THE IDEAS OF THE MIND ARE UNIVERSAL, ETERNAL, AND

IMMUTABLE

H, HOW great is the mind of man!

He carries within him wherewithal to astonish, and infinitely to surpass himself: since his ideas are universal, eternal, and immutable. They are universal: for when I say it is impossible to be and not to be; the whole is bigger than a part of it; a line perfectly circular has no straight parts; between two points given the straight line is the shortest; the centre of a perfect circle is equally distant from all the points of the circumference; an equilateral triangle has no obtuse or right angle: all these truths admit of no exception. There never can be any being, line, circle, or triangle, but according to these rules. These axioms are of all times, or to speak more properly, they exist before all time, and will ever remain after any comprehensible duration. Let the universe be turned topsy-turvy, destroyed, and annihilated; and even let there be no mind to reason about beings, lines, circles, and triangles: yet it will ever be equally true in itself, that the same thing cannot at once be and not be; that a perfect circle can have no part of a straight line; that the centre of a perfect circle cannot be nearer one side of the circumference than the other. Men may, indeed, not think actually on these truths, and it might even happen that there should be neither universe nor any mind capable to reflect on these truths: but, nevertheless, they are still constant and certain in themselves, although no mind should be acquainted with them; just as the rays of the sun would not cease being real, although all men should be blind, and nobody have eyes to be sensible of their light. By affirming that two and two make four, says St. Augustine, man is not only certain that he speaks truth, but he cannot doubt that such a proposition was ever equally true, and must be so eternally. These ideas we carry within ourselves have no bounds, and cannot admit of any. It cannot be said that what I have affirmed about the centre of perfect circles is true only in relation to a certain number of circles; for that proposition is true, through evident necessity, with respect to all circles ad infinitum. These unbounded ideas can never be changed, altered, impaired, or defaced in us, for they make up the very essence of our reason. Whatever effort a man may make in his own mind, yet it

is impossible for him ever to entertain a serious doubt about the truths which those ideas clearly represent to us. For instance, I never can seriously call in question, whether the whole is bigger than one of its parts, or whether the centre of a perfect circle is equally distant from all the points of the circumference. The idea of the infinite is in me like that of numbers, lines, circles, a whole, and a part. The changing our ideas would be, in effect, the annihilating reason itself. Let us judge and make an estimate of our greatness by the immutable infinite stamp within us, and which can never be defaced from our minds. But lest such a real greatness should dazzle and betray us, by flattering our vanity, let us hasten to cast our eyes on our weakness.

Section 52 of "The Existence of God" complete.

THA

WEAKNESS OF MAN'S MIND

HAT same mind that incessantly sees the infinite, and, through the rule of the infinite, all finite things, is likewise infinitely ignorant of all the objects that surround it. It is altogether ignorant of itself, and gropes about in an abyss of darkness. It neither knows what it is, nor how it is united with a body; nor which way it has so much command over all the springs of that body, which it knows not. It is ignorant of its own thoughts and wills. It knows not, with certainty, either

what it believes or wills. It often fancies to believe and will what it neither believes nor wills. It is liable to mistake, and its greatest excellence is to acknowledge it. To the error of its thoughts it adds the disorder and irregularity of its will and desires; so that it is forced to groan in the consciousness and experience of its corruption. Such is the mind of man, weak, uncertain, stinted, full of errors. Now, who is it that put the idea of the infinite, that is to say of perfection, in a subject so stinted and so full of imperfection? Did it give itself so sublime, and so pure an idea, which is itself a kind of infinite in imagery? What finite being distinct from it was able to give it what bears no proportion with what is limited within any bounds? Let us suppose the mind of man to be like a lookingglass, wherein the images of all the neighboring bodies imprint themselves. Now what being was able to stamp within us the image of the infinite, if the infinite never existed? Who can put

It is the

in a looking-glass the image of a chimerical object which is not in being, and which was never placed against the glass? This image of the infinite is not a confused collection of finite objects, which the mind may mistake for a true infinite. true infinite of which we have the thought and idea. We know it so well that we exactly distinguish it from whatever it is not; and that no subtlety can palm upon us any other object in its room. We are so well acquainted with it that we reject from it any propriety that denotes the least bound or limit. In short,

we know it so well that it is in it alone we know all the rest, just as we know the night by the day, sickness by health. Now, once more, whence comes so great an image? Does it proceed from nothing? Can a stinted limited being imagine and invent the infinite, if there be no infinite at all? Our weak and short-sighted mind cannot of itself form that image, which, at this rate, should have no author. None of the outward objects can give us that image: for they can only give us the image of what they are, and they are limited and imperfect. Therefore, from whence shall we derive that distinct image which is unlike anything within us, and all we know here below, without us? Whence does it proceed? Where is that infinite we cannot comprehend, because it is really infinite; and which, nevertheless, we cannot mistake, because we distinguish it from anything that is inferior to it? Sure it must be somewhere, otherwise how could it imprint itself in our minds ?

Section 53 of "The Existence of God » complete.

JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE

(1762-1814)

HE beauty of Fichte's style is often striking, and, in or out of Germany, he is seldom equaled in coherency of expression. The charge so often brought against other German philosophers, that in their anxiety to express thought with accuracy they frequently become uncouth, does not lie against him, for the earnestness of his love for truth, his depth of admiration for the sublime and beautiful in morals and in nature, molds his sentences into harmony, and adds to his metaphysics the great power of eloquence. His metaphysical treatises and philosophical essays are the work of a poet and an orator, deeply moved by his own thought and by the anxious hope of persuading others to accept it as a means of helping themselves to attain higher modes of existence and of usefulness.

He was born at Rammenau in Upper Lusatia, May 19th, 1762, in the humblest circumstances. His father was a poor ribbon-weaver, but the family seems to have had, as an inheritance, the traits of intellectuality which Fichte displayed at a very early age. Fortunately for the world, they were developed in his case by the education he was enabled to acquire by his acquaintance with Freiherr Von Miltitz, a German nobleman who immortalized himself by helping the ribbon-weaver's son to prepare himself for the university. On the death of his patron, Fichte, supporting himself by teaching and writing, continued to strive for higher education until after many hardships and vicissitudes he won, in 1794, the recognition of appointment to the chair of Philosophy in the University of Jena. This, which carried with it authority in the entire world of learning, was hastened by the admiration Kant had publicly expressed for Fichte's first published philosophical work, the "Kritik aller Offenbarung." In 1799 he was forced out of his position at Jena on a charge of unorthodoxy, and in the same year he went to Berlin, where he made his home until his death, January 27th, 1814. During the latter part of his life, 1809-14, he filled the chair of Philosophy in the University of Berlin. He delivered a series of lectures at Erlangen and visited Copenhagen, but Berlin which received when Jena rejected. him is entitled to the credit of his work more fully than any other city in Germany. It is in a Berlin churchyard that he lies buried, and

on the monument which marks his grave is inscribed the highest tribute any man can receive from those he leaves behind him:

"The Teachers shall shine

As the Brightness of the Firmament,

And they that turn many to righteousness,

As the stars forever and ever.»

W. V. B.

THE

THE BLESSEDNESS OF TRUE LIFE

HE religious man is forever secured from the possibility of doubt and uncertainty. In every moment he knows distinctly what he wills, and ought to will; for the innermost root of his life-his will forever flows forth from the Divinity, immediately and without possibility of error; its indication is infallible, and for that indication he has an infallible perception. In every moment he knows assuredly that in all eternity he shall know what he shall will, and ought to will; that in all eternity the fountain of Divine Love which has burst forth in him shall never be dried up, but shall uphold him securely, and bear him onward forever. It is the root of his existence; it has now arisen upon him clear and bright, and his eye is fixed upon it with unspeakable love:- how could that fountain ever be dried up, how could that leader and guardian ever turn aside? Whatever comes to pass around him, nothing appears to him strange or unaccountable; he knows assuredly, whether he understand it or not, that it is in God's world, and that there nothing can be that does not directly tend to good.

In him there is no fear for the future, for the absolute fountain of all blessedness eternally bears him on towards it; -no sorrow for the past, for in so far as he was not in God he was nothing, and this is now at an end, and since he has dwelt in God he has been born into life; while in so far as he was in God, that which he has done is assuredly right and good. He has never aught to deny himself, nor aught to long for; for he is at all times in eternal possession of the fullness of all that he is capable of enjoying. For him all labor and effort have vanished; his whole outward existence flows forth, softly and gently, from his inward being, and issues out into reality without difficulty or hindrance. To use the language of one of our great poets: