Page:EB1911 - Volume 03.djvu/102

  This letter corresponds to the second symbol in the Phoenician alphabet, and appears in the same position in all the European alphabets, except those derived, like the Russian, from medieval Greek, in which the pronunciation of this symbol had changed from b to v. A new form had therefore to be invented for the genuine b in Slavonic, to which there was, at the period when the alphabet was adopted, no corresponding sound in Greek. The new symbol, which occupies the second position, was made by removing the upper loop of B, thus producing a symbol somewhat resembling an ordinary lowercase b. The old B retained the numerical value of the Greek as 2, and no numerical value was given to the new symbol. In the Phoenician alphabet the earliest forms are or more rounded. The rounded form appears also in the earliest Aramaic (see ). Like some other alphabetic symbols it was not borrowed by Greek in its original form. In the very early rock inscriptions of Thera (700–600 ), written from right to left; it appears in a form resembling the ordinary Greek ; this form apparently arose from writing the Semitic symbol upside down. Its form in inscriptions of Melos, Selinus, Syracuse and elsewhere in the 6th and 5th centuries suggests the influence of Aramaic forms in which the head of the letter is opened,. The Corinthian, and  (also at Corcyra) and the  of Byzantine coins are other adaptations of the same symbol. The form which it takes in the alphabets of Naxos, Delos and other Ionic islands at the same period is difficult to explain. Otherwise its only variation is between pointed and rounded loops ( and ). The sound which the symbol represents is the voiced stop made by closing the lips and vibrating the vocal chords (see ). It differs from p by the presence of vibration of the vocal chords and from m because the nasal passage as well as the lips is closed. When an audible emission of breath attends its production the aspirate bh is formed. This sound was frequent in the pro-ethnic period of the Indo-European languages and survived into the Indo-Aryan languages. According to the system of phonetic changes generally known as “Grimm's law,” an original b appears in English as p, an original bh as b. An original medial p preceding the chief accent of the word also appears as b in English and the other members of the same group. It is not certain that any English word is descended from an original word beginning with b, though it has been suggested that peg is of the same origin as the Latin baculum and the Greek . When the lips are not tightly closed the sound produced is not a stop, but a spirant like the English w. In Late Latin there was a tendency to this spirant pronunciation which appears as early as the beginning of the 2nd century ; by the 3rd century b and consonantal u are inextricably confused. When this consonantal u (English w as seen in words borrowed very early from Latin like wall and wine) passed into the sound of English v (labio-dental) is not certain, but Germanic words borrowed into Latin in the 5th century have in their Latin representation gu- for Germanic w-, guisa corresponding to English wise and reborrowed indirectly as guise.

The earliest form of the name of the symbol which we can reach is the Hebrew beth, to which the Phoenician must have been closely akin, as is shown by the Greek , which is borrowed from it with a vowel affixed.

BAADER, FRANZ XAVER VON (1765–1841), German philosopher and theologian, born on the 27th of March 1765 at Munich, was the third son of F. P. Baader, court physician to the elector of Bavaria. His brothers were both distinguished—the elder, Clemens, as an author; the second, Joseph (1763–1835), as an engineer. Franz studied medicine at Ingolstadt and Vienna, and for a short time assisted his father in his practice. This life he soon found uncongenial, and decided on becoming a mining engineer. He studied under Abraham Gottlob Werner at Freiberg, travelled through several of the mining districts in north Germany, and for four years, 1792–1796, resided in England. There he became acquainted with the works of Jakob Boehme, and with the ideas of Hume, Hartley and Godwin, which were extremely distasteful to him. The mystical speculations of Meister Eckhart, Saint Martin, and above all those of Boehme, were more in harmony with his mode of thought. In 1796 he returned from England, and in Hamburg became acquainted with F. H. Jacobi, with whom he was for years on terms of friendship. He now learned something of Schelling, and the works he published during this period were manifestly influenced by that philosopher. Yet Baader is no disciple of Schelling, and probably gave out more than he received. Their friendship continued till about the year 1822, when Baader’s denunciation of modern philosophy in his letter to the emperor Alexander I. of Russia entirely alienated Schelling.

All this time Baader continued to apply himself to his profession of engineer. He gained a prize of 12,000 gulden (about £1000) for his new method of employing Glauber’s salts instead of potash in the making of glass. From 1817 to 1820 he held the post of superintendent of mines, and was raised to the rank of nobility for his services. He retired in 1820, and soon after published one of the best of his works, Fermenta Cognitionis, 6 parts, 1822–1825, in which he combats modern philosophy and recommends the study of Boehme. In 1826, when the new university was opened at Munich, he was appointed professor of philosophy and speculative theology. Some of the lectures delivered there he published under the title, Spekulative Dogmatik, 4 parts, 1827–1836. In 1838 he opposed the interference in civil matters of the Roman Catholic Church, to which he belonged, and in consequence was, during the last three years of his life, interdicted from lecturing on the philosophy of religion. He died on the 23rd of May 1841.

It is difficult to summarize Baader’s philosophy, for he himself generally gave expression to his deepest thoughts in obscure aphorisms, or mystical symbols and analogies (see Ed. Zeller’s Ges. d. deut. Phil. 732, 736). Further, he has no systematic works; his doctrines exist for the most part in short detached essays, in comments on the writings of Boehme and Saint Martin, or in his extensive correspondence and journals. At the same time there are salient points which mark the outline of his thought. Baader starts from the position that human reason by itself can never reach the end it aims at, and maintains that we cannot throw aside the presuppositions of faith, church and tradition. His point of view may be described as Scholasticism; for, like the scholastic doctors, he believes that theology and philosophy are not opposed sciences, but that reason has to make clear the truths given by authority and revelation. But in his attempt to draw still closer the realms of faith and knowledge he approaches more nearly to the mysticism of Eckhart, Paracelsus and Boehme. Our existence depends on the fact that we are cognized by God (cogitor ergo cogito et sum). All self-consciousness is at the same time God-consciousness; our knowledge is never mere scientia, it is invariably con-scientia—a knowing with, consciousness of, or participation in God. Baader’s philosophy is thus essentially a theosophy. God is not to be conceived as mere abstract Being (substantia), but as everlasting process, activity (actus). Of this process, this self-generation of God, we may distinguish two aspects—the immanent or esoteric, and the emanent or exoteric. God has reality only in so far as He is absolute spirit, and only in so far as the primitive will is conscious of itself can it become spirit at all. But in this very cognition of self is involved the distinction of knower and known, from which proceeds the power to become spirit. This immanent process of self-consciousness, wherein indeed a trinity of persons is not given but only rendered possible, is mirrored in, and takes place through, the eternal and impersonal idea or wisdom of God, which exists beside, though not distinct from, the primitive will. Concrete reality or personality is given to this divine Ternar, as Baader calls it, through nature, the principle of self-hood, of individual being, which is eternally and necessarily produced by God. Only in nature is the trinity of persons attained. These processes, it must be noticed, are not to be conceived as successive, or as taking place in time; they are to be looked at sub specie aeternitatis, as the necessary elements or moments in the self-evolution of the divine Being. Nor is nature to be confounded with created substance, or with matter as it exists in space and time; it is pure non-being, the mere otherness (alteritas) of God-his shadow, desire, want, or desiderium sui, as it is called by mystical writers. Creation, itself a free and non-temporal act of God’s love and will, cannot be speculatively deduced, but must be accepted as an historic