Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity [pp. 250-294]

Apologetics.
why should the subjective fare any better? We know nothing
by consciousness of our subjective being, but its phenomena;
and these phenomena are not its essence. We are therefore,
totally destitute of evidence that it has any real existence.
Hence the universe, already reduced to sensation, thought and
knowledge, not only has nothing for the object of these functions, but there is nothing to feel, think, or know. Pressed
by the merciless logic of his adversaries into this "reductio
ad absurdurn," Fichte attempted to supplement his system, by
adding a realistic side to his philosophy. The attempt was
always regarded by his disciples as an inconsistency and a
failure.
It remained, therefore, for Schelling, the next in the catalogue of the great German metaphysicians, to supply the objective element of the ideal philosophy. This he did by assuming
as the true starting point of his constructive process, the reali.
ty of absolute existence, of which, (as we must use the barbarous technical lingo of these schools,) the "me" and the "not
me" were but difficult and complementary phases. lIe thus
bridged over the impassable gulf of his predecessors, between
the subjective and the objective, by identifying the two. The
result, of course, was Pantheism again; differing from Spinoza
chiefly in this-that he made the absolute existence spirit, while
Spinoza made it substance. But this is obviously more of a distinction than a difference. It comes to the same thing in the
end, whether we begin by spiritualizing matter, or materializing
spirit. The great feature of Schelling's philosophy was the
identifying of subject and object. And the grand organ which
he employed, and which was destined to play so important a
part in subsequent philosophy, was the faculty of Intellectual
Intuition ("intellectuelle anschauung"), by which we gaze
directly on the absolute essence of truth in all its relations,
without the need of mediating it through individual objects, or
special relations. We had drawn out a brief sketch of Schelling's system; but the space at our command forbids its insertion. We regret this the more, because it was the form into
which he cast the ideal philosophy, that has chiefly infected the
literature, the philosophy, and the theology of England and
America; first through the brilliant and fascinating conversa
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