The History of Philosophy 829
SUMMARY OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
MS University of Waterloo (Bertram Davis Collection). Much of the material of
this summary can be found in BL. Two elements suggest th<tt it was wrillen
slightly later, although with formulations in BL still easy to recall. The first new
element is the sense C gives of having passed beyond Schelling, whose primary
error he first mentions in 1818 {cf 786-7 above and CL tv 873-6: to J. H. Green
30 Sept 1818); the second is the confident inclusion of Swedenborg. whom C
was studying in some detail in 1820. (If the conjecture as to an earlier reading
of Swedenborg-for which see BL ch 12 (CC) 1 232n-is accepted. this reason-
ing would be weaker, but C shows no signs of appreciating the force of Swed-
enborg's argument before 1820.)
DATE. Probably 1820.
All consciousness begins in the distinction between Subject & Object-
the Cogitans & the cogitatum/ to evolve the former from the latter leads
1
inevitably to SpiAosism, ffi.at Materialism & to Hylozoism, & thence to
Idealism; Spinosism;" and to evolve the latter from the former, is Ideal-
ism, and thence to Pantheism/-& thence to Spinosism.'
sE3P
That Enthusiasm, by either bringing forward certain facts of Con-
sciousness, or by representing certain movements of Life & Thought in
a new mould, tends to produce one and the same System of Belief in all
ages, and under the most different circumstances, will not be doubted of
by any man who will compare Plotinus, Proclus, and their antecessors,
Philo and Parmenides with the Catholic Mystics among the Spaniards,
with Giord. Bruno, Jacob Brehmen, George Fox, Swedenborg-and lat-
terly with the German Plotinists, Fichte and Schelling~-Reftect for a
moment on the difference of Age, Belief, Acquirements, Education,
Moral Habits &c &c of 1ac. Brehmen, and those of Fichte and still more
of Schelling-and the resemblance or rather substantial Sameness of
their Systems will admit no other Solution but that either from the Truth
of the System itself, or from an identity of disease in the organs of intel-
lectual conception, the same representations forced themselves on the
1 The "one thinking" and the "thing Spinoza's place in the Pantheist contro-
thought''. versy see McFarland 53-106.
2 The belief that God is one with mat- 4 This list may be usefully compared
ter-inC's eyes, ultimately atheism. with C's more detailed description of his
3 Cf BL ch 8 ( CC) 1 129-36 for a more own philosophical development, in BL
extended discussion of this sequence of ch 9 (CC) 1 140--67.
philosophies. For a detailed account of
830 1820
one and the other.'-Thus both Fichte and Schelling with more than
Scotist subtlety 2 of Logical Idea-splitting have evolved as their ground
position the same doctrine, as Swedenborg. & Brehmen: viz-that the I
is identical with, and exclusively recognizes itself as. the Will: that the
Self or Will grounds itself = setzt sich, and is the principle of its own
Life or Existence; that therefore "to be" or "1 am" is an ideal State,
the product of the Self-constituting Act; thence the distinction between
the primary and the empirical Self-and thence inevitably the identity
of the former with God, and the final To Ev lWL rlav, 3 the fatal Serbonian
Bog~ of all Mysticism!-What then is the rrgwTov \j!Et'bo;, 5 in which all
those having formed have of necessity arrived at the same Whirlpool of
Chaos')-the transcending the ultimate sciousness, i.e. the distinct.
betw. Sub. & Ob 6
ON SWEDENBORG 's VIEWS ON CHRISTIAN BELIEFS
VCL S MS F 2.1 ff 1-3; wm 1818. This fragment is closely related to a letter C
wrote to C. A. Tulk on 16 Jul 1820, and is possibly a preliminary draft of it (see
CL v 86-91 ). C's acquaintance with Swedenborg's writings may have gone
back as far as 1796 (see CN 1 165 and n). but here he is referring to his True
Christian Religion. a book he was sent by Tulk early in 1820, and which pro-
vided the subject-matter for several letters later in the year. (See CL v 9-IOn.
Cs annotated copy of True Christian Religion Containing 1he Universal Theol-
ogy of the New Church-5th ed 2 vols I 8 I 9-is now in the BM.)
DATE. Probably 1820. by association with the letter cited above.
Swedenborg's sense of Redemption. the divinity of Christ, and the Tri-
unity as contained in, and connected with, the Manifestation of the
Divine Humanity, together with the doctrinal rejection of the Neo-cal-
vinistic Doctrines of Soli-fidianism, vicarious payment, and imputed
Righteousness-all these and others, not as they words are capable of
being understood, but as they actually and really are understood by the
1
Schelling's affinities with Bohme dark or obscure.
arc mentioned in BL ch 9 (CC) 1 161-2. 3
"The one and all".
Cf CL IV 883: to C. A. Tulk [24 Nov " Proverbial morass in which one
1818). sinks without a trace. Cf Milton Para-
' I.e. a subtlety worthy of Duns Sco- dise Lost 11 592-5.
tus. C pays tribute to him along with 5
"Fundamental error".
Aquinas in P Leers Lect 9 ( 1949) 280. It 6
Distinction between Subject and
is possible that C is punning with the Object.
name here. ox6nos {skotios) meaning
