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vol. title: vol. period: 1882 pages in vol.: 229 |
On “The Philosophy of Immortality,” Theosophy, Böhme, Indian Philosophy, Materialisation, Conditional Immortality.
It is seldom that a writer on philosophy, or a poet (unless, indeed, he happen to be “the fashion”) gets so careful, and conscientious, and intelligent a review of his work, however sincere and careful that work may be, as your reviewer, “C. C. M.,” has accorded to my “Philosophy of Immortality,” and I am glad publicly to thank him. There are only one or two points in his kind notice on which I should like to offer, with your permission, a few observations. Your reviewer has represented my view on three salient topics—discussed with all the impartiality and intelligence one mind is capable of in the interpretation of another, when questions of this rather abstruse nature are under consideration. These topics are (1) the nature of the Ego or person; (2) that of perception; (3) that of memory. On the moral argument, as I have stated it, in favour of our personal immortality, he has not touched; but of the metaphysical arguments those converging on these three points are the most important. (1) The Ego, or person, is immortal, because it is substance. (2) External nature, including the body, consists of persons, and the thoughts of persons; the dissolution of the body, therefore, is a phenomenon, or modification of the perceptions and thoughts of persons, not a destruction of thinkers or perceivers. (3) Memory involves the persistence of the person or thing remembered, with the penetration of rememberer and remembered to a transcendental region of being, where past, present, and future, which are modes of our present imperfect conceiving faculty, become one in a higher and fuller idea; prerogative, however, this in its completeness, of a richer and more perfect personal life, which is the basis and fountain-spring of our actual truncated halting life—the latter as necessary to the consummation and actuality of the former, as the former in its stability and reality to such truth and sterling value as there may be in the illusoriness of the latter.
“C. C. M.” is in error if he thinks I have not studied Böhme, whom I regard as one of the greatest of seers. But there are some points with respect to which I do not feel myself in harmony with him. It is from Böhme, however, that modern thought has derived its most fertile principle, that “in Yes and No consist all things, be they divine, terrestrial, or diabolic;” that “in self-distinction is the essential character of spirit, and consequently of God, so far as God is to be conceived as spirit.” “God is living spirit only if, and so far as, he comprehends within himself difference from himself, and through this other, this difference within himself is manifest, is an object, is a cognising consciousness.” The No is a counterstroke of the Yes. Without distinction of persons no consciousness, no thought, no love. That expresses philosophically the doctrine of the Trinity. And that thought was worked out with marvellous power of dialectic by Hegel; though I cannot accept his “Logic” as substantial and satisfactory.
But when Böhme derives personal spirit from something supposed to be deeper and beyond, viz., from “Being,” or what he calls the “Ungrund,” and sometimes the “Nothing,” I venture to think him utterly mistaken. That was the conception of Plotinus, and other Neoplatonists; as it is, I believe, the fundamental conception of Hindoo philosophy.
But Being is an abstract idea of some personal thinker or thinkers, since it can only be differenced from not-being, therefore can only be at all in a self-identifying (and so self-differencing) unity of consciousness. The same is true of “the Astral Light,” and of the “Anima Mundi,” if by that is meant “Astral Light,” or “ether;” but the true “Anima Mundi” is different. If Being were before personal Spirit, there would be no power sufficient to bring personal Spirit into existence. This is to put Time into the Divine Nature, and anthropomorphise it impossibly, leaving indeed, neither God nor man, for God is the “Unmoved Mover,” the Supreme Personal Being.
The Hindoo philosophy also I have studied; it appears infinitely varied in its developments, as passing through the ages from so remote a source, and through so many diverse minds of diverse races, we might expect it to be. It is very probable, however, that I have not near so minute and exact a knowledge of its details as my reviewer. The fact is that if once I attain (after long and anxious reflection) to a scheme of thought at all satisfying, however incomplete I may feel it to be, I rest in it, and that which is fundamentally alien makes little impression, running off my memory, to use a vulgarism, like water off a duck’s back. Thus the “subtle psychological distinctions” of which “C. C. M.” speaks, do not commend themselves to me at all, as tending to division rather than unity, and I think the chief end of philosophy should be to unify. Admiring the subtlety and profundity of Indian speculation, it has always seemed to me to belong to a rather early period of the organised and progressive development of human thought, which is Hegel’s view also, though it is true that the research of scholars has brought much more to light concerning it than was known to Hegel. And that which is distinctive in modern Theosophy, judging by Madame Blavatsky’s “Isis Unveiled,” which I have carefully read, as well as some other similar books emanating from the same school, appears to be derived chiefly from these Indian sources, or from writers like Plutarch, who, immortally magnificent as biographer and historian, is surely crude and unreliable as philosopher.
Psychological distinctions are valuable, whether in Scotch, Cabalistic, German, or Indian philosophy; but they become mischievous if understood too ontologically, absolutely. Thus the Pauline distinction of body, soul, and spirit is of much value logically, as representing our present relative manner of apprehending; but when Theosophists insist on this, or other threefold (or again, other myriad-fold) differences in man as constituting verily separable sections (as it were onion skins) in him, so that his identity may be split up between them, and one of them (or more) may be finally annihilated, then I demur, because this contradicts the very fundamentals of my belief.
Hence neither can I accept altogether the teaching of Mrs. Kingsford, though admirable and instructive in many respects, which seems to be on these and other points in accordance with Hindoo philosophy. Man doubtless is the microcosm, and therefore he belongs to diverse spheres; “half-worm, half-angel;” but these spheres are one, identical in difference, essential to the One, and the One to them. I am very glad, however, that Indian philosophy, and the writings called “occult,” or “cabalistic,” should be more studied, for they will give a wholesome fillip to the crass, superficial, jaunty self-complacency of the British Philistine.
Body, soul, and spirit, and other myriad-fold distinctions, whether made by scholastics, Hebrews, Scotch, or Indians, or Kant and the Germans, can be but aspects of our personal identity, more or less ruling principles, that is, pronounced, and to the fore at different times, and in different natures; but all derived from the Supreme Spirit, either directly, or indirectly by negation, defect; from that universal Ego, in whom, and by whom, all other Egos eternally are—therefore always were, and shall be—however their phenomenal experience in time may vary. Hence I cannot for a moment listen to teachers who teach that the spirit does not “overshadow” a person till the age of seven, often does not “overshadow” him at all, and frequently ceases to “overshadow” him before he dies; so that he “goes out” soon after that; which is, if I mistake not, the doctrine of Madame Blavatsky and other Theosophists; of course to me the existence not so “overshadowed” would be absolutely a non-existence, and would not have even a “conditional immortality,” simply because it would never be at all, even for a moment. Identity is from the spirit, and without identity, as I have argued in any book, no existence is possible. But what content is possible for this identity except the manifold contents of the spirit’s successive phenomenal lives, so far as these are real, and not illusory, positive, and not negative? And yet again the minus element is essential to the plus, the negative to the positive, as giving character, distinction, without which there can be no concrete, living spirit at all. I accept, indeed, your reviewer’s “nett result,” “essential extract,” of the frivolous, gossipy existences as alone permanent; but still they are “moments” in it, verily contained there as integral factors of the result; indeed they are not any otherwise than so; in so far as they are not thus, they are merely unreal and illusory. Not the vaguest sensation, or the most rudimentary amoeba but in its own true self is immortal: it is not to be dropped off or out into nothing, but transfigured and transformed; for all must be rooted in, and in process of development by, conscious spirit; i.e., the transcendental unity of self-identifying consciousness, involving difference and multiplicity.
With regard to the Simulacra theory, I have perhaps not fully fathomed it, as “C. C. M.” intimates, yet have read attentively what Eliphas Levi, and other occultist writers have written about it: at present it does appear to me a mere curiosity of speculation, without adequate basis in fact or philosophy. As to the “Anima Mundi” I cannot harmonise what I have read in occultist writers, Cudworth and others, about it with true
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Editor's notes
- ↑ On “The Philosophy of Immortality,” Theosophy, Böhme, Indian Philosophy, Materialisation, Conditional Immortality. by Noel, Roden, Light, v. 2, No. 67, April 15, 1882, pp. 175-76
Sources
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Light, v. 2, No. 67, April 15, 1882, pp. 175-76