Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 09.djvu/661

* HARTMANN. 603 HARTMANN. his work in bed, while suffering great pain. This circumstauce iias, liowever, not tliminislied his literary activity. The titles of some of liis works will show liis versatility: Aphorisnicii iibcr das Drama (1870); tihakesjjcurtii Uomeo uitd Juliet (1875); Die >ielbst:ersetxuiig des Christenthumn viid die UcliyioH dcr Ztikunft (1874) ; W'liluhcit und trrllniiii im Darwiiiisiniis (1875) ; Ziir Re- form des hiiheren Hcliuhceseiis (1875) ; lieilrdije zur yalurphilosopbie (1870); Zur Cesrliicltle und liegrii lid 11)1(1 des Pessimismus (1880); Die Krisis des Cliristeiitliiiiiis in dcr modcrnen The- otogie (1880); Der t<piritismiis (1885); Aes- thetik (1880-87); Zwei Jahrzehnic deiilseher Politik tind die gegeiiicarlige Weltlage (1888). lillt these are not his most important ^^■orks. His first hook, Pliilosnphie des Vnbcinisstni (1809; Eng. trans, by E. C. Coupland, under the title The Philosophy of the ['neonscioiis. London. 1884), went through edition after edition, and gave rise to a very copious controversial litera- ture. HcifTding says that between the years 1870 and 1875 fiftj'-eight works appeared treating of Hartmann's philosophy. Its peculiar combina- tion of optimism with pessimism is no doubt the cause of its popularity. In opposition to Schopenhauer (q.v.), Hart- mann maintains that idea is indispensable to will. "No one can in reality merely vill, without willing this or that: a will which does not will something, is not: only through the definite eon- tent does the will obtain the possibility of exist- ence, and this content is idea. Therefore no volition milhoiit mental object, as Aristotle said long ago." Against Hegel, whom Hartmann mis- takenly conceives as advocating a doctrine of non- willing idea, he maintains that it is necessary "to recognize will in the idea, whenever the lat- ter displays an outward causality." The world, as being a process, must therefore be the product of will; and as will implies idea, it must be the product of will realizing an idea. But. ac- cording to Hartmann. an idea need not be con- scious. Indeed, consciousness "cannot at all lie in the idea as such, but must be an accident: which comes to the idea from elsewhere. The action of unconscious will is clearer in itself, and appears less paradoxical;" indeed, will must be unconscious if the ide.a is uncnn vicious. The term 'the Unconscious' is used by Hartmann to "desig- nate the united unconscious will and unconscious idea." or the subject of which unconscious will and imconscious idea are the two attributes in- separably imited. Will and idea "are not two drawers in the Unconscious, in one of which lies the irrational will, in the other the powerless idea, but they are two poles of a magnet with opposite qualities, on whose opposition the world rests." They "contradict one another as little as say the redness and the perfume of the rose." But though thus compatible, "the one is what the other is not (the will is not logical, and the idea not endowed with will)." 'The Unconscious,' thus defined, is an individvial. "an unconscious ■world-.soul," which is "simultaneously present and purposively efficient in all organisms and atoms, the bodily life and the human mind." K is one in all space and in all time, space and time being its creations, not its conditions. It can projierly I)e defined as "pure, unconscious (impersonal but indivisible, therefore individual) Spirit," and in accordance with this definition Vol. IX.— 39. Hartmann says that '"our ilonism may be more precisely characterized as spiritualistic ilonism.' Consciousness arises out ol tlic 'unconscious' by "the emancipation of the idea from the will.' "The essence of the consciousness of the idea is the extrication of the same from its native soil, the realizing will, and the opposition of the will to this extrication." The conscious idea "is idea juceminently free from every effort at self- realization, but without jirejudice to the possi- bility of afterwards becoming itself again con- tent of will." This emancipation of idea from will arises when organized matter suddenly breaks in upon this self-contained peace of the Uneon.scious and thrusts upon the astonished in- dividual spirit an idea which falls upon it as tiom the skies, for it finds in itself no will to the idea. "The idea has been sent from the will, to confront it in future as independent power, in order to bring under subjection to it.self its former lord." The will endeavors to negate the idea but cannot, and this failure is the cause of pain, which is "the vexation of the uncon- scious individual mind at the interloping idea." This break-up of the original unity of will and idea is itself the work of 'the Unconscious,' which "can never err — nay, not even doubt or hesitate;" it "occurs precisely at the most suitable moment, when the whole purpose frame of the world re- quires it." Indeed, "the world is contrived and guided as wisely and as well as is possible." "The existing world is the best of all possible ones," and yet "it may still be thoroughly bad," its non-existence may be preferable to its exist- ence. An empirical examination of the facts proves this to be the case. The contrary belief is an illusion of which there are three stages. The childhood of the individual and (he race is spent in the illusion that the individual can at- tain happiness now; the yoiitli of the race (me- di.Tvalism) is spent in the liclief that hap])iness ii attained bj' the individual in a transcendent life after death; and the manhood of the race is spent in the illusion that happiness is at- tainable by others in this world in the remote future. The true view is that of "the final redemption from the misery of volition and exist- ence into the painlessness of non-willing and non-being." But this redemption can be won only by making "the ends of the Unconscious ends of our own consciousness." And the end of the unconscious is the elimination of miser;-. Posi- tive happiness is unattainable. But "only in complete devotion to life and its pains, not in cowardly renunciation and withdrawal, is any- thing to be achieved for the world-process. This devotion to life is necessary for the time being, since only by contributing to the advance of intelligence can we hope to bring about a state of affairs in which the inajor part of the actual volition or of the functioning Unconscious ,'spirit shall be under the control of intelligence. When this consummation is achieved, then volition will resolve upon its own non-continuance, seeing that continuance involves a surplus of mi.sery. This resolve will be a simultaneous common resolve of individuals in whom the larger half of the active Spirit of the universe is manifest." For a survey of the controversial literature on Hart- mann's teaching, consult : Pluiiiaiher, Dcr h'nnipf urns I'nbetrnsste (2d cd., Loiiizig, 1890) ; also in general Kn])eT, Das philosophischc ffi/stcm F.dnard ron Hartnuinns (Breslau, 1884) ; Drews, Eduard