Biographia Literaria
whereas in Latin we must too often be contented with a mere general and
inclusive term. How indeed can it be otherwise, when we attempt to
render the most copious language of the world, the most admirable for
the fineness of its distinctions, into one of the poorest and most
vague languages? Especially when we reflect on the comparative number
of the works, still extant, written while the Greek and Latin were
living languages. Were I asked what I deemed the greatest and most
unmixed benefit, which a wealthy individual, or an association of
wealthy individuals could bestow on their country and on mankind, I
should not hesitate to answer, “a philosophical English dictionary;
with the Greek, Latin, German, French, Spanish, and Italian synonymes,
and with correspondent indexes.” That the learned languages might
thereby be acquired, better, in half the time, is but a part, and not
the most important part, of the advantages which would accrue from such
a work. O! if it should be permitted by Providence, that without
detriment to freedom and independence our government might be enabled
to become more than a committee for war and revenue! There was a time,
when every thing was to be done by Government. Have we not flown off to
the contrary extreme?]
[Footnote 47: April, 1825. If I did not see it with my own eyes, I
should not believe that I had been guilty of so many hydrostatic Bulls
as bellow in this unhappy allegory or string of metaphors! How a river
was to travel up hill from a vale far inward, over the intervening
mountains, Morpheus, the Dream weaver, can alone unriddle. I am ashamed
and humbled. S. T. Coleridge.]
[Footnote 48: Ennead, III. 8. 3. The force of the Greek sunienai is
imperfectly expressed by “understand;” our own idiomatic phrase “to go
along with me” comes nearest to it. The passage, that follows, full of
profound sense, appears to me evidently corrupt; and in fact no writer
more wants, better deserves, or is less likely to obtain, a new and
more correct edition-ti oun sunienai; oti to genomenon esti theama
emon, siopaesis (mallem, theama, emon sioposaes,) kai physei genomenon
theoraema, kai moi genomenae ek theorias taes odi, taen physin echein
philotheamona uparkei. (mallem, kai moi hae genomenae ek theorias
autaes odis). “What then are we to understand? That whatever is
produced is an intuition, I silent; and that, which is thus generated,
is by its nature a theorem, or form of contemplation; and the birth;
which results to me from this contemplation, attains to have a
contemplative nature.” So Synesius:
‘Odis hiera
‘Arraeta gona
The after comparison of the process of the natura naturans with that of
the geometrician is drawn from the very heart of philosophy.]
[Footnote 49: This is happily effected in three lines by Synesius, in
his THIRD HYMN:
‘En kai Pan’ta--(taken by itself) is Spinozism.
‘En d’ ’Apan’ton--a mere Anima Mundi.
‘En te pro panton--is mechanical Theism.
But unite all three, and the result is the Theism of Saint Paul and
Christianity. Synesius was censured for his doctrine of the
pre-existence of the soul; but never, that I can find, arraigned or
deemed heretical for his Pantheism, though neither Giordano Bruno, nor
Jacob Behmen ever avowed it more broadly.
Mystas de Noos,
Ta te kai ta legei,
Buthon arraeton
Amphichoreuon.
Su to tikton ephus,
Su to tiktomenon;
Su to photizon,
Su to lampomenon;
Su to phainomenon,
Su to kryptomenon
Idiais augais.
‘En kai panta,
‘En kath’ heauto,
Kai dia panton.
Pantheism is therefore not necessarily irreligious or heretical; though
it may be taught atheistically. Thus Spinoza would agree with Synesius
in calling God Physis en Noerois, the Nature in Intelligences; but he
could not subscribe to the preceding Nous kai noeros, i.e. Himself
Intelligence and intelligent.
In this biographical sketch of my literary life I may be excused, if I
mention here, that I had translated the eight Hymns of Synesius from
the Greek into English Anacreontics before my fifteenth year.]
[Footnote 50: See Schell. Abhandl. zur Erlaeuter. des Id. der
Wissenschafslehre.]
[Footnote 51: Des Cartes, Diss. de Methodo.]
[Footnote 52: The impossibility of an absolute thing (substantia unica)
as neither genus, species, nor individuum: as well as its utter
unfitness for the fundamental position of a philosophic system, will be
demonstrated in the critique on Spinozism in the fifth treatise of my
Logosophia.]
[Footnote 53: It is most worthy of notice, that in the first revelation
of himself, not confined to individuals; indeed in the very first
revelation of his absolute being, Jehovah at the same time revealed the
fundamental truth of all philosophy, which must either commence with
the absolute, or have no fixed commencement; that is, cease to be
philosophy. I cannot but express my regret, that in the equivocal use
of the word that, for in that, or because, our admirable version has
rendered the passage susceptible of a degraded interpretation in the
mind of common readers or hearers, as if it were a mere reproof to an
impertinent question, I am what I am, which might be equally affirmed
of himself by any existent being.
The Cartesian Cogito ergo sum is objectionable, because either the
Cogito is used extra gradum, and then it is involved to the sum and is
tautological; or it is taken as a particular mode or dignity, and then
it is subordinated to the sum as the species to the genus, or rather as
a particular modification to the subject modified; and not pre-
ordinated as the arguments seem to require. For Cogito is Sum Cogitans.
This is clear by the inevidence of the converse. Cogitat, ergo est is
true, because it is a mere application of the logical rule: Quicquid in
genere est, est et in specie. Est (cogitans), ergo est. It is a cherry
tree; therefore it is a tree. But, est ergo cogitat, is illogical: for
quod est in specie, non NBCESSARIO in genere est. It may be true. I
hold it to be true, that quicquid vere est, est per veram sui
affirmationem; but it is a derivative, not an immediate truth. Here
then we have, by anticipation, the distinction between the conditional
finite! (which, as known in distinct consciousness by occasion of
experience, is called by Kant’s followers the empirical!) and the
absolute I AM, and likewise the dependence or rather the inherence of
the former in the latter; in whom “we live, and move, and have our
being,” as St. Paul divinely asserts, differing widely from the Theists
of the mechanic school (as Sir J. Newton, Locke, and others) who must
say from whom we had our being, and with it life and the powers of
life.]
[Footnote 54: TRANSLATION. “Hence it is clear, from what cause many
reject the notion of the continuous and the infinite. They take,
namely, the words irrepresentable and impossible in one and the same
meaning; and, according to the forms of sensuous evidence, the notion
of the continuous and the infinite is doubtless impossible. I am not
now pleading the cause of these laws, which not a few schools have
thought proper to explode, especially the former (the law of
continuity). But it is of the highest importance to admonish the
reader, that those, who adopt so perverted a mode of reasoning, are
under a grievous error. Whatever opposes the formal principles of the
understanding and the reason is confessedly impossible; but not
therefore that, which is therefore not amenable to the forms of
sensuous evidence, because it is exclusively an object of pure
intellect. For this non-coincidence of the sensuous and the
intellectual (the nature of which I shall presently lay open) proves
nothing more, but that the mind cannot always adequately represent to
the concrete, and transform into distinct images, abstract notions
derived from the pure intellect. But this contradiction, which is in
itself merely subjective (i.e. an incapacity in the nature of man), too
often passes for an incongruity or impossibility in the object (i.e.
the notions themselves), and seduces the incautious to mistake the
limitations of the human faculties for the limits of things, as they
really exist.”
I take this occasion to observe, that here and elsewhere Kant uses the
term intuition, and the verb active (intueri Germanice anschauen) for
which we have unfortunately no correspondent word, exclusively for that
which can be represented in space and time. He therefore consistently
and rightly denies the possibility of intellectual intuitions. But as I
see no adequate reason for this exclusive sense of the term, I have
reverted to its wider signification, authorized by our elder
theologians and metaphysicians, according to whom the term comprehends
all truths known to us without a medium.
From Kant’s Treatise De mundi sensibilis et intelligibilis forma et
principiis. 1770.]
[Footnote 55: Franc. Baconis de Verulam, NOVUM ORGANUM.]
[Footnote 56: This phrase, a priori, is in common, most grossly
misunderstood, and as absurdity burdened on it, which it does not
deserve. By knowledge a priori, we do not mean, that we can know
anything previously to experience, which would be a contradiction in
terms; but that having once known it by occasion of experience (that
is, something acting upon us from without) we then know, that it must
have existed, or the experience itself would have been impossible. By
experience only now, that I have eyes; but then my reason convinces me,
that I must have had eyes in order to the experience.]
[Footnote 57: Jer. Taylor’s Via Pacis.]
[Footnote 58: Par. Lost. Book V. I. 469.]
[Footnote 59: Leibnitz. Op. T. II. P. II. p. 53.--T. III. p. 321.]
[Footnote 60: Synesii Episcop. Hymn. III. I. 231]
[Footnote 61: ‘Anaer morionous, a phrase which I have borrowed from a
Greek monk, who applies it to a Patriarch of Constantinople. I might
have said, that I have reclaimed, rather than borrowed, it: for it
seems to belong to Shakespeare, de jure singulari, et ex privilegio
naturae.]
[Footnote 62: First published in 1803.]
[Footnote 63: These thoughts were suggested to me during the perusal of
the Madrigals of Giovambatista Strozzi published in Florence in May,
1593, by his sons Lorenzo and Filippo Strozzi, with a dedication to
their paternal uncle, Signor Leone Strozzi, Generale delle battaglie di
Santa Chiesa. As I do not remember to have seen either the poems or
their author mentioned in any English work, or to have found them in
any of the common collections of Italian poetry; and as the little work
is of rare occurrence; I will transcribe a few specimens. I have seldom
met with compositions that possessed, to my feelings, more of that
satisfying entireness, that complete adequateness of the manner to the
matter which so charms us in Anacreon, joined with the tenderness, and
more than the delicacy of Catullus. Trifles as they are, they were
probably elaborated with great care; yet to the perusal we refer them
to a spontaneous energy rather than to voluntary effort. To a
cultivated taste there is a delight in perfection for its own sake,
independently of the material in which it is manifested, that none but
a cultivated taste can understand or appreciate.
After what I have advanced, it would appear presumption to offer a
translation; even if the attempt were not discouraged by the different
genius of the English mind and language, which demands a denser body of
thought as the condition of a high polish, than the Italian. I cannot
but deem it likewise an advantage in the Italian tongue, in many other
respects inferior to our own, that the language of poetry is more
distinct from that of prose than with us. From the earlier appearance
and established primacy of the Tuscan poets, concurring with the number