. Perception is a dream; thought--the source of all
existence, and all the reality which I imagine to myself of _my_
existence, of my power, of my destination--is the dream of that
dream."[136]

The tendency of such speculations as these towards universal Skepticism,
or even absolute Nihilism, with the exception only of certain fleeting
phenomena of Consciousness, is too apparent to require any formal proof;
and it must be equally evident that they contradict some of the most
universal and deeply-rooted convictions of the human mind. The ultimate
ground of every system of Idealism which excludes the knowledge of an
external world must be one or other of these two assumptions, or a
combination of both: either, that our knowledge cannot extend beyond the
range of consciousness, which takes cognizance only of ideas, or of
subjective mental states; or that any attempt to extend it beyond these
limits, so as to embrace external objects as really existing, can only
be successful on this condition,--that we _prove_, by reasoning from the
subjective to the objective, that there is a necessary _logical_
connection between the state of the one and the reality of the other.
Each of these assumptions is equally groundless. It is true that
consciousness, strictly so called, takes cognizance only of what passes
within; it is not true that consciousness, in this restricted sense, is
commensurate with our entire knowledge. It is true that we acquire our
knowledge only through the exercise of our mental faculties; it is not
true that our mental faculties are the only sources of our knowledge,
nor even that, without the concurrence of certain objects, they could
give us any knowledge at all. It is true that there must be a connection
between the subjective and the objective; it is not true that this
connection must be established by _reasoning_, or that we must _prove_
the existence of an external world distinct from the thinking mind,
before we are entitled to believe in it. For a great part of our
knowledge is _presentative_, and we directly perceive the objects of
Nature not less than the phenomena of Consciousness.

When it is said, in the jargon of the modern German philosophy, that
"the Ego has no immediate consciousness of the Non-Ego as existing, but
that the Non-Ego is only represented to us in a modification of the
self-conscious Ego, and is, in fact, only a phenomenon of the Ego,"--a
plain, practical Englishman, little tolerant of these subtle
distinctions, might be ready, if not deterred by the mere sound of the
words, to test them by a particular example. What am I to think, he
might say, of my own father and mother? They are familiarly known to me.
I have seen them, and talked with, them, and loved them as my own soul.
I have hitherto believed that they existed, and that they were really a
father and mother to me. But now I am taught that they are--mere
modifications of my own mind; that they are nothing more than simple
phenomena of the self-conscious Ego; and that, so far from being the
earthly authors of my existence, they are themselves--the creation and
offspring of my own thought. And on what ground am I asked to receive
this astonishing discovery? Why, simply because I can be sure of nothing
but the facts of consciousness. But how are _these facts proved_? They
"need no proof; they are self-evident; they are immediately and
irresistibly believed." Be it so. I can just as little doubt of the
existence of my body, of the distinct personality of my parents, and the
reality of an external universe, as of any fact of consciousness. May it
not be, whether we can explain it or not, that the one set of facts is
as directly _presented_, and needs as little to be _proved_, as the
other?

2. The doctrine of "Identity" constitutes a prominent and indispensable
part of the theory of Idealism, and is the ground-principle of
Philosophical Pantheism. It amounts, in substance, to the proposition,
that Existence and Thought are _one_, that the "subject" and "object" of
knowledge are _one_. "If the doctrine of Identity means anything, it
means that Thought and Being are essentially one; that the process of
_thinking_ is virtually the same as the process of _creating_; that in
constructing the universe by logical deduction, we do virtually the same
thing as Deity accomplishes in developing himself in all the forms and
regions of creation; that every man's reason, therefore, is really God;
in fine, that Deity is the whole sum of consciousness immanent in the
world."[137] It is through the medium of this doctrine of Identity that
Idealism passes into Pantheism,--not, indeed, the Idealism of Berkeley,
which recognized, consistently or otherwise, the existence of the human
mind and of the Divine Spirit, while it denied the independent
existence of matter,--but the Idealism of Fichte and others, which
resolved mind into a mere process of thought, a continuous stream or
succession of ideas. To _such_ a theory the doctrine of Identity was
indispensable. Its advocates were bound to show that nothing existed, or
could be proved to exist, in the universe but _thought_, and that, in
every case, the _subject_ and _object_ of thought might be identified as
one. We find, accordingly, that from the earliest ages down to the
present time, the idea of "absolute unity," or "universal identity," has
been frequently exhibited in connection with the speculations of
philosophical Idealists. The disciples of the Eleatic school in ancient
Greece, not less than those of the modern schools of Germany, insisted
on the identity of thought and its object, and regarded everything that
might seem to be external to the mind as a mere illusion.

It may be difficult for the British mind, familiarized from infancy with
the philosophy of common sense, to grasp the idea which this doctrine
involves; but, on the principles of absolute Idealism, it may be easily
explained, and may even seem to have some foundation in facts that must
be acknowledged by all. There are _two_ cases, particularly, which may
serve to illustrate, if they cannot suffice to prove, it. The first is
that of the Supreme Intelligence, conceived as existing before the
production of a created universe, when He was himself the sole "subject"
and the sole "object" of thought; in other words, the absolute
"Subject-Object." The second is that of the human consciousness,
conceived as occupied solely with certain subjective mental states, when
the mind may be said to be at once the "subject" and the "object" of its
own thought. There are cases, then, in which mind may be regarded as a
"subject-object;" the case of human consciousness, when the mind takes
cognizance of its own states or acts, and the case of the Divine
consciousness, while as yet the created universe had not been called
into being. But the question is, whether, _in all cases_, the "subject"
and "object" of thought are the same? or, whether existence and thought
are _universally_ identical? An affirmative answer to this question
would imply, that nothing whatever exists except only in the mind that
perceives it; that, according to Bishop Berkeley, "the existence of
unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived" is an
absurd or impossible supposition; that "their _esse_ is _percipi_," that
is, that their being consists in their being perceived or known; whence
it would follow, as Berkeley himself admits, that we have no reason to
believe in the continued existence of the desk at which we write, after
we have left the room in which we see it, excepting such as may arise
from the supposition, that if we returned to that room we might still
see it, or that in our absence it may still be perceived by some other
mind. Existence is identified with thought, and nothing exists save only
as it is thought of. Why? Simply because it can become known to us only
through the medium of consciousness, and that, too, in no other
character than as _a phenomenon of our own minds_.

That this doctrine is at direct variance with the universal convictions
of mankind, is too evident to require the slightest proof. That it is
_unphilosophical_, as well as _unpopular_, may be made apparent by two
very simple considerations. The _first_ is, that it assumes without
proof the only point in question, namely, that the objects of our
knowledge are nothing but the ideas of our own minds; whereas it is
affirmed, on the other side, and surely with at least an equal amount of
apparent reason, that we are so constituted as to have a direct
perception of external objects as well as of internal mental states. The
_second_ is, that the very formula of Idealism, which represents the
"Non-ego" as a mere modification of the conscious "Ego," seems to
involve a palpable contradiction; since it recognizes, in a certain
sense, _the difference between the "Ego and the Non-ego,"_ and yet, in
the same breath, annihilates that difference, and proclaims their
"identity."[138] Fichte admits, indeed, that we have the idea of
something which is _not-self_; but instead of ascribing it to an
external object, he accounts for it by a law of our mental nature, which
constrains us to _create a limit_, so as to give a determinate character
to our thought. The three technical formulas, therefore, which are
said[139] to express, respectively,--the affirmation of self,--the
affirmation of not-self,--and the determination of the one by the
other,--are all equally the products of our own mental laws, and do not
necessarily require the supposition of any external object; and hence it
follows that Self is the one only absolute principle, and that
everything else that is conceived of is constructed out of purely
subjective materials. The question whether the "object" be the
generative principle of the "idea," or _vice versa_, is thus superseded;
for there is no longer any distinction between "object" and "subject;"
existence is identified with thought; the _Ego_ and the _Non-ego_ unite
in one absolute existence; and Self becomes the sole Subject-object, the
percipient and the perceived, the knowing and the known.

Of course, on this theory, there is no knowledge of God, just as there
can be no knowledge of Nature, and no knowledge of our fellow-men, as
distinct objective realities; it is a system of pure Idealism, which, if
consistently followed out, must terminate in utter _skepticism_ in
regard to many of the most familiar objects of human knowledge; or,
rather, in the hands of a thoroughly consequent reasoner, it must issue,
as Jacobi endeavored to show, in absolute _Nihilism_; since we can have
no better reason for believing in the existence of Self than we have
for believing in the reality of an external world, and the coexistence
of our fellow-men. Each of these beliefs is equally the spontaneous
product of certain mental laws, which are just as trustworthy, and need
as little to be proved, in the one case as in the other.

Fichte seems to have become aware of this fundamental defect of his
system; and, at a later period, he attempted to give it a firmer basis
by representing _self_, not as individual, but as Divine, that is, as
the Absolute manifesting itself in Man. He now admitted what, if he had
not denied, he had overlooked before, an essential reality as the
substratum both of the _Ego_ and _Non-ego;_ a reality of which all
things, whether within or without, are only so many "modes" or
manifestations. And it is at this point that his subjective Idealism
passes into Pantheism, and that we mark the close affinity between his
speculations and those of Spinoza. There is, in some respects, a wide
difference between the two; Spinoza assumed, Fichte denied, the
existence of matter; the former affirmed Substance to be the absolute
and infinite Essence; the latter proclaimed a spiritual universe, whose
essence was the infinite reason, or the Divine idea: but still, with
these and other points of difference, there existed a real, radical
affinity between the two systems, that of Fichte, not less than that of
Spinoza, being based on _the identity of existence and thought_; and
both systems being directed to show that there is but one Absolute
Being, of which all phenomena, whether material or mental, are only so
many modes or manifestations.

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