Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/370

 358 EDMUND MONTGOMERY : However, this discussion shall not any further be embar- rassed by drawing in recusant Kant, who can by no means be tortured into a representative of genuine Transcenden- talism and its methods, or of the view which shall be here contrasted with it. A theory of knowledge from the transcendental standpoint remains as yet a desideratum shall we say of science ? a desideratum, unless, indeed, it be contained in the oracular enunciation that the thinking subject is all-efficient. But, notwithstanding the utter darkness regarding ways and means, our imagination can reach much more readily the final outcome of our transcendental than of our experiential attitude. What ardent student of thought has not shared the divine frenzy of Plato and the poets ; has not with Plotinus and the mystics of all ages offered his mind to the heavenly visions of intellectual intuition ? l Yet, shall we make it the serious concern and duty of our lives to be striving for re-identification or Nirvana within the ecstatic seclusion of our individual souls, and not rather with united zeal to maintain and widen the precious and precarious distance placed by the toil of our forefathers between our nobler social emulation and the ferine prowling of savagery ? 1 The following passage may bear witness that the transcendental mode of thinking is not quite foreign to the present writer. It was penned by him, when still very young, before a close study of the inexorable workings of nature had checked his flights of fancy, and reduced his thoughts to sober dependence. " Ihr bethorten Menschenkinder, verharret nicht langer in lethargischer Besinnungslosigkeit. Eaffet euch endlich auf zu vollgiilti- gem Bewusstsein. Miteinem willenskraftigen Erkenntnissact verscheuchet den finstern, unheilvollen Wahn, der jenes ungefiige Hemmniss, die inerte Masse eines materiellen Universums, zwischen die rege Gemeinschaft der Geister gelagert. Es gilt nuumehr der heiligen Wahrheit ins unverhiillte Antlitz zu blicken. Sehnsuchtsmuthig ergreift denn den starren Schleier todter, abstracter Dinge, der euch die segensreiche Gegenwart der lebendigen Wirklichkeit vercleckt, und reisst ihn hinweg. Alsbald wird die unmittel- bare Beriihrung mit der schopferischen Macht euch fiihlbar werden. Ihr werdet es wissen dann dass es der ewige Geist selbst ist der in den Bildern der Natur nicht miide wird eurer Seele die rechte Weisung einzupragen. Land und Meer und Sternenhiminel, Berg und Thai, Walcl und Feld wer- den aufhoren wie fremdartige Gebilde einer abgesonderten Aussenwelt euch anzustarren. Ueberall hin wo euer Auge schweift, werden sich die Dinge in feierlich erhabene Symbole wandeln ; werden sich zusammen- fiigen zu einer Gott-beredten Sprache, die in erschopfendem Gleichniss die ewigen Rathschliisse des allmachtigen Willens unaufhorlich eurem Schauen offenbart." Begging pardon for this long German quotation in an English periodical, I wish to convey with it the impression that the present inquiry is under- taken in no unsympathetic spirit, but only because of the more profound truth which I believe to be contained in Naturalism.