VON HARTMANN'S PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNCONSCIOITS.*

WE are indebted to the enterprise of Messrs. Triibner and Co. for this translation, forming a portion of their " English and Foreign Philosophical Library," of which series the translation of Lange's History y Materialisoi, and many other important works, formed a part. It is not our intention,—nor would our space permit of it, were it desirable,—to enter upon the history of the stream of thought from Plato downwards, through Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and specially Schopenhauer, which, through many modifications, has recently culminated in the • Phitomphy of the Unconscious. By Riinard von Hartmann. Braenlative Results according to the Inductive 3iethod of Physics" Science. Authorised Translation by William Chatterton Coupland, B.Sc. London: Trillium' and Co. 1884.

writings of Eduard von Hartmann. It will rather be our object, after briefly sketching the more intelligible part of his philosophy, to endeavour to show its connection with the development of human thought in the present generation, and its foundations in some of the deeper intuitions of humanity which have been ignored by a very different school, which still reigns predom- inant in England, and a wave of which is still passing over Germany, in spite of the very considerable popularity which our present author and, in a less degree, his immediate 'fore- runner, Schopenhauer, have attained in that country.

As it is impossible to recognise in any sense by direct cogni- tion that which does not form part of the content of conscious- ness, the existence of what Hartmann calls "unconscious ideas and unconscious will" must, he admits, be proved or rendered probable, only by the accumulation and combination of phenomena which suggest that hypothesis, and which receive from it a prin- ciple of unity and an explanation which satisfies the mind. He endeavours to show that the phenomena of the whole universe of brute matter, of vegetable and animal life, and of the human mind, not to mention the most difficult problems of Ontology and Metaphysics, are to be explained by the principle of the

" Unconscions,"—a something which (though unconscious) is a combination of "will" (i.e., desire) and "idea," the latter including unconscious volition and action. The hypothesis of its existence,

lie maintains, as the underlying cause of all phenomena, forms the core of all great philosophies,—the " substance " of Spinosa,

the "absolute Ego" of Fichte, the "absolute subject-object" of Schelling, the "absolute Idea" of Plato, the " Will " of Schopen- haner, besides unmistakeable analogues to it in the thoughts of many others, European and Oriental. The " Unconscious " is, of course, psychical, possessing the positive attributes of "will- ing and representing." It is one and universal, having for its purpose the formation, reparation, and preservation of all

things according to their type ; and, when it gets to the higher grades of organic life, the raising-up of consciousness, which requires the formation of the higher nervous centres or true brain, when conscious individuality comes into being. The Unconscious never is morbid, never errs unless, in the case of conscious beings, it is misled through erroneous presentations by the conscious intellect.

This philosophy is naturally Monistic, but Spiritualistic rather than Materialistic; for though by habit we speak of matter and force, and imagine that the latter necessarily implies a substratum in which to reside, Hartmann contends that

matter without force is unthinkable, and the combination of these two is unthinkable also, so that an atom is merely a centre of force, or the point at which forces counterbalance each other.

The GO d of Theism, as a being possessed of consciousness in the sense of human consciousness, is to Hartmann an impossi-

bility and a contradiction, for consciousness implies limitation,

—an ego and a non-ego :— •

"In our inability to apprehend the mode of perception of the in- telligence [that of the Unconscious or All-One Existence], we are only able to indicate it through the contrast to our own form of percep- tion .(conscionsness), then only to characterise it by the negative predicate of unconsciousness. But we know from the previous in- quiries that the function of this unconscious intelligence is anything but blind, rather far-seeing,—nay, even clairvoyant ; although this seeing can never be aware of its own vision, but only of the world, and without the mirrors of the individual consciousnesses can also not see the seeing eye. Of this unconscious clairvoyant intelligence we have come to perceive that in its infallible purposive activity, embracing out of time all ends and means in one, and always including all necessary data within its ken, it infinitely tran- ecends the halting, stilted gait of the discursive reflection of con- sciousness, ever limited to a single point, dependent on sense-percep- tion, memory, and inspirations of the Unconscious. We shall then be compelled to designate this intelligence, which is superior to all consciousness, at once unconscious and super-conscious. With this recognition, however, the preceding scruples with regard to the un- consciousness of the All-One disappear. If the latter possesses a super-conscious intelligence, all-knowing and all-wide, which teleo- logically determines the content of creation and of the world-process, we stand here neither as accidental products of the forces of Nature, or is God dwarfed by denying him this mode of consciousness."

Thus, argues Von Hartmann, the fear of degrading Deity by con- ceiving him as identical with "the Unconscious" is unfounded,

since his mode of thinking is above consciousness. Our conscious- ness, or self -consciousness (although to develop it is one of the aims of the Unconscious, as, in a certain sense, it raises us in the scale of being), passes with us as a prerogative, only because we stand "within the world of individuation and its limits, and need for the greatest possible furtherance of our individual aims, as sharp a severance as possible of ourselves from other persons,

and from the impersonal outer world—considerations which, as a matter of course, fall away from the All-One Being, which has nothing outside itself."

The Hartmann philosophy is thus a species of Pantheism, its tone lobo ccelo removed from that of the lowest phase of Materialistic thought of the day, which contents itself with mere sequence of phenomena, or at the best with the causality. of blind forces. It is nothing, if not teleological. It is naturally also determinist ; "the laboratory of volition is hidden in the Unconscious," and "the ethical element in man, all the con- ditions, the character of opinions, and action, lies in the deepest night of the Unconscious." The real strength of this system lies in its unhesitating recognition of the purposeful nature of all things, and of the great principle that force really means will, And that a consistent Materialism ought before all things to deny force, regarding motion as an ultimate, "requiring no explanation as an eternal and original quality of matter." So far, the philosophy of Von Hartmann is Theistic, or, at least, quasi-Theistic ; how far it can be called religious is a question depending on the meaning of the word. It is certainly not so in the Christian sense, or in any sense which can satisfy the religions instincts of mankind. The Unconscious All-One can hardly be an object of adoration, worship, love, or fear, or hold any personal relation to personal beings such as we are. A distant awe and admiration on our part is the only emotion to which its contemplation can by possibility give rise. Is it not possible, however, for those minds which find a certain fascination in these views, to believe that a Power which causes the Unconscious (that is itself) to effloresce into consciousness in the human being, may project itself also into personality, in order, for great moral ends, to bear a certain relation to man ? Self-limitation quoad a special relation is not a more difficult or mysterious idea than any other of the leading ideas of such thinkers as Von Hartmann. Is there not such a thing as Christian Pantheism,—that which would be Pantheism but for its still stronger sympathy with the Christian limitations on Pantheism ? and are there not traces of something which merits that name in the Arritings of many of the most devout and thoughtful men of this and of all times ? In any view, the springing-up of this phase of Spiritualistic philosophy in the midst of the pseudo-philo- sophic scientism which now Prevails, is a valuable protest against the latter. Schopenhauer never attained, it is true, a very large circle of personal disciples in Germany ; but the fact that this work of Von Hartmann has, within the brief period of fourteen years, reached a ninth edition, is enough to prove a considerable reaction against gross Materialism in the Teutonic mind. The phase of thought of which Von Hartmann's philosophy is an exponent, is really a city of refuge for those minds which cannot rest satisfied with mere science:on the one hand ; and, on the other, feel an insuperable repugnance to what they would term the anthropomorphic Theism of the popular theologies, so seldom placed before them in any but the crudest and most unphilosophical form.

It is impossible for us in one brief notice to give examples of the innumerable illustrations from physical, and especially bio- logical, science with which this work abounds. For the most part, it is quite up to the level of the latest observations and theories of the Physiologists ; and, in not a few instances, throws considerable light upon the latter. The chapters on the spinal cord and ganglia, on "the Unconscious in instinct," "in reflex action," "in the reparative power of Nature," and the so-called vie medicatrix, are eminently worthy of study. Von Hartmann's scientific knowledge is much greater and more accurate than that of any of his predecessors in his peculiar line of thought. The effect of these accumulative illustrations is to leave on the mind an extremely hazy but, nevertheless, profound impression of the verisimilitude of some aspects of his thought, and a general-con- viction that he has dimly discerned a great and important truth. We venture to think that even to those unfamiliar with such speculations, this view will be supported by a study of Von Hart- mann's writings ; while to the trained intellect his system will• appear only a natural stage in the development of a type of philosophy of very ancient origin.

Von Hartmann's "pessimism," which is different from that of Schopenhauer (though both are simply revivals of some of the essentials of Buddhism), is, by his own admission, somewhat of an episode in this work. Doubtless, it appears to him to flow logically from his general principles ; but we utterly fail to see it in this light. That it is the least suggestive and the most unsound portion of the book, we venture honestly to thihk ; and also that it is the child, less of his general philosophy than of an unhappy temperament. When we say that pessimism is not a necessary -sequence of Von Hartmann's system, we mean his pessimism in relation to this present life. That is a mere question of fact, and the generalisation will be coloured by the circumstances and . mood of each individual. Of course, in its utter ignoring of all grounds of hope beyond the death of the body and of personality in a future life, Von Hartmannism is pessimist indeed.

To understand Von Hartmann even approximately, it is advis- able to read some of his previous writings; and it is needless to say that for its full comprehension, a familiarity with his many prede- .cessors in the same line of thought is absolutely necessary. This 'book, however, is one which it is our imperative duty to notice; and we trust that we have been able to sketch its leading ideas and their relation to the progress of speculation sufficiently to attract the philosophical student, and notto deter readers who only aim at general culture; while we have given at least one brief hint of how something approaching to Von Hartmann's philosophy may be reconcilable with Christian theology, in its wider and better sense. To what our modern philosophers are fond of calling the "naïve" intelligence, and, of course, to the pure Materialist, the notion of "the Unconscious" must appear a direct contradiction or a baseless chimmra ; but in most posi- tive beliefs there is dtrue something, and the true something in Von Hartmann's is something worthy of being discussed. It must also be remembered that thinkers of so peculiar a type have a nomenclature of their own, which requires tribe studied.

The translation is thoroughly good in almost all respects, and must have been no easy task.