Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (897 page)

CHAPTER IX
.

THE MYSTERY OF MYSTICISM OR OF NATURE IN GOD.

Interesting
material for the criticism of cosmogonic and theogonic fancies is furnished in the doctrine — revived by Schelling and drawn from Jacob Böhme — of eternal Nature in God.

God is pure spirit, clear self-consciousness, moral personality; Nature, on the contrary, is, at least partially, confused, dark, desolate, immoral, or to say no more, unmoral. But it is self-contradictory that the impure should proceed from the pure, darkness from light. How then can we remove these obvious difficulties in the way of assigning a divine origin to Nature? Only by positing this impurity, this darkness in God, by distinguishing in God himself a principle of light and a principle of darkness. In other words, we can only explain the origin of darkness by renouncing the idea of origin, and presupposing darkness as existing from the beginning.

But that which is dark in Nature is the irrational, the material, — Nature strictly, as distinguished from intelligence. Hence the simple meaning of this doctrine is, that Nature, Matter, cannot be explained as a result of intelligence; on the contrary, it is the basis of intelligence, the basis of personality, without itself having any basis; spirit without Nature is an unreal abstraction; consciousness developes itself only out of Nature. But this materialistic doctrine is veiled in a mystical yet attractive obscurity, inasmuch as it is not expressed in the clear, simple language of reason, but emphatically enunciated in that consecrated word of the emotions — God. If the light in God springs out of the darkness in God, this is only because it is involved in the idea of light in general, that it illuminates darkness, thus presupposing darkness, not making it. If then God is once subjected to a general law, — as he must necessarily be unless he be made the arena of conflict for the most senseless notions, — if self-consciousness in God as well as in itself, as in general, is evolved from a principle in Nature, why is not this natural principle abstracted from God? That which is a law of consciousness in itself, is a law for the consciousness of every personal being, whether man, angel, demon, God, or whatever else thou mayst conceive to thyself as a being. To what then, seen in their true light, do the two principles in God reduce themselves? The one to Nature, at least to Nature as it exists in the conception, abstracted from its reality; the other to mind, consciousness, personality. The one half, the reverse side, thou dost not name God, but only the obverse side, on which he presents to thee mind, consciousness: thus his specific essence, that whereby he is
God
, is mind, intelligence, consciousness. Why then dost thou make that which is properly the subject in God as God,
i.e
., as mind, into a mere predicate, as if God existed as God apart from mind, from consciousness? Why, but because thou art enslaved by mystical religious speculation, because the primary principle in thee is the imagination, thought being only secondary and serving but to throw into formulae the products of the imagination, — because thou feelest at ease and at home only in the deceptive twilight of mysticism.

Mysticism is deuteroscopy — a fabrication of phrases having a double meaning. The mystic speculates concerning the essence of Nature or of man, but under, and by means of, the supposition that he is speculating concerning another, a personal being, distinct from both. The mystic has the same objects as the plain, self-conscious thinker; but the real object is regarded by the mystic, not as itself, but as an imaginary being, and hence the imaginary object is to him the real object. Thus here, in the mystical doctrine of the two principles in God, the real object is pathology, the imaginary one, theology;
i.e
., pathology is converted into theology. There would be nothing to urge against this, if, consciously, real pathology were recognised and expressed as theology; indeed, it is precisely our task to show that theology is nothing else than an unconscious, esoteric pathology, anthropology, and psychology, and that therefore real anthropology, real pathology, and real psychology have far more claim to the name of theology, than has theology itself, because this is nothing more than an imaginary psychology and anthropology. But this doctrine or theory is supposed — and for this reason it is mystical and fantastic — to be not pathology, but theology, in the old or ordinary sense of the word; it is supposed that we have here unfolded to us the life of a Being distinct from us, while nevertheless it is only our own nature which is unfolded, though at the same time again shut up from us by the fact that this nature is represented as inhering in another being. The mystic philosopher supposes that in God, not in us human individuals, — that would be far too trivial a truth, — reason first appears after the Passion of Nature; — that not man, but God, has wrestled himself out of the obscurity of confused feelings and impulses into the clearness of knowledge; that not in our subjective, limited mode of conception, but in God himself, the nervous tremors of darkness precede the joyful consciousness of light; in short, he supposes that his theory presents not a history of human throes, but a history of the development,
i.e
., the throes of God — for developments (or transitions) are birth-struggles. But, alas! this supposition itself belongs only to the pathological element.

If, therefore, the cosmogonic process presents to us the Light of the power of distinction as belonging to the divine essence; so, on the other hand, the Night or Nature in God, represents to us the
Pensées confuses
of Leibnitz as divine powers. But the
Pensées confuses
— confused, obscure conceptions and thoughts, or more correctly images — represent the flesh, matter; — a pure intelligence, separate from matter, has only clear, free thoughts, no obscure,
i.e
., fleshly ideas, no material images, exciting the imagination and setting the blood in commotion. The Night in God, therefore, implies nothing else than this: God is not only a spiritual but also a material, corporeal, fleshly being; but as man is man, and receives his designation, in virtue not of his fleshly nature, but of his mind, so is it with God.

But the mystic philosopher expresses this only in obscure, mystical, indefinite, dissembling images. Instead of the rude, but hence all the more precise and striking expression,
flesh
, it substitutes the equivocal, abstract words,
nature
and
ground
. “As nothing is before or out of God, he must have the ground of his existence in himself. This all philosophies say, but they speak of this ground as a mere idea, without making it something real. This ground of his existence which God has in himself, is not God considered absolutely,
i.e
., in so far as he exists; it is only the ground of his existence. It is Nature — in God; an existence inseparable from him, it is true, but still distinct. Analogically (?), this relation may be illustrated by gravitation and light in nature.” But this ground is the
non-intelligent
in God. “That which is the commencement of an intelligence (in itself) cannot also be intelligent.” “In the strict sense, intelligence is born of this unintelligent principle. Without this antecedent darkness there is no reality of the Creator.” “With abstract ideas of God as
actus purissimus
, such as were laid down by the older philosophy, or such as the modern, out of anxiety to remove God far from Nature, is always reproducing, we can effect nothing. God is something more real than a mere moral order of the world, and has quite another and a more living motive power in himself than is ascribed to him by the jejune subtilty of abstract idealists. Idealism, if it has not a living realism as its basis, is as empty and abstract a system as that of Leibnitz or Spinoza, or as any other dogmatic system.” “So long as the God of modern theism remains the simple, supposed purely essential but in fact nonessential Being that all modern systems make him, so long as a real duality is not recognised in God, and a limiting, negativing force, opposed to the expansive affirming force, so long will the denial of a personal God be scientific honesty.” “All consciousness is concentration, is a gathering together, a collecting of oneself. This negativing force by which a being turns back upon itself, is the true force of personality, the force of egoism.” “How should there be a fear of God, if there were no strength in him? But that there should be something in God, which is mere force and strength, cannot be held astonishing if only it be not maintained that he is this alone and nothing besides.”

But what then is force and strength which is merely such, if not corporeal force and strength? Dost thou know any power which stands at thy command, in distinction from the power of kindness and reason, besides muscular power? If thou canst effect nothing through kindness and the arguments of reason, force is what thou must take refuge in. But canst thou “effect” anything without strong arms and fists? Is there known to thee, in distinction from the power of the moral order of the world, “another and more living motive power” than the lever of the criminal court? Is not Nature without body also an “empty, abstract” idea, a “jejune subtilty?” Is not the mystery of Nature the mystery of corporeality? Is not the system of a “living realism” the system of the organized body? Is there, in general, any other force, the opposite of intelligence, than the force of flesh and blood, — any other strength of Nature than the strength of the fleshly impulses? And the strongest of the impulses of Nature, is it not the sexual feeling? Who does not remember the old proverb: “
Amare et sepere vix Deo competit
?” So that if we would posit in God a Nature, an existence opposed to the light of intelligence, — can we think of a more living, a more real antithesis, than that of
amare
and
sapere
, of spirit and flesh, of freedom and the sexual impulse?

Personality, individuality, consciousness, without Nature, is nothing; or, which is the same thing, an empty, unsubstantial abstraction. But Nature, as has been shown and is obvious, is nothing without corporeality. The body alone is that negativing, limiting, concentrating, circumscribing force, without which no personality is conceivable. Take away from thy personality its body, and thou takest away that which holds it together. The body is the basis, the subject of personality. Only by the body, is a real personality distinguished from the imaginary one of a spectre. What sort of abstract, vague, empty personalities should we be, if we had not the property of impenetrability, — if in the same place, in the same form in which we are, others might stand at the same time? Only by the exclusion of others from the space it occupies, does personality prove itself to be real. But a body does not exist without flesh and blood. Flesh and blood is life, and life alone is corporeal reality. But flesh and blood is nothing without the oxygen of sexual distinction. The distinction of sex is not superficial, or limited to certain parts of the body; it is an essential one: it penetrates bones and marrow. The substance of man, is manhood; that of woman, womanhood. However spiritual and super-sensual the man may be, he remains always a man; and it is the same with the woman. Hence personality is nothing without distinction of sex; personality is essentially distinguished into masculine and feminine. Where there is no
thou
, there is no
I;
but the distinction between
I
and
thou
, the fundamental condition of all personality, of all consciousness, is only real, living, ardent, when felt as the distinction between man and woman. The
thou
between man and woman has quite another sound, than the monotonous
thou
between friends.

Nature in distinction from personality can signify nothing else than difference of sex. A personal being apart from Nature is nothing else than a being without sex, and conversely. Nature is said to be predicated of God, “in the sense in which it is said of a man, that he is of a strong, healthy nature.” But what is more feeble, what more insupportable, what more contrary to Nature than a person without sex, or a person, who in character, manners, or feelings, denies sex? What is virtue, the excellence of man as man? Manhood. Of man as woman? Womanhood. But man exists only as man and woman. The strength, the healthiness of man, consists therefore in this: that as a woman, he be truly woman; as man, truly man. Thou repudiatest “the horror of all that is real, which supposes the spiritual to be polluted by contact with the real.” Repudiate then before all, thy own horror for the distinction of sex. If God is not polluted by Nature, neither is he polluted by being associated with the idea of sex. In renouncing sex, thou renouncest thy whole principle. A moral God apart from Nature is without basis; but the basis of morality is the distinction of sex. Even the brute is capable of self-sacrificing love in virtue of the sexual distinction. All the glory of Nature, all its power, all its wisdom and profundity, concentrates and individualizes itself in distinction of sex. Why then dost thou shrink from naming the nature of God by its true name? Evidently, only because thou hast a general horror of things in their truth and reality; because thou lookest at all things through the deceptive vapours of mysticism. For this very reason then, because Nature in God is only a delusive, unsubstantial appearance, a fantastic ghost of Nature, — for it is based, as we have said, not on flesh and blood, not on a real ground, — this attempt to establish a personal God is once more a failure, and I, too, conclude with the words, “The denial of a personal God will be scientific honesty”: — and, I add, scientific truth, so long as it is not declared and shown in unequivocal terms, first
a priori
, on speculative grounds, that form, place, corporeality, and sex, do not contradict the idea of the Godhead; and secondly,
a posteriori
, — for the reality of a personal being, is sustained only on empirical grounds, — what sort of form God has, where he exists, — in heaven, — and lastly, of what sex he is.