Hermeneutics

“ Lastly, superior truth is that of grace and holy Scripture, and illuminates us in respect of saving truth. “Thus, the fourfold light descending from above has yet six differences, which set forth so many degrees of human science. There is the light of sensitive knowledge, the light of the mechanical arts, the light of rational philosophy, of natural philosophy, and of moral philosophy, and lastly, the light of grace and holy Scripture. And so there are six illuminations in this life of ours, and they have a setting, because all this knowledge shall be destroyed. ”

“ And first tell me—do you allow learners to criticize, if they find difficulties in your doctrines, or must juniors abstain from that?
Her. Why, yes, they must; but you shall have leave to ask questions and criticize; you will learn easier that way.
Ly. I thank you for it, Hermotimus, by your name-God Hermes.
Now, is there only one road to philosophy—the Stoic way? they tell me there are a great many other philosophers; is that so?
Her. Certainly—Peripatetics, Epicureans, Platonists, followers of Diogenes, Antisthenes, Pythagoras, and more yet. ”

“ We are ready at length to ask whether any insight of reason, whether any general view of the nature and of the unity of the world or of life, {136} could possibly be a merely theoretical insight. And if we rightly answer this question, we shall be prepared to reply to the objection that, according to the doctrine of the last lecture, the divine insight which overarches our ignorance, and which has all reality for its object, is a lifeless, or an unpractical, or a merely remote type of pure knowledge. ”

“ Only those whose minds have been carefully trained along the lines of the Hermetic Philosophy for years—yes, those who have brought with them from other incarnations the knowledge acquired previously—can comprehend just what is meant by the Teaching regarding these Spiritual Planes. And much of these Inner Teachings is held by the Hermetists as being too sacred, important and even dangerous for general public dissemination. ”

“ Feeling valid only for the individual is pitted against reason valid universally. The test is a perfectly plain one of fact. Theology based on pure reason must in point of fact convince men universally. If it did not, wherein would its superiority consist? If it only formed sects and schools, even as sentiment and mysticism form them, how would it fulfill its programme of freeing us [pg 436] from personal caprice and waywardness? This perfectly definite practical test of the pretensions of philosophy to found religion on universal reason simplifies my procedure to-day. ”

“ Then, as we advance still higher in the world of letters, we find metaphysicians and philosophers assuming that a belief in certain truths is implanted in all rational minds by the Creator as a necessary part of their constitution, and that these truths are the foundation of most of our acquired knowledge. The truths or principles of mind thus recognized are called by various names, such as reason, the principles of reason, the primary truths, the intuitions, the intuitive truths, the fundamental truths, the principles of common sense, the categories, etc. ”

“ Here is a universe of suggestion,—most weird suggestion—for anybody able and willing to dare the experiment of making a new religion, or at least a new and tremendous system of Alchemy, based upon the notion of a moral order in the inorganic world! ”

“ In philosophy, in religion, and in science, then, we find this monistic tendency of thought. But it might be asked how we know that this universal tendency is right? How do we know that it is not merely a universal error? Is there no logical or philosophical basis for the belief that the ultimate explanation of things must be one? ”

“ In the same way, both the scientific and the moral interpretation of the world are judged by the religious consciousness to be abstract, and are seen, when viewed in the light of its presuppositions, to be inadequate, if not misleading. ”

“ But while we thus vindicate the study of natural philosophy from a charge at one time formidable,9 owing to the pertinacity and acrimony with which it was urged, and still occasionally brought forward to the distress and disgust of every well constituted mind, we must take care that the testimony afforded by science to religion, be its extent or value what it may, shall be at least independent, unbiassed, and spontaneous. ”

“ With what is here called faith or immediate knowledge must also be identified inspiration, the heart's revelations, the truths implanted in man by nature, and also in particular, healthy reason or Common Sense, as it is called. All these forms agree in adopting as their leading principle the immediacy, or self-evident way, in which a fact or body of truths is presented in consciousness. ”

“ Men must learn to know and understand that all knowledge, whether belonging to mythology, idolatry, fable, romance, theology, philosophy, or science—all rules adopted for our mode of conduct, either as individuals, communities, or governments—are the products of the brain, evolved by degrees by a perfectly natural process. ”

“ We evidently must, in the first instance, guard against any attempt at doing a doctrinaire violence to the undeniable facts of our consciousness or of its docile analysis, by explaining all our knowledge, or only even all our knowledge of any single thing, as either of purely subjective or of purely objective provenance; for everywhere and always these two elements co-exist in all human apprehension, reason, feeling, will, and faith. ”

“ Through a similar criticism, Scholastic doctrine attempted to purify our human type of consciousness, until it should reach the realm of genuine spirituality, and attain an insight but a little lower than that of the conceived angelic type of intelligence. For all such thinkers, the raising of our type of consciousness to some higher level meant not only the winning of insight into Reality, but also the attainment of an inner and distinctly religious ideal. ”

“ As regards philosophy in its proper and genuine sense, we find put forward without any hesitation, as an entirely sufficient equivalent for the long course of mental discipline—for that profound and fruitful process through which the human spirit attains to knowledge—the direct revelation of the divine and the healthy common sense of mankind, unconcerned with and undisciplined by any other knowledge or by proper philosophical reflection. ”

“ The general propositions which I premise in the Introduction are no à priori, excogitated propositions, no products of speculation; they have arisen out of the analysis of religion; they are only, as indeed are all the fundamental ideas of the work, generalisations from the known manifestations of human nature, and in particular of the religious consciousness,—facts converted into thoughts, i.e., expressed in general terms, and thus made the property of the understanding. ”

“ As, then, you burst the bonds of a narrow ecclesiastical tradition, by insisting that no fact of sense or result of science must be left out of account in the religious synthesis, so may you still be the champions of mental completeness and all-sidedness. May you, with equal success, avert the formation of a narrow scientific tradition, and burst the bonds of any synthesis which would pretend to leave out of account those forms of being, those relations of reality, to which at present our active and emotional tendencies are our only avenues of approach. ”

“ To be ignorant is to fail to grasp the object of the all-inclusive and divine insight." That is the expression of our situation. Reason easily makes the fitting synthesis when it considers the priest and the nobleman. I ask you to make the analogous synthesis regarding the world and the divine insight. This synthesis here takes form in concluding that the world is the object of an all-inclusive and divine insight, which is thus the supreme reality. ”

“ The movement from morality and religion to moral philosophy and the philosophy of religion, is thus a movement from reason to reason, from the implicit to the explicit, from the germ to the developed fulness of life and structure. ”

“ But it is not from the origins of art, religion, or morality that we shall gain the answer to the question what art, morality, or religion is; for the question must be answered before we can recognise the origins when we see them, and can only be answered by reference to the ideal, which is the test and final cause not only of progress, but of the real. ”

“ Shouldst thou make the mirror of heart pure and clear from the dust of prejudice, thou wilt comprehend all the symbols in the sayings of the perfect Word of Divinity in every Manifestation and be informed of the mysteries of Knowledge. But unless thou destroyest with the fire of Severance the veils of learning which are conventional among the servants, thou wilt not attain to the brilliant morn of the Ideal Knowledge. ”

“ Mystical philosophy, in all ages and in all parts of the world, is characterised by certain beliefs which are illustrated by the doctrines we have been considering.
There is, first, the belief in insight as against discursive analytic knowledge: the belief in a way of wisdom, sudden, penetrating, coercive, which is contrasted with the slow and fallible study of outward appearance by a science relying wholly upon the senses. ”

“ The judgment which discriminates and decides between a simple universal belief in God, and the connection of such a faith with all natural and sublimely true philosophy on the one hand, and unbelief, false science, and the various systems of error on the other, forms the second term or step in the gradual progress of truth and the spirit of truth in the human consciousness, whether of individuals, or of the whole human race, or of any particular period of its development. ”

“ And all now that seems wanting to harmonize science with revelation is, on the one hand, the re-examination of the Scripture texts on which are based the principia from which deductions are made, and which we call theology; and, on the other hand, the rejection of indefensible statements which are at war with both science and consciousness, except in those matters which claim special supernatural agency, which we can neither prove nor disprove by reason ”

“ But in addition to the study of the several classes of psychological and moral doctrine as they present themselves in the order of science, it will be important to spread out the literature of philosophy before us in the order of time; to gain an insight into the natural development of successive modes of thought on speculative subjects; to notice the action and reaction of philosophy and practical life ”

“ Essays of the most incoherent character, some of them utterly unintelligible even, have vied for circulation with others, which, under the guise of a rational physiology, or philosophy, or religion, inculcate doctrines the most pernicious alike to body, mind, and soul. ”

“ Let us then run over, if you choose, the opinions of the philosophers, to which they give boastful utterance, respecting the gods; that we may discover philosophy itself, through its conceit making an idol of matter; although we are able to show, as we proceed, that even while deifying certain demons, it has a dream of the truth. ”

“ If the inquiry be psychological, not religious institutions, but rather religious feelings and religious impulses must be its subject, and I must confine myself to those more developed subjective phenomena recorded in literature produced by articulate and fully self-conscious men, in works of piety and autobiography. Interesting as the origins and early stages of a subject always are, yet when one seeks earnestly for its full significance, one must always look to its more completely evolved and perfect forms. ”

“ Christian Science brings to light Truth and its supremacy, universal harmony, the entireness of God, and the nothingness of matter.
Human opinions and beliefs, the testimony of material sense, cause the suppositional warfare between Truth and error, between the evidences of the spiritual senses and of the so-called material senses ”

“ Modern historic criticism has made such havoc with the historical pretensions that theologians are now throwing all the emphasis on moral consciousness. The doctrine of our sacred books is said to be unequivocally ratified by our intuitions: we feel their truth, and we see in their moral influence on mankind the verification of their divine origin. ”

“ Such a conception, appearing in a rude state of culture, before the lines between science, religion, and poetry had been sharply drawn, recommending itself alike by its simplicity and by its adaptedness to gratify curiosity and speculation in the formation of a thousand quaint and engaging hypotheses, would seem plausible, would be highly attractive, would very easily secure acceptance as a true doctrine. ”

“ No concrete test of what is really true has ever been agreed upon. Some make the criterion external to the moment of perception, putting it either in revelation, the consensus gentium, the instincts of the heart, or the systematized experience of the race. ”

“ This consciousness of being dependent upon factors which are entirely beyond human understanding has thus given rise to the metaphysical need of reflecting upon these mysterious factors, and bringing them within reach of human comprehension. Humanity, in attempting to satisfy such a metaphysical requirement from an ethical standpoint, created faith, which subsequently found expression in [2] the various forms of religion. ”

“ All these tendencies have in common the effort to gain a real comprehension of history and be taught by it, that is, to allow the idea of development to obtain its proper place, and to comprehend the power and sphere of the individual. In this and in the deeper conception of the nature and significance of positive religion, lay the advance beyond Rationalism. ”