Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/297

 ABSOLUTISM AXD EMPIRICISM. 285 both then be avowedly making hypotheses, playing with Ideals. Ah ! Why is the notion of hypothesis so abhorrent to the Hege- lian mind ? And once down on our common level of hypothesis, we might then admit scepticism, since the Whole is not yet revealed, to be the soundest logical position. But since we are in the main not sceptics, we might go on and frankly confess to each other the motives for our several faiths. I frankly confess mine I cannot but think that at bottom they are of an aesthetic and not of a logical sort. The " through-and-through " universe seems to suffocate me with its infallible impeccable all-pervasiveness. Its necessity, with no possibilities ; its relations, with no subjects, make me feel as if I had entered into a contract with no reserved rights, or rather as if I had to live in a large seaside boarding- house with no private bed-room in which I might take refuge from the society of the place. I am distinctly aware, moreover, that the old quarrel of sinner and pharisee has something to do with the matter. Certainly, to my personal knowledge, all Hegelians are not prigs, but I somehow feel as if all prigs ought to end, if developed, by becoming Hegelians. There is a story of two clergymen asked by mistake to conduct the same funeral. One came first and had got no farther than " I am the Resurrec- tion and the Life," when the other entered, "/am the Eesur- rection and the Life," cried the latter. The " through-and- through " philosophy, as it actually exists, reminds many of us of that clergyman. It seems too buttoned-up and white-chokered and clean-shaven a thing to speak for the vast slow-breathing unconscious Kosmos with its dread abysses and its unknown tides. The " freedom" ice want to see there is not the freedom, with a string tied to its leg and warranted not to fly away, of that philosophy. " Let it fly away," we say, " from us ! What then ? " Again I know I am exhibiting my mental grossness. But again, /<_/< ];.nn nicht anders. I show my feelings; why icill they not show theirs ? I know they linr? a personal feeling about the through-and-through universe, which is entirely different from mine, and which I should very likely be much the better for gain- ing if they would only show me how. Their persistence in telling me that feeling has nothing to do with the question, that it is a pure matter of absolute reason, keeps me for ever out of the pale. Still seeing a that in things which Logic does not expel, the most I can do is to aspire to the expulsion. At present I do not even aspire. Aspiration is a feeling. What can kindle feeling but the example of feeling ? And if the Hegelians icill refuse to set an example, what can they expect the rest of us to do ? To speak more seriously, the one fumlamr-ntal quarrel Empiricism has with Absolutism is over this repudiation by Absolutism of the personal and esthetic factor in the construction of philosophy. That we all of us have feelings, Empiricism feels quite sure. That they