James Joyce - "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"

Willa Cather - "O Pioneers!"

John Lothrop Motley - "The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1559 60"

Charlotte Bronte - "Jane Eyre"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Literary and Philosophical Essays

V >> Various >> Literary and Philosophical Essays




30

But daily experience could not possibly be permitted to confirm this
belief, or else it would have been all over, for ever, with people
who had this experience, so far as all recognition and reception was
concerned of the truth as yet unfamiliar to them. For if the pious
were absolutely happy, and it also of course was a necessary part of
his happiness that his satisfaction should be broken by no uneasy
thoughts of death, and that he should die old, and satisfied with
life to the full: how could he yearn after another life? and how
could he reflect upon a thing after which he did not yearn? But if
the pious did not reflect thereupon, who then should reflect? The
transgressor? he who felt the punishments of his misdeeds, and if he
cursed this life, must have so gladly renounced that other
existence?

31

Much less would it signify if an Israelite here and there directly
and expressly denied the immortality of the soul and future
recompense, on account of the law having no reference thereto. The
denial of an individual, had it even been a Solomon, did not arrest
the progress of the general reason, and was even in itself a proof
that the nation had now come a great step nearer the truth For
individuals only deny what the many are bringing into consideration;
and to bring into consideration that, concerning which no one
troubled himself at all before, is half way to knowledge.

32

Let us also acknowledge that it is a heroic obedience to obey the
laws of God simply because they are God's laws, and not because He
has promised to reward the obedience to them here and there; to obey
them even though there be an entire despair of future recompense,
and uncertainty respecting a temporal one.

33

Must not a people educated in this heroic obedience towards God have
been destined, must they not have been capable beyond all others of
executing Divine purpose? of quite a special character? Let the
soldier, who pays blind obedience to his leader, become also
convinced of his leader's wisdom, and then say what that leader may
not undertake to achieve with him.

34

As yet the Jewish people had reverenced in their Jehovah rather the
mightiest than the wisest of all Gods; as yet they had rather feared
Him as a Jealous God than loved Him: a proof this too, that the
conception which they had of their eternal One God was not exactly
the right conception which we should have of God. However, now the
time was come that these conceptions of theirs were to be expanded,
ennobled, rectified, to accomplish which God availed Himself of a
quite natural means, a better and more correct measure, by which it
got the opportunity of appreciating Him.

35

Instead of, as hitherto, appreciating Him in contrast with the
miserable idols of the small neighboring peoples, with whom they
lived in constant rivalry, they began, in captivity under the wise
Persians, to measure Him against the "Being of all Beings" such as a
more disciplined reason recognized and reverenced.

36

Revelation had guided their reason, and now, all at once, reason
gave clearness to their Revelation.

37

This was the first reciprocal influence which these two (Reason and
Revelation) exercised on one another; and so far is the mutual
influence from being unbecoming to the Author of them both, that
without it either of them would have been useless.

38

The child, sent abroad, saw other children who knew more, who lived
more becomingly, and asked itself, in confusion, "Why do I not know
that too? Why do I not live so too? Ought I not to have been taught
and admonished of all this in my father's house?" Thereupon it again
sought out its Primer, which had long been thrown into a corner, in
order to throw off a blame upon the Primer. But behold, it discovers
that the blame does not rest upon the books, that the shame is
solely its own, for not having long ago, known this very thing, and
lived in this very way.

39

Since the Jews, by this time, through the medium of the pure Persian
doctrine, recognized in their Jehovah, not simply the greatest of
all national deities, but GOD; and since they could, the more
readily find Him and indicate Him to others in their sacred
writings, inasmuch as He was really in them; and since they
manifested as great an aversion for sensuous representations, or at
all events, were instructed in these Scriptures, to have an aversion
to them as great as the Persians had always felt; what wonder that
they found favor in the eyes of Cyrus, with a Divine Worship which
he recognized as being, no doubt, far below pure Sabeism, but yet
far above the rude idolatries which in its stead had taken
possession of the forsaken land of the Jews.

40

Thus enlightened respecting the treasures which they had possessed,
without knowing it, they returned, and became quite another people,
whose first care it was to give permanency to this illumination
amongst themselves. Soon an apostacy and idolatry among them was out
of the question. For it is possible to be faithless to a national
deity, but never to God, after He has once been recognised.

The theologians have tried to explain this complete change in the
Jewish people in a different way; and one, who has well demonstrated
the insufficiency of these explanations, at last was for giving us,
as a true account--"the visible fulfilment of the prophecies which
had been spoken and written respecting the Babylonish captivity and
the restoration from it." But even this reason can be only so far
the true one, as it presupposes the, by this time, exalted ideas of
God. The Jews must by this time have recognised that to do miracles,
and to predict the future, belonged only to God, both of which they
had ascribed formerly to false idols, by which it came to pass that
even miracles and prophecies had hitherto made so weak an impression
upon them.

42

Doubtless, the Jews were made more acquainted with the doctrine of
immortality among the Chaldeans and Persians. They became more
familiar with it too in the schools of the Greek Philosophers in
Egypt.

43

However, as this doctrine was not in the same condition in reference
to their Scriptures that the doctrines of God's Unity and Attributes
were--since the former were entirely overlooked by that sensual
people, while the latter would be sought for:--and since too, for
the former, previous exercising was necessary, and as yet there had
been only hints and allusions, the faith in the immortality of the
soul could naturally never be the faith of the entire people. It was
and continued to be only the creed of a certain section of them.

44

An example of what I mean by "previous exercising" for the doctrine
of immortality, is the Divine threatenings of punishing the misdeeds
of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth
generation. This accustomed the fathers to live in thought with
their remotest posterity, and to feel, as it were, beforehand, the
misfortune which they had brought upon these guiltless ones.

45

By an allusion I mean that which was intended only to excite
curiosity and to occasion questions. As, for instance, the oft-
recurring mode of expression, describing death by "he was gathered
to his fathers."

By a "hint" I mean that which already contains any germ, out of
which the, as yet, held back truth allows itself to be developed. Of
this character was the inference of Christ from the naming of God
"the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." This hint appears to me to
be unquestionably capable of being worked out into a strong proof.

47

In such previous exercitations, allusions, hints, consists the
positive perfection of a Primer; just as the above-mentioned
peculiarity of not throwing difficulties or hindrances in the way to
the suppressed truth constitutes the negative perfection of such a
book.

48

Add to all this the clothing and style.

1. The clothing of abstract truths, which were not entirely to be
passed over, in allegories and instructive single circumstances,
which were narrated as actual occurrences. Of this character are the
Creation under the image of growing Day; the Origin of Evil in the
story of the Forbidden Tree; the source of the variety of languages
in the history of the Tower of Babel, &c.

49 2. The style--sometimes plain and simple, sometimes poetical,
throughout full of tautologies, but of such a kind as practised
sagacity, since they sometimes appear to be saying something else,
and yet the same thing; sometimes the same thing over again, and yet
to signify or to be capable of signifying at the bottom, something
else:--

50

And then you have all the properties of excellence which belong to a
Primer for a childlike people, as well as for children.

51

But every Primer is only for a certain age. To delay the child, that
has outgrown it, longer in it than it was intended for, is hurtful.
For to be able to do this is a way in any sort profitable, you must
insert into it more than there is really in it, and extract from it
more than it can contain. You must look for and make too much of
allusions and hints; squeeze allegories too closely; interpret
examples too circumstantially; press too much upon words. This gives
the child a petty, crooked, hair splitting understanding: it makes
him full of mysteries, superstitions; full of contempt for all that
is comprehensible and easy.

52

The very way in which the Rabbins handled their sacred books! The
very character which they thereby imparted to the character of their
people!

53

A Better Instructor must come and tear the exhausted Primer from the
child's hands. CHRIST came!

54

That portion of the human race which God had willed to comprehend in
one Educational plan, was ripe for the Second step of Education. He
had, however, only willed to comprehend on such a plan, one which by
language, mode of action, government, and other natural and
political relationships, was already united in itself.

55

That is, this portion of the human race was come so far in the
exercise of its reason, as to need, and to be able to make use of
nobler and worthier motives of moral action than temporal rewards
and punishments, which had hitherto been its guides. The child had
become a youth. Sweetmeats and toys have given place to the budding
desire to go as free, as honored, and as happy as its elder brother.

56

For a long time, already, the best individuals of that portion of
the human race (called above the elder brother); had been accustomed
to let themselves be ruled by the shadow of such nobler motives. The
Greek and Roman did everything to live on after this life, even if
it were only in the remembrance of their fellow-citizens.

57

It was time that another true life to be expected after this should
gain an influence over the youth's actions.

58

And so Christ was the first certain practical Teacher of the
immortality of the soul.

59

The first certain Teacher. Certain, through the prophecies which
were fulfilled in Him; certain, through the miracles which He
achieved; certain, through His own revival after a death through
which He had sealed His doctrine. Whether we can still prove this
revival, these miracles, I put aside, as I leave on one side who the
Person of Christ was. All that may have been at that time of great
weight for the reception of His doctrine, but it is now no longer of
the same importance for the recognition of the truth of His
doctrine.

60

The first practical Teacher. For it is one thing to conjecture, to
wish, and to believe the immortality of the soul, as a philosophic
speculation: quite another thing to direct the inner and outer acts
by it.

61

And this at least Christ was the first to teach. For although,
already before Him, the belief had been introduced among many
nations, that bad actions have yet to be punished in that life; yet
they were only such actions as were injurious to civil society, and
consequently, too, had already had their punishment in civil
society. To enforce an inward purity of heart in reference to
another life, was reserved for Him alone.

62

His disciples have faithfully propagated these doctrines: and if
they had even had no other merit, than that of having effected a
more general publication, among other nations, of a Truth which
Christ had appeared to have destined only for the Jews, yet would
they have even on that account alone, to be reckoned among the
Benefactors and Fosterers of the Human Race.

63

If, however, they transplanted this one great Truth together with
other doctrines, whose truth was less enlightening, whose usefulness
was of a less exalted character, how could it be otherwise. Let us
not blame them for this, but rather seriously examine whether these
very commingled doctrines have not become a new impulse of
directions for human reason.

64

At least, it is already clear that the New Testament Scriptures, in
which these doctrines after some time were found preserved, have
afforded, and still afford, the second better Primer for the race of
man.

65

For seven hundred years past they have exercised human reason more
than all other books, and enlightened it more, were it even only
through the light which the human reason itself threw into them.

66

It would have been impossible for any other book to become so
generally known among different nations: and indisputably, the fact
that modes of thought so diverse from each other have been occupied
on the same book, has helped on the human reason more than if every
nation had had its own Primer specially for itself.

67

It was also highly necessary that each people for a period should
hold this Book as the ne plus ultra of their knowledge. For the
youth must consider his Primer as the first of all books, that the
impatience to finish this book, may not hurry him on to things for
which he has, as yet, laid no basis.

68

And one thing is also of the greatest importance even now. Thou
abler spirit, who art fretting and restless over the last page of
the Primer, beware! Beware of letting thy weaker fellow scholars
mark what thou perceivest afar, or what thou art beginning to see!

Until these weaker fellow scholars are up with thee, rather return
once more into this Primer, and examine whether that which thou
takest only for duplicates of the method, for a blunder in the
teaching, is not perhaps something more.

70

Thou hast seen in the childhood of the human race, respecting the
doctrine of God's unity, that God makes immediate revelations of
mere truths of reason, or has permitted and caused pure truths of
reason to be taught, for some time, as truths of immediate
revelation, in order to promulgate them the more rapidly, and ground
them the more firmly.

71

Thou experiencest in the boyhood of the Race the same thing in
reference to the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. It is
preached in the better Primer as a Revelation, instead of taught as
a result of human reason.

72

As we by this time can dispense with the Old Testament, in reference
to the doctrine of the unity of God, and as we are by degrees
beginning also to be less dependent on the New Testament, in
reference to the immortality of the soul: might there not in this
Book also be other truths of the same sort prefigured, mirrored, as
it were, which we are to marvel at, as revelations, exactly so long
as until the time shall come when reason shall have learned to educe
them, out of its other demonstrated truths and bind them up with
them?

73

For instance, the doctrine of the Trinity. How if this doctrine
should at last, after endless errors, right and left, only bring men
on the road to recognise that God cannot possibly be One in the
sense in which finite things are one, that even His unity must be a
transcendental unity, which does not exclude a sort of purality?
Must not God at least have the most perfect conception of Himself,
i. e., a conception in which is found everything which is in Him?
But would everything be found in it which is in Him, if a mere
conception, a mere possibility, were found even of his necessary
Reality as well as of His other qualities? This possibility exhausts
the being of His other qualities. Does it that of His necessary
Reality? I think not. Consequently God can either have no perfect
conception of himself at all, or this perfect conception is just as
necessarily real, i. e., actually existent, as He Himself is.
Certainly the image of myself in the mirror is nothing but an empty
representation of me, because it only has that of me upon the
surface of which beams of light fall. But now if this image had
everything, everything without exception, which I have myself, would
it then still be a mere empty representation, or not rather a true
reduplication of myself? When I believe that I recognise in God a
familiar reduplication, I perhaps do not so much err, as that my
language is insufficient for my ideas: and so much at least for ever
incontrovertible, that they who wish to make the idea thereof
popular for comprehension, could scarcely have expressed themselves
more intelligibly and suitably than by giving the name of a Son
begotten from Eternity.

74

And the doctrine of Original Sin. How, if at last everything were to
convince us that man standing on the first and lowest step of his
humanity, is not so entirely master of his actions as to be able to
obey moral laws?

75

And the doctrine of the Son's satisfaction. How, if at last, all
compelled us to assume that God, in spite of that original
incapacity of man, chose rather to give him moral laws, and forgive
him all transgressions in consideration of His Son, i. e., in
consideration of the self-existent total of all His own perfections,
compared with which, and in which, all imperfections of the
individual disappear, than not to give him those laws, and then to
exclude him from all moral blessedness, which cannot be conceived of
without moral laws.

Let it not be objected that speculations of this description upon
the mysteries of religion are forbidden. The word mystery signified,
in the first ages of Christianity, something quite different from
what it means now: and the cultivation of revealed truths into
truths of reason, is absolutely necessary, if the human race is to
be assisted by them. When they were revealed they were certainly no
truths of reason, but they were revealed in order to become such.
They were like the "that makes"--of the ciphering master, which he
says to the boys, beforehand, in order to direct them thereby in
their reckoning. If the scholars were to be satisfied with the "that
makes," they would never learn to calculate, and would frustrate the
intention with which their good master gave them a guiding clue in
their work.

77

And why should not we too, by the means of a religion whose
historical truth, if you will, looks dubious, be conducted in a
familiar way to closer and better conceptions of the Divine Being,
our own nature, our relation to God, truths at which the human
reason would never have arrived of itself?

78

It is not true that speculations upon these things have ever done
harm or become injurious to the body politic. You must reproach, not
the speculations, but the folly and the tyranny of checking them.
You must lay the blame on those who would not permit men having
their own speculations to exercise them.

79

On the contrary, speculations of this sort, whatever the result, are
unquestionably the most fitting exercises of the human heart,
generally, so long as the human heart, generally, is at best only
capable of loving virtue for the sake of its eternal blessed
consequences.

80

For in this selfishness of the human heart, to will to practice the
understanding too, only on that which concerns our corporal needs,
would be to blunt rather than to sharpen it. It absolutely will be
exercised on spiritual objects, if it is to attain its perfect
illumination, and bring out that purity of heart which makes us
capable of loving virtue for its own sake alone.

81

Or, is the human species never to arrive at this highest step of
illumination and purity?--Never?

82

Never?--Let me not think this blasphemy, All Merciful! Education has
its goal, in the Race, no less than in the Individual. That which is
educated is educated for something.

83

The flattering prospects which are open to the people, the Honor and
Well-being which are painted to him, what are they more than the
means of educating him to become a man, who, when these prospects of
Honor and Well-being have vanished, shall be able to do his Duty?

84

This is the aim of human education, and should not the Divine
education extend as far? Is that which is successful in the way of
Art with the individual, not to be successful in the way of Nature
with the whole? Blasphemy! Blasphemy!!

85

No! It will come! it will assuredly come! the time of the
perfecting, when man, the more convinced his understanding feels
itself of an ever better Future, will nevertheless not be
necessitated to borrow motives of action from this Future; for he
will do the Right because it is right, not because arbitrary rewards
are annexed thereto, which formerly were intended simply to fix and
strengthen his unsteady gaze in recognising the inner, better,
rewards of well-doing.

86

It will assuredly come! the time of a new eternal Gospel, which is
promised us in the Primer of the New Testament itself!

87

Perhaps even some enthusiasts of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries had caught a glimpse of a beam of this new eternal Gospel,
and only erred in that they predicted its outburst at so near to
their own time.

88

Perhaps their "Three Ages of the World" were not so empty a
speculation after all, and assuredly they had no contemptible views
when they taught that the New Covenant must become as much
antiquated as the old has been. There remained by them the
similarity of the economy of the same God. Ever, to let them speak
my words, ever the self-same plan of the Education of the Race.

89

Only they were premature. Only they believed that they could make
their contemporaries, who had scarcely outgrown their childhood,
without enlightenment, without preparation, men worthy of their
Third Age.

90

And it was just this which made them enthusiasts. The enthusiast
often casts true glances into the future, but for this future he
cannot wait. He wishes this future accelerated, and accelerated
through him. That for which nature takes thousands of years is to
mature itself in the moment of his existence. For what possession
has he in it if that which he recognises as the Best does not become
the best in his lifetime? Does he come back? Does he expect to come
back? Marvellous only that this enthusiastic expectation does not
become more the fashion among enthusiasts. 91

Go thine inscrutable way, Eternal Providence! Only let me not
despair in Thee, because of this inscrutableness. Let me not despair
in Thee, even if Thy steps appear to me to be going back. It is not
true that the shortest line is always straight.

92

Thou hast on Thine Eternal Way so much to carry on together, so much
to do! So many aside steps to take! And what if it were as good as
proved that the vast flow wheel which brings mankind nearer to this
perfection is only put in motion by smaller, swifter wheels, each of
which contributes its own individual unit thereto?

93

It is so! The very same Way by which the Race reaches its
perfection, must every individual man--one sooner--another later--
have travelled over. Have travelled over in one and the same life?
Can he have been, in one and the self-same life, a sensual Jew and a
spiritual Christian? Can he in the self-same life have overtaken
both?

94

Surely not that! But why should not every individual man have
existed more than once upon this World?

95

Is this hypothesis so laughable merely because it is the oldest?
Because the human understanding, before the sophistries of the
Schools had dissipated and debilitated it, lighted upon it at once?

Why may not even I have already performed those steps of my
perfecting which bring to man only temporal punishments and rewards?

97

And once more, why not another time all those steps, to perform
which the views of Eternal Rewards so powerfully assist us?

Why should I not come back as often as I am capable of acquiring
fresh knowledge, fresh expertness? Do I bring away so much from
once, that there is nothing to repay the trouble of coming back?

99

Is this a reason against it? Or, because I forget that I have been
here already? Happy is it for me that I do forget. The recollection
of my former condition would permit me to make only a bad use of the
present. And that which even I must forget now, is that necessarily
forgotten for ever?

100

Or is it a reason against the hypothesis that so much time would
have been lost to me? Lost?--And how much then should I miss?--Is
not a whole Eternity mine?




LETTERS UPON THE AESTHETIC EDUCATION OF MAN

BY

J. C. FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER




INTRODUCTORY NOTE

An outline of the life of Schiller will be found prefixed to the
translation of "Wilhelm Tell" in the volume of Continental Dramas in
The Harvard Classics.