The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume I Part 28

It is, probably, unjust to accuse the alchemists generally of dabbling with attempts at magic in the common sense of the term. The supposed exercise of magical power always involved some moral guilt, directly or indirectly, as in stealing a piece of meat to lay on warts, touching humours with the hand of an executed person, &c. Rites of this sort and other practices of sorcery have always been regarded with trembling abhorrence by all nations, even the most ignorant, as by the Africans, the Hudson's Bay people and others. The alchemists were, no doubt, often considered as dealers in art magic, and many of them were not unwilling that such a belief should be prevalent; and the more earnest among them evidently looked at their a.s.sociation of substances, fumigations, and other chemical operations as merely ceremonial, and seem, therefore, to have had a deeper meaning, that of evoking a latent power. It would be profitable to make a collection of all the cases of cures by magical charms and incantations; much useful information might, probably, be derived from it; for it is to be observed that such rites are the form in which medical knowledge would be preserved amongst a barbarous and ignorant people.

[Footnote 1: From Mr. Green's note. Ed.]

Note. [1] June, 1827.

The apocryphal book of Tobit consists of a very simple, but beautiful and interesting, family-memoir, into which some later Jewish poet or fabulist of Alexandria wove the ridiculous and frigid machinery, borrowed from the popular superst.i.tions of the Greeks (though, probably, of Egyptian origin), and accommodated, clumsily enough, to the purer monotheism of the Mosaic law. The Rape of the Lock is another instance of a simple tale thus enlarged at a later period, though in this case by the same author, and with a very different result. Now unless Mr.

Hillhouse is Romanist enough to receive this nursery-tale garnish of a domestic incident as grave history and holy writ, (for which, even from learned Roman Catholics, he would gain more credit as a very obedient child of the Church than as a biblical critic), he will find it no easy matter to support this a.s.sertion of his by the pa.s.sages of Scripture here referred to, consistently with any sane interpretation of their import and purpose.

I. The Fallen Spirits.

This is the mythological form, or, if you will, the symbolical representation, of a profound idea necessary as the 'prae-suppositum' of the Christian scheme, or a postulate of reason, indispensable, if we would render the existence of a world of finites compatible with the a.s.sumption of a super-mundane G.o.d, not one with the world. In short, this idea is the condition under which alone the reason of man can retain the doctrine of an infinite and absolute Being, and yet keep clear of pantheism as exhibited by Benedict Spinosa.

II. The Egyptian Magicians.

This whole narrative is probably a relic of the old diplomatic 'lingua-arcana,' or state-symbolique--in which the prediction of events is expressed as the immediate causing of them. Thus the prophet is said to destroy the city, the destruction of which he predicts. The word which our version renders by '"enchantments"' signifies "flames or burnings," by which it is probable that the Egyptians were able to deceive the spectators, and subst.i.tute serpents for staves. See Parkhurst 'in voce.'

And with regard to the possessions in the Gospels, bear in mind first of all, that spirits are not necessarily souls or 'I's' ('ich-heiten' or 'self-consciousnesses'), and that the most ludicrous absurdities would follow from taking them as such in the Gospel instances; and secondly, that the Evangelist, who has recorded the most of these incidents, himself speaks of one of these possessed persons as a lunatic;-- [Greek (transliterated): selaeniazetai--epsaelthen ap auton to daimonion.]

Matt. xvii. 15.18. while St. John names them not at all, but seems to include them under the description of diseased or deranged persons. That madness may result from spiritual causes, and not only or princ.i.p.ally from physical ailments, may readily be admitted. Is not our will itself a spiritual power? Is it not the spirit of the man? The mind of a rational and responsible being (that is, of a free-agent) is a spirit, though it does not follow that all spirits are minds. Who shall dare determine what spiritual influences may not arise out of the collective evil wills of wicked men? Even the b.e.s.t.i.a.l life, sinless in animals and their nature, may when awakened in the man and by his own act admitted into his will, become a spiritual influence. He receives a nature into his will, which by this very act becomes a corrupt will; and 'vice versa,' this will becomes his nature, and thus a corrupt nature. This may be conceded; and this is all that the recorded words of our Saviour absolutely require in order to receive an appropriate sense; but this is altogether different from making spirits to be devils, and devils self-conscious individuals.

[Footnote 1: Written in a copy of Mr. Hillhouse's 'Hadad'. 'Ed.']

NOTES. [1] March, 1824.

'A Christian's conflicts and conquests', p. 459.

By the devil we are to understand that apostate spirit which fell from G.o.d, and is always designing to hale down others from G.o.d also. The Old Dragon (mentioned in the Revelation) with his tail drew down the third part of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth.

How much is it to be regretted, that so enlightened and able a divine as Smith, had not philosophically and scripturally enucleated this so difficult yet important question,--respecting the personal existence of the evil principle; that is, whether as [Greek (transliterated): to theion] of paganism is [Greek: o theos] in Christianity, so the [Greek: to ponaeron] is to be [Greek: o ponaeros],--and whether this is an express doctrine of Christ, and not merely a Jewish dogma left undisturbed to fade away under the increasing light of the Gospel, instead of a.s.suming the former, and confirming the position by a verse from a poetic tissue of visual symbols,--a verse alien from the subject, and by which the Apocalypt enigmatized the Neronian persecutions and the apostacy through fear occasioned by it in a large number of converts.

(Ib. p. 463.) When we say, the devil is continually busy with us, I mean not only some apostate spirit as one particular being, but that spirit of apostacy which is lodged in all men's natures; and this may seem particularly to be aimed at in this place, if we observe the context:--as the scripture speaks of Christ not only as a particular person, but as a divine principle in holy souls. Indeed the devil is not only the name of one particular thing, but a nature.

May I not venture to suspect that this was Smith's own belief and judgment? and that his conversion of the Satan, that is, 'circuitor', or minister of police (what our Sterne calls the accusing angel) in the prologue to Job into the devil was a mere condescension to the prevailing prejudice? Here, however, he speaks like himself, and like a true religious philosopher, who felt that the personality of evil spirits is a trifling question, compared with the personality of the evil principle. This is indeed most momentous.

[Footnote 1: Written in a copy of "Select Discourses by John Smith, of Queen's College, Cambridge, 1660," and communicated by the Rev. Edward Coleridge. Ed.]

NOTE ON A Pa.s.sAGE IN THE LIFE OF HENRY EARL OF MORLAND. 20th June, 1827.

The defect of this and all similar theories that I am acquainted with, or rather, let me say, the desideratum, is the neglect of a previous definition of the term "body." What do you mean by it? The immediate grounds of a man's size, visibility, tangibility, &c?--But these are in a continual flux even as a column of smoke. The material particles of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, lime, phosphorus, sulphur, soda, iron, that const.i.tute the ponderable organism in May, 1827, at the moment of Pollio's death in his 70th year, have no better claim to be called his "body," than the numerical particles of the same names that const.i.tuted the ponderable ma.s.s in May, 1787, in Pollio's prime of manhood in his 30th year;--the latter no less than the former go into the grave, that is, suffer dissolution, the one in a series, the other simultaneously. The result to the particles is precisely the same in both, and of both therefore we must say with holy Paul,--'"Thou fool!

that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be,"'

&c. Neither this nor that is the body that abideth. Abideth, I say; for that which riseth again must have remained, though perhaps in an inert state.--It is not dead, but sleepeth;--that is, it is not dissolved any more than the exterior or phenomenal organism appears to us dissolved when it lieth in apparent inactivity during our sleep.

Sound reasoning this, to the best of my judgment, as far as it goes. But how are we to explain the reaction of this fluxional body on the animal?

In each moment the particles by the informing force of the living principle const.i.tute an organ not only of motion and sense, but of consciousness. The organ plays on the organist. How is this conceivable?

The solution requires a depth, stillness, and subtlety of spirit not only for its discovery, but even for the understanding of it when discovered, and in the most appropriate words enunciated. I can merely give a hint. The particles themselves must have an interior and gravitative being, and the multeity must be a removable or at least suspensible accident.

LECTURE XIII. ON POESY OR ART.

Man communicates by articulation of sounds, and paramountly by the memory in the ear; nature by the impression of bounds and surfaces on the eye, and through the eye it gives significance and appropriation, and thus the conditions of memory, or the capability of being remembered, to sounds, smells, &c. Now Art, used collectively for painting, sculpture, architecture and music, is the mediatress between, and reconciler of, nature and man. It is, therefore, the power of humanizing nature, of infusing the thoughts and pa.s.sions of man into every thing which is the object of his contemplation; colour, form, motion and sound are the elements which it combines, and it stamps them into unity in the mould of a moral idea.

The primary art is writing;--primary, if we regard the purpose abstracted from the different modes of realizing it, those steps of progression of which the instances are still visible in the lower degrees of civilization. First, there is mere gesticulation; then rosaries or 'wampun'; then picture-language; then hieroglyphics, and finally alphabetic letters. These all consist of a translation of man into nature, of a subst.i.tution of the visible for the audible.

The so called music of savage tribes as little deserves the name of art for the understanding as the ear warrants it for music. Its lowest state is a mere expression of pa.s.sion by sounds which the pa.s.sion itself necessitates;--the highest amounts to no more than a voluntary reproduction of these sounds in the absence of the occasioning causes, so as to give the pleasure of contrast,--for example, by the various outcries of battle in the song of security and triumph. Poetry also is purely human; for all its materials are from the mind, and all its products are for the mind. But it is the apotheosis of the former state, in which by excitement of the a.s.sociative power pa.s.sion itself imitates order, and the order resulting produces a pleasurable pa.s.sion, and thus it elevates the mind by making its feelings the object of its reflexion.

So likewise, whilst it recalls the sights and sounds that had accompanied the occasions of the original pa.s.sions, poetry impregnates them with an interest not their own by means of the pa.s.sions, and yet tempers the pa.s.sion by the calming power which all distinct images exert on the human soul. In this way poetry is the preparation for art, inasmuch as it avails itself of the forms of nature to recall, to express, and to modify the thoughts and feelings of the mind. Still, however, poetry can only act through the intervention of articulate speech, which is so peculiarly human, that in all languages it const.i.tutes the ordinary phrase by which man and nature are contradistinguished. It is the original force of the word 'brute,' and even 'mute,' and 'dumb' do not convey the absence of sound, but the absence of articulated sounds.

As soon as the human mind is intelligibly addressed by an outward image exclusively of articulate speech, so soon does art commence. But please to observe that I have laid particular stress on the words 'human mind,'--meaning to exclude thereby all results common to man and all other sentient creatures, and consequently confining myself to the effect produced by the congruity of the animal impression with the reflective powers of the mind; so that not the thing presented, but that which is re-presented by the thing shall be the source of the pleasure.

In this sense nature itself is to a religious observer the art of G.o.d; and for the same cause art itself might be defined as of a middle quality between a thought and a thing, or as I said before, the union and reconciliation of that which is nature with that which is exclusively human. It is the figured language of thought, and is distinguished from nature by the unity of all the parts in one thought or idea. Hence nature itself would give us the impression of a work of art if we could see the thought which is present at once in the whole and in every part; and a work of art will he just in proportion as it adequately conveys the thought, and rich in proportion to the variety of parts which it holds in unity.

If, therefore, the term 'mute' be taken as opposed not to sound but to articulate speech, the old definition of painting will in fact be the true and best definition of the Fine Arts in general, that is, 'muta poesis', mute poesy, and so of course poesy. And, as all languages perfect themselves by a gradual process of desynonymizing words originally equivalent, I have cherished the wish to use the word 'poesy'

as the generic or common term, and to distinguish that species of poesy which is not 'muta poesis' by its usual name 'poetry;' while of all the other species which collectively form the Fine Arts, there would remain this as the common definition,--that they all, like poetry, are to express intellectual purposes, thoughts, conceptions, and sentiments which have their origin in the human mind,--not, however, as poetry does, by means of articulate speech, but as nature or the divine art does, by form, colour, magnitude, proportion, or by sound, that is, silently or musically.

Well! it may be said--but who has ever thought otherwise? We all know that art is the imitatress of nature. And, doubtless, the truths which I hope to convey would be barren truisms, if all men meant the same by the words 'imitate' and 'nature.' But it would be flattering mankind at large, to presume that such is the fact. First, to imitate. The impression on the wax is not an imitation, but a copy, of the seal; the seal itself is an imitation. But, further, in order to form a philosophic conception, we must seek for the kind, as the heat in ice, invisible light, &c. whilst, for practical purposes, we must have reference to the degree. It is sufficient that philosophically we understand that in all imitation two elements must coexist, and not only coexist, but must be perceived as coexisting. These two const.i.tuent elements are likeness and unlikeness, or sameness and difference, and in all genuine creations of art there must be a union of these disparates.

The artist may take his point of view where he pleases, provided that the desired effect be perceptibly produced,--that there be likeness in the difference, difference in the likeness, and a reconcilement of both in one. If there be likeness to nature without any check of difference, the result is disgusting, and the more complete the delusion, the more loathsome the effect. Why are such simulations of nature, as wax-work figures of men and women, so disagreeable? Because, not finding the motion and the life which we expected, we are shocked as by a falsehood, every circ.u.mstance of detail, which before induced us to be interested, making the distance from truth more palpable. You set out with a supposed reality and are disappointed and disgusted with the deception; whilst, in respect to a work of genuine imitation, you begin with an acknowledged total difference, and then every touch of nature gives you the pleasure of an approximation to truth. The fundamental principle of all this is undoubtedly the horror of falsehood and the love of truth inherent in the human breast. The Greek tragic dance rested on these principles, and I can deeply sympathize in imagination with the Greeks in this favourite part of their theatrical exhibitions, when I call to mind the pleasure I felt in beholding the combat of the Horatii and Curiatii most exquisitely danced in Italy to the music of Cimarosa.

Secondly, as to nature. We must imitate nature! yes, but what in nature,--all and every thing? No, the beautiful in nature. And what then is the beautiful? What is beauty? It is, in the abstract, the unity of the manifold, the coalescence of the diverse; in the concrete, it is the union of the shapely ('formosum') with the vital. In the dead organic it depends on regularity of form, the first and lowest species of which is the triangle with all its modifications, as in crystals, architecture, &c.; in the living organic it is not mere regularity of form, which would produce a sense of formality; neither is it subservient to any thing beside itself. It may be present in a disagreeable object, in which the proportion of the parts const.i.tutes a whole; it does not arise from a.s.sociation, as the agreeable does, but sometimes lies in the rupture of a.s.sociation; it is not different to different individuals and nations, as has been said, nor is it connected with the ideas of the good, or the fit, or the useful. The sense of beauty is intuitive, and beauty itself is all that inspires pleasure without, and aloof from, and even contrarily to, interest.

If the artist copies the mere nature, the 'natura naturata', what idle rivalry? If he proceeds only from a given form, which is supposed to answer to the notion of beauty, what an emptiness, what an unreality there always is in his productions, as in Cipriani's pictures! Believe me, you must master the essence, the 'natura naturans', which presupposes a bond between nature in the higher sense and the soul of man.

The wisdom in nature is distinguished from that in man by the co-instantaneity of the plan and the execution; the thought and the product are one, or are given at once; but there is no reflex act, and hence there is no moral responsibility. In man there is reflexion, freedom, and choice; he is, therefore, the head of the visible creation.

In the objects of nature are presented, as in a mirror, all the possible elements, steps, and processes of intellect antecedent to consciousness, and therefore to the full development of the intelligential act; and man's mind is the very focus of all the rays of intellect which are scattered throughout the images of nature. Now so to place these images, totalized, and fitted to the limits of the human mind, as to elicit from, and to superinduce upon, the forms themselves the moral reflexions to which they approximate, to make the external internal, the internal external, to make nature thought, and thought nature,--this is the mystery of genius in the Fine Arts. Dare I add that the genius must act on the feeling, that body is but a striving to become mind,--that it is mind in its essence!

In every work of art there is a reconcilement of the external with the internal; the conscious is so impressed on the unconscious as to appear in it; as compare mere letters inscribed on a tomb with figures themselves const.i.tuting the tomb. He who combines the two is the man of genius; and for that reason he must partake of both. Hence there is in genius itself an unconscious activity; nay, that is the genius in the man of genius. And this is the true exposition of the rule that the artist must first eloign himself from nature in order to return to her with full effect. Why this? Because if he were to begin by mere painful copying, he would produce masks only, not forms breathing life. He must out of his own mind create forms according to the severe laws of the intellect, in order to generate in himself that co-ordination of freedom and law, that involution of obedience in the prescript, and of the prescript in the impulse to obey, which a.s.similates him to nature, and enables him to understand her. He merely absents himself for a season from her, that his own spirit, which has the same ground with nature, may learn her unspoken language in its main radicals, before he approaches to her endless compositions of them. Yes, not to acquire cold notions--lifeless technical rules--but living and life-producing ideas, which shall contain their own evidence, the certainty that they are essentially one with the germinal causes in nature--his consciousness being the focus and mirror of both,--for this does the artist for a time abandon the external real in order to return to it with a complete sympathy with its internal and actual. For of all we see, hear, feel and touch the substance is and must be in ourselves; and therefore there is no alternative in reason between the dreary (and thank heaven! almost impossible) belief that every thing around us is but a phantom, or that the life which is in us is in them likewise; and that to know is to resemble, when we speak of objects out of ourselves, even as within ourselves to learn is, according to Plato, only to recollect;--the only effective answer to which, that I have been fortunate to meet with, is that which Pope has consecrated for future use in the line--

And c.o.xcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin!

The artist must imitate that which is within the thing, that which is active through form and figure, and discourses to us by symbols--the 'Natur-geist', or spirit of nature, as we unconsciously imitate those whom we love; for so only can he hope to produce any work truly natural in the object and truly human in the effect. The idea which puts the form together cannot itself be the form. It is above form, and is its essence, the universal in the individual, or the individuality itself,--the glance and the exponent of the indwelling power.

Each thing that lives has its moment of self-exposition, and so has each period of each thing, if we remove the disturbing forces of accident. To do this is the business of ideal art, whether in images of childhood, youth, or age, in man or in woman. Hence a good portrait is the abstract of the personal; it is not the likeness for actual comparison, but for recollection. This explains why the likeness of a very good portrait is not always recognized; because some persons never abstract, and amongst these are especially to be numbered the near relations and friends of the subject, in consequence of the constant pressure and check exercised on their minds by the actual presence of the original. And each thing that only appears to live has also its possible position of relation to life, as nature herself testifies, who, where she cannot be, prophecies her being in the crystallized metal, or the inhaling plant.

The charm, the indispensable requisite, of sculpture is unity of effect.

But painting rests in a material remoter from nature, and its compa.s.s is therefore greater. Light and shade give external, as well internal, being even with all its accidents, whilst sculpture is confined to the latter. And here I may observe that the subjects chosen for works of art, whether in sculpture or painting, should be such as really are capable of being expressed and conveyed within the limits of those arts.

Moreover they ought to be such as will affect the spectator by their truth, their beauty, or their sublimity, and therefore they may be addressed to the judgment, the senses, or the reason. The peculiarity of the impression which they may make, may be derived either from colour and form, or from proportion and fitness, or from the excitement of the moral feelings; or all these maybe combined. Such works as do combine these sources of effect must have the preference in dignity.

Imitation of the antique may be too exclusive, and may produce an injurious effect on modern sculpture;--1st, generally, because such an imitation cannot fail to have a tendency to keep the attention fixed on externals rather than on the thought within;--2ndly, because, accordingly, it leads the artist to rest satisfied with that which is always imperfect, namely, bodily form, and circ.u.mscribes his views of mental expression to the ideas of power and grandeur only;--3rdly, because it induces an effort to combine together two incongruous things, that is to say, modern feelings in antique forms;--4thly, because it speaks in a language, as it were, learned and dead, the tones of which, being unfamiliar, leave the common spectator cold and unimpressed;--and lastly, because it necessarily causes a neglect of thoughts, emotions and images of profounder interest and more exalted dignity, as motherly, sisterly, and brotherly love, piety, devotion, the divine become human,--the Virgin, the Apostle, the Christ. The artist's principle in the statue of a great man should be the ill.u.s.tration of departed merit; and I cannot but think that a skilful adoption of modern habiliments would, in many instances, give a variety and force of effect which a bigotted adherence to Greek or Roman costume precludes. It is, I believe, from artists finding Greek models unfit for several important modern purposes, that we see so many allegorical figures on monuments and elsewhere. Painting was, as it were, a new art, and being unshackled by old models it chose its own subjects, and took an eagle's flight. And a new field seems opened for modern sculpture in the symbolical expression of the ends of life, as in Guy's monument, Chantrey's children in Worcester Cathedral, &c.

Architecture exhibits the greatest extent of the difference from nature which may exist in works of art. It involves all the powers of design, and is sculpture and painting inclusively. It shews the greatness of man, and should at the same time teach him humility.

Music is the most entirely human of the fine arts, and has the fewest 'a.n.a.loga' in nature. Its first delightfulness is simple accordance with the ear; but it is an a.s.sociated thing, and recalls the deep emotions of the past with an intellectual sense of proportion. Every human feeling is greater and larger than the exciting cause,--a proof, I think, that man is designed for a higher state of existence; and this is deeply implied in music in which there is always something more and beyond the immediate expression.