Page:Journal of Speculative Philosophy Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/14

6 But the higher form of negation appears in the generic; "The species lives, and the individual dies." The generic continually transcends the individual—going forth to new individuals and deserting the old—a process of birth and decay, both negative processes. In conscious Spirit both are united in one movement. The generic here enters the individual as pure ego—the undetermined possibility of all determinations. Since it is undetermined, it is negative to all special determinations. But this ego not only exists as subject, but also as object—a process of self-determination or self-negation. And this negation or particularization continually proceeds from one object to another, and remains conscious under the whole, Not dying, as the mere animal does, in the transition from individual to individual. This is the aperçu of Immortality.

During the past twenty years a revolution has been working in physical science. Within the last ten it has come to the surface, and is now rapidly spreading into all departments of mental activity.

Although its centre is to be found in the doctrine of the "Correlation of Forces," it would be a narrow view that counted only the expounders of this doctrine, numerous as they are; the spirit of this movement inspires a heterogeneous multitude—Carpenter, Grove, Mayer, Faraday, Thompson, Tyndall and Helmholtz; Herbert Spencer, Stuart Mill, Buckle, Draper, Lewes, Lecky, Max Midler, Marsh, Liebig, Darwin and Agassiz; these names, selected at random, are suggested on account of the extensive circulation of their books. Every day the press announces some new name in this field of research.

What is the character of the old which is displaced, and of the new which gets established? By way of preliminary, it must be remarked that there are observable in modern times three general phases of culture, more or less historic.

The first phase is thoroughly dogmatic: it accepts as of like validity, metaphysical abstractions, and empirical observations. It has not arrived at such a degree of clearness as to perceive contradictions between form and content. For the most part, it is characterized by a reverence for external authority. With the revival of learning commences the protest of spirit against this phase. Descartes and Lord Bacon begin the contest, and are followed by the many—Locke, Newton, Leibnitz, Clarke, and the rest. All are animated with the spirit of that time—to come to the matter in hand without so much mediation. Thought wishes to rid itself of its fetters; religions sentiment, to get rid of forms. This reaction against the former stage, which has been called by Hegel the meta-physical, finds a kind of climax in the intellectual movement just preceding the French revolution. Thought no longer is contented to say "Cogito, ergo sum," abstractly, but applies the doctrine in all directions, "I think; in that deed, I am." "I am a man only in so far as I think. In so far as I think, I am an essence. What I get from others is not mine. What I can comprehend, or dissolve in my reason, that is mine." It looks around and spies institutions—"clothes of spirit," as Herr