Coleridge and the Crisis of Reason

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Coleridge and the Crisis of Reason

Richard Berkeley

Coleridge and the Crisis of Reason

This page intentionally left blank

Coleridge and the Crisis of Reason Richard Berkeley

© Richard Berkeley 2007 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identiﬁed as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2007 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN-13: 9780230521643 hardback ISBN-10: 0230521649 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Berkeley, Richard, 1971 Coleridge and the crisis of reason/Richard Berkeley. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 9780230521643 ISBN-10: 0230521649 (cloth) 1. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 17721834“Philosophy. 2. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 17721834“Knowledge“Pantheism. 3. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 17721834“Knowledge“Philosophy, German. 4. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 17721834“Religion. 5. Pantheism in literature. 6. Pantheism. I. Title. B1583.Z7 B47 [PR4487.P5] 2007060024 821 .7“dc22 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne

Vergieb mir daß ich so gerne schweige wenn von einem göttlichen Wesen die Rede ist, das ich nur in und aus den rebus singularibus erkenne, zu deren nähern und tiefern Betrachtung niemand mehr aufmuntern kann als Spinoza selbst, obgleich vor seinem Blicke alle einzelne Dinge zu verschwinden scheinen. – Goethe an Jacobi, 9 June 1785 Wie die Sonne am Firmament alle Himmelslichter auslöscht, so und noch viel mehr die unendliche Macht jede endliche. – Schelling SW VII 339 For a very long time I could not reconcile personality with infinity; and my head was with Spinoza, though my whole heart remained with Paul and John. – Coleridge BL I 201


Contents

Acknowledgements

x

List of Abbreviations

xi

Note on Quotations from MSS

xii

Introduction A critique of McFarland’s Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition Understanding understanding: An hermeneutic approach to ‘influence’

Part I

1 2 6

Coleridge and Spinoza

1 Silence and the Pantheistic Sublime in Coleridge’s Early Poetry

15

2 Spinoza and the Problem of the Infinite Infinity God Freedom Evil

24 26 32 34 35

3 The Providential Wreck: Coleridge and Spinoza’s Metaphysics Coleridge’s understanding of Spinoza Coleridge’s critique of Spinoza’s metaphysics Coleridge and Spinoza: A providential reading

Part II

38 39 47 55

Coleridge and the Pantheism Controversy

4 Understanding the Pantheism Controversy Lessing’s Spinozism Jacobi and his salto mortale vii

59 60 63

viii

Contents

Mendelssohn and Morgenstunden Kant Schelling and the defence of pantheism 5

Reading under a Warp: Coleridge and Jacobi’s Transformations of ‘Reason’ Jacobi’s uses of ‘reason’ The note on Maass Coleridge’s understanding of Jacobi’s rhetorical stance Coleridge’s critique of Jacobi on Spinoza Jacobi’s immediate knowledge argument

6

Coleridge, Mendelssohn and the Defence of Reason Mendelssohn on Spinoza Mendelssohn’s proof of God’s existence Truth and Orientierung

7

Coleridge and Schelling: The Seductions of Ideal Pantheism Schelling’s ‘Plotinised Spinozism’ Schelling contra Jacobi Ungrund and Indifferenz: Schelling’s speculative ontology Freedom Coleridge’s critique of Schelling’s theodicy

64 65 66

68 69 71 73 76 82 90 91 97 103

108 109 114 118 126 132

Part III The Pantheism Controversy in Coleridge’s Later Thought 8

9

The Anxiety of Pantheism: Hidden Dimensions of Coleridge’s Transcendental Deduction Coleridge’s transcendental deduction The ‘interrupting’ ‘friend’ Coleridge’s Trinity: The Defence of Immanence Trinity and

Coleridge and Schelling: Eternity, evil and evolutionary divinity

145 147 159 165 167 179

Contents

10

Reason, Understanding and Truth Reason and understanding: The rhetoric of distinction Truth

ix

187 188 199

Notes

211

Bibliography

223

Index

229

Acknowledgements Thanks to the Commonwealth Fellowship and Scholarships Plan for funding to undertake the doctoral research at the Australian National University that led to this book. Thanks to The Coleridge Bulletin for permission to publish a revised version of ‘Silence and the Pantheistic Sublime in Coleridge’s Early Poetry’ as Chapter 1; European Romantic Review (see www.fandf.co.uk/ journals) for permission to publish a revised version of ‘The Providential Wreck: Coleridge and Spinoza’s Metaphysics’ as Chapter 3; and Prism(s): Essays in Romanticism for permission to publish a revised version of ‘The Anxiety of Pantheism: Hidden Dimensions of Coleridge’s Transcendental Deduction’ as Chapter 8. Thanks to the British Library for permission to quote from Egerton 2801; the Victoria College Library, University of Toronto, for permission to quote from the ‘Opus Maximum’ MS; the Harris Manchester College Library, Oxford, for permission to quote from Coleridge’s MS. annotations on Spinoza’s Benedicti de Spinoza opera quae supersunt omnia; the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin and Priscilla Cassam for permission to quote from the Rugby MS. Thanks also to Graham Cullum and Udo Thiel for their skilful supervision of my project; Paul Hamilton and James Engell for their judicious evaluations of my work, and persistent encouragement and advice; Fred Burwick for his inimitable encouragement; Alistair Fox for his hardheaded advice in the face of all difficulties; and many other friends and peers without whose encouragement this book could not have existed. Thanks especially to my family for their support; to Jacob Ramsay, Karen Elsom and Melissa Kirby who contributed so much support and friendship during my research at the ANU; also to Wes Morrison, Tabby Mannetter, Kathy Copeland, Alicia Kuppens, Tom Mazaitis, Usha Wilbur, Art Bass, Simon Colyer and everyone at Mammoth for keeping alive the ‘heart in the head’ as Coleridge says; to the Otago German department for so many lessons; to Barry Empson for his help and advice on my German Philosophy translations; to Clare Penno, Harley McCabe, Liz Newell, Tim Muller and all the clowns for bringing so much fun into the last 2 years; and to Natalie Pierce for her friendship and good sense during the pangs of manuscript revision.

x

List of Abbreviations

AR BL C&S CL CM CN Ethics KRV PW Friend Logic MW ODI OM LHP SL SW&F SW TT ULS

Aids to Reflection (Collected Works) Biographia Literaria (Collected Works) On the Constitution of Church and State (Collected Works) Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Marginalia (Collected Works) The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Spinoza On the Improvement of the Understanding, The Ethics, Correspondence Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften IV) Poetical Works (Collected Works) The Friend (Collected Works) Logic (Collected Works) Mendelssohn Gesammelte Schriften ‘On the Divine Ideas’ quoted from Coleridge Opus Maximum (Collected Works) 214–90 ‘Opus Maximum’ MS Victoria College Library, University of Toronto (VCL S MS 29) Lectures 1818–1819: On the History of Philosophy (Collected Works) Spinoza’s letters. Spinoza On the Improvement of the Understanding, The Ethics, Correspondence. Shorter Works and Fragments (Collected Works) Schelling Sämmtliche Werke Table Talk (Collected Works) Jacobi Über die Lehre des Spinoza

xi

Note on Quotations from MSS The MSS ‘Opus Maximum’ (OM) and ‘On the Divine Ideas’ (ODI) have been published together in the Bollingen series under the title Opus Maximum. This edition is quite aggressive in correcting the punctuation, spelling and so forth. I have therefore preferred to continue quoting directly from the MSS where possible. I have not done so with ODI however, because the Huntington’s permissions policy did not coordinate well with my publishing needs. Quotations from ODI therefore follow the Opus Maximum text. For convenience, the MS pagination numbers are followed in quoting from both OM and ODI, since these are reproduced in the published Opus Maximum. For clarity, my editorial interventions are marked by [ ] and , whereas interventions already existing in published version of MS material are marked by { }.

xii

Introduction

The purpose of this book is to remedy the central weakness in Coleridge studies: the persistent failure to grasp the full significance of the pantheism controversy for Coleridge’s poetry and thought. Thomas McFarland’s (1969) Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition—considered authoritative for almost 40 years now—has indirectly contributed to this problem because it articulates a very specific and idiosyncratic understanding of the issue, and its ‘authoritative’ status has denied it meaningful engagement in the literature. The result is that some of the most important and abiding aspects of Coleridge’s intellectual development have been left drastically under-examined, as McFarland’s book made the question seem exhausted. This book overturns McFarland’s understanding of key philosophical aspects of the pantheism controversy, and Coleridge’s understanding of the controversy. Most fundamentally McFarland presents the pantheism controversy as an ontological dispute: an argument between those who took the self as the starting point for philosophical enquiry, and those who took the external world as the starting point. But what was really at stake here was the status of reason, and Spinozism was only the flash point in the dispute because Spinoza became an emblem for reason itself. Moreover, McFarland presents the image of Spinozism as a settled one, whereas in fact a large part of the pantheism controversy was fought precisely over the interpretation of Spinozism, so that this was one of the most hotly contested issues at hand. The driving questions of this book then are: what are the boundaries along which the image of Spinozism is being contested? and how does Coleridge understand this contestation? This is of central importance to Coleridge studies because Coleridge’s engagement with the controversy was much more central to his intellectual life than has been supposed. Part of the difficulty here is that 1

2

Introduction

Coleridge himself repeatedly minimized the appearance of dependency on pantheistic patterns of thought, and minimized the extent to which his philosophical interests were entangled with the image of Spinozism. In the argument that follows I suggest that these attempts at minimization should not be taken at face value, and indeed that they are often evidence of the very opposite. The very influences that Coleridge was most troubled by—the ones he was most deeply concerned with—are the very ones that he most insistently denies, and he denies them for that very reason. The result is a substantial reconsideration of Coleridge’s engagement with German idealism in general. To take the most obvious and important example, Coleridge’s reading of Schelling has traditionally been seen in terms of his plagiarisms from System des transscendentalen Idealismus, and understood as an adoption or appropriation of a ‘transcendental’ standpoint. It has virtually escaped notice that in the very same texts Coleridge was also drawing on Schelling’s Vom Ich and Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit (both much more open in their pantheistic implications), and, crucially, on Jacobi’s Über die Lehre des Spinoza. The result is that I point out a series of textual connections that have never been noted, and I show that Coleridge’s understanding of Schelling was mediated by his understanding of Jacobi and the pantheism controversy. This calls for a significant re-evaluation of the received image of the transcendentalist Coleridge, who is imagined to have left his earlier monistic and materialist interests behind by the time of Biographia.

A critique of McFarland’s Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition Thomas McFarland’s book must be understood in its context. It was in many ways an attempt to make positive sense out of Coleridge’s philosophical activity against a backdrop of accusation and condemnation surrounding Coleridge’s infamous plagiarisms. The book’s most successful strategy is to outflank the whole ugly business by focusing not, as many others had, on the ‘influence’ of some one or other of the stars of German idealism, but to throw Coleridge’s specific engagements into relief against the broad intellectual background. As a result it was one of the first studies to contemplate Coleridge’s philosophical engagements in a sophisticated and contextual way. Nevertheless, McFarland spends considerable efforts in defending Coleridge from the traditional charges of plagiarism, by arguing that

Introduction 3

they are not material to a judgement of philosophical originality.1 Indeed, he relocates the axis of judgement of Coleridge away from a consideration of his philosophical utterances, and onto a consideration of what he portrays as Coleridge’s own personal struggle to reconcile two opposed tendencies in philosophy without doing injustice to either.2 McFarland, following Coleridge himself, calls these two tendencies the philosophy of the ‘It is’ and the philosophy of the ‘I am’. The difference, as McFarland sees it, is that the philosophy of the ‘I am’ begins with the self as its starting point, whereas the philosophy of the ‘It is’ begins from the existence of some external thing, or the world in general.3 The distinction itself is derived from Coleridge’s own rather speculative division of all thinkers into Aristotelians and Platonists, and indeed it is closely related to a series of such articulations among German thinkers.4 The idea is even crucially related to the argument of System des transscendentalen Idealismus (SW III 335–43). This distinction has more cogency as a means of examining Coleridge’s self-understanding than it does as a general explanation of the history of philosophy. It is certainly noteworthy that Coleridge himself felt torn between what he saw as two distinct philosophical possibilities, but actually agreeing with him in applying such a distinction to philosophy in general is deeply problematic. Four general problems arise immediately. In the first place, by characterizing philosophy in general as a contest between these two, McFarland is forced to surrender all other distinctions in a way that makes it impossible to do justice to the complexity of the German philosophical context of the time. The relationships between each of the main philosophical positions were extremely complex and multi-focal. Thus Kant’s critique was an attempt to answer Hume’s scepticism, and was also a critique of the rationalistic metaphysics of the Leibniz-Wolff school. However, at the same time the critique of reason does not amount to a rejection of reason, so that Kant also distanced himself from Jacobi’s anti-rational stance. It is impossible to maintain a clear representation of all of these tensions within the ambit of a binary distinction between two types of philosophy. The second problem is that in order to make his account work overall, McFarland finds it necessary to lump all ‘pantheist’ thinkers into the ‘It is’ camp, along with Spinoza. However, many of these thinkers literally took the self as the starting point (Schelling for example), so that by the original distinction they really belong in the ‘I am’ camp. There have been attempts to criticize McFarland for his conception of

4

Introduction

pantheism itself, but the point I am making is that he tries to make the distinction between the two kinds of philosophy carry more weight than it can really support.5 To put it simply, the dividing line for this distinction is less crisp than McFarland needs it to be to base an account of the entire history of philosophy on the idea of a universal struggle between the two. The third problem is that the insistence on understanding the positions of the participants in the pantheism controversy in terms of this fundamental distinction leads to very specific kinds of interpretations of these figures. McFarland allows his understanding of these figures to be structured by this concept, and the results are often problematic. In particular, McFarland depicts Spinoza very much as a reductive materialist, and seems to see him as a predecessor of the modern scientific worldview (he repeatedly complains of Spinoza’s ‘scientism’).6 This is not entirely unreasonable, but I think that it is inaccurate as an interpretation of Spinoza, and tends to miss some of the mystical implications of his thought. Moreover, it is precisely these features which appealed to the Romantic generation, so that McFarland has overlooked an important and relevant aspect of Spinoza’s thought. The fourth and perhaps most striking problem is that by understanding the pantheism controversy in ontological terms McFarland has completely ignored the central issue of the controversy: the status of reason. Thus much of the impact of the controversy on Coleridge drops out of view, because the ontological tensions are viewed in isolation from their implications for human rationality. Thus when Coleridge considers Spinoza’s metaphysics, McFarland assumes that he does so with a primary concern about the theological outcomes, whereas Coleridge’s concern is less about Spinozism itself than about whether the problems of Spinozism are effectively announcing the failure of human rationality to deal with matters of religion. The crucial point overall is that the understanding of Spinoza was itself a hotly contested matter. This contestation is absolutely at the heart of the pantheism controversy itself, and McFarland’s strategy of interpreting the controversy on the basis of a static conception of Spinozism derived from a static distinction between philosophical starting points leaves him structurally unable to understand and explore the dimensions of this contested image of Spinoza. He therefore interprets Spinoza as an unambiguously reductivist and fatalistic thinker.7 This begs the question of the controversy itself, which was deeply concerned with the question of whether Spinozism or pantheism really is inevitably

Introduction 5

reductive and fatalistic or not. Similarly, when it comes to Jacobi and the dispute between Jacobi and Mendelssohn, McFarland’s focus on the distinction between the philosophy of the ‘I am’ and that of the ‘It is’ has a distorting effect. This dispute was about the status of reason, but in line with his overall conception McFarland depicts it as a confrontation between the two kinds of philosophy, so that he locates Jacobi as the proponent of the ‘I am’.8 In itself this is largely harmless, but it leads him to miss some important dimensions of the dispute. For example, at one point McFarland describes Jacobi as a ‘radical rationalist’, and suggests that he is closer to the religious scepticism of Diderot or Voltaire than to the religious piety of the romantics.9 This is simply untrue. Jacobi was clearly opposing himself to the reason and rationalism, and doing so for religious reasons, and indeed the first edition of Über die Lehre des Spinoza is rife with pietistic sentiment. It is true that he later tried to minimize the appearance of irrationalism, and wound up expressing himself in terms that seriously obfuscate his original intentions, but to designate him as a rationalistic ‘I am’ philosopher is to seriously misread him. Indeed, McFarland himself goes on to correct this view in a later article, describing Jacobi as ‘one of the most tenacious, consistent and penetrating of all opponents of Enlightenment “raison” ’, which simply helps to show the interpretive shortfalls of the ‘It is’ and ‘I am’ distinction.10 I differ from McFarland on the interpretation of Spinoza. The key problem, though, is that McFarland’s interpretation of Spinoza as a ‘reductive materialist’ is itself a consequence of his problematic concept of the history of philosophy, of the arbitrary division that McFarland depicts as running through philosophy in general (a view that closely resembles Coleridge’s own). This basic problem equally besets his understanding of the figures involved in the pantheism controversy, such as Jacobi. The consequence is that my interpretive disagreement with McFarland runs far deeper than merely a disagreement over Spinoza: it amounts to a disagreement about what was at stake in the pantheism controversy. McFarland sees it as a clash between objectivist and subjectivist tendencies, whereas I see it as being primarily a crisis over reason itself. Indeed, this virtually amounts to a disagreement about the meaning of philosophy: McFarland sees philosophy as a confrontation between two basic ways of thinking, whereas I see it as the process of mediating the tensions between different understandings of the world. In its simplest form, McFarland says that Coleridge was torn between two different ways of doing philosophy, of which Spinoza was the prime exemplum

6

Introduction

of one. I say that Coleridge was in a state of anxiety because he was unable to resolve the tensions between multiple ways of understanding Spinoza.

Understanding understanding: An hermeneutic approach to ‘influence’ The disciples of the critical philosophy could represent the origin of our representations in copperplates; but no one has yet attempted it, and it would be utterly useless. To an Esquimaux or New Zealander our most popular philosophy would be wholly unintelligible. The sense, the inward organ, for it is not yet born in him. So is there many a one among us, yes, and some who think themselves philosophers too, to whom the philosophic organ is entirely wanting. (BL I 251) This passage from Biographia is interesting and important for several reasons. The first of these lies in the relationship of the passage to German philosophy. It is obvious enough that Coleridge is adopting some of the elitist elements that are typical of German idealism. Moreover, he is doing so in a way that is designed to help reinforce his own image as a thinker whose work is valuable due to his peculiar abilities and insight. Such an image was valuable to Coleridge not only on a personal level, but also on a professional (or even financial) level since he was attempting to base a literary career on it. The real interest, though, for a modern reader at least, lies in the fact that this passage is plagiarized from Schelling.11 It goes without saying that this can provide crude data for an examination of Schelling’s ‘influence’ on Coleridge, or of Coleridge’s use of ‘sources’—at least insofar as one can make sense of these notions. But the plagiarism itself is more complicated than such an approach suggests. Coleridge has altered the text in plagiarizing it: he replaced the Tierra del Fuegan in Schelling’s text with a New Zealander. Such a minute alteration is typical of Coleridge’s practice of plagiarism, and I will deal with many other examples. The alteration, though small, has important implications. Schelling’s passage involves a crucial image of polarity: Eskimos come from the very north of the world, whereas Tierra del Fuego is in the southern tip of South America. Coleridge as an Englishman is perhaps showing his background interests here, and yet maintaining the integrity of the image by selecting New Zealand as the pole of southern ignorance. Interestingly, though, he has disrupted the image; Schelling’s

Introduction 7

version created a second polarity between ice and fire: ‘Esquimo oder Feuerländer’—a nicety that is simply lost in Coleridge’s version. Ironically, this also has implications for my own interpretation of Coleridge. It so happens that I am a New Zealander myself, so this little coincidence means that even as I am in the act of beginning an interpretation of Coleridge, he is accusing me of not understanding him, of not even being capable of understanding him. How could I? I lack the organ for it. More importantly, this serves to illustrate the ways that my own historical situation is determining my understanding. I am myself a scion of the British world which Coleridge was favouring by excluding mention of Tierra del Fuego. If nothing else, this has the effect of making the motivation for Coleridge’s alteration a matter which is obvious to me in a way that it might not be for a scholar from a completely different culture. Moreover, it means that this passage has a peculiar comic value for me that it simply does not have for anybody else. All of this serves, then, to highlight some important methodological issues. This book is about interpretation: it is itself an interpretation, and its subject matter is (largely) Coleridge’s interpretation of other texts. The project is to understand Coleridge’s understanding of these texts. Moreover, many of these texts themselves involve interpretations of further texts (particularly Spinoza). As such the nature of understanding and the role that the interpreter’s circumstances and interests play in the act of interpretation is the primary methodological issue. I employ Gadamer’s concept of understanding both as a means to clarify the status of the material that I am examining, and as a basis for developing the practical and structuring techniques I employ. The traditional problem of hermeneutics is familiar enough: in interpreting a text one must somehow overcome the gap between the circumstances of the production of that text and the circumstances of the interpreter. Moreover, this gap must be overcome repeatedly, since each new understanding of a part of a text forces a re-evaluation of the whole text, which in turn forces a reconsideration of the meaning of each of its parts. Thus the hermeneutic gap is typically described in terms of an ongoing circle of interpretation where the interpreter’s own interpretive standpoint is constantly altered by continued attention to the text. The situation is the same with an entire corpus of texts, so that a Coleridgean scholar must continually re-evaluate the meaning of each text in relation to all the others. Similarly Coleridge’s own reading of texts must be seen in the same light, since his reading of each text has an effect on his subsequent reading.12

8

Introduction

Early attempts to approach this problem tended to focus on the idea of overcoming the hermeneutic gap directly by reconstructing the conditions under which a text was written, and eliminating the interpreter’s own prejudices in order to produce an objective interpretation.13 This idea of removing one’s prejudices by a mere act of will is little more than fantasy. Indeed, it is not even clear what success in doing so would amount to, since the problem is not so much one of blatant anachronism as a problem concerning the conceptual structures through which we understand the world. Of course the emphasis on objectivity was in part a result of enlightenment thought about prejudice, and the attempt to reproduce the levels of objective certainty found in the hard sciences. Part of Gadamer’s approach to the problem is to critique the enlightenment stance on prejudice (the ‘prejudice against prejudice’ as he calls it), with a view to suggesting that it fails to distinguish between prejudice as bias or hastiness, and prejudice as ‘pre-conception’, which amounts to the necessary conceptual structuring that makes understanding possible.14 Heidegger’s examination of the ontology of the understanding in Sein und Zeit leads him to the observation that such a removal of the interpreter’s own circumstances is both impossible and fruitless. He concludes instead that the act of interpretation is an expression of the prior conceptions of the interpreter. As a result he characteristically insists on the positive evaluation of the hermeneutic circle: But to see this circle as a vicious circle and to seek ways to avoid it; or even just to ‘feel’ the circle as an inevitable imperfection, is to misunderstand the understanding from top to bottom . The crucial thing is not to avoid the circle, but to enter it in the right manner. This circle of understanding is not a sphere in which just any kind of cognition can operate; instead it is the expression of the existential pre-structure of Dasein itself. The circle should not be reduced to a vicious circle or something to be tolerated.15 Heidegger’s understanding of the hermeneutic circle is based on his project of analysing the ontological structure of Dasein, so that his emphasis is on the way this structure shows itself in the act of interpretation. His conception of the hermeneutic circle is based on the positive nature of the contribution made by the interpreter’s circumstances and prior conceptions, and on the observation that the ways that these prior conceptions determine the interpretation are not arbitrary or random, but rather have a constructive logic of their own.

Introduction 9

This is the starting point for Gadamer’s hermeneutics, which is built upon this positive evaluation of the hermeneutic circle, though removed from Heidegger’s ontological concerns. Gadamer’s interest is in the nature of the understanding itself, and the implications of the nature of understanding for the humanities. The most controversial part of his account lies in the positive role he assigns to ‘prejudice’ itself, as the condition for the possibility of understanding. Thus, where Heidegger identifies the positive results of the circular process of understanding, and its implications as an indication of the nature of the interpreter, Gadamer makes a positive evaluation of the interpreter’s ‘prejudice-structure’ itself, as the source of the very possibility of meaningful interpretation. Gadamer describes the act of understanding as a ‘fusion of horizons’, that is, as a fusion of the horizons of the text and the interpreter.16 The point of this is that the purpose of interpretation is to render the text meaningful in terms of the world of the interpreter, rather than to reconstruct the world in which the text was produced. Given this focus, it is no surprise that Gadamer frequently considers the case of translation, and uses the model of a game to describe the act of interpretation, since he sees interpretation as an interaction.17 The point of all of this is to see that the meaning of a text is not limited to the original intentions of its creator. Rather it consists of a complex and ongoing interaction between the text and its readers. The case of ancient works of art is a crucial one here, since it is precisely the temporal distance from which the object has come that creates much of its contemporary meaning. Thus the ‘meaning’ of a Grecian urn for us has less to do with the thoughts of its creator than with the fact that we have a prior judgement of it as ‘classical’, so that its temporal locatedness is itself a source of meaning.18 Moreover, previous interpretations of the urn are a source of meaning, so that a part of the meaning of a Grecian urn for us is derived from Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn, from the sheer fact that it is an object that Romantic poets considered to have a special kind of significance. This book is concerned specifically with the act of understanding itself, since its primary aim is to understand Coleridge’s understanding of the texts of the pantheism controversy. This means that Gadamer’s concept of understanding has a more direct and practical relevance to my actual procedure. Obviously Coleridge’s interpretation of important texts is a matter of intrinsic interest, but by turning Gadamer’s concept around it is possible to suggest a way in which more can be gained from the process. Gadamer observes that prejudice is a condition of all

10 Introduction

possible understanding, and therefore evaluates it as a positive part of the understanding. This also means that in each act of understanding the prejudices or interests of the interpreter are observable, through the constructive role that they play. The result is that in examining Coleridge’s interpretation of other texts, or even his use of those texts in plagiarizing them, it is possible to gain an unsuspected wealth of information about his own prejudices or interests. This can be seen in the example I began with—the Feuerländer passage—where a slight alteration that he made in plagiarizing from Schelling showed his Anglo-centric focus, and the deliberate nature of his attempt to relocate a piece of German thought within the English-speaking world. Indeed, it even yielded some information about my own prejudices, since it forced me to foreground my own historical situation, and the way that this situation has interacted with Coleridge’s. Bloom’s account of the nature of interactions between poets in The Anxiety of Influence is built on the idea that the relationship between a poet and his or her predecessors is an antagonistic one, and that the poet is in a state of anxiety over the possibility of originality in relation to a massive poetic tradition. The idea has a particular utility when it comes to uncovering the prejudices of an interpreter such as Coleridge. All of Coleridge’s energies during the later part of his life were directed towards the goal of philosophical originality. As a result, his interpretations of his philosophical predecessors and contemporaries are marked by the most fundamental of all of Coleridge’s prejudices: his desire to be able to pursue creative philosophical production alongside them. In other words, the kind of anxiety that Bloom describes as characteristic of poets in relation to their poetic predecessors also holds of Coleridge in relation to his philosophical predecessors.19 The result of this is that Coleridge’s frequent miss-readings of texts, exaggerated disagreements with texts, and even more frequent exhibitions of anxiety can be used as landmarks in the business of uncovering his prejudices. Thus an awareness of the psychological complexity of Coleridge’s relations with his predecessors forms an adjunct to the technique that I am developing here. One final corollary of Gadamer’s basic concept that deserves consideration is that it forces a reconsideration of Coleridge’s philosophical activities themselves. There has been a tradition of criticizing Coleridge for his failure to achieve a philosophical ‘system’ of his own to rival the great ‘systems’ of his German contemporaries. However, these systems are far from an unambiguous success, and it is tempting to think that Coleridge’s failure to engage in the extremes of

Introduction

11

German philosophical system-building is a virtue rather than a fault. The fundamental problem here is that being systematic is not, as many Coleridgean scholars seem to assume, a sign of quality. System is not an achievement. System is itself a philosophical claim, so that arguing that Coleridge had a ‘system’ is neither a defence of his originality, nor of his intellectual prowess, and nor is it particularly informative since we can easily see that he was committed to the idea of system, whether or not he actually managed to stack enough ideas together to claim one. Some commentators have criticized Coleridge’s philosophical output on the grounds that it is vitiated by religious faith. In other words, he is criticized by commentators such as Wellek for his prejudice in favour of certain theological conclusions. However, in the light of Gadamer’s concept of understanding, such a criticism loses most of its cogency because the existence of such a prejudice does not, on such a view, presuppose a failure of judgement or—dare I say—objectivity. The process of trying to accommodate one’s religious prejudices to the philosophical views of the time cannot be seen as un-philosophical or anti-philosophical as Wellek assumes. Wellek’s view rests upon a twentieth-century set of assumptions about the secularity of philosophy, and the validity of some specific distinction between the religious and the secular—all of which is dubious in itself and drastically anachronistic in application to the Romantic era. Coleridge could with equal justice accuse Wellek of being un-philosophical because Wellek fails to develop an integral account of religion, which was clearly a crucial part of the project of philosophy in Coleridge’s period. The process of making an accommodation of all kinds of beliefs (including religious ones) to one another is a peculiarly philosophical activity—it is virtually the definition of philosophy. By adopting a hermeneutic approach I am committed to arguing that there is a hermeneutic circle operating between Coleridge’s religious concepts and the texts of the pantheism controversy. Thus I view his understandings of these texts as dynamic and ‘anxious’, and I focus on the tensions that arise between different possible understandings of pantheism. This is why I refer to ‘double vision’ whereas McFarland refers to ‘ambivalence’. My metaphor carries the implication of two ways of cognizing pantheism that are superimposed in intolerable tension, whereas McFarland’s noun creates a static image of indecision or divided feelings about one way of cognizing pantheism. Thus I develop the project of understanding Coleridge’s interactions with German philosophy as ‘understanding understanding’, whereas

12 Introduction

McFarland’s book—for all its sophistication—is inevitably an ‘influence’ study. This point has a wider importance too, because I approach the pantheism controversy as a dispute about the status of reason, whereas McFarland, as I have already pointed out, understands it in ontological terms. Thus McFarland implies that Coleridge was presented with two ontological paths to follow, two ‘influences’ to choose from. I am arguing instead that he was surveying all of the ontological possibilities with an ongoing concern about the status of reason and its ability to deal with matters of religious significance, so that his conflicted understanding of these ontological possibilities is governed by the problem of reason—by the problem of the self-understanding of the rational subject. Thus Coleridge presents us again and again throughout his poetry and prose with images of problematic selfhood, and problematic attempts to understand the world.

Part I Coleridge and Spinoza


1 Silence and the Pantheistic Sublime in Coleridge’s Early Poetry

All mankind, whoe common ene is not diverted by ytem, will agree, that darknes, olitude, and ilence, naturally oppres the mind by a tremendous and ublime enation.1 Silence plays an intriguing role in eighteenth-century accounts of the sublime. It is often present in lists of sublime objects, typically (as in Burke) associated with the other privations—darkness, solitude and so on.2 In the course of the century there was a huge variety of increasingly intricate speculations on the sublime, leaving behind their Longinian origins in rhetoric and variously becoming subjectivized, more clearly defined in distinction from beauty, and associated with experiences of the infinite.3 By the early 1800s someone like Richard Payne Knight could articulate a theory in which privations like silence and darkness are specifically associated with the infinite because the infinite is itself a privation of limits or boundaries.4 It seems quite characteristic that Coleridge would pick out the word ‘silence’ from this background, and recognize the philosophical and poetic resources latent in it. Indeed, Coleridge’s poetry begins with silence. I say that because Effusion XXXV (later to become The Eolian Harp) begins with silence. The poetry has not yet begun and the environment is described in ways that emphasize quietness, of the familiar soon-to-be-interrupted kind. The word ‘silence’ does not occur for a few lines—until the interruption begins in fact—but when it does it marks the beginning of the philosophical and linguistic complexity of the poem: The stilly murmur of the distant Sea Tells us of Silence (PW II 1 316–28) 15

16 Coleridge and Spinoza

Some previous accounts of silence in the conversation poems have pointed to the interplay of sound and silence as markers of presence and absence, and in particular as marking changes in the poet persona’s relationship with nature.5 However, the word ‘silence’ carries a huge complexity in itself before any of these issues of contrast and transformation even arise. After all, silence is not really an absence in any simple sense at all. Rather it is a marker for an absence; it is what is left that tells you that there is an absence. But a marker is itself a presence, so that silence paradoxically brings this absence into presence. Of course, this cannot actually be done in any stable or complete sense, so that comprehending silence amounts to the incompletable process of grasping something indefinite, or infinite. Silence is telling us something about the kinds of relationships with nature or God that Coleridge wants to mark out. Telling of silence is paradoxical too, just as the word ‘silence’ carries a paradoxical meaning. One obvious response is to say that the sea tells us of silence by being audible at a distance, showing us the silence of the local environment by contradistinction.6 This is fair enough, but it seems to miss the tensions that underlie the poem, and that are so often played out elsewhere. Aside from anything else it misses the symbolic significance of the sea. The sea tells us of silence because it knows about silence, because the waves with their ‘stilly murmur’ are transient forms produced by enigmatic forces working in the silence of the deep. Waves and their murmur peter out and flow back into themselves; waves are made of the sea, so they are, metaphorically, made of silence. The sound of the sea tells us of silence because we think something like this when we hear it. The sound qualities of the lines are crucial to the meaning of the whole poem because the word ‘silence’ is transformed by the patterning of s-sounds into an onomatopoeic resonance that becomes a structuring reference point: The stilly murmur of the distant Sea Tells us of Silence (PW II 1 316–28) Later when we reach the great ‘what if ’ of the poem, we find it heavily invested with this resonance: And what if all of animated nature Be but organic Harps diversly fram’d,

Silence in Coleridge’s Early Poetry

17

That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps, Plastic and vast, one intellectual Breeze, At once the Soul of each, and God of all? (PW II 1 316–28) This is rather striking since it is now the sound qualities of the poetry that are telling us of silence—bringing the sense of the words ‘Sea’ and ‘Silence’ into play despite their absence. It also provokes an implicit comparison between the images of the sea and the harp, and despite the obvious similarity and association between the two images there is a crucial difference, because waves are part of the sea, and silence for them is a returning to unity. Neither the harps themselves, nor the tunes produced by them are part of the intellectual breeze; for them silence amounts to extinction. The struck-out passage in the Rugby manuscript shows Coleridge wrestling with this relationship in greater detail; he says that the harp’s tunes Creation’s great Harmonious Concert form Thus God, the only universal Soul, Organiz’d Body as the [Instruments?] Organic Harps, And each one’s Tunes are that, which each calls I.—7 There is a great tangle of struck-out words and phrases here: ‘Organiz’d Body’ is replaced with ‘Mechaniz’d Matter’; what may be ‘Instruments’ is heavily struck out, and the line ended with ‘Harps’; ‘Organic’ is added above ‘Instruments’ to give ‘Organic Harps’ and further strikeouts smother the lines. The entire passage is struck out and repeated afresh, but with less certainty: now God ‘would be’ the universal soul, the concert is ‘vast’ rather than ‘Harmonious’, and there is a new tangle between ‘Matter Mechaniz’d’ and ‘Mechaniz’d Matter’.8 The grammar of the line ruptures as ‘Mechaniz’d’ hovers between adjective and verb— God may not be doing the organizing or mechanizing any more, and the causal connection to the harps hangs in the balance. This connection is crucial, and resurfaces in another draft where the breeze ‘sweeps the Instruments, it erst had’s passage fram’d’ (PW II 1 324). It is hard to make much clear sense out of this tangle, except to observe that the focus of the lines, and of their torturous revisions, seems to fall on the relationship between the tunes and God; they are the terms that are being rehashed, and there is now a ‘great Harmonious Concert’ in which the tunes participate.9 It is an interesting attempt to double up on the sense of belonging to the infinite by making the tunes belong to


both the breeze and the concert, but in the end the problem is still the same: silence involves dropping out of existence. The Eolian Harp has been connected to a wide range of specific philosophical formulations; arguments have been made in favour of Schelling, Böhme, Plotinus, Hartley, Priestley, Berkeley and Cudworth.10 And yet the poem itself does not try to articulate a specific pantheism, rather it allows for a wide range of pantheisms and similar patterns of thought, and comprehends them through the governing question ‘what if?’. That is to say, ‘what are the consequences?’. This is not an exploration of the details of a specific philosophical articulation, but of the consequences of certain general kinds of philosophical moves. If we look in the obvious places in Coleridge’s reading it is not difficult to find plenty of material that shows how questions like this came to be formulated. Priestley himself sets the problem in Matter and Spirit for example: Nor, indeed, is making the Deity to be, as well as to do every thing, in this sense, any thing like the opinion of Spinoza; because I suppose a source of infinite power, and superior intelligence, from which all inferior beings are derived; that every inferior intelligent being has a consciousness distinct from that of the Supreme Intelligence 11 In trying to deny the pantheistic or Spinozistic implications of his account of Deity, Priestley has raised the precise problem of The Eolian Harp; the problem of how finite individuals are related to the infinite. Coleridge almost certainly read this, as he specifically focuses on this issue in a 1796 letter: How is it that Dr Priestley is not an atheist?—He asserts in three different Places, that God not only does, but is, every thing.—But if God be every Thing, every Thing is God Has not Dr Priestly forgotten that Incomprehensibility is as necessary an attribute of the First Cause, as Love, or Power, or Intelligence?—– (CL I 192–3) Coleridge was not convinced by Priestley’s attempt to stave off the consequences of monistic thought, and remains uncertain. It is this uncertainty that the poem enacts. Coleridge was not drawing on a particular ‘source’, rather he was constructing a deliberately generalizing speculation that dramatizes the metaphysical tensions working in his mind.12


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The pattern of Coleridge’s own later references to The Eolian Harp helps to support this argument. Most obviously of course he relates The Eolian Harp to Hartley’s associationism in Biographia (BL I 117), but in the Philosophical Lectures he associates the image with Berkeley (LHP 557–8), and this has attracted some recent attention leading to arguments that the poem involves some combination of Berkeley and Hartley.13 However, his use of the image is actually even more widely scattered than this suggests: he discusses it in a marginal note on Kant, where he dismisses the conception of the mind as an Eolian harp (CM III 247–8), and in a note on Platner discussing Kant (CM IV 124). It appears again in marginal notes on Böhme (CM I 609) and Heinroth (CM II 1003), and in a Notebook entry on Steffens (CN V 6683). Similarly, he uses the related sea imagery in a marginal note on Jacobi, saying ‘He seems always to have the Image of an Ocean before him, surging itself into forms. The begetting, the creating, these are above him’ (CM III 100). The harp image also turns up elsewhere, often performing the function of testing or problematizing conceptions he is reading or thinking about.14 The implications of the image are perhaps most tellingly rehearsed in a marginal note on Sherlock’s A Vindication of the Trinity: The doctrine of the Trinity rests securely on the position—that in Man omni actioni præit sua propria passio; Deus autem est actus purissimus, sine ullâ potentialitate—. As the Tune produced between the Breeze & the Eolian Harp is not a self-subsistent, so neither Memory or Understanding or even Love in Man: for he is a passive as well as active Being But in God this is not so— (CM V 25–6) This is particularly interesting because it describes a much clearer and more sophisticated pantheism than can be derived directly from the poem, and once more it emphasizes the problematic status of the finite individual. It also demonstrates the breadth of the image’s application for Coleridge, as he uses it here as an explication of a Trinitarian account of Deity. I want to suggest that what is most important in The Eolian Harp is the connection that is made between the absolute, with the threat it poses to the status of the finite, and the clash between reason and faith.15 This connection represents the starting point of a philosophical problematic that governs much of Coleridge’s later thought and his attempts to negotiate the relations between reason and faith in his dealings with idealism and pantheism.


The poem ends with the ironic scene of his wife chiding him for being led astray by his speculations and telling him to ‘walk humbly’ with his God. This is an image of the conflict between reason and faith. It is in the pantheism controversy itself that this conceptual connection is pushed to its crisis, with Jacobi’s arguments that all consistent use of speculative reason results in fatalism and atheism, in the swallowing up of the individual in an absolute that leaves no room for faith. Jacobi therefore argues for the rejection of reason, and as part of this general strategy he depicts Lessing as a thinker led astray (into Spinozism) by his rational speculation. Jacobi presents himself as a contrast to Lessing’s Spinozism, emphasizing the need for a salto mortale, a leap of faith, and ends the book demanding humble faith and obedience to an incomprehensible God, just as Sara does: This is the glory of the Lord, the face of God, to which a mortal eye may not rise. But by His goodness He descends to us, by His grace the eternal is made present to mankind, and He speaks with him—to whom He gave breath from His own mouth—through the sensation of his own life, his own blessedness—I fall silent, I sink down glowing with thanks and rapture.—Shameful if I could ask for a better path of knowledge and peace. (ULS 250 [255–6]) This pietistic ‘shame’ and disavowal of thought in the face of a super-rational Deity parallels the poem’s self-judgement: ‘For never guiltless may I speak of Him, / Th’ INCOMPREHENSIBLE! save when with awe / I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels.’16 It seems natural to suggest that the resemblance between the conversation between Sara and the poet and the infamous conversation between Jacobi and Lessing is more than coincidence. There is even a striking resemblance between some of the details of the two conversations: When Lessing wanted to represent a personal Divinity to himself, he thought of it as the soul of the all; and the whole after the analogy of an organic body. This soul of the whole was, like all souls in all possible systems, as soul, only an effect. However, the organic whole itself cannot be thought of following the analogy of the organic parts of this whole, since it cannot draw on anything, cannot take from and give back to anything, that is outside itself. (ULS 46–51 [76–9]) Most startling though is Lessing’s description of God as ‘the soul of the all’ (‘die Seele des Alls’), which is reminiscent of Coleridge’s ‘Soul


21

of each and God of all’. Indeed, the phrase clearly caught Coleridge’s attention, because he made a fascinating marginal note on this passage in Jacobi, claiming that this idea of ‘the soul of the all’ had been adopted by Schelling (CM III 82). Earlier in their discussions, Lessing and Jacobi had discussed Leibniz’s comparison of human free will to the needle of a compass that thinks it points to the north of its own volition. Jacobi argued (and they agree) that this is essentially similar to Spinoza’s image of a stone that has been thrown and believes it is continuing its motion by free will.17 Coleridge’s “Eolian Harp” image occupies the same intellectual space, and explores the same questions. The harp is reminiscent of Leibniz’s compass: a mechanical toy driven into action by mysterious external forces. Coleridge’s reading of Jacobi can be confirmed by April 1799, which is about 3 years after the poem, but there is reason to think he may have known something about the pantheism controversy before this.18 A contextual study by Schrickx aimed at exploring the question turns up a surprising wealth of references to Jacobi, Mendelssohn and Lessing in British reviews and periodical articles in the 1790s.19 Coleridge also made mention of both Lavater and Böhme in the Gutch Memorandum Book which helps to demonstrate his awareness of German thought (CN I 174, 287). This is confirmed by Coleridge’s letters in 1796 which include references to Kant and Schiller, a significant mention of Mendelssohn, and most importantly a description of Lessing as ‘the most formidable infidel’ (CL I 197, 209, 279, 284). This last is especially interesting, since Lessing’s reputation as an infidel was primarily the result of Jacobi’s revelation of his Spinozism, so it seems unlikely that Coleridge could be aware of this reputation without knowing something about the events. This amounts to a substantial case for Coleridge’s general knowledge of the controversy as early as 1795–6, when he was writing and revising the first versions of the poem. My point though is not that Jacobi was the specific source here, but that some version of the story and the idea of the clash between reason and faith had made its way to him, and that it contributed to the ways in which he was reading his sources. This is shown not in any particular kind of pantheism being selected in the poem, but in the identification of pantheism as leading to a crisis of reason and faith. The material of the poem is certainly tied up with Hartley, Priestley and possibly Berkeley, but the question that is being directed at this material is, I suspect, derived from Jacobi.


Much of the conceptual structuring behind The Eolian Harp is present throughout the poetry of the next few years. In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner for example, the themes of silence, faith, and the threatened or suffering finite individual abound. Even the ship itself seems to be yet another wind-driven toy, with the presence and absence of the breeze marking major transformations in the mariner. At the crisis point the mariner is becalmed, adrift on an infinite supernatural ocean and experiencing all of the privations that finitude has to offer: solitude, darkness, silence and even evil. I add evil to the list because defining evil as a privation (or negation) is a typical pantheistic move, explicitly made by Spinoza and many others.20 If God has to be everything as well as to do everything, then He must actually be every evil thing too, so that the problem of evil has an extra immediacy, and denying the reality of evil in some sense (as by calling it a privation) seems the only answer. Of course, evil has a special role to play in the poem because it is what defines the individual; the weight of consequence and moral force is what constitutes the mariner’s humanity, and his story. The poem seems to me to suggest that this is what makes a finite human being in distinction from the deep it is cast adrift on. These kinds of thematic connections make the addition of the ‘one life’ passage to The Eolian Harp in 1817 all the more fascinating: O! the one Life, within us and abroad, Which meets all Motion, and becomes its soul, A Light in Sound, a sound-like power in Light, Rhythm in all Thought, and Joyance every where– Methinks, it should have been impossible Not to love all things in a World so fill’d, Where the breeze warbles and the mute still Air Is Music slumbering on its instrument. It is, of course, Coleridge’s own attempt to answer the ‘what if’ of the poem.21 The precise circumstances of this answer are rather complex: not only had he subsequently developed on the themes provoked by The Eolian Harp in a series of poems (Frost at Midnight, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Christabel and others), he had also struggled in Biographia to articulate a transcendental theory that would give him the creative imagination without leaving him trapped in the icy fatalism that Jacobi warned of. The insertion shows the traces of his anxiety over this, as the emphasis on ‘Life’, ‘Light’, ‘Joyance’ and ‘love’


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is well placed to intercept the reader prior to the (now explosive) ‘what if’ of the poem—enforcing an understanding of that question that avoids its most dangerous (fatalistic) implications. Most importantly it enforces a specific understanding of silence: ‘the mute still Air’ (the silence) is ‘Music slumbering on its instrument’—only slumbering, not lost. I have speculated here that Coleridge had encountered some version of the story about Jacobi, Lessing and the pantheism controversy by the time he was writing and revising Effusion XXXV. Of course this is not dependent on the idea that he had actually read specific texts. All it requires is that he knew something about the events, and had perhaps encountered a few of their characteristic phrases and images. Regardless of whether or not you think I am right, the really important conclusion that I draw from all of this remains. Even if Coleridge did not have Lessing in mind when he wrote the poem, he must have had the poem in mind when he did read about the pantheism controversy. It seems inevitable that when he came to read about Lessing’s pantheism, Jacobi’s faith, and even Leibniz’s self-conscious compass, he must have understood the matter in ways that were in part determined by the experience of writing the early poetry. This conceptual nexus of silence, faith and pantheism structures his understanding of those texts and in turn sets the problems that he spent the rest of his life grappling with. This is crucial when we come to analyse his later thought and theology, because it helps to show the motivating factors that drive his anxiety about pantheism and the infinite.

2 Spinoza and the Problem of the Infinite

The passage from the absolute to the {separated} finite, this is the difficulty, which who shall overcome? This is the chasm which ages have tried in vain to overbridge. (ODI 11) Spinoza has been, and still is, susceptible to radically opposed interpretations. Of course, this is true of most great literary and philosophical figures, but with Spinoza the distance between opposed views is unusually dramatic, and is perhaps greater than with any other philosopher. Indeed, it can only be seen as a paradox that Spinoza has been described as both the ‘universally infamous’ atheist (Hume) and ‘ein gotttrunkener Mensch’, a God-intoxicated man (Novalis).1 Likewise, Hegel sees Spinoza as the precursor to German idealism, and refers easily to ‘Spinoza’s idealism’, and yet McFarland complains of Spinoza’s ‘icy scientism’, and effectively accuses him of a straightforwardly reductive materialism by claiming that Spinoza’s God is a res extensa, an extended thing.2 What is at stake in these divergent interpretations is not the technical detail of what Spinoza wrote, but its wider theological implications, and the meaning of those implications for those who wish to accommodate Spinoza to their own wider concerns. In some ways, this situation is surprising since Spinoza’s exposition in the Ethics is remarkable for its clarity and precision at a technical level. However, it is perhaps this technical crispness itself that is responsible for the phenomenon. Spinoza says very little about his goals and assumptions and, in spite of his obvious Cartesian background, he does not obviously ally himself with any particular tradition or stance. As a result, it can be difficult for readers to relate the material to their own interests, and readers may find very little to challenge whatever 24

Spinoza and the Problem of the Infinite

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preconceptions they arrive with. Coleridge himself comments on the diversity of interpretations of Spinoza: I never yet knew (said an Englishman extensively acquainted with the Literature and Literary Men of the North of Europe) a single person, whom Spinoza had ever converted to his way of thinking; but I know half a dozen at least who have converted Spinoza to theirs! (SW&F I 620) The diversity of the interpretations of Spinoza is not exclusively due to this though; there is also another feature of the Ethics that helps to foster the interpretive tension, and this is the fact that the book almost seems like two distinct books. On the one hand there is the long chain of propositions, which is presented without any reference to their overall significance, and on the other there are the notes and corollaries which contain his most radical formulations and relatively polemic arguments. Deleuze even suggests a deliberate disjunction between the two: The Ethics is a book written twice simultaneously: once in the continuous stream of definitions, propositions, demonstrations, and corollaries, which develop the great speculative themes with all the rigors of the mind; another time in the broken chain of scholia, a discontinuous volcanic line, a second version underneath the first, expressing all the angers of the heart and setting forth the practical theses of denunciation and liberation.3 Deleuze also notes that this was a traditional procedure for obscuring the most radical elements of a philosopher’s thought. Indeed, it is a common enough phenomenon; Rousseau and Descartes seem to employ similar techniques, and the history of literature is full of such indirection. The problem is particularly acute and interesting for this analysis, since the understanding of Spinoza was so radically transformed by the pantheism controversy. Bayle had set the tone for Spinoza’s early reception by interpreting him as identifying God with the material world, and decrying him as an atheist.4 Bayle’s reading was widely accepted and this led to a tradition of condemnation of Spinoza.5 Thus, when Jacobi made his revelation of Lessing’s Spinozism he assumed (as did Mendelssohn, his opponent in the dispute) that this would destroy Lessing’s reputation. However, the controversy itself had the very opposite effect: instead of destroying Lessing’s reputation, it


made Spinoza’s. Thus there was a whole generation of literati and philosophers who saw Spinoza not as an atheist and a reductive materialist, but in somewhat mystical terms, and as someone who had asserted the divine status of nature. Rather than reducing God to nature, he was seen as raising nature to God.6

Infinity Spinoza’s Ethics begins with God, or rather with a strategic set of assumptions and definitions concerning God. The first part of the Ethics is a consideration of the nature of God along with some arguments which purport to demonstrate God’s existence. This priority of God is Spinoza’s most fundamental philosophical claim: Spinoza holds that in order to understand anything (such as ourselves or the problems of ethics) it is necessary to first understand God. Spinoza begins Book I of the Ethics by defining several terms he intends to use in his discussion of God. The definitions are apparently in no particular order, but three of them are of particular interest. The first defines the ‘self-caused’ as that ‘of which the essence involves existence, or that of which the nature is only conceivable as existent’ (Ethics I def I). The third defines substance as ‘that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself: in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception’ (Ethics I def III). And finally the sixth defines God as ‘a being absolutely infinite—that is, a substance consisting in infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality’ (Ethics I def VI). The first part of the Ethics is directed at establishing that these three things are the same. Spinoza does this by beginning with substance, and arguing that it has the properties that he has defined as belonging to that which is self-caused and to that which is God. In propositions I–VII Spinoza attempts to demonstrate that substance is self-caused (proposition VII claims that ‘Existence belongs to the nature of substance’). Following from this in proposition VIII he argues that substance is ‘necessarily infinite’ (which was the definition of God), and having established this he proceeds in following propositions to elucidate some of the characteristics of ‘God, or substance’. This elucidation of God’s nature deals with the other concepts introduced in the definitions: Spinoza tries to demonstrate that God is eternal and free (definitions VII and VIII), that God is unique (there is only one substance) and that God stands in a certain relation with the attributes and modes (definitions IV and V).


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This preliminary sketch of Spinoza’s opening arguments gives a reasonably clear picture of what Spinoza is aiming at. Spinoza’s purpose is ontological: he is attempting to come to some conclusions about what kinds of things exist, and what their basic ontological structure is.7 Moreover, he begins with the assumption that substance exists, and attempts to deduce the characteristics which must follow from this mere fact. Among these conclusions is the claim that substance is God. This procedure underlies the overall project of the Ethics: Spinoza tries to establish what exists in Book I, in what manner we exist in Book II (which deals with the human mind), and finally to reach some conclusions about how we should act, based on an understanding of what we are. In short, the primary goal of Books I and II of the Ethics is an analysis of the ontology of the human being. The crucial and problematic part of all this is the status Spinoza gives to finite beings; the role he gives to the modes and attributes, and their relationship to God. The definition of the attributes is the locus of a fair amount of interpretive disagreement. Spinoza defines the attributes as ‘that which the intellect perceives as constituting the essence of substance’ (Ethics I def IV). The attributes are thought and extension, so that the crucial point is that instead of supposing these to be completely distinct substances (as Descartes did), Spinoza is arguing that they are merely ‘perceptions’ of substance. Moreover, in elucidating the qualities of God towards the end of Book I of the Ethics, Spinoza says ‘God, or substance, consisting of infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality, necessarily exists’ (Ethics I XI). In other words, there are an infinite number of attributes, although he acknowledges that only two are accessible to the human intellect.8 There is a history of suggesting that Spinoza really meant there were only two attributes.9 However, such arguments contradict Spinoza’s explicit statements, and cannot really be taken literally.10 Of course it is also possible to argue that the infinite number of unknown attributes play no real role in Spinoza’s thought and are merely included in order to flesh out the infinity of his concept of God. Coleridge seems to have considered this, as he says in a marginal note on the Ethics: Spinoza’s great defect is that by commencing with two attributes exclusively, tho’ he admits infinite, (in the sense of innumerable, which I once without reason doubted) he gives no explication of Life, or the Phænomena of Life, as Pleasure, Pain &c—and doubtless nothing can be more arbitrary than to make the Will a mode of


Intellect, when it had been far more philosophical to have reversed the Position, and made the Will the absolute ground. (CM V 210)11 Coleridge himself does treat will as the absolute ground of God. However, he does not expand on the connection between will and the limited way that Spinoza uses the attributes, so perhaps it was merely a passing thought. Nevertheless, the general idea that Spinoza had omitted something important from God (will or personality) is a recurring theme, and is important for Coleridge’s later theology. The question remains as to the precise ontological status of the attributes, and this is one of the great divides in Spinoza scholarship. The basic dispute is over whether Spinoza thought that the distinction between the attributes is simply something that the intellect invents (it is subjective), or whether there is some differentiation within God (it is objective).12 The very fact of Spinoza’s emphasis on the unity of God, his emphasis on monism, creates a prima facie case for the former reading. Moreover, he has obviously defined the attributes as a ‘perception’ of substance: he does not define them as ‘elements’, ‘properties’ or ‘parts’ of substance, or anything of that nature.13 The argument that the attributes amount to a genuine differentiation in God itself has its work cut out for it. The subjective interpretation also creates deep interpretive problems though, since it implies that the human intellect’s understanding of God is fundamentally wrong: it is based on an illusion. Haserot puts forward a series of arguments that make just this point, and concludes that the attributes must amount to a real differentiation in God, since they must be ‘true ideas’.14 This misses part of the point of Spinoza’s definition of the attributes, since Spinoza does not claim that the attributes are ideas, so that their truth or falsehood is not an issue: instead they are ‘perceptions’. They could only be false if some claim about the status of these perceptions was added, by claiming that God is thought for example. Such a claim may well be false, not because the attribute is a false idea, but because the status of the attributes has been incorrectly evaluated (it is possible to have false ideas about the attributes). Indeed, Spinoza explicitly denies the objective validity of the attributes whilst simultaneously asserting the meaningfulness of the distinction: It is thus evident that, though two attributes are, in fact, conceived as distinct—that is, one without the help of the other—yet we cannot, therefore, conclude that they constitute two entities, or two different


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substances. For it is the nature of substance that each of its attributes is conceived through itself but each expresses the reality or being of substance. (Ethics I Xn) Thus the attributes are expressions of God’s nature, but to conclude that God is made up of these different expressions is to miss the point that that is what they are. Moreover, this does nothing to detract from the attributes themselves; a painting of an object, and a description of the same object in words are both representations of the same thing, and it is no objection to either mode of representation to say ‘but the object consists neither of words nor of paint’. It certainly does not make sense to argue that the object must itself consist of both words and paint, since it is represented by both. The last fundamental element of Spinoza’s account is the status of the ‘modes’, or ‘modifications’ of God—finite beings. Spinoza takes the subordinate status of these beings as an assumption, since his definition of mode is ‘the modifications of substance, or that which exists in, and is conceived through, something other than itself’ (Ethics I def V). This is, of course, a feature of Spinoza’s monism, his claim that there is only one substance. This relationship of ‘existing in’ is the source of the concept of the immanence of all things in God, and thus the source of the attribution of pantheism to Spinoza. Spinoza’s explanation of the modes occurs in a series of propositions that discuss the relationship between the finite and the infinite. The first of these is ‘Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived’ (Ethics I XV). This assertion is based on his conclusion that there can be only one substance, and his assumption that modes cannot exist without substance.15 It amounts to the claim that all things are immanent in God. In claiming that all things are in God, Spinoza has effectively claimed that God has a physical nature (though importantly that is not all there is to God). This is a rather radical claim, and he moves to defend it against the possible counter-argument that extension cannot be a part of God because it is divisible, whereas God cannot be: an attentive reader will see that I have already answered their propositions; for all their arguments are founded on the hypothesis that extended substance is composed of parts, and such a hypothesis I have shown to be absurd. Moreover, anyone who reflects will see that all these absurdities from which it is sought to extract the conclusion that extended substance is finite, do not at all follow from


the notion of an infinite quantity, but merely from the notion that an infinite quantity is measurable, and composed of finite parts. (Ethics I XVn) The relationship between the modes and substance (God) is the relationship between finite and infinite. In this passage Spinoza is taking pains to emphasize the distinctness of the two, and he is dismissing the possibility that God’s infinitude is a sum total of finite parts. This allows Spinoza to escape the problems of a reductive materialism; he can avoid saying that God consists of finite parts, or that the world of finite parts exhausts God, since he has denied that any collection of finite parts could ever add up to infinity. However, this means that Spinoza is not using the word ‘infinite’ in the sense of a large magnitude; instead ‘infinite’ means something that has no limit, and is not susceptible of division. This is somewhat similar to the traditional use of the concept of ‘eternity’ in Christian thought, where it is conceived not as an extremely long time, but as a complete transcendence of time. This creates a difficult problem for understanding the status of the modes. The modes exist in God, and yet do not constitute God; their finitude renders them distinct from God. Spinoza expands on the relationship of dependency between the modes and God saying: ‘From the necessity of the divine nature must follow an infinite number of things in infinite ways’ (Ethics I XVI). This implies that the dependent relationship between the modes and God is a causal one. He explains this by saying that ‘God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things’ (Ethics I XVIII). This is based on the exclusivity of God as the cause of all things, since there is only one substance, and it is God. Moreover, it implies something more than causality since God clearly constitutes the modes (which was inevitable, since there is nothing else but God). There is a final problem to be dealt with. Since God is infinite in the sense of having no limits, it cannot be the direct cause of finite things, since this would mean that God would be partially constituted by finite causes. Thus Spinoza ends up claiming that there is also an infinite chain of finite causes (infinite now meaning a large magnitude): Every individual thing, or everything which is finite and has a conditioned existence, cannot exist or be conditioned to act, unless it be conditioned for existence and action by a cause other than itself, which also is finite and so on to infinity. (Ethics I XXVIII)


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This creates immense problems, because it means that finite things are caused both by one another, and in some inscrutable way by God. Spinoza has effectively introduced a dual causality, and the two forms of causality inevitably conflict. Moreover, it is not possible to resolve the conflict by claiming that this infinite chain of finite causes is just God acting indirectly, because all of the finite terms are supposed to be caused by other finite terms, so God never gets to exercise causality over them. Similarly, it is not possible to claim that God is the sum total of all of these causes, since Spinoza explicitly denies that the infinitude of God can be seen as an aggregation of finites. This line of thought creates several such problems for Spinoza. For example, he claims that the potential of finite modes is not necessarily fully actualized due to the limitations placed on them by other finite modes. However, this is only possible if these modes are in some sense separate from God, because God’s potential is necessarily fully actualized, so that if the potential of the modes is part of the potential of God, then it too must be fully actualized. Spinoza guards his conception of God from any lack of perfection through his insistence on God’s infinitude, but this deeply problematizes the status of the modes. This account of Spinoza’s basic metaphysical claims is aimed at elucidating the aspects of his thought that were of great importance to the thinkers and writers of the Romantic period. Bayle dismissed Spinoza as a reductive materialist and an atheist, and it is easy enough to see that Spinoza’s account of God is irreconcilable with any traditional Christian account. The very fact that he refers to the words ‘God’ and ‘substance’ as synonyms lends credence to the claim that he was simply denying the Judeo-Christian concept of God, because it implies an identification of God with the physical world.16 Nevertheless, it is not fair to say that Spinoza identifies the material world with God. On the contrary, the problem is that he creates such a huge gulf between the finite and the infinite that it is hard to know how it could ever be bridged. It is precisely the emphasis on the infinite that appears to have been so attractive to the early German Romantics. Thus Goethe wrote to Jacobi, in the months just before the publication of Über die Lehre des Spinoza, saying: Forgive me that I am so content to stay silent when a divine being is discussed, which I understand only in and through the rebus singularibus, to the closer and deeper examination of which no-one encourages us more than Spinoza, although before his gaze all particular things seem to disappear.17


This emphasis on the infinite (beside which particular things disappear) lends a certain mystical tone to Spinoza, in spite of the fact that his specific formulations, and the style of his writing, could scarcely be less mystical. However, he claims that all things are one, and that the nature of that one is infinite in a way that places it beyond all comprehension (through the infinite number of unknown attributes of God). Moreover, by identifying everything with God he has implied that there is a deeper underlying meaning to, for example, the natural world, and he has implied that this meaning is divine. All of these claims are typical of mystical formulations. Kant himself had suggested that mystical thought was a back-to-front version of critical thought; that it took as an assumption, the very ideas that should be the carefully limited results of transcendental thought.18 As Schelling in turn would have it: The same truth can thus be mystical to one, that is rational [wissenschaftlich] to another and vice versa. Because, for he who speaks of truth in terms of a pure subjective intuition or an ostensible revelation, it is mystical; for he who derives it from the depths of reason [Wissenschaft], and who alone therefore understands truth, it is rational [wissenschaftlich]. (SW X 192) Schelling identifies the distinctive nature of mysticism as the ‘hatred of clear insight’ (SW X 192). This is, of course, largely directed at Jacobi who had rejected reason altogether in favour of faith. The point is though that Spinoza’s rationalistic philosophy is susceptible of a mystical interpretation, and this is the import of many of the comments made on Spinoza by the early Romantics. Indeed, Spinoza’s approach seems to somehow blur the distinction between supposedly objective (scientific) and subjective (mystical) forms of knowledge. This in turn helps to explain why it is that Spinoza is variously interpreted as a mystical or rationalistic thinker.

God Spinoza claims that everything is God, since there is nothing other than God. His basic metaphysical account is that all things are immanent in God, which amounts to pantheism. Nevertheless, his emphasis on the infinity of God, and his claim that this infinity cannot be seen as a mere sum of finites means that he does not simply identify the phenomenal world as God. Pantheism is a general and highly contested category that


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was being pulled in numerous directions simultaneously, and for this reason it is neither possible nor useful to define it precisely.19 Generally speaking any account that claims that everything is God or exists in God tends to be labelled as pantheism, and such was the import of the term in the pantheism controversy itself. Indeed, several attempts were made to rework the idea of pantheism in the course of the controversy, and rigorously defining it would simply be to retrospectively define away some of the very issues that were the source of such intense controversy. There is some discussion in the literature on this point. Some commentators even go so far as to claim that Spinoza was not a pantheist. The argument is usually based on the assumption that pantheism amounts to the identification of God with the material world. Certainly if this definition is accepted then Spinoza is not a pantheist, but then it seems unlikely that anyone has ever been a pantheist by this definition.20 The argument rests on the assumption that the material world is all there is, and it is clear that Spinoza did not believe this to be the case. Similarly, some commentators claim that Spinoza was not a pantheist but a panentheist. ‘Panentheism’ is Krause’s term for the theory that holds not that all things are God, but that all things are in God.21 Likewise, it has also been suggested that Coleridge and Wordsworth were panentheists.22 However, a fixed reading such as this misses the dynamic and contested nature of all of these theories and labels. Within the conflict over pantheism there were any number of attempts to refine or define specific forms of pantheism that would avoid the negative consequences of Spinozism, and, in discussing pantheism, these thinkers are often arguing over the extent to which some version of pantheism could be separated from a reductive materialism. Indeed, several of them define pantheism as the immanence of all things in God precisely in order to do this, but the niceties of definition were helpless to calm a conflict that was built on the idea that rational definitions were themselves potentially suspect.23 Coleridge once commented that an educated but non-philosophical reader of the Ethics who was unaware of the author would arise from the task believing that ‘they had been reading a very abstruse Divine’ (SW&F I 611). If such a reader limited themselves to the propositions, and ignored the notes, this may well be the case, since it is only in the notes that Spinoza explains the ramifications of his thought for the concept of God. In fact, there turns out to be little in Spinoza’s concept of God that is recognizable in Judeo-Christian terms, except for its omnipotence. He explicitly denies that God has will or intellect,


on the grounds that these imply a lack of perfection. This is because, for example, will implies choice, which in turn implies that God must choose to actualize only a part of his potential, which implies a lack of omnipotence (Ethics I XVIIn). Indeed, he adds that, to the extent that it is possible to talk of the intellect or will of God, we must take these words in some significations quite different from those they usually bear. For intellect and will, which should constitute the essence of God, would perforce be as far apart as the poles from the human intellect and will, in fact, would have nothing in common with them but the name; there would be about as much correspondence between the two as there is between the Dog, the heavenly constellation, and a dog, an animal that barks. (Ethics I XVIIn) By his own account Spinoza’s concept of God is profoundly different from the usual conception of a personal God that is familiar from the Judeo-Christian tradition, and any attempt to bring the two in line is therefore fraught with difficulty.

Freedom Spinoza is famous for his denial of human free will, or at least his denial of any naive concept of human free will. Indeed, as he puts it ‘Will cannot be called a free cause, but only a necessary cause’ (Ethics I XXXII). He adds that ‘Will is only a particular mode of thinking, like intellect; therefore no volition can exist, nor be conditioned to act, unless it be conditioned by some cause other than itself, which cause is conditioned by a third cause, and so on to infinity’ (Ethics I XXXII proof). In other words, Spinoza treats the will like any other thing, and claims that it has a cause, and in doing this he contradicts the basic assumptions of human free will. Spinoza does not deny the existence of will, it is just that he denies the naive free will account, and he himself assumes that human beings have a freedom of choice, so that the questions of human conduct are meaningful. In fact, this is the point of the Ethics as a whole, since it is a prescriptive account of human morality that would be meaningless if human beings were unable to exercise some form of free will in following the prescriptions. There is a tradition in the secondary literature of attempting to explain the compatibility of Spinoza’s causal determinism with some form of


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human free will. Hampshire and Hallett are typical examples of this tradition. Hampshire focuses on the idea that human beings can become more free (from extrinsic influences) through reflective thought, which is a major theme in both the Ethics and the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect.24 However, this creates the problem that free will apparently appears from nowhere when one begins to be reflective, and it overlooks the fact that this reflection itself must have been a determined event. Hallett makes a better fist of it by arguing that although the human will is determined, it is ultimately determined by substance, of which each human agent is itself a part, so that human free will is derived from the fact that it is—at least in part—us that does the causing.25 Of course, all of this is dependent on Hallett’s interpretation of the relationship between the finite and the infinite in Spinoza, and tends to overlook both Spinoza’s explicit statements that all finite things are determined by other finite things rather than God, and also Spinoza’s assumption that God cannot be made up of finite parts (Ethics I XXVIII, I XVn). Ultimately the issue seems irresolvable, since it rests on the fact that Spinoza employs a kind of dual causality where finite things are said to be caused by God, and yet caused by one another. It may be that there is a fundamental ambiguity in Spinoza’s account, but to read Spinoza as a hard-line determinist—a` la modern scientific determinism—is certainly inaccurate. He does claim that all things and events have causes, but he also assumes that human beings somehow have the ability to have genuine causal influence over their own lives. Spinoza develops the concept of ‘freedom’, which is opposed not to determinism, but to what he calls ‘bondage’. On this account human freedom amounts to the extent to which the individual is free from outside influences and the influences of unexamined emotion. Spinoza develops a series of practical steps to maximize this freedom. Nonetheless all of this assumes that there must have been some minimal amount of freedom present in the first place, so that this process of emancipation can be undertaken.

Evil Spinoza discusses the problem of evil in a series of letters to Blyenbergh, who had written to Spinoza asking for clarification of the matter.26 Spinoza responds by making two major moves. First, he defines good and evil as either beneficial or detrimental to a human being. Thus it is a practical matter, and it is simply not relevant to the consideration of


God. He concludes that Adam’s sin in eating the fruit was simply that it was poisonous and led to his death (SL 334 [XIX]). The second major move is the denial of the reality of evil. Thus he comments that ‘I cannot admit that sin and evil have any positive existence, far less that anything can exist, or come to pass, contrary to the will of God’. In saying this Spinoza does not also want to say that evil is, as it were, the will of God. Thus he comments that ‘it is true that the wicked execute after their manner the will of God: but they cannot, therefore, be in any respect compared with the good’. He concludes that those who do evil ‘are but as instruments in the hand of the workman, serving unconsciously, and perishing in the using; the good, on the other hand, serve consciously, and in serving become more perfect’ (SL 332–5 [XIX]). This is as much as to say that evil cannot be defined as that which goes against the will of God, since on Spinoza’s account God is the cause of all things. Spinoza also wants to affirm the inherent difference between good and evil, so he defines evil as a ‘negation’, which is ‘nothing else than denying of a thing something, which we think belongs to its nature’ (SL 339 [XXI]). Later he speaks of this as a lack of ‘essence’, so that ‘God is absolutely and really the cause of all things which have essence If you can demonstrate that evil, error, crime, &c., have any positive existence, which expresses essence, I will fully grant you that God is the cause of crime, evil, error, &c.’ (SL 347 [XXIII]). He claims the positive in an evil act is caused by God, but the negative is a mere negation. To illustrate this he compares Orestes’ matricide with Nero’s. Orestes is not blamed for killing his mother (since he did so in revenge for her murder of his father, Agamemnon), whereas Nero is blamed for killing his. Spinoza concludes that ‘Nero’s matricide in so far as it comprehended anything positive, was not a crime’, so that Nero’s crime consisted in the fact that ‘he showed himself to be ungrateful, unmerciful, and disobedient’ (SL 347 [XXIII]). Thus matricide in itself can be a positive thing, so long as it is undertaken for positive reasons as in Orestes’ case, so that the evil of Nero’s act consists in the fact that it lacked positive motivations. This is all very well for explaining why we feel differently about the two cases, but as a claim that evil does not exist, or is a mere negation, it seems rather hollow. I have tried to show the centrality of the problem of the relationship between the infinite and the finite for Spinoza. The distinction as Spinoza uses it underlies his entire metaphysics, and it colours all of the corollaries of his basic metaphysical account, so that it underlies his conceptions of God, free will, and even his solution to the problem


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of evil. At the same time it remains deeply problematic, and much of the interest that Coleridge and his contemporaries had in Spinoza is tied up with this problem, since all of them wanted, in some way or another, to assert the infinitude of God, and as a result they were all forced to confront the problems that arise from Spinoza’s account. It is no surprise to find both Schelling and Coleridge asserting the absolute infinity of God, and doing so in terms similar to Spinoza’s. It is also no surprise that in doing so they both attempt to develop accounts of the personality of God, human freedom and evil that will avoid the problems of Spinozism.

3 The Providential Wreck: Coleridge and Spinoza’s Metaphysics

I never yet knew (said an Englishman extensively acquainted with the Literature and Literary Men of the North of Europe) a single person, whom Spinoza had ever converted to his way of thinking; but I know half a dozen at least who have converted Spinoza to theirs! (SW&F I 620) Coleridge’s understanding of Spinoza lies at the heart of his entire intellectual life, and has much to tell us about the intellectual undercurrents operating in the period. Spinoza is linked, through his monism and pantheism, to the mystical possibilities that are broached in the ‘One Life within us and abroad’ passage added to The Eolian Harp in 1817 and more generally throughout Coleridge and Wordsworth’s early poetry. The sense of a world in which God is ‘At once the Soul of each, and God of All’ is inevitably a sense of a world in which we are participants, as finite beings interconnected with an immanent God—potentially a Spinozistic world. Such a worldview deeply problematizes the status and identity of both finite individuals and God, and therefore has the potential to deprive the world of meaning, even as it seeks to imbue the world of nature with new meaning. The crisis of reason in German thought (the Pantheismusstreit) was not over Spinozism as a matter of chance, it was over Spinozism because Spinozism drives the central questions of reason to their crisis, forcing the recognition that the project of rational metaphysics (and by implication science) is leading to the surrender of the humanistic soul, to a world of mechanical sterility. It is my argument that Coleridge’s ultimate engagements with German idealism are deeply informed by this crisis, and this double vision of Spinoza: in Spinozism Coleridge sees the ‘one life’ and the ‘inanimate cold world’ superimposed on one another, and he never escapes the torment of it.1 38

Coleridge and Spinoza’s Metaphysics

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It is odd that the role of Spinoza for Coleridge has received as little attention as it has. There are ample materials to work with, and yet even McFarland who writes on pantheism barely touches on these materials, preferring to establish a more general framework for his investigation, and effectively leaving the fundamental question of how Coleridge understood Spinoza untouched. Indeed, the role of Spinoza and figures such as Jacobi has been actively minimized by some scholars intent on showing that Coleridge was a ‘real’ philosopher, like Schelling or Kant, and no dabbler in mystical nonsense.2 Yet it is precisely at the mystics that Coleridge points us at the critical moment: For the writings of these mystics acted in no slight degree to prevent my mind from being imprisoned within the outline of any single dogmatic system. They contributed to keep alive the heart in the head; gave me an indistinct, yet stirring and working presentment, that all the products of the mere reflective faculty partook of DEATH, and were as the rattling twigs and sprays in winter, into which the sap was yet to be propelled If they were too often a moving cloud of smoke to me by day, yet they were always a pillar of fire throughout the night, during my wanderings through the wilderness of doubt, and enabled me to skirt, without crossing, the sandy deserts of utter unbelief. That the system is capable of being converted into an irreligious PANTHEISM, I well know. The ETHICS of SPINOZA, may, or may not, be an instance. But at no time could I believe, that in itself and essentially it is incompatible with religion (BL I 152) This raises fundamental questions about Coleridge’s motivation in reading both mystics and philosophers, because ‘skirting the deserts of unbelief’ is such a massively ambiguous image. If the avoidance of unbelief is the object, why go anywhere near the desert?

Coleridge’s understanding of Spinoza The only substantial account of Coleridge’s interactions with Spinoza and the pantheism controversy is McFarland’s Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition.3 The crux of this account lies in the claim that Coleridge was torn between two different types of philosophy: the philosophy of the ‘It is’ and the philosophy of the ‘I am’. As part of this strategy McFarland identifies Spinoza, and all pantheist thinkers, as philosophers of the ‘It is’, and opposes them to Christianity, which he takes to be linked to ‘I am’ philosophy. Coleridge often depicted himself as being


torn between two philosophical possibilities, but it seems problematic to actually agree with him in applying this concept to the history of philosophy. McFarland uses this conceptual framework to develop a far more contextually oriented articulation of Coleridge’s interactions with his German contemporaries than most accounts, which is a considerable achievement. However, there is a price to be paid: it forces him to surrender all other distinctions in a way that makes it difficult to do justice to the complexity of the German philosophical context, and leads to somewhat idiosyncratic interpretations of particular thinkers. This conceptual framework helps to determine his interpretation of Spinoza: an almost unique combination of, on the one hand, coldly uncompromising clarity about the blindness of nature and the brevity and meaninglessness of human life, and on the other, tremendous moral energy that rises to sublime heights of fervour and eloquence. We are confronted with icy scientism, with the denial of a benevolent deity, of a final cause for human endeavour, of beauty, nobleness, justice, harmony, and goodness.4 McFarland is characterizing Spinoza as an archetypal mechanistic philosopher, an atheist and a determinist. He is also responding to all of this as though it necessarily implies the futility and emptiness of human life, as though Spinoza was a nihilist. It was Jacobi who brought the word ‘nihilism’ into the fray, implying that Spinozism, and indeed all rational philosophy, must result in the cancellation of providence, in the reduction of life to the empty sterility of necessity and chance. However, this kind of understanding of Spinoza was a hotly contested issue, and few were willing to accept Jacobi’s characterization, as McFarland seems to. Schelling for example argued extensively against Jacobi’s interpretation of Spinoza and pantheism as part of his self-defence against Jacobi’s attack on him, and was widely perceived as the victor in the altercation. Coleridge was of course aware of these arguments, and his understanding of Spinoza was mediated by his judgements of other people’s understandings of Spinoza. Indeed, he frequently accuses people of ‘not understanding’ Spinoza, and on one occasion explicitly weighs Jacobi’s understanding against Schelling’s, claiming to prefer Schelling’s, whilst maintaining reservations about both (SW&F I 620–3). Similarly, his marginal notes on Jacobi show a sustained criticism of Jacobi’s interpretation of Spinoza (CM III 78–83, 89). Coleridge’s direct descriptions of Spinoza reflect this complexity; they show an awareness


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of the icy nihilist that McFarland and Jacobi tell us of, but little to suggest that he accepted this depiction: If Dr W’s Opinions be indeed those of the Modern Calvinists collectively, I have taken my last Farewell of Modern Calvinism. It is in it’s inevitable consequences Spinosism, not that which Spinosism, i.e. the doctrine of the Immanence of the World in God, might be improved into, but Spinosism with all it’s Skeleton unfleshed, bare Bones and Eye-holes, as presented by Spinoza himself. In one thing only does it differ. It has not the noble honesty, that majesty of openness, so delightful in Spinoza, which made him scorn all attempts to varnish over fair consequences, or to deny in words what was affirmed in the reasoning.—I said, in one thing only. O I did injustice to thee, Spinoza!—Righteous and gentle Spirit, where should I find that iron Chain of Logic, which neither man or angel could break, but which falls of itself by dissolving the rock of Ice, to which it is stapled—and which thou in common with all thy contemporaries & predecessors didst mistake for a rock of adamant? Where shall I find the hundred deep and solemn Truths, which are as so many Germs of Ressurection to Life and a glorified Body will make, sooner or later, “the dry Bones live?” (CL IV 548) This passage shows the peculiar ambiguity in Coleridge’s attitude to Spinoza. He condemns Williams’ version of Calvinism as Spinozism, and in the same breath tries to absolve Spinozism itself from the like condemnation. This manoeuvre pivots on the idea of improving or correcting Spinozism, and is presented through a series of favourite images. Coleridge called Spinozism a ‘skeleton of the truth’ many times, with slightly variant emphases. In a later letter, for example, he claimed that Spinoza’s ‘System is to mine just what a Skeleton is to a Body, fearful because it is only the Skeleton’ (CL IV 775). At other times the skeleton is a straightforwardly scary one, as when he comments that ‘Spinoza’s is the only true philosophy; but it is the Skeleton of the Truth, to scare & disgust—and an imperfect Skeleton, moreover’.5 He also repeatedly claims that Schelling’s thought is an attempt to clothe the skeleton of Spinozism.6 Likewise, the iron chain of reasoning is in other contexts attributed to both Spinoza and Berkeley, and, indeed, sometimes the chain is of adamant.7 The interesting point is that both of these images are images of strength and structure, but at the same time they are images of fear and bondage. Furthermore, Coleridge is always asking himself how he can break the chain (or hoping that it is not attached


to anything too solid), or in the case of the skeleton image, how he can make ‘the dry bones live’. This dual attitude to Spinoza, the mix of admiration and the desire to flesh out and re-orient his thought, is a consistent pattern that can be seen even in Coleridge’s later theology. Indeed, the intensity of this ambiguity is shown in Henry Crabb Robinson’s famous anecdote: Coleridge walked with me to A. Robinson’s for my Spinoza, which I lent him. While standing in the room he kissed Spinoza’s face in the title-page, and said, “This book is a gospel to me.” But in less than a minute he added, “his philosophy is nevertheless false. Spinoza’s system has been demonstrated to be false, but only by that philosophy which has demonstrated the falsehood of all other philosophies. Did philosophy commence with an it is, instead of an I am, Spinoza would be altogether true.” And without allowing a breathing time, Coleridge parenthetically asserted, “I, however, believe in all the doctrines of Christianity, even the Trinity.”8 It seems safe to assume that the philosophy that Coleridge believed had demonstrated the falsehood of Spinozism was German idealism, since it is idealism that literally begins with an ‘I am’ (especially in its Fichtean and Schellingian forms). However, this philosophical victory seems to be unconvincing on an emotional level, leaving Coleridge to make an incongruous assertion of faith. Given Jacobi’s attacks on Fichte and Schelling, which explicitly argued that their idealisms collapsed into an atheistic and deterministic pantheism, the cause of Coleridge’s ambivalence seems clear; he hopes that idealism will provide a way to escape the Jacobian critique, but is understandably worried that it might not. The intensity of this anxiety is shown in the fact that he even worries that his own work might arouse the suspicion of an undeclared Spinozism: I have sent the 3 Volumes of the Friend, with my MSS corrections and additions. The largest had a twofold Object, to guard my own character from the suspicion of pantheistic opinions, or Spinosism and next to impress, as far as I could, the conviction, that true philosophy so far from having any tendency to unsettle the principles of faith does itself actually require them as it’s premises, nay, that it supposes them as it’s ground.9


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Coleridge wants to avoid the appearance of Spinozism, and is obviously concerned that his thought produces such an appearance. Moreover, he explicitly connects this issue to the crisis between reason and faith; an identification that is reflective of his reading of the pantheism controversy. Elsewhere he even shows an awareness of the distortion that trying to avoid all appearance of Spinozism creates: It is clear, that Reimarus did not understand Spinoza: & even Jacobi wrote under a Warp—the fear of appearing a Convert to Spinozism And after all, I miss the LIVING God, the Personal Ruler, as much in Reimarus, as in Spinoza In short, I am more and more convinced, that without personality there can be no God for Religion: & that the Xtn Trinity is the only possible Medium 10 It is rather odd to claim that Jacobi might appear ‘a Convert to Spinozism’. In Über die Lehre des Spinoza, Jacobi was at pains to emphasize that although he held Spinoza’s to be the best philosophy, he was not a Spinozist, but rather rejected philosophy altogether, so it is hard to see his main line of argument as a ‘Warp’ (see ULS 27–9 [58–60]). The problem of writing under a warp seems to have been Coleridge’s rather than Jacobi’s, and Coleridge often seems to be hiding or disguising the pantheistic implications of his philosophical opinions. Indeed, in the philosophical chapters of Biographia, where he deals with the imagination, he begins by expressing the concern that his own account might seem ‘a skeleton to alarm and deter’ if not read properly (BL I 234). Given that Coleridge elsewhere reserves the skeleton image for Spinoza and various forms of Spinozism, this can be read as the concern that his thought might appear Spinozistic. He even makes this connection explicit in a marginal note dating from the same period: In order to render the creative activity of the Imagination at all conceivable, we must necessarily have recourse to the Harmonia præstabilita of Spinoza and Leibnitz: in which case the automatism of the Imagination and Judgement would be Perception in the same sense, as a {self-conscious} Watch as would be a Percipient of Time But as the whole is but a choice of incomprehensibles (CM III 790) This passage captures the dimensions of Coleridge’s anxiety over Spinozism, and is tremendously important. It demonstrates that Coleridge was actively considering the relationship between his own


thought on the imagination and Spinoza’s metaphysics. Given that accusations of Spinozism had been ubiquitous in Germany for the previous three decades it is hardly surprising that he found this troubling; he feels caught in a ‘choice of incomprehensibles’. Fascinatingly though he is troubled, not about God as one might expect, but about freedom. This is the only time that Coleridge articulates a direct relationship between his own thought and Spinoza’s (though he often hints at it). This relationship is crucial though, because it explains the motivation for his rather shrill defences of Spinoza, as he often tries to suggest that Spinoza was like the poet-persona of The Eolian Harp—an innocent thinker led astray by the vagaries of metaphysical speculation: Consult his Life by COLERUS, who knew Spinoza personally, lived near him, and collected his materials on the Spot. Himself a strictly orthodox Divine, he speaks of Spinoza’s Tenets Opinions, both those that were and those he supposed to have been his Tenets, with at least sufficient Horror: but he did not therefore omit to refute every charge, every calumnious rumour, against his Character as a man: and as to that in the spirit of that Charity which, as he had learnt from St Paul, survives when Faith Belief is lost in Certainty and Hope in fruition, he records the blameless innocence of his Life, his inobtrusive sincerity and his solicitude not to disturb, nay, his anxiety to second, the unquestioning faith and pious exercises of the simple-hearted. He refu declined a lucrative and honorable Professorship offered to him with full liberty of teaching his philosophy in all points without concealment or disguise, as an unjustifiable mode of propagating tenets which, however deeply clear their truth and importance were appeared to himself, were yet held for false, heretical, and dangerous by the immense majority of his fellow-citizens, and modestly questioned even the Prince’s Right thus to interfere with the hopes and expectations of the Parents or Guardians of the Students 11 Coleridge’s version of events is strangely exaggerated, and bears little resemblance to Colerus’. As Colerus notes, the offer of a professorship was made, not with ‘full liberty of teaching his philosophy’, but with a rather sinister catch: ‘You will have the most ample freedom which the prince is confident you will not misuse, to disturb the religion publicly established’ (SL 373 [XLVII]). Likewise Spinoza’s refusal of the offer makes no mention of public sensibilities, but rather cites a ‘love of quietness’, and a concern that ‘I do not know the limits, within which


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the freedom of my philosophical teaching would be confined, if I am to avoid all appearance of disturbing the publicly established religion’ (SL 375 [XLVIII]). In other words Spinoza was rightly concerned that it would not be safe to accept the post, and prudently declined it. Deleuze analyses the phenomenon of Spinoza’s life by employing Nietzsche’s characteristic suspicion as a platform, and suggests that the aesthetic virtues are appropriated by the philosopher as an expression of his or her singularity, so that ‘by attacking the philosopher, people know the shame of attacking a modest, poor, and chaste appearance, which increases their impotent rage tenfold; and the philosopher offers no purchase, although he takes every blow’.12 For Coleridge and many of his contemporaries Spinoza’s life was one of his best arguments, because it suggested that virtue is not dependant on theological or philosophical orthodoxy, thus alleviating the sense of moral culpability for radical opinions.13 The shrill exaggeration of Coleridge’s version is extraordinary though, since it focuses entirely on faith and neglects to mention any of the more dramatic matters that Colerus discusses: the apparent assassination attempt, the controversy occasioned by his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, his mysterious trip to meet the invading French army in 1673, his bravado in offering to confront the angry mob who took him for a traitor as a result of that meeting, or even his infamous habit of tormenting spiders and flies. It is remarkable that Coleridge instead tells us of Spinoza’s ‘blameless innocence’, his ‘inobtrusive sincerity’ and his ‘solicitude not to disturb the unquestioning faith and pious exercises of the simplehearted’. He even tries to suggest that the very inaccessibility of Spinoza’s works reflects these virtues, since they are published ‘ in the most innoxious way, man namely, in Latin & in the driest, austerest, and most inattractive form and so free from the least wanton offense against the feelings of his age ’ (SW&F I 611). He concludes by complaining that ‘Hume and Gibbon, are and even Voltaire, who have made more Infidels or Sceptics in a year than Spinoza would in as many centuries as there are pages in his works, are seen in the hands of young and old as models of fine writing and philosophic reflection’.14 This is hardly a balanced depiction either of Spinoza himself, or of Colerus’ account of Spinoza. Colerus does note that Spinoza would ‘put the Children in mind of going often to Church’, and that he once told his Christian landlady ‘Your Religion is a good one, you need not look for another, nor doubt that you may be saved in it.’15 However, he also bluntly attacks Spinoza’s conception of God as a ‘meer Phantom’, and describes his metaphysics as ‘the most pernicious Atheism that ever


was seen in the World’.16 Moreover, Coleridge must have been well aware that Spinoza was also capable of attacking the faith of some of his correspondents quite scornfully: ‘Cease, I say, to call ridiculous errors mysteries, and do not basely confound those things which are unknown to us with what is proved to be absurd, like the horrible secrets of this Church of yours’ (SL 419 [LXXVI]). Coleridge’s account is as selective as it is exaggerated, and above all it is directed at the clash between reason and faith, establishing a pattern of trying to reconcile Spinoza’s reason with his own faith.17 This pattern leads to a series of remarkably contorted arguments that try to recast Spinoza in terms that make such a reconcilement more plausible: (most grevous) error consisted not so much in what he affirms, as in what he has overlooked omitted to affirm or {? totally excluded} rashly denied:—not that he saw God in the Ground, i.e. in that which in scholastic theology is called Natura naturans in distinction from Natura naturata; but that he saw God in the ground only and exclusively, in his Might alone and his essential Wisdom, and not likewise in his moral, intellectual, existential and personal Godhead. Therefore not in his majesty The Glimpse, to which this Sampson Agonistes of unenlightened Reason attained, was of the Kingdom only, and not the Power and the Glory. (SW&F I 609–10) The most radical element of Coleridge’s account of the Trinity is the inclusion of a fourth term: the ‘Prothesis’ or ‘Ground’ of God. He insists that this ground be conceived as will, and bases his claims of the personality of God on this subtlety. Nevertheless, the inclusion of the ground is a point of obvious resemblance between Coleridge and Spinoza (and indeed Schelling). In the middle of Coleridge’s MS. ‘Note on Spinoza’ he incongruously includes a sketch of the four-figure Trinity, without a word of explanation (SW&F I 619). This shows that even as he was writing his defence of Spinoza, he had his own theological concerns very much in mind. In other words, his motivation for defending Spinoza, and yet criticizing the failure to attribute personality to God, is tied up with this resemblance of Spinoza’s God to his own.18 One of the central features of McFarland’s account lies in the opposition between Spinozistic ‘It is’ philosophy and Christianity. Indeed, he comments at one point that ‘Spinoza’s emotional and logical inevitability compelled assent even while the human element and Christianity itself cried out against it’.19 Accommodating pantheistic patterns of thought to his religious commitments was certainly a central entan-


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glement for Coleridge, but his repeated defences of Spinozism, and his insistence that pantheism was not (as Jacobi argued) irreconcilable with Christianity, do not sit well with McFarland’s conceptual framework. Indeed, Coleridge directly contradicts such assertions: It is most necessary to distinguish Spinosism from Spinosa—i.e. the imaginary consequences of the immanence in God as the one only necessary Being whose essence involves existence, with the deductions from Spinosa’s own mechanic realistic view of the World. Even in the latter I cannot accord with Jacobi’s assertion, that Spinosism as taught by Spinosa, is atheism / for tho’ he will not consent to call things essentially disperate by the same name, and therefore denies human intelligence to the Deity, yet he adores his Wisdom (CM V 207–8) Coleridge is consistent in dismissing the ‘icy nihilist’ view of Spinoza in favour of seeing him as a rational divine whose only faults arise from being limited to natural religion, and standing in need of revelation. As such he repeatedly recommends Spinoza’s Ethics as an aid to Christian faith: ‘To see the Gospel in a new light again & again read Spinoza.’20 I think we must put aside the idea that Coleridge’s ambivalence over Spinoza was caused by simple theological disapproval, and then the question remains: what was causing this ambivalence?

Coleridge’s critique of Spinoza’s metaphysics In his philosophical lectures Coleridge barely mentions Spinoza. This appears to be because he had reached the last of his series of lectures, and left himself in the unenviable position of trying to discuss Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant and Schelling all in one sitting. When he does mention Spinoza, he merely trots through a simplified version of the kind of praise of Spinoza’s life that I have already discussed, and throws in the rather wild claim that ‘Spinoza did think that his system was identical with but that of Christianity, on so subtle a point that at least it was pantheism, but in the most religious form in which it could appear’ (LHP 578). However, he then concedes that he is ‘far from hiding the inevitable consequences of pantheism in all cases, whether the pantheism of India, or the solitary {case} of Spinoza’ (LHP 579). He does not enlarge upon what these consequences may be, but earlier in the course of lectures he refers to the Bhagavad-Gita, and offers the following criticism:


when we find how anxious the ancient sages of India with this opinion were to impress a belief of an unity (for that the reason of man of itself necessarily tends to do) and yet to bring it down to the practical and moral point we begin to pay some compliment to those {theologians} who, by dropping the one part in {the} thing and hiding it altogether from the multitude, presented only to them fairies and for every object presented to them a sort of life and passions and motions attending it which affected themselves, for that, be assured, is the utmost height human nature has arrived at by its own powers, that first of all the highest and best of men felt by an impulse from their reason and necessity to seek an unity, and those who felt wisely like Plato and Socrates, feeling the difficulties of this, looked forward to that Being of whom this necessity and their reason was a presentiment to instruct them (LHP 132–3) Once again Coleridge is negotiating the conflict between reason and faith. He implies that reason’s basic drive towards ‘unity’ is both laudable and correct, but that only divine revelation can complete the picture. Given that the subject matter is pantheism this represents an interesting middle ground; he is accepting Jacobi’s pronouncements on the limitations of reason, but by refusing to characterize pantheism as inherently wrong and dangerous he is trying to avoid Jacobi’s drastic conclusions. This is nicely pinpointed in a marginal note on Baxter’s arguments against atheism: No man in his senses can deny God in some sense or other, as anima mundi, causa causarum, &c., but it is the personal, living, self-conscious God, which it is so difficult, except by faith of the Trinity, to combine with an infinite being infinitely and irresistibly causative. To is the first dictate of mere human philosophy. Hence almost all the Greek philosophers were inconsistent Spinozists. (CM I 242) This really defines the problem for Coleridge: how is he to combine faith in a personal God with the concept of infinity. As he puts it in Biographia ‘For a very long time indeed I could not reconcile personality with infinity; and my head was with Spinoza, though my whole heart remained with Paul and John’ (BL I 201). Spinoza’s use of the concept of infinity problematizes the personality of God as well as the status of individual finite beings, and this becomes the central problematic, not only for Coleridge’s understanding of Spinoza, but also for his understanding of the German idealists. The phrase ‘ ’ (One and All)


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emphasizes this connection since it is the phrase that Jacobi reports as Lessing’s Spinozistic catch phrase (ULS 22, 62 [54, 89]). In his annotations on Spinoza, Coleridge makes a series of specific criticisms that focus on the issues of God’s personality, causality, human free will, and the problem of evil—all the problems that are exacerbated by adopting a pantheistic metaphysic. These comments encapsulate the core of Coleridge’s engagement with Spinoza, and they all operate within the dimension of this problem about infinity. Spinoza argues that will and intellect are incompatible with God’s omnipotence.21 There are many arguments that try to show that the basic definition of God involves internal contradictions, such as the argument that omnipotence requires the ability to learn, which contradicts omniscience. Spinoza’s case is unusual in that he focuses entirely on the omnipotence of God (i.e. God’s infinity), and uses these arguments to dismiss all of the other usual claims about God. Indeed, he seems to have rather a lot of fun with this, saying for example ‘If, they contend, God had created everything which is in his intellect, he would not be able to create anything more, and this, they think, would clash with God’s omnipotence’ (Ethics I XVIIn). He then objects to the possibility that God might choose to create some things and not others because ‘otherwise, we are compelled to confess that God understands an infinite number of creatable things, which he will never be able to create, for, if he created all that he understands, he would, according to this showing, exhaust his omnipotence, and render himself imperfect’ (Ethics I XVIIn). Spinoza continues in a like vein until he has used the concept of God’s infinitude (omnipotence) to dismiss all of the other characteristics of God, including personality and intellect. It is not surprising to find Coleridge voicing a tangled objection: a slight Thread this from which to suspend so mighty weight as the Non-intelligence of God—! The Position grounds itself on Sp’s arbitrary Conception of Cause and Effect. Now it seems easy to answer that as Cause is an idea or mode of our Intellect, therefore by Sp’s own rule it cannot be such in God, ergo, the consequence i.e. that it must be essentially other than Effect does not apply. (CM V 206) It is difficult to see what any of this has to do with cause and effect at all. Coleridge’s objection that this would force Spinoza to deny causality to God is quite correct, as he literally does this. Spinoza effectively posits a dual causality, where ordinary causality operates between finite beings,


but they all ‘follow from’ God. This leaves the causal status of the agency of finite beings rather unclear, and, indeed, the real root of Coleridge’s objection to Spinoza’s account of divine causation seems to lie in the role of will. Coleridge incorporates will as the ground of the Trinity, and this forms the basis for his concept of God’s personality. Spinoza on the other hand denies both will and personality to God, and his understanding of will in general is radically different from Coleridge’s. It is not surprising that this issue provokes some of Coleridge’s most pointed objections to Spinoza: the w Will which according to Spinoza can not possibly exist for if it existed as a power only as a modification it is no longer a will nay it so compleatly loses all meaning that Spinoza has utterly failed in the attempt to explain it even as a delusion for even this would suppose require the clear conception of a life and appetence which find no real place in Spinoza’s system but in precluding the Will he necessarily precluded {either} all alterity or all unity for in the idea of the Will only are these found as co-inherent{.} He chose to exclude the alterity (SW&F I 707–8) Coleridge’s reliance on will is shown in his insistence that it can somehow reconcile unity and alterity; as though the mere idea of will could bring his double-vision into focus. This is the reason for Coleridge’s vehemence in objecting to Spinoza on will. Spinoza claims that the will is not ‘a free cause, but only a necessary cause’ (Ethics I XXXII), and as a result the will in Spinoza is a caused thing, like anything else, and cannot play the role that Coleridge has in mind for it. Nevertheless, Spinoza’s strategy of analysing the will in the same way as any other thing seems perfectly reasonable; it is difficult to make any sense of a will that causes but is not caused, since it implies a naive free will account, where the will somehow manages to act on the world from the outside, like a puppet master. It was certainly a common point of objection though; Schelling similarly objects that Spinoza is making a mistake by treating the will as a ‘thing’ (SW VII 349). Coleridge is fairly consistent in objecting to Spinoza’s arguments about the will. In one such case, Spinoza argues that the will cannot be responsible for errors because ‘It is as impossible to conceive, that will is the cause of a given volition, as to conceive that humanity is the cause of Peter and Paul’ so that ‘errors, or, in other words, particular volitions, are not free, but are determined by external causes, and in nowise by the will’ (SL 279 [II]). Coleridge objects:


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But still Causation is assumed as a universal Law: tho’ its very definition implie{s} a contradiction. For “to cause” is to originate a state: therefore infinite Causation would be Origination without an Origin Spinoza’s system, as far as it s is dogmatic, & peculiar, is in fact no System, but a Theory assuming, {as} a Fact, what his Adversaries with better right deny. (CM V 201) The reason that Coleridge says that ‘infinite Causation would be Origination without Origin’ is that Spinoza’s version of an infinite cause amounts to the same thing as God, or the universe itself. The point is that the infinitude of such a cause demands that it not be limited by anything, so that there could not be anything outside it. This means that there could be nothing external to cause it. Indeed, this is how Spinoza understands God, and that is why he calls it the causa sui (cause of itself). For Spinoza, infinite causation is literally an ‘Origination without Origin’, and it is not clear why Coleridge treats this as a problem. Spinoza takes it as one of his basic assumptions, so merely to point it out does not amount to a criticism. The real reason for Coleridge’s concern seems to be tied up with the difficulty of accounting for the status of the finite individual in the face of such an infinite cause.22 Spinoza seems to demolish the idea of the will, and the individual and its causal connections inevitably lie under the same threat. The tension comes to a head when Spinoza tries to explain the relationship between finite beings and God: Every individual thing, or everything which is finite and has a conditioned existence, cannot exist or be conditioned to act, unless it be conditioned for existence and action by another cause other than itself, which is also finite, and has a conditioned existence; and likewise this cause cannot in its turn exist, or be conditioned to act, unless it be conditioned for existence and action by another cause, which also is finite, and has a conditioned existence, and so on to infinity. (Ethics I XXVIII) Spinoza goes on to explain that this means that everything that exists has been conditioned by God, but he denies that these things follow directly from God, since that would make them eternal and infinite themselves, which is obviously not the case. On the other hand, this chain of finites going ‘on to infinity’ is equally incoherent, since it seems to imply a conception of the infinite as a magnitude: something that a collection of finites could somehow add up to. Spinoza himself is quick


to dismiss this kind of conception elsewhere (see Ethics I XVn), so his phrasing really underlines the depth of the tangle he has arrived in. The status of finite individuals is a difficult issue for Spinoza (possibly the most difficult of all), and Coleridge is cognizant of the depth of the problem: This is the Proposition, on the full Insight into which depends at once the correction and the confirmation of Spinosism. If these finite Causes can be said to act at all, then that on which they act has an equal power of action—: and even as tho’ all in God essentially, we are yet each existentially individual, so must we have freedom in God in exact proportion to our Individuality. (CM V 207) It is impossible to read this and not to think of The Eolian Harp with its central ambivalence over the status of the harps—are the harps themselves creations of the breeze? If so, what becomes of their individuality? Spinoza denies free will in the simple sense, and claims instead that human freedom amounts to the extent that a human being is free from the external influence of other finite agents. In other words, Spinoza claims that we cannot be free from God, or the breeze, since that would not even make sense, but we can be more free, to the extent that we are free of external influences. As Coleridge puts it ‘we must have freedom in God in exact proportion to our Individuality’. Of course this still leaves the relationship between finite individuals and God as an intractable problem, but Coleridge shows his willingness to shoulder this problem: It is true, he contends for Necessity; but then he makes two disperate Classes of Necessity, the one identical with Freedom Liberty (even as the Christian Doctrine, “whose Service is perfect Freedom”) the other Compulsion = Slavery. If Necessity and Freedom are not different Points of View of the sam{e} Th{in}g, {th}e one the Form, and the other the Substance, farewell to all Philosophy and to all Ethics. It is easy to see, that Freedom without necessity would preclude all Science, and as easy to see, that Necessity without Freedom would subvert all Morals; but tho’ not so obvious, it is yet equally true, that the Latter would deprive Science of its main Spring, its last ground and impulse; and that the Former would bewilder and atheize all Morality. (CM V 208) This is a pretty accurate summary of Spinoza’s attitude to the freedom of the will, and it is crucial for understanding the relationship between


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Coleridge and Spinoza. McFarland seems to assume that Coleridge has a fairly straightforward understanding of Spinoza’s determinism, and that his disapproval of it is unequivocal. Yet it turns out that Coleridge actually had quite a complex view of Spinoza’s theories of determinism and freedom, and he shows here, not only that he understands Spinoza better on this issue than has previously been supposed, but also that he actually agreed with Spinoza. That is to say, he agreed that a naive free will account is just as unpalatable in its consequences as determinism. Nevertheless, the result is a denial of human free will in any ordinary sense—a position that seldom wins many friends. In spite of agreeing with Spinoza about the dimensions of the problem, Coleridge is understandably unhappy with the result. Indeed, Spinoza’s attempts to explain away the feeling of free will are far from convincing: Further conceive, I beg, that a stone, while continuing in motion, should be capable of thinking and knowing, that it is endeavouring, as far as it can, to continue to move. Such a stone, being conscious merely of its own endeavour and not at all indifferent, would believe itself to be completely free, and would think that it continued in motion solely because of its own wish. This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined. (SL 390 [LVIII]) This all seems rather glib, but perhaps he was only teasing his correspondent. However, when Coleridge comes to read the passage he does so through the finely polished lens of Jacobi’s accusations, and cannot help but rise to the bait: I almost wonder to find this argument repeated by so profound so genuine a Philosopher as Spinoza. It amounts to this, that if a Stone instead of being a Stone were a man the Stone would draw the same Conclusion the point in question i.e. whether the man is slung like a Stone, is taken for granted in the affirmative. But what if this Homo petrifactus, this thinking & willing Stone could stop itself in mid air and then proceed on a return & what if neither itself nor any other Being had, or ever could have, the least reason for suffering it to have been slung from a Sling?—Spinoza does not at all assign the cause of the universal positive Conviction ‘I lift my arm but has substituted a mere negation. Just as if the Logic were ‘I dont know who else


therefore I. Whereas the latter is prior to & conditional of, the former. Without ego there could be neither Tu nor Ille—23 Spinoza’s point is that our feeling of free will is as readily explained by our ignorance of the causes of our actions as it is by the assumption that we actually have free will. Coleridge objects to Spinoza’s account of free will, but does not seem to get Spinoza’s point, and ends up trying to imagine a stone that really did have free will. His counter-example plays right into Spinoza’s hands: by comparing free will to a stone turning around in mid-air, Coleridge has compared it to something that is obviously impossible, which was precisely Spinoza’s point. The incoherence of Coleridge’s response underlines the urgency of his need to evade Spinoza’s chain of arguments. There is only one issue that caused an even more emphatic disagreement with Spinoza: the problem of evil. Spinoza denies that there is anything that is really evil in itself because ‘evil, error, crimes’ are not caused by God. I have already noted that Spinoza claims that all things follow from God, and it would seem on the face of it that there is a contradiction here. He gets around this problem by claiming that evil does not have a real existence of its own, instead it is merely a lack of something—a lack, presumably, of some good quality: I maintain, in the first place, that God is absolutely and really the cause of all things which have essence, whatsoever they may be. If you can demonstrate that evil, error, crime &c., have any positive existence, which expresses essence, I will fully grant you that God is the cause of crime, evil, error &c For instance, Nero’s matricide, in so far as it comprehended anything positive, was not a crime Wherein, then, did Nero’s crime consist? In nothing else, but that by his deed he showed himself to be ungrateful, unmerciful, and disobedient. (SL 347 [XXIII]) This recounting of the idea seems little more than word games, and Coleridge’s response is satisfyingly drastic: Tho’ this appears to me as hollow as if having made a round Bullet I should deny that I was the cause of its Roundness, because Roundness is a mere Negation of Angles: or that God did not create a Worm, quatenus Worm, but only that which the Worm was in common with Adam or the highest Archangel, because all the difference consisted in Negation yet I can see no reason for railing at Spinoza, who if


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in error has herein erred with Luther, Calvin, and the most eminent of the earliest Reformers. (CM V 202) Coleridge has a good point here: not only is Spinoza’s account of evil unsatisfying when applied to evil acts, it potentially leads to the absurd position of being unable to acknowledge obvious differences such as that between a worm and an archangel, since all these differences might be mere negations. Nevertheless, the problem of evil is a deep one for pantheism, because if God is everything, then God must be every evil thing too. The problem is no longer a problem about God’s choices, but about God’s being, which leaves little alternative but to try to deny the reality of evil in some sense or other. Indeed, even in his later manuscripts, Coleridge is still grappling with variations on the Spinozistic denial of reality to evil, and his reference to Luther and Calvin here seems designed to allow himself the possibility of adopting a similar theory.

Coleridge and Spinoza: A providential reading Overall, Coleridge’s objections to Spinoza are clustered around the relationship between God and finite beings, and they focus on the problems of causality, free will and evil. That is to say they focus quite systematically on all of the issues that are problematized by Spinoza’s use of the concept of the infinite. Coleridge tries to frame objections to some of Spinoza’s solutions, but in doing so shows his implicit acceptance of the conceptual framework that governs Spinoza’s problem setting. In the end he seems to agree with Spinoza more than he disagrees, and this is important because it shows that Coleridge was not, as McFarland argues, attracted to pantheism for logical and emotional reasons, and repelled from it for theological ones. Instead he actually agreed with Spinoza on the difficulty of the central issues, and was both attracted and repelled by the same thing. His final assessment of Spinoza is rather poetic: We are convinced that his in [scanning ?] the Shallows of his eagerness to steer off from a generalizing philosophy, that had gone on refining and refining on the nature spiritual nature of God, till they had left him, no nature at all, and instead of a Spirit presented a mere Abstraction to the mind, virtually excluding the divine presence from the creation by the reality ascribed to, and the perpetual substitution of vice-regent second Causes, thus leaving the idea of God Natureless, and Nature Godless—in too [?] eagerly avoid these Shallows, he split


on a rock on the other side beyond of the mid channel in which he would found the deep water and a secure Navigation. There the Vessel lies as in a cleft of the Rock. And long may it continue there & let the Wreck of Spinoza be a warning for us if only we are at once wise and charitable enough to use it aright, and to exclaim as we pass sail by—See! By the a merciful Providence the Wreck has become a Sea-mark for us and for all future Mariners.24 The providential wreck beautifully captures Coleridge’s attitude to Spinoza, and it does so in a distinctively Coleridgean way, with its imagery of mariners and shipwrecks. The ambivalence it captures is the counterpoint to the ambivalence of the desert image; here is the reason why one must skirt the desert of unbelief—because the threat it represents amounts to a Sea-mark for the journey of faith. Ultimately the reason for Coleridge’s ambivalence lies in his awareness that his own theological commitments lean so heavily on the concept of immanence that he could not avoid the range of problems (and solutions) associated with pantheistic thought. This even reflects us back to the supernatural poetry because both The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel treat evil in terms that reflect a pantheistic conception of an immanent God, as the suffering of the finite individual in the face of an infinite and immanent universe.25 This is why Coleridge alludes to the Mariner in the shipwreck passage; the figure of the Mariner is (amongst other things) Coleridge’s greatest meditation on the burden of finitude in a Spinozistic universe. The evidence presented above is incompatible with previous accounts, and forces a re-evaluation of the central question of Coleridge’s understanding of Spinoza. Coleridge’s insistence on the possibility of a providential understanding of Spinoza explicitly contradicts the antiprovidential aura with which McFarland (like Jacobi) imbues Spinozism. This is not to say that Coleridge was blithely unaware of the theological problems that Spinoza’s account of Divinity creates, but rather that this awareness is subordinated to other issues, and that he was scanning these issues in a manner that reflects his awareness of the pantheism controversy. In other words, he was reading the issues of freedom and evil in Spinoza with an eye to the ultimate repercussions of those issues for the status of reason.

Part II Coleridge and the Pantheism Controversy


4 Understanding the Pantheism Controversy

This chapter briefly introduces some of the main figures and themes of the pantheism controversy. It is an introduction which inevitably shows the traces of my own interests in analysing this material, particularly my intention to utilize it in an analysis of Coleridge. As such, I am consciously focusing on the figures that Coleridge focused on, and leaving out many others. Moreover, this chapter serves as an introduction to the other three chapters that make up Part II, so that many of the issues touched on here are expanded on in the subsequent chapters, in relation to Coleridge’s understanding of them. The pantheism controversy had three main phases. The first was the dispute between Jacobi and Mendelssohn over Lessing’s Spinozism. Jacobi used Lessing’s Spinozism as the basis for his arguments for ‘faith’ as opposed to ‘reason’, and as such this first phase of the controversy is an argument over the status of reason. The second phase arose from Jacobi’s allegations of atheism against Fichte, an accusation which ultimately saw Fichte forced to resign his professorship at Jena. As such it is an argument about more clearly theological matters. The third phase arose when Jacobi started to make similar insinuations against Schelling. However, Schelling’s brutal response in the Denkmal saw him the victor, and Jacobi quite widely condemned. Schelling argues for a position that is pantheistic and yet maintains the existence of a personal God. Thus the third phase was primarily about pantheism itself. My focus is primarily on phases one and three for several reasons. First, they are the areas Coleridge shows the greatest interest in, which in turn makes them the areas of my greatest interest. Secondly, there is a wealth of material to work with in dealing with Coleridge’s reactions to phases one and three. There is a large body of Coleridge’s marginal commentaries on Jacobi, Mendelssohn and Schelling, and this 59

60 Coleridge and the Pantheism Controversy

provides the basis for a fruitful analysis. Finally, these three figures are tremendously important for interpreting major Coleridgean texts, which is the task of Part III. Coleridge plagiarizes heavily from all three, so that Part III in a real sense cashes out the results of Part II. The question of what was really at stake in the pantheism controversy is itself controversial. The facts are clear enough, but their implications have been interpreted in widely divergent ways. McFarland sees the controversy as a confrontation between two fundamental types of philosophy, Lovejoy as the point of emergence of a new epistemological thrust in philosophy, whereas Beck, Beiser and di Giovanni locate it primarily in terms of its relationship with the enlightenment; portraying it in differing ways as an episode in the break-down of the enlightenment. Dieter Henrich in turn identifies (and tries to escape) two major currents in the interpretation of post-Kantian thought: the ‘back to Kant’ movement, and what he calls the ‘staircase formula’—the more Hegelian idea of a necessary progression of idealism itself.1 My emphasis by contrast lies precisely in the contested and unstable characteristics of the intellectual environment, since I think that the question of ‘what is really going on’ is not so much a retrospective question; it is actually the fundamental puzzle that these figures themselves were grappling with. In dealing with Coleridge, a figure who stands at a slight distance from the controversy, I aim to develop a critical perspective on his understanding of the controversy and its ambiguities. I therefore focus on the things that other commentators try to resolve: the ambiguities, confusions and interpretive tensions that leave traces in Coleridge’s understanding.

Lessing’s Spinozism The controversy was sparked by Jacobi’s claim that Lessing had been a Spinozist. This was controversial, in part because Lessing was already a controversial figure, embroiled in theological controversy. Lessing was also one of the leading lights of the enlightenment, and a close friend of Mendelssohn. As such, the claim that he was a Spinozist was a blow to the very idea of enlightenment, since it was used by Jacobi to suggest that the project of enlightenment leads to atheism and determinism. After Lessing’s death, Mendelssohn proposed to write a biography of him. Upon hearing of this intention through a mutual friend, Elise Reimarus, Jacobi wrote to her confiding Lessing’s Spinozism and asking whether Mendelssohn knew of it. Mendelssohn responded with apparent disbelief, questioning the exact phrasing and context of

Understanding the Pantheism Controversy 61

Lessing’s revelation and asking Jacobi to give an account of it (ULS 1–14 [37–47]). It seems likely that all of this was disingenuous on both sides: that Jacobi was deliberately trying to provoke a confrontation, and that Mendelssohn was deliberately trying to delay publication of Jacobi’s revelations.2 Jacobi eventually wrote to Mendelssohn explaining that he had spoken with Lessing before his death, and that Lessing had professed to being a Spinozist. Jacobi described the conversation in depth, and the letter forms the opening part of Über die Lehre des Spinoza (ULS 15–68 [47–94]). A short correspondence ensued, and Mendelssohn abandoned the idea of writing a biography, choosing instead to write Morgenstunden, which was intended to nullify the effects of Jacobi’s revelations by attributing to Lessing a ‘purified pantheism’ which avoided the worst elements of Spinozism by denying extension to God and thereby denying that he is the material world. Neither of them fully informed the other of their intentions, and the result was a race to the press which Jacobi won by a single month. The occasion for Lessing’s confession of Spinozism was a reading of Goethe’s poem Prometheus, in which Prometheus addresses Zeus with contempt and defiance: I honour you? Why? Have you eased the suffering Of the burdened? Have you stilled the tears Of the anguished? Was I not forged into a man By allmighty Time And everlasting Fate, My lords and yours?3 This theme of the defiance of divine power by the suffering Prometheus stands, needless to say, for the human condition, so that Jacobi describes it as ‘railing against providence in very hard terms’ (ULS 19n [52n]). The relationship between this poem and Spinoza apparently lies in the role of Fate and Time, who are depicted as beyond even the power of the gods (‘My lords and yours’).4 In any case, it rather appealed to Lessing: Lessing: The point of view that the poem takes, that is my own point of view The orthodox concepts of divinity are no longer


for me; I cannot savour them. E ! I know nothing else. That is where the poem leads, and I must confess, that I like it. Jacobi: Then you must be more or less in agreement with Spinoza. Lessing: If I had to declare myself to follow someone, I know of no other. (ULS 22 [54]) The conversation is then interrupted and continues the next day with an in-depth discussion of Spinoza’s doctrine. This discussion is of vital importance, since there is an extensive tradition of arguing that Lessing was being disingenuous in his profession of Spinozism, and that in any case whatever the general resemblance between Spinoza’s and Lessing’s thought, there are significant differences.5 Indeed, Mendelssohn made precisely these kinds of claims from the outset. However, Jacobi’s point was made: Lessing had identified himself with Spinozism, and although a complete agreement with Spinoza seems unlikely, it is also clear that enough of his thought resembles Spinoza’s to make the claim credible. Hume called Spinoza the ‘universally infamous’ atheist, and he had been famously condemned by Bayle in similar terms, and was generally regarded in this light until the pantheism controversy caused such an upsurge of interest in him.6 Indeed, the famous irony of the revelation of Lessing’s Spinozism is that it did not demolish Lessing’s reputation as both Jacobi and Mendelssohn had expected, instead it made Spinoza’s. So much so, that almost every major figure of the period developed an interest in Spinoza, and many of them professed some form of Spinozism or pantheism. Nonetheless, part of this process rested on elements in Jacobi’s report that suggest differences between Lessing and Spinoza: When Lessing wanted to represent a personal Divinity to himself, he thought of it as the soul of the all; and the whole after the analogy of an organic body. This soul of the whole would be, like all other souls in all possible systems, as soul, only an effect. (ULS 46–7 [75–6]) The emphasis on the ‘world soul’ here is crucial for reasons beyond its resemblance to The Eolian Harp. Bayle had established the standard interpretation of Spinoza as a straightforward materialist, as claiming that God is the material world.7 Lessing’s version stands in stark contrast to this, since God does not even appear to include the physical world (as it undoubtedly does in Spinoza). This point lends credence to Mendelssohn’s arguments that Lessing was not a Spinozist or pantheist


in any straightforward sense. But the crucial element is the emphasis on the mystical aspects of Spinoza’s thought: his insistence of the immanence of the world in God; of the unity of God and the world, so that everything is one; his insistence that thought and extension are merely divergent representations of this underlying unity. Thus Lessing’s ‘E

’ (one and all) became a catch-phrase for this new mystical view of Spinoza, a view which is central to the Romantic era. The discussion between Lessing and Jacobi attracted a great deal of attention from Coleridge, who annotated Jacobi’s account. Indeed, his interest in Lessing seems to have begun as early as 1796 when he mentions Lessing in a letter, calling him ‘The most formidable infidel’, and proposing to translate the infamous Wolfenbüttel Fragments (CL I 197). Moreover, at the time of his trip to Germany, and for some time afterwards, Coleridge proposed to write a life of Lessing. Such a book, had it ever been written, could only be viewed as an intervention into the pantheism controversy itself.8

Jacobi and his salto mortale Lessing was one of the leading lights of the enlightenment, and the revelation of his Spinozism was scandalous, given that Spinoza was seen as a materialist and an atheist at the time, thanks to Bayle.9 But in itself this would have been of little interest, were it not for the philosophical significance with which Jacobi managed to imbue the incident. Jacobi’s basic aim was to dethrone reason in favour of faith, which amounts to a deliberate attack on the values of the enlightenment. He made several arguments to demonstrate the dangers of reason, and to argue that it must be rejected in favour of faith. The most important of these is his claim that all connected reasoning leads to an unacceptable nihilism, that it leads to atheism and the denial of free will. Spinoza is the major exemplum of this argument, since Jacobi takes it as read that Spinoza’s thought is both atheistic and deterministic. Jacobi therefore goes out of his way to argue that Spinoza’s is the best and only consistent philosophy, thereby implying that all philosophy shares the faults of Spinozism. In order to argue for the importance of faith over reason, Jacobi must do more than simply impute atheism and determinism to Spinoza and claim that Spinoza is the best philosopher: he must also demonstrate that any consistent rational thought leads to Spinozism. Thus he repeatedly tries to show that other thinkers were tacitly Spinozistic


in their thought. Lessing is the primary exemplum of this part of the argument, and Jacobi implies that Lessing has been led into determinism and atheism—led into Spinozism—by the pressure of his metaphysical speculations (like the poet-metaphysician of The Eolian Harp).10 Jacobi, however, will have none of this, telling Lessing that his ‘credo does not lie in Spinoza’ (ULS 27 [58–9]). But this is not because of any philosophical objections: I save myself from the thing through a salto mortale, and you are not accustomed to finding pleasure in lowering your head. (ULS 27 [59]) This salto mortale (literally ‘deadly leap’ or somersault) is nothing more or less than a leap of faith, by which Jacobi extricates himself from reason and its dangers. The salto mortale turns out to be a belief in a personal God and human free will.

Mendelssohn and Morgenstunden In Morgenstunden Mendelssohn pursues a number of strategies to limit the damage of Jacobi’s revelation, and his arguments for faith over and above reason. Mendelssohn’s first strategy is to claim that Lessing had been what he calls a ‘purified pantheist’. He was thus claiming that although Lessing indeed held that all things are immanent in God, he nevertheless held that God had no extension, no corporeal nature. This stands in stark contrast to Spinoza’s position, and enables Mendelssohn to claim that Lessing avoided concluding that the material world was God, and the worst of the corollaries of that claim (MW III/2 125–37 [259–85]). Mendelssohn also attempts an outright refutation of Spinoza on metaphysical grounds. He argues that Spinoza’s assumptions about the nature of substance are problematic, and he proposes to refute Spinoza’s monism (his claim that there is only one substance) by showing that by Spinoza’s own assumptions it is possible to prove that there must be more than one substance (MW III/2 104–13 [213–34]). The point of this is that if he can refute Spinoza on metaphysical grounds, then he would have disproved Jacobi’s claim that all metaphysical speculation leads to Spinozism. Mendelssohn was also trying to counter Jacobi’s arguments against reason in general, and, in an undeclared way, trying to counter Kant’s arguments against the efficacy of speculative reason, because they threatened to destroy the kind of rationalistic metaphysics that


Mendelssohn practised. Mendelssohn pursued three main strategies to achieve this. First, he examined the concept of truth and the types of evidences that are available, in order to overcome the problem of the gap between concepts and the Ding an sich as Kant put it (see MW III/2 10–34 [5–60]). Mendelssohn thought that the gap could be overcome at two vital points: God’s existence and the existence of the self (through the Cogito). In making these arguments he was also trying to answer some elements of Hume’s scepticism, and even to defend induction. Mendelssohn’s second strategy for defending reason was to attempt a proof of God’s existence with a version of the ontological argument (MW III/2 148–57 [308–30]). He reworks the argument with a focus on the concept of necessity rather than existence, so as to avoid Kant’s objections to the use of the concept of existence as a predicate. Mendelssohn’s final strategy was the concept of ‘orientation’. According to this method, ‘common sense’ and ‘speculation’, when they disagree, are submitted to the arbitration of ‘reason’. This is an attempt to resolve the kinds of problems that Jacobi raises, where speculation contradicts the supposedly common-sense claims of free will and the existence of God. However, in doing this Mendelssohn has allowed ‘common sense’, or even ‘faith’, a role in determinations of truth (MW III/2 81–8 [163–79]). As a result he was criticized (by Kant and Wizenmann) as having himself denigrated the role of reason. Overall Mendelssohn’s effort is rather problematic. His method of orientation seems to do more harm than good because it degrades the role of reason. His attempts to refute Spinoza and to prove God’s existence fail, and thus do him little credit. Indeed, their failure seems to play right into Jacobi’s hands. Be this as it may, his role as the defender of reason, and ultimately a martyr to it, was confirmed when he fell ill upon completing An die Freunde Lessings (his reply to Jacobi), and died shortly after delivering the manuscript to the publisher, so that Jacobi was blamed for his death.

Kant Both Mendelssohn and Jacobi hoped to elicit Kant’s aid in the controversy. Jacobi had reason to do so, since Kant’s Kritik der reinen Vernunft had argued that the speculative employment of reason led to ‘transcendental illusion’, and Kant had concluded that no proof of the existence or non-existence of God, or similar matters, was possible (KRV 668–70). Thus Jacobi thought that Kant was antagonistic to reason in general, which he obviously was not. Mendelssohn for his part seemed


to expect Kant’s support as against an apparent dilettante who appeared belligerent towards reason.11 Kant was to side with neither of them. Instead, in ‘Was heißt: sich im Denken orientieren?’, Kant argued that both Jacobi and Mendelssohn wind up displacing ‘common healthy reason’ from its proper place as the final arbiter of truth.12 In this respect he was developing Wizenmann’s arguments. Wizenmann criticized Mendelssohn’s ‘method of orientation’ because it amounts to a preference for ‘common sense’ over reason, and is therefore little different from Jacobi’s preference for faith over reason.13 By contrast, Kant held that the practical employment of reason is perfectly valid, but its speculative employment (in dogmatic metaphysics a` la Mendelssohn) leads to contradictions. He therefore accused Mendelssohn of undermining the position of reason itself, in the attempt to defend its inadmissible speculative employment: Who could have thought that this concession [the method of orientation] would not only be ruinious for his positive opinion of the power of the speculative use of reason in matters of theology (which was unavoidable anyway). But that the common healthy reason would be left in such an ambiguous position in comparison with speculation, that it itself would be in danger of serving as the principle of enthusiasm and the complete dethroning of reason?14 Kant rejects both Jacobi’s and Mendelssohn’s positions, and argues for a ‘rational faith’, which enables the postulation of the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the like, as the necessary conditions of moral law. Kant also contributed some ‘Remarks’ on Mendelssohn’s Morgenstunden to Jakob’s Prüfung der Mendelssohnschen Morgenstunden. In this short piece Kant maintains the same general perspective as in ‘Was heißt: sich im Denken orientieren?’, but also accuses Mendelssohn of using his reliance on ‘common sense’ to dismiss genuine philosophical issues as disputes over words, and to incorrectly rule others out of court.15 This text is hugely important for Coleridge, since he annotates it, and also plagiarizes from it in the Logic.

Schelling and the defence of pantheism The second and third phases of the pantheism controversy were quite different to the first. They involved direct insinuations against Fichte


and Schelling, so the emphasis fell more on the problems of theology, and the issue became whether reason could redeem itself by generating a coherent account of Godhead. Accusing reason’s defenders of atheism is a natural corollary of Jacobi’s initial argument that the use of connected philosophical reasoning leads to atheism and determinism. The issue between Schelling and Jacobi was pantheism itself. In Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit Schelling discusses the issues and results of the pantheism controversy. He defends Spinoza, and then differentiates his own pantheism from Spinoza’s, arguing that pantheism does not necessarily involve determinism. He finally argues for a position that is pantheistic and yet maintains the existence of a personal God. He does this by developing the concept of the Ungrund, from which God creates himself, and the world in general, as a part of his own development towards personality. Even the material world is taken to be a part of God: it is just a relatively undeveloped part. He also spends much of the book discussing the problem of evil, which he considers the main problem besetting any account of God, theistic as well as pantheistic (SW VII 352–3).

5 Reading under a Warp: Coleridge and Jacobi’s Transformations of ‘Reason’

Coleridge’s encounters with Jacobi were the most formative of his intellectual life. Jacobi has been largely below the horizon for almost all accounts of Coleridge, but Jacobi’s impact on Coleridge was more important than any other figure—it is rivalled only by Schelling’s. Moreover, as I will show repeatedly in the following chapters, Coleridge’s understanding of the two was deeply intertwined. Jacobi brought all of Coleridge’s intellectual tensions to a head because he sparked the crisis that threatened Coleridge’s sense of integrity as a thinker and a poet. Jacobi seemed to demonstrate the inevitability of Spinozism, and the potential horrors that might ensue if the icy nihilist view of Spinoza was right. Furthermore, he turned the matter into a crisis about reason itself, suggesting that the very rational impulses that seemed humanity’s destiny and saviour were actually humanity’s doom. In doing so he struck deeply into the soft underbelly of Coleridge’s self-doubt and lack of self-esteem; he made philosophy itself seem like a moral flaw, thus exacerbating the emotional crisis enacted in The Eolian Harp. This crisis would be self-reinforcing for Coleridge because it is a self-fulfilling prophecy: any attempt to think your way out of Jacobi’s dilemma could itself turn out to be just another example of reason’s capacity to trap the thinker in thought and sap their moral and religious fibre. If you are trapped in the ‘unwholesome quicksilver mines of abstruse metaphysics’, can you dig your way out? Jacobi became crucial for Coleridge’s own concept of reason, and his distinction between reason and understanding. Furthermore, through his accounts of the immediate in knowledge, Jacobi seemed to offer the prospect of a way to make sense of the kind of intense religious and mystical experiences that Coleridge desperately wanted to account for in some rational manner. The Jacobian dilemma, and even the Eolian 68

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harp image which seems to reflect it, became the lens through which Coleridge contemplated theological and philosophical claims. But the dilemma also does what dilemmas do: it caused consternation and anxiety. Coleridge seems to spend the rest of his life trying to worry his way out of it, trying to find a way to understand reason that would safeguard religious knowledge without succumbing to the horrors of a nihilistic Spinozism.

Jacobi’s uses of ‘reason’ Jacobi made significant changes in his use of the word ‘reason’ in his later life. These changes have a profound effect on the way Jacobi’s stance on the status of reason should be seen. The confusion that this alteration engendered is a key aspect of Coleridge’s understanding of Jacobi, and this is central to Coleridge’s own stance on reason. The matter has never been given serious consideration and yet it could not be any more important for understanding Coleridge. In David Hume über den Glauben (1787), Jacobi alters his original position, and makes an important terminological change. He no longer uses the word ‘faith’ (Glaube) to refer exclusively to religious faith, and says that ‘the assumption was that cognitions that are not derived from rational activity are “faith” ’.1 This enables him to argue that the intuitive knowledge of God is similar to the intuitive and immediate knowledge of self-evident truths, such as the truths of mathematics. It also enables him to point to Hume as someone who had demonstrated, through his critiques of causality and induction, that all empirical knowledge is taken on ‘faith’, since it cannot be rationally justified. The result is that Jacobi moves away from his emphasis on religious faith in Über die Lehre des Spinoza and claims that this was never really what he meant. Indeed, following the publication of Über die Lehre des Spinoza Jacobi had been in danger of being dismissed as an irrational religious enthusiast, so that the terminological change was a deliberate attempt to stabilize his public image. Later, in the publication of his Werke, Jacobi made an even greater terminological change, when he renamed the faculty of immediate knowledge ‘reason’ (Vernunft) and renamed reason ‘understanding’ (Verstand).2 Thus he had effectively wound up renaming ‘faith’ as ‘reason’. This apparent about face seems somewhat disingenuous and was not received well by his contemporaries.3 Schrickx argues that Coleridge may have first encountered David Hume über den Glauben, rather than Über die Lehre des Spinoza.4 This is supported


by the fact that Coleridge frequently defends Jacobi in terms that recall his usage of the word ‘faith’ in David Hume über den Glauben: What was his Object? To prove, that FAITH, which the Philosophers of his Day, held in contempt, was “sensuous evidence”, or Knowledge by immediate Beholding = Intuition? No! But to prove that the sensuous Evidence itself was a species of Faith & Revelation: therefore, that the Genus could not be despised, if any one Specie were held in honor. (CM III 640–1) The argument that ‘sensuous evidence’ is a ‘species of Faith & Revelation’ resembles David Hume über den Glauben, where Jacobi uses Hume’s critique of induction to try to show that everyday truths, and even the truths of science are taken on faith. However, Jacobi also maintained that knowledge of God is a matter of immediate intuition throughout his career, although he initially called this ‘faith’, and in the end called it ‘reason’. Coleridge’s confusion over this point is strikingly displayed in an annotation on David Hume über den Glauben itself, where he objects to Jacobi’s criticisms of Kant by saying ‘Jacobi with his Faith of and in Reason ought to have been the last man to have made these Objections’ (CM III 95). Nevertheless, Coleridge was not completely uncritical of Jacobi’s usage, and he comments in a note on Reimarus that ‘there is an ambiguity in the German, Glaube, which does not necessarily accompany the word, Faith—& this misled Jacobi, and made him confuse the two perfectly distinct conceptions—i.e. Faith and Belief’ (CM IV 216). Coleridge is quite right, except that Jacobi was exploiting the ambiguity rather than being misled by it.5 This suggests that Coleridge was misinterpreting Jacobi by treating his later usages of the terminology as definitive. In Über die Lehre des Spinoza Jacobi clearly does mean religious faith when he uses the term ‘faith’, so that reading it with Jacobi’s later usage in mind leads Coleridge to misunderstand certain elements of Jacobi’s arguments, and to imbue them with a significance that is at odds with the overall objectives of the work. Jacobi’s usage of the word ‘reason’ in David Hume über den Glauben is strikingly close to Coleridge’s own later usage, and the way that Coleridge draws his distinction between reason and understanding. This suggests that part of the reason for Coleridge’s acceptance of Jacobi’s later usage lies in the fact that he himself had some sympathy with it. In other words, his tendency to read Über die Lehre des Spinoza in terms of Jacobi’s later conception of ‘reason’ may be partly due to his own


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desire to establish a concept of reason that would incorporate immediate intuition as a basis for religious knowledge.

The note on Maass Coleridge was reading both Maass and Jacobi extensively during the writing of Biographia.6 Indeed, he plagiarizes from both in Biographia, taking much more heavily, and straightforwardly, from Maass. Coleridge’s attitude to Jacobi was perhaps too complex to allow for such direct plagiarisms. The annotations on Maass are critical, but they are sparse. The annotations on Jacobi’s text, on the other hand, are more frequent, sustained and complex. Most importantly though Coleridge’s criticisms of Jacobi are more substantial. Coleridge both criticizes and applauds Jacobi, and does both with an intensity that, perhaps, did not allow for the implicit acceptance that plagiarism implies.7 Coleridge’s most important note on Maass gives a fascinating insight into his reading practices, because it grapples with an argument from Über die Lehre des Spinoza. Thus in reacting to Maass, Coleridge is actively considering and re-evaluating his understanding of another text, without any overt sign that this is taking place: In Maass’s introductory Chapters my mind has been perplexed by the division of things into matter (sensatio ab extra) and form (i.e. per- et con-ceptio ab intra.) Now as Time and Space are evidently only the Universals, {or modi communes,} of sensation and sensuous Form, & consequently appertain exclusively to the sensuous Einbildungskraft, (= Eisemplasy ( ) which we call Imagination, Fancy, &c—all poor & inadequate terms, far inferior to the German Einbidldung) the Law of Association becomes incomprehensible, if not absurd. I see at one instant of Time a Rose and a Lily—Chemistry teaches me that they differ only in fourorm, being both reducible to the same Elements—if then Form be not an external active power, if it be wholly transfused into the Object by the esenoplastic or imaginative faculty of the percipient, or rather Creator, where & wherein shall I find the ground of my perception, that this is the Rose, and that the Lily? (CM III 789–90) Coleridge is perplexed by the distinction between matter and form as Maass uses it. He defines these as ‘sensatio ab extra’ (sensation from outside) and ‘per- et con-ceptio ab intra’ (perception/conception from


within), which can be more generally glossed as the content of experience and the concepts through which that experience is understood. This idea is crucial to Kant since much of Kritik der reinen Vernunft is an attempt to explain how the content of experience comes to be subsumed under the categories in order to make experience possible. Indeed, Kant goes to considerable trouble to argue that the ‘forms’ of sensibility (space and time) bridge the gap between intuitions and categories, whilst also relying on the given-ness of intuition to maintain the necessity of the Ding an sich. Coleridge points out that if time and space are to be considered only as universal concepts (or ‘forms of sensibility’) which are applicable to intuitions then they will lose their ability to play this kind of specialized role. As he puts it ‘if then Form be not an external active power wherein shall I find the ground of my perception, that this is the Rose, and that the Lily?’ In other words, if ‘form’ is a completely subjective matter, lacking a connection to the Ding an sich, then it will be unable to act as arbiter of the application of concepts to intuitions. At this point it is not clear what the target of Coleridge’s argument really is. He began the passage by expressing concern about Maass’ theory, continued it with an unwieldy claim that the theory of association is ‘incomprehensible, if not absurd’, and concluded it by worrying that a Kantian inflected account of the creative imagination may subjectivize perception out of existence. He continues: In order to render the creative activity of the Imagination at all conceivable, we must necessarily have recourse to the Harmonia præstabilita of Spinoza and Leibnitz: in which case the automatism of the Imagination and Judgement would be Perception in the same sense, as a {self-conscious} Watch as would be a Percipient of Time, and inclusively of the apparent motion of the Sun and Stars. But as the whole is but a choice of incomprehensibles, till the natural doctrine of physical influx, or modification of each by all, have been proved absurd, I shall still prefer it (CM III 790) This assertion that ‘the creative activity of the Imagination’ requires the ‘Harmonia præstabilita of Spinoza and Leibnitz’ is startling. Mendelssohn had argued that Leibniz’s theory of pre-established harmony between mind and body was derived from Spinoza.8 In Über die Lehre des Spinoza Jacobi refers to this claim and uses it as part of a general argument that Leibniz’s philosophy was essentially Spinozistic (ULS 34 [65]). This is part and parcel of Jacobi’s overall argument that all connected


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philosophical reasoning leads to Spinozism, since if he could demonstrate that Leibniz had really been a kind of Spinozist, as well as revealing that Lessing had been one, he would be well on the way to showing that all philosophy tends towards these kinds of results. Thus, Jacobi was effectively using Mendelssohn’s own idea against him. The claim that Leibniz derived the theory of pre-established harmony from Spinoza was rather a bold one, since Spinoza was a monist, and the theory of pre-established harmony holds, by contrast, that there are two distinct kinds of things (body and mind) which do not even interact, but rather exist in a fortuitous parallel (how they should come to do so remaining a general difficulty). Nevertheless, Spinoza claims that mind and body are two different ways the mind can view substance; they are ‘attributes’, that is ‘that which the intellect perceives as constituting the essence of substance’ (Ethics I def IV). Thus, he too claims that mind and body do not interact, but exist in parallel, due to an underlying unity. It is easy to see, therefore, how you could describe Leibniz’s theory as a development from Spinoza. All of this is necessary to understand what Coleridge means by saying that ‘the creative activity of the Imagination’ requires the ‘Harmonia præstabilita of Spinoza and Leibnitz’. If the imagination is to play a role in perception, Coleridge thinks it needs to be connected to the Ding an sich through the forms of experience (not just the content). In order to do this he supposes that the subjective imagination must share some underlying identity with the objective Ding an sich. He then goes on to explore the unpleasant consequences of such a theory: ‘the automatism of the Imagination and Judgement would be Perception in the same sense, as a {self-conscious} Watch as would be a Percipient of Time’. The problem is that the imagination is now mechanically determined by the alien Ding an sich. Coleridge is effectively saying that he fears a collapse into a Spinozism that would amount to the automatism of the individual. This is precisely the horror that Jacobi was presenting, and it is arguably also the horror that Coleridge is presenting in Christabel.

Coleridge’s understanding of Jacobi’s rhetorical stance Coleridge’s general overview of Jacobi seems to have been that he had a tendency towards mysticism. Thus in a marginal note on Schelling’s Denkmal he comments ‘There is doubtless much true and acute observation on the indefinite&ness, the golden mists, of Jacobi’s Scheme’ (CM IV 360). This is probably a comment, and a pretty fair one, on


Jacobi’s insistence on the immediacy of knowledge about God, free will and the like. It may also have been occasioned by Jacobi’s introduction of the figure of Giordano Bruno in the second edition of Über die Lehre des Spinoza. Coleridge made two notes on the preface to Über die Lehre des Spinoza that encapsulate a great deal about his attitude to Jacobi. The first hits on a major bone of contention: the problem of free will. Jacobi has just defined will as ‘pure spontaneity raised to that degree of consciousness which we call reason’ (CM III 75). Coleridge responds: Ah! here lies the Difficulty! The Consciousness or Knowledge of a Thing does not affect the essence of the Thing. Now if Spontaneity be not Free Will (as who would attribute Free Will to a Plant, which however according to § 24 possesses Spontaneity = Selbstthätigkeit), how can Consciousness render it so- So 0 + 0, were = 1. — / N.B. I see the Sophism of this reasoning; but yet it holds good ad hominem. (CM III 75–6) We are still very much in the realm of the note on Maass. Coleridge is puzzled at how self-consciousness can be connected to will. If will is a subjectivized version of something objectively determined (spontaneity) then the automatism of the will is an inevitable outcome. Creating this tension is precisely Jacobi’s intention. The preface consists of a series of propositions arguing the case for determinism followed by a series arguing the case for freedom. The point of this is to demonstrate the inability of reason to decide this crucial question (a` la Kant), and to lead into his general critique of reason. Jacobi’s arguments for the freedom of the will were never intended to be rationally convincing. Instead they were intended to fail, but also meant to appeal to immediate intuition in some way so as to make this failure seem unacceptable. Coleridge’s dissatisfaction with Jacobi becomes clearer when Jacobi says that ‘It is the o in man; and the veneration of this Divinity is the basis of all virtue and every honourable feeling’ (ULS xliv–xlv [33]): Here Jacobi’s Eagle Wing seems to me to flag. The o o is rather a synonyme than an explanation. Say that the Latter is impossible, as perhaps it is if we understand by explanation a full statement of preceding and co-existing Causes added to an exposition of its Ground—for “God is Love”, and therefore Love itself must {be} both


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Ground and Cause, consequently, uncaused and groundless and therefore ungroundable. (CM III 76) Jacobi’s ‘Eagle Wing’ has flagged rather early on—in the preface in fact. Coleridge is saying that an explanation of ‘o o ’ may be impossible, since an explanation amounts to an elucidation of the causes or conditions of a thing, which we cannot hope to achieve with God. He then adds that if ‘God is love’ a similar problem will occur with the idea of ‘love’, or that ‘love’ as an explanation of God is inadequate, since it fails to elucidate the causes or grounds of God. He adds that ‘Love itself must {be} both Ground and Cause, consequently, uncaused and groundless and therefore ungroundable.’ This is because God is both cause and ground of all, and is at the same time uncaused and ungrounded himself (and therefore unexplainable). Coleridge adds that ‘Illustration’ is still possible, even if explanation is not: For it is actually a Fear, almost a Fright, at the Thought that God lives—that instead of a logical x y z, (which we are compelled by the mechanism of our Reason to postulate, as the ground unconditional of all things, or rather as {? On} the one absolute condition of unity of Thought—i.e. of Reason itself, still however ideal and but an ens logicum et hypothecum) there is a LIVING God there is such a person alive, as God.—and that he has a living Son. It is this aversion to a LIVING JEHOVA GOD, originating in the hearthardeneding & soul-blinding Worship of Mechanism, which is the essence of Idolatry & which generates Socinianism, most falsely called Unitarianism, instead of its true name, Unicism. (CM III 76–7) Coleridge’s reliance on the idea of ‘life’ here seems directionless, and he actually seems to be reaching for a vocabulary that will allow him to escape the dangers of ‘mechanistic’ thought. That is to say, he is actually rehearsing Jacobi’s position in general terms. However, the note’s confusion seems to imply that he thought Jacobi himself was a proponent of mechanistic philosophy, since it begins by criticising Jacobi on religious matters, and continues by criticizing mechanistic philosophy on the same grounds. The very last marginal note that Coleridge makes on Jacobi’s Werke suggests the same: ‘Jacobi can never rise above the mechanical’ and ‘He seems always to have the Image of an Ocean before him, surging itself into forms. The begetting, the creating, these are above him. Either the Almight has no distinct sense or is [illegible]’ (CM III


100). This is all rather problematic, since Coleridge’s point about mechanistic philosophy is very much in line with Jacobi’s own argument that all rational philosophy leads to atheism and determinism. Overall, Coleridge’s understanding of Jacobi’s rhetorical stance, at least in Über die Lehre des Spinoza, is somewhat unstable. I have already pointed to the apparent misunderstanding over Jacobi’s use of the word ‘reason’. There is not enough evidence to develop a stronger claim, but it is possible to conjecture that occasionally at least Coleridge went even further and read Jacobi as something like a ‘mechanistic’ philosopher, something like Spinoza. This seems the only way to explain his otherwise rather strange claim that ‘even Jacobi wrote under a Warp—the fear of appearing a Convert to Spinozism’ (CM IV 226).

Coleridge’s critique of Jacobi on Spinoza After Lessing’s confession of Spinozism, he asks Jacobi what ‘you hold to be the spirit of Spinozism; I mean the spirit that was inspiring Spinoza himself’ (ULS 24 [56]). Jacobi replies with a description of Spinoza’s God: In itself this immanent infinite cause has, explicite, neither understanding nor will, because it can have no object of thinking and willing, due to its transcendental unity and thoroughgoing absolute infinity. And a capacity to produce a concept before the concept, or a concept that existed before its object and was the complete cause of itself—just like a will that brings about the willing and thus determines itself—are clearly incoherent ideas (ULS 25 [57]) Jacobi is claiming that Spinoza denied intellect and will to God. If Jacobi is to argue that Spinozism necessarily involves determinism and atheism, it is crucial that he establish these two claims about Spinoza’s God: that it has no mind and is therefore not personal, and that it has no will. This is in line with Spinoza’s explicit statement, but that is because Spinoza thinks that our concepts of will and intellect are limited by our own finite situations and are therefore not applicable to God (Ethics I XVIIn). Coleridge quickly objects to Jacobi’s interpretation: I never could see the force of this Reasoning, nor am I convinced that it was Spinoza’s Meaning. He admits an immanent Cause, or Ground, of which all Things, Minds included, are the Consequences—Now how is it more difficult to conceive this Cogitatio infinita producing


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a collective Thought of the World, than the World itself—or why not, both as one? All that could be fairly deduced would be, that God’s Thoughts were not as our Thoughts—i.e. not Anti- but Proto-types. I do not believe, that Spinoza would have acknowledged the system attributed to him by Jacobi. To me it has appeared, that the peculiarity of Spinosism consisted in making all things proceed from the Essence, or Wisdom of God, necessarily: even as the most orthodox admit certain Things to proceed-ex. gr. the properties of Space, and its Figurations, Circles &c—.S.T.C. I mean, that Spinoza does not, in my opinion, deny the Intelligence of God other than as the word implies Choice and Deliberation—or in short, passivity in any sense. His God is severely actus purissimus— Esse absolutum sine ullâ Potentialitate. (CM III 78–9)

This is an unusually sharp and well thought out annotation, suggesting the significance of the issue for Coleridge. He asks why Jacobi supposes that a Spinozistic God would have any more difficulty creating a ‘world thought’, than creating the world itself. This seems to imply that Spinoza’s God could have a mind, or could be capable of creating one for itself, and by extension that it could be compatible with a personal God. Spinoza’s explicit statements contradict Coleridge’s claim, since he bluntly denies intellect to God in the Ethics: ‘neither intellect nor will appertain to God’s nature’ (Ethics I XVIIn). However, Coleridge qualifies his statement by adding ‘All that could be fairly deduced would be, that God’s Thoughts were not as our Thoughts.’ This is quite right: by Spinoza’s account the mind of God is infinite, and therefore has nothing in common with finite intellects, which are limited by selfconsciousness. Intellect for Spinoza is an imperfection, a striving towards complete knowledge. This is the point behind his famous example of the difference between the dog constellation and the barking animal: they share a name, and indeed they have something in common, and yet they are as different as they could be (See Ethics I XVIIn). In the postscript Coleridge demonstrates that he understood something of this also. He says ‘Spinoza does not, in my opinion, deny the Intelligence of God other than as the word implies Choice and Deliberation—or in short, passivity in any sense’. By Spinoza’s account God is the causa sui (cause of itself), which is not subject to outside influences or limitations. The finite human understanding, on the other hand, is clearly not free from such external influences. God, according


to Spinoza, must be entirely active, since there is nothing that could hinder or limit it, whereas human intellect is subject to external influences and limitations, and is therefore ‘passive’. The point Coleridge has missed though is that intelligence itself implies passivity or imperfection because it requires a limiting relationship with the object of knowledge. Lessing however agrees with Jacobi, and goes on to declare he has no desire for free will because he sees a greater ‘joy’ in God’s grandeur: Lessing: extension, motion, thought, are apparently grounded in a higher power, that is far from exhausted by them. It must be infinitely superior to this or that effect; and there can be a kind of joy in it which not only surpasses all concepts, but is completely outside concepts. That we cannot ever capture it in thoughts, does not remove the possibility. I: You go further than Spinoza; he put insight above everything. Lessing: For Humanity! He was far from suggesting that our wretched way of acting by intentions is the highest way; far from placing thought above everything. I: With Spinoza insight is the best part in all finite natures, because this is the part through which each finite being reaches out beyond its finitude . But as far as the one infinite substance of Spinoza is concerned, it has no particular or complete being for itself, outside individual things. If it had a single, particular, individual reality for its unity (to put it that way), then it would have personality and life, and then insight would be its best part too. (ULS 29–31 [61–3]) Jacobi says Lessing goes further than Spinoza because Lessing appears to be denying the worth of human thought because it is not free. Of course, such a lack of freedom does not bother Spinoza at all, so Jacobi is right to say ‘You go further than Spinoza; he put insight above everything.’ But Lessing is also right to add the qualifier ‘For Humanity!’. According to Spinoza, understanding the relationship between the universe and the self is the highest achievement for a finite being, because it enables such beings to have greater control over their interactions with the universe. As a matter of course, this idea has no meaning for Spinoza’s God, since it has no interactions with the universe—it is the universe. Jacobi’s claim that if Spinoza’s God had ‘a single, particular, individual agency for its unity then it would have personality and life, and then insight would be its best part too’ is rather problematic. Spinoza’s God does not suffer from the limitations of a finite being and therefore has no need of insight as a corrective. Jacobi argues that Spinoza’s God cannot


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be acceptable because it grants him none of the qualities we consider highest in human beings. Jacobi assumes that insight is a universally good quality, whereas for Spinoza it only has value because it is the best solution to a problem that God does not suffer from. This creates a conundrum for Coleridge: he wants to defend Spinoza against Jacobi’s aggressive interpretation, but on the other hand he predictably shies away from devaluing the role of ‘insight’: If Insight or Intuition be the highest in the Finite because it passes out of the Finite & partakes of the Infinite, it is impossible that Sp. should not have regarded the Infinite as identical with it eminenter tho’ not formaliter. Nothing does Spinoza more zealously forbid, than the conception of God as an Abstraction or Aggregate or mode of conception or perception. He is not a category, or to be categorically known. (CM III 79–80) As the conversation continues, Jacobi announces his opposition to Spinozism, and that he prefers to make a ‘salto mortale’, a leap of faith (ULS 27 [59]). Lessing questions Jacobi’s faith, asking ‘What is the concept of your personal extramundane God? Perhaps it is like Leibniz’s? I am afraid that he himself was a Spinozist at heart’ (ULS 31–2 [63]). This leads to a discussion of Leibniz, and particularly the possibility that his doctrine was Spinozistic: Lessing: What sort of idea is behind your opposition to Spinozism? Do you think that Leibniz put an end to it in the Principia? I: How could I: given my firm conviction that there is no difference between a consistent determinist and a fatalist? The monads with their vincula seem to me to leave extension and thought, and reality itself, as incomprensible as before, and with them I cannot tell left from right I know of no system as consistent with Spinozism as Leibniz’s and it is difficult to say which of the two authors has, despite all honest intentions, tricked themselves and us the most! Mendelssohn has repeatedly shown that the harmonia præstabilita is present in Spinoza. From this alone it follows that Spinoza must encompass much more of Leibniz’s fundamental thought, or else Leibniz and Spinoza were not the consistent heads they unarguably were. I would dare say that Leibniz’s entire doctrine of the soul could be derived from Spinoza. (ULS 34–5 [65–6]) This passage plays a crucial role in Jacobi’s overall argument. By arguing for this view of the relationship between Spinoza and Leibniz, Jacobi


provides background support for his radical claim that all rational philosophy leads to Spinozism. Coleridge seems to have taken this characterization of the relationship between Leibniz and Spinoza for granted, as can be seen in the note on Maass. Indeed, the point finds its way into Biographia: Leibnitz’s doctrine of pre-established harmony, which he certainly borrowed from Spinoza, who had himself taken the hint from Des Cartes’s animal machines, was in its common interpretation too strange to survive the inventor—too repugnant to our common sense (which is not indeed entitled to a judicial voice in the courts of scientific philosophy; but whose whispers still exert a strong secret influence). (BL I 130–1) By adding Descartes to the mix, Coleridge has incidentally invalidated the point Jacobi was making. Jacobi was arguing that all philosophy amounts to Spinozism, but Coleridge extends the connection even further to Descartes. This suggests that he simply did not realize what it was that Jacobi was trying to achieve through this argument, since showing that Leibniz and Spinoza were basically Cartesian would undermine Jacobi’s claim that all philosophy is basically Spinozistic. The reference to common sense is relevant too, since part of Mendelssohn’s attempt to defend reason from Jacobi’s attack was to propose that reason arbitrates the disputes between common sense and speculation. Jacobi continues his discussion of Leibniz and Spinoza, arguing that they were both determinists who denied free will in any meaningful sense: At base they both have the same theory on freedom as well, and the difference between them is illusory. Spinoza ilustrates our feeling of freedom with the example of a stone that thinks and knows that it strives to maintain its movement as much as it can. Likewise Leibniz illustrates the same thing with the example of a compass-needle that wants to point to the north, and believes that it turns independently of any other cause, because it has no grasp of the imperceptible movement of the magnetic material. (ULS 35 [66])9 Spinoza employs the example of a thrown stone to illustrate the common prejudices about free will (SL 390–1 [LVIII]). The point is that the stone is ignorant of the causes which occasion its movement, and so imagines that it is responsible for the movement itself, by an act of


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free will. Spinoza argues that our feeling of free will is just the same, that we imagine that we have free will because we are ignorant of the real causes of our actions. Obviously such a view of free will is unacceptable to Jacobi, but Coleridge is not prepared to accept Jacobi’s summation: And is Jacobi’s Theory of Freedom, at all different? The Consciousness of Spontaneity is no more what we mean by the Free Will, than the Knowledge of the principle of Irritability. Spontanëity in and of itself differs only from Compulsion, as a Necessity ab intra from an equal Necessity ab extra. Freedom as only practically known can only be proved practically. (CM III 81) Coleridge makes an important point here. The idea of ‘spontaneity’ does not avoid determinism because it merely represents an internal causation, rather than an external one. Here again Coleridge is showing a lack of clarity about Jacobi’s real intentions. Jacobi would very much like to demonstrate that any theory of free will is faulty, and that all consistent theories involve determinism. Indeed, Jacobi himself does not really have a theory of freedom, he simply holds that freedom and the existence of God are truths that cannot be derived by rational means. Jacobi finishes his letter to Mendelssohn with a collection of snippets of conversation that bear on Lessing’s Spinozism and the role of reason. In one episode they consider the subject of divine revelation: I took the chance to speak from the perspective of the Kibbel, or Kaballa in the strict sense: that it is impossible to develop the infinite from the finite, or to bridge the gap from the one to the other, or to bring their relationship into a formula. It follows that if you want to say anything about them, you have to speak on the basis of revelation. Lessing maintained that he wanted everything “expressed in naturalistic terms”, and I maintained that there can be no naturalistic philosophy of the supernatural, and yet both (natural and supernatural) are plainly there. (ULS 45–6 [75]) It is obvious how this idea fits in with Jacobi’s overall aims, since it is essentially the position that he is arguing for: that we must resort to faith since reason cannot succeed when it comes to the matters of free will and God. Indeed, the assertion that there cannot be a ‘naturalistic philosophy of the supernatural’ is the epitome of Jacobi’s thought. But Coleridge objects that Jacobi has misinterpreted Lessing:


This is a mere play on the word, little better than a pun. By natürlich Lessing meant vernunftmässig. Substitute this, viz. rationally: and what becomes of Jacobi’s repartee? That there can be no rational philosophy of the Super-natural? (CM III 81) This is a strange comment. Of course natural philosophy is rational, and indeed the influence of the scientific worldview was one of Jacobi’s targets. Spinoza was somewhat of an icon for the scientific worldview, and this is one of the reasons for Jacobi’s focus on Spinoza. Thus Coleridge’s interpretive point hardly seems to matter either way, ‘rational’ or ‘natural’ fills the same position here, and Jacobi certainly agreed with the proposition that Coleridge offers for derision: ‘That there can be no rational philosophy of the Super-natural.’ Once more, Coleridge’s misreading seems to be based on his misunderstanding of Jacobi’s use of the word ‘reason’. Of course, in his later works, Jacobi’s usage is different, so that he claims that ‘reason’ (which he used to call faith) provides access to immediate truths, such as the existence of God. The irony is that this seems to have led Coleridge to think that Jacobi could not possibly have accepted the proposition that reason is unable to deal with the supernatural, whereas this is precisely Jacobi’s position—he thinks that the supernatural is only accessible via some form of immediate knowledge.

Jacobi’s immediate knowledge argument Jacobi makes a sustained argument for the immediacy of the knowledge of God in Supplement VII to the second edition of Über die Lehre des Spinoza. This second edition was published in 1789, after David Hume über den Glauben, by which time he had made the first of his two changes in terminology. This means that he is now using the term ‘reason’ to mean the faculty of immediate knowledge, including both self-evident truths and faith in God. This supplement attracts an extensive marginal commentary from Coleridge, and it is also central to the construction of Coleridge’s own transcendental deduction in Biographia, and his later distinction between reason and understanding. Indeed, this was probably the single most important philosophical encounter of Coleridge’s life. Jacobi’s argument still turns on the idea that rational analysis fails to establish God’s existence, and that we must therefore go beyond it. He begins by discussing the concept of time in Spinoza, and concludes that the main problem with Spinoza’s doctrine is that he confuses ground


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(atemporal) with cause (temporal). The problem is, according to Jacobi, that this leads us into the unthinkable concept of an eternal time. It is unthinkable because eternity is indivisible, whereas time is inherently made up of parts. According to Jacobi, this leads to a breakdown of speculative reason. Jacobi argues that there are two aspects to reason, the speculative or practical, and another aspect which he associates with ‘the principle of cognition in general’ (ULS 423 [152]). This last form of reason concerns itself with the unconditional (uncaused and atemporal), and Jacobi implies that the problems of speculative reason only arise because everything that lies beyond the complex of the conditioned (the naturally mediated) also lies beyond the sphere of our clear cognition, and cannot be understood through concepts: likewise the supernatural cannot be supposed in any other way than as it is given to us; namely, as fact—it is! (ULS 426–7 [155–6]) Jacobi is arguing that there is a point where concepts and speculative reason stop, and immediate apprehension takes over. However, he also wants to maintain that this immediate apprehension is a part of reason. The idea that the speculative reason must lead to contradictions in trying to go beyond space and time is obviously derived from Kant, but Jacobi’s way of overcoming this problem through immediate apprehension stands in stark opposition to Kant’s denial of any such possibility. Some of Coleridge’s formulations in Biographia are drawn from the latter part of Jacobi’s argument. However, the early part of the argument attracts an aggressive marginal criticism from Coleridge. In the first place Jacobi’s discussion of the role of time in Spinoza draws fire. Jacobi says: He [Spinoza] would have to assume an infinite chain of individual things that come into existence one after another, and thereby, in essence, an eternal time, an infinite finite. He sought to eliminate the incoherence of this claim through analogies with mathematics, and insisted that it is only in our imagination that we can represent to ourselves an infinite series of individual things that follow oneanother, and objectively and effectively originate from one-another, as an eternal time. (ULS 407 [135–6]) Spinoza explicitly argued that it is a mistake to suppose that the infinite can be made up of finite parts (Ethics I XVn). Jacobi’s argumentative strategy therefore seems a little off-key because he seems to be accusing


Spinoza of the one thing that Spinoza consistently attacks in his opponents. But Jacobi is really proposing this as a dilemma in order to force Spinoza into an account of time and eternity which he can go on to criticize. In the meantime Coleridge leaps confusedly to Spinoza’s defence: Who now makes “einem Sprung über sich hinaus”, if not Jacobi? He asserts a personal God, whose Thoughts are anterior to Things—now either these Thoughts have an actual Succession in the divine Mind, or else are simultaneous, and yet correspondent to and causative of Succession/ Now either of these Spinoza has {as} good right to predicate of his Gottes’-Gedanken, or “Modi Substantiæ eternæ”— Again, Jacobi will not deny immortality, everlasting Life a parte post/ Why should not {that} which is to have an infinite Time have had an infinite Time (CM III 88) The reference to the salto mortale is an amusing gaff, since Coleridge seems to think it was an accusation that Jacobi has levelled at someone else. It was, of course, Jacobi himself who made the salto mortale— the leap of faith—in order to extract himself from Spinozism, or the results of reason generally. This misunderstanding on Coleridge’s part is presumably a function of Coleridge’s misunderstanding of Jacobi’s attitude to reason. The rest of the note consists of an ingenious counter-argument. Coleridge points to Jacobi’s own conception of a personal God as a being who, though eternal, exerts causal influence from eternity into time. As Coleridge points out, this either means that there is temporality in God’s eternity, or that God is able to make the leap between an atemporal eternity into the temporal world. Thus, Jacobi’s conception of God is no better off than Spinoza’s. It is not clear that Spinoza really needs to be defended here, since the account that Jacobi has described is not really his. Spinoza does not suppose that there is an eternal time, rather he distinguishes between ‘eternity’ which applies to God and ‘cannot be explained by means of continuance or time’, and ‘duration’ which is applicable only to finite beings (Ethics I def VIII, II def V, SL 317–23 [XII]). Of course, there is still a difficulty in explaining the kind of causality that God exerts on the finite world, from eternity into the world of duration. However, Spinoza deals with this by proposing two forms of causality as well, so that finite beings are the causes of one-another in a straight-forward sense, but they all ‘follow from’ the nature of God. Indeed, this is Jacobi’s real target:


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Once Spinoza had elevated the empirical concepts of movement, individuality, generation and succession into concepts of reason, he saw them as purified of everything empirical. And through the firm belief that everything had only to be considered secondum modum quo a rebus æternis fluit, he could consider the concepts of time, measure, and number as one-sided objects of representation, separated from this modo—therefore as beings of the imagination, of which reason need take no notice, or it first reforms them, and restores them to the truth (vere consideratum). The Scholastics had also prepared the way for these claims. Several thinkers of this school had resorted to a creation from eternity in order to avoid the unthinkable concept of a creation in time, which always arises if you try to find a beginning for the sequence of the naturally given. (ULS 409–10 [140–1]) Jacobi is now describing Spinoza’s distinction between eternity and duration, and suggesting that it is inherently absurd. Moreover, he is suggesting that the status of time, as a kind of fiction constructed by the imagination, is also problematic, that it is a stop-gap measure to avoid postulating an infinite time. Coleridge attempts to defend Spinoza here too: I cannot see what Jacobi gains by all this—. He shows that an endless Time is undenkbar—well! and so is as himself owns, a Creation in Time. “But the former is absurd”—Nay! replies Spinoza—that cannot be absurd, the contrary of which is clearly absurd—viz—an infinite cause ab eterno uncausative, and a beginning of Time in Time. Now whatever can be said to alleviate this, will much more alleviate the other—According to me Time begins perpetually, it being the necessary manifestation and life of Eternity, which implies Time as its Consequence even as Time implies Eternity as its Ground—and I persevere in affirming with an intuitive certainty that the fault is in your Enthralment to your Senses, and sensuous Imaging, that you first divide time from Eternity, & by mincing it into moments oppose it, o o , and discontinuous to the Continuous, and then draw forth the absurdity which yourself had thus put in— (CM III 89) As I have already noted, it was Spinoza who drew the distinction between eternity and finite time (duration). Jacobi is arguing that this is problematic, and that Spinoza is forced into it, in order to avoid proposing either a creation within time, or an infinite time. Coleridge tries to defend the


idea of an infinite time, and in doing so supposes that he is defending Spinoza from Jacobi. Thus he presents Spinoza as replying to the claim that an infinite time is unthinkable by pointing out that a creation in time, or a ‘beginning of Time in Time’, is even more absurd. The real problem with Spinoza’s position lies in the consequences of this dual conception. When it comes to dealing with causality the problem becomes more obvious, since he proposes that finite things are the ‘mediate’ causes of one another, but that they are also caused by God in some other way. This whole problem arises through Spinoza’s adoption of two distinct assumptions: first, that substance is something for which essence involves existence, from which he derives its existence, uniqueness and infinity; and, secondly, that infinity is not a large magnitude but an absence of limitation and division (Ethics I def I, I XVn). The tension between these two assumptions seems to lead him both to his dual conception of eternity/time and cause/‘ground’. Spinoza does not use the word ‘ground’ though, rather he leaves the matter without a specific term. This is the point of Jacobi’s final word on Spinoza: This somewhat more serious fallacy comes about in the same way as the less serious one that Spinoza fell into, in that people adulterate the concept of cause with the concept of ground; the concept of cause loses its particularity by this, and it is made into a mere logical entity in speculation. I have already demonstrated this tendency elsewhere, and I think, sufficiently shown, that the concept of cause, in so far as it is distinguished from the concept of ground, is an empirical concept, which we owe to the consciousness of our causality and passivity— and so it cannot be deduced from the ideal concept of the ground, any more than it can be reduced to it. If you forget the essential difference between the two concepts, and what it is based on, you will allow the one to be substituted and applied for the other, and happily conclude that things can come to be without coming to be; change without changing, and be before and after one-another without being before and after one-another. (ULS 414–16 [144–6]) Jacobi is scoring a real point here. Spinoza’s set of distinctions fails to achieve anything, because if God’s causality is effectively the same as normal causality, then the distinction is redundant. On the other hand, if it is something radically different from ordinary causality, then we are at a loss to know what to do with it, or what it actually means.


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Moreover, there is actually a conflict between the two forms of causality. Spinoza claims that finite beings cause one another, but if God is also a condition for them, then they cannot be sufficient conditions for one another, but only necessary conditions: that is, they are not causes at all, but contributing factors. Therefore, he must either give up ordinary causality, or give up the idea that everything ‘follows from the nature of God’. The only other option is to admit that the two forms of causality are actually the same. Coleridge again objects to Jacobi’s point, but with greater depth and precision than he has before, as though he is becoming increasingly convinced that Jacobi might actually be right: I believe the very Reverse: viz—that we trans-imaginate our own Causality into the phænomena of Nature. Besides, to conjoin is not of necessity to confound the ideas of Ground and Cause—In a finite Intelligence I find a Cause, without that is not a Ground: but when I assume an infinite infinitely powerful Will, as das absolutes Seyn, or God, the Ground is likewise the Cause- and as these are in God essentially united, whatever must be predicated of the former cannot be incompatible with the latter—therefore as we must admit an eternal Grounding, we cannot deny an eternal Causing—Q.E.D.—P.S. Yet I am very far from asserting the semperfluity [always-was-ness10 ] of any created Being, and regard æviternity as the incommunicable attribute of the Son of God and the Spirit proceeding thro’ and from the filial Logos—and am fully persuaded that “Beginning” is the necessary Form under which Dependence must appear to all dependent Beings—in other words, no Creature can conceive of God as his ground without conceiving of him at the same time as his Cause. (CM III 90–1) Coleridge is making repeated attempts to make sense of the dual usage of ground and cause, but he is no longer doing so on Spinoza’s behalf, and instead has his own theological concerns very much to the fore. He begins by suggesting that casualty applies only in the world of the finite, and that we ‘trans-imaginate’ it into God. He then contradicts this and tries to argue that God is the unity of ground and cause. However, this also seems to bother him, so he adds a postscript guarding against the possibility that a finite being could be seen as eternal, saying that ‘æviternity the incommunicable attribute of the Son of God and the Spirit proceeding thro’ and from the filial Logos’. Finally, he suggests


that causality is the ‘necessary form’ of ‘Dependence’ to which all finite beings are subject. This is all a little unclear, but it is possible to piece together a consistent position from it. Coleridge is saying that God is the unity of cause and ground, whereas finite beings can only ever be causes. This is presumably intended to help him avoid the problem that arose from having two forms of causality without completely giving up the distinction. The result is a nonsense which is open to all of the objections that Jacobi has raised in the whole argument. In the first place, Coleridge’s version has a God that uses ordinary causality to act within the temporal world from eternity. The claim that this God qua intelligence is also a ground achieves nothing, and he has done nothing to escape the dilemma that arises from the dual usage, whereby either ground or cause must be redundant, or they must be the same thing. All of this has served primarily to demonstrate Coleridge’s sustained resistance to Jacobi’s interpretation of Spinoza. Indeed, this is so much so that he falls over himself to contradict Jacobi’s characterizations of Spinoza, even when it makes no sense to do so. Of course this is a crucial matter because the pantheism controversy was in many ways fought over the interpretation of Spinoza. Moreover, McFarland assumes that Coleridge’s understanding of Spinoza is essentially the same as Jacobi’s, and this is clearly wrong. The second major development here lies in Coleridge’s ambiguous understanding of Jacobi. He is clearly alive to the possible implications of the dilemma that Jacobi presents through his interpretation of Spinoza. However, he has no stable conception of Jacobi’s own stance with regard to this dilemma and often seems to be imagining that Jacobi has somehow got himself stuck in it by accident. This is why he appears to think that the salto mortale is an accusation levelled by Jacobi at somebody else (Lessing or Spinoza perhaps). It is also shown in the fact that he seems to be unaware of the reasons behind Jacobi’s suggestion that Leibniz’s thought is bordering on Spinozism, by the fact that he comments on Jacobi’s ‘Faith of and in Reason’ (CM III 95), and even in his note on Reimarus: ‘even Jacobi wrote under a Warp—the fear of appearing a Convert to Spinozism’ (CM IV 226). I have suggested that Coleridge was confused by Jacobi’s later change of terminology and development of his arguments. This is born out by the fact that he defends Jacobi with a description of his goals, not as they stood in Über die Lehre des Spinoza, but as he later redefined them in David Hume über den Glauben (See CM III 640–1). This suggests that Coleridge’s reading of Über die Lehre des Spinoza took place within


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a framework that had been established by his reading of David Hume über den Glauben, and possibly his reading of Jacobi’s edition of his Werke, where the terminology is even more dramatically altered, with the substitution of ‘reason’ for ‘faith’, and ‘understanding’ for ‘reason’. This interpretive tension is responsible for heightening the anxiety with which Coleridge contemplates Jacobi’s arguments. Most of the Romantics and German idealists responded with a certain anxiety to Jacobi’s work, which seemed to carry both the possibility of preserving the role of the immediate in thought, and the threat of the collapse of thought into mechanical sterility and nihilism. This anxiety is amplified for Coleridge because of his inability to fully grasp Jacobi’s rhetorical stance, so that his understanding of the implications of Jacobi’s thought is left exasperatingly unsettled. The note on Maass, for example, shows that Coleridge was contemplating the possibility that any insistence on immediate knowledge—such as Jacobi’s or his own hopes for the imagination—might lead to a mechanical determination, as though any immediate connection to the Ding an sich might extinguish human individuality. This heightened anxiety over the possibility of the extinguishment of the individual in the face of the infinite seems to be the hallmark of The Ancient Mariner and Christabel. It is also crucial for his later theology as I argue in Part III.

6 Coleridge, Mendelssohn and the Defence of Reason

Mendelssohn has attracted little attention among Coleridgean scholars, perhaps because his conservative intellectual position did not seem to co-ordinate that well with the image of the ‘transcendentalist’ Coleridge. And yet, Moses Mendelssohn is a central figure for Coleridge because of the crucial role he played in the pantheism controversy with his attempt to defend reason and traditional metaphysics against the encroachments of both Jacobi and Kant.1 Coleridge’s own interest in the idea of the immediate element in knowledge (a` la Jacobi), along with his interest in defending some positive role for reason made Mendelssohn’s Morgenstunden—with its attempt to wrest reason away from both Jacobi’s anti-rationalism and Kant’s critique— a crucial text for Coleridge. Indeed, his understanding of the conflict between these three positions plays a decisive role in the development of his own account of the distinction between reason and understanding. Coleridge’s interest in Kant probably served to heighten this interest, since he annotated selections of Kant’s works, which included both the tract ‘Was heißt: sich im Denken orientieren?’ (criticizing the Morgenstunden), and the ‘Remarks’ on the Morgenstunden which Kant contributed to Jakob’s book attacking Mendelssohn.2 Coleridge would also have been aware that Kant had also criticized Mendelssohn in Kritik der reinen Vernunft before the pantheism controversy started. Indeed, Mendelssohn’s status as the defender and representative of traditional reason against the very different attacks of both Kant and Jacobi meant that the success or failure of his arguments was of profound interest to anyone who was trying to negotiate or re-negotiate the relationship between reason and religion. 90

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Mendelssohn on Spinoza The goal of Mendelssohn’s Morgenstunden was to neutralize the effects of Jacobi’s revelation of Lessing’s Spinozism. One of the main ways he tried to achieve this was to refute Spinoza outright, on traditional metaphysical grounds. The point was that if Mendelssohn could refute Spinoza through the use of reason, it would demonstrate in the best possible way that Jacobi was wrong to suppose that all rational metaphysics led to Spinozism. Mendelssohn tries to attack two of Spinoza’s central concepts: infinity and substance. However, much of the work is done in his initial interpretation of Spinozism, to which Coleridge immediately objects. Mendelssohn’s articulation of Spinozism is deceptively simple and attractive: God, says the Spinozist, is the only necessary, and also the only possible substance. Everything else lives, creates and is nothing outside God; rather they are modifications of the divine being. One is all and all is one. (MW III/2 104 [213–14]) This seems perfectly fair and Mendelssohn quickly points out that it is not exclusively Spinozistic; his own account of God is very similar (MW III/2 105 [215–17]). The difference, he claims, lies in the status of finite beings: Mendelssohn holds that finite beings do not exist in God, whereas The Spinozist claims: there is only one unique infinite substance; for a substance must exist in its own right, require no other being for its existence, and thus be independent. But since no finite being can be independent, no finite being is a substance. This universe, the Spinozist continues, consists of mind and body, following the doctrine of Descartes, which the Spinozist accepts; there is extension and thought; beings that are extended and beings that think. He therefore attributes to his single infinite substance two infinite attributes, infinite extension and infinite thought and this is his One is All, or rather he says that the whole essence of infinitely many finite bodies and infinitely many thoughts constitutes one unique infinite All, infinite in extension and infinite in thought: All is one. (MW III/2 105–6 [215–19]) Mendelssohn understands Spinoza to be saying that there is only one independent substance, and finite beings have no existence outside God.


This much is clear from the beginning of the Ethics, where Spinoza argues that only one infinite independent substance can be conceived (Ethics I I–XIV). Mendelssohn’s depiction of Spinoza also implies that Spinoza’s God is nothing more than its two attributes (thought and extension) and that the sum total of finite beings constitutes God. Coleridge’s marginal commentary begins with a head-on confrontation with Mendelssohn’s understanding of Spinoza’s infinity: This Spinoza repeatedly and earnestly guards against: viz. that God is the collective or gessammte Inbegriff. M. did not understand Spinoza.— (CM III 854) Mendelssohn is really making two slightly different claims. First that Spinoza sees everything as existing in God, so that ‘One is all’. This is indeed Spinoza’s explicit statement, which he repeatedly makes (see Ethics I XIV, XV). Mendelssohn’s second claim is that Spinoza thinks that the sum total of finite beings is God, so that ‘All is one’. These two claims are not, as Mendelssohn seems to imply, the same. There is a difference between ‘existing in’ something, and ‘constituting’ it, because the former implies that finite beings depend on God, whereas the latter implies that God depends on finite beings, which cannot be the case since Spinoza defines God as the only independent being. Mendelssohn’s use of the ‘one is all’ phrasing obscures the difference, by representing both as the identity relation, and therefore both as identical (one is all = all is one). Coleridge’s interpretive point is directed at the second claim: that the sum total of finite beings constitutes God. Coleridge is making a good point here, since Spinoza explicitly argues that the infinite should not be seen as a magnitude or a sum of finites: ‘infinite quantity is not measurable, and cannot be composed of finite parts’ (Ethics I XVn). Coleridge makes this point repeatedly in defence of Spinoza, and the pattern of this defence is very important. By safeguarding Spinoza’s concept of the infinite, Coleridge can effectively defend Spinoza against charges of reductivism. Spinoza’s refusal to allow an identification of finite beings with the infinite is the mechanism that enables him to avoid identifying God with the material world. This was one of the central issues in the pantheism controversy itself, since Jacobi’s assertion that Spinozism amounts to atheism and fatalism relies in part on the traditional view that Spinoza identifies God with the world. Spinoza’s account does not make this identification in its own terms, but the question


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remains whether Spinoza’s concept of infinity is tenable, and whether it can play the role of distinguishing individual beings from God, whilst at the same time maintaining that individual beings exist in God. Mendelssohn continues his argument by attacking Spinoza’s understanding of infinity: Spinoza seems to confuse the infinite in power with the infinite in extent (in quantity); intensive magnitude with extensive magnitude. From infinitely many finite thoughts he constructs, as it were, the infinite in thought. In this way all that arises is the infinite as constituted by extent. However, if the infinite is to be independent, it must not be extensively infinite, but intensively, without limits or boundaries; it must be infinite not in size, but in power, if it is to require no other being for its own existence. (MW III/2 106 [217–19]) Mendelssohn is effectively repeating his previous point about God being made up of an infinite number of finite parts, and applying it to the attribute of thought. He is also starting to suggest that Spinoza’s concept of the ‘infinite’ is problematic. Ironically, he seems to be accusing Spinoza of seeing infinity as a magnitude, which was precisely Spinoza’s own accusation against anyone who criticized his account of the infinite (Ethics I XVn). Coleridge charges Mendelssohn with misinterpretation once more: All this is false as attributed to Spinozism. M. has confounded with it a quite different System, that of the Anima Mundi, non per se sed ex Harmoniâ omnium cum omnibus—a mind the result of an organized Universe—in which God is a coeternal Effect: than which nothing can be more opposite to Spinoza’s System. (CM III 854) According to Mendelssohn, Spinoza constructs infinite thought out of infinitely many finite thoughts. Obviously this is untrue. Mendelssohn is also claiming that Spinoza’s conception leaves God with infinite magnitude but not infinite power. This does seem quite wrongheaded— Spinoza maintains the limitless and indivisible nature of God consistently: ‘From the necessity of the divine nature must follow an infinite number of things in infinite ways’ (Ethics I XVI). This is the point of Coleridge’s objection that Mendelssohn is misreading Spinoza’s theory as that of the ‘Anima Mundi’, and his objection is spot on. The effect of this kind of interpretive experience on Coleridge is crucial.


He can see that defending any form of monistic-immanentist ontology depends upon the kinds of conceptual structures that are built into the concept of infinity. Only by making the infinite structurally incompatible with finitude can charges of reductivism be consistently met. In addition to this critique of Spinoza’s concept of the infinite, Mendelssohn attempts an outright refutation of Spinoza’s concept of substance. He claims that Spinoza’s central arguments rest on a faulty definition of substance, since Spinoza assumes that all substances must be independent or self-sustaining. Mendelssohn argues that this is not a necessary feature of substance, since by substance we normally mean simply something that has some kind of permanence. He concludes that: We too admit that such a self-sufficient substantiality can only belong to the infinite and necessary being, and that it cannot be communicated to any finite being. But we distinguish the self-sustaining [Selbständige] from the self-subsistent [Fürsichbestehenden]. The selfsustaining is independent and needs no other being for its existence. Thus it is infinite and necessary; the self-subsistent though can be dependent in its existence, and nevertheless be present as a being separate from the infinite. That is, beings can be conceived that are not simply modifications of another being, but have their own permanence and are themselves modified. (MW III/2 106 [217–19]) This amounts to an attack on monism, since Mendelssohn is arguing that there can be more than one substance, so long as God is the only one that is self-sustaining. The difficulty here is that the other substances cannot be self-sustaining, so that it is difficult to see what their independence can mean. Indeed, Spinoza would be the first to reply that only one independent being is possible, since two or more of them would involve a necessary limitation of each by each, which amounts to dependence. Moreover, if these other substances are neither independent nor self-sustaining, it is hard to see in what way Mendelssohn can claim that they are separate from God. The mere fact that he reserves permanence and the capacity for modification for them is not enough, since God is permanent too, so that it is perfectly possible to be a part of God, and to be permanent. Mendelssohn’s employment of this distinction to refute Spinoza’s conception of substance is a failure, because it fails to clearly establish the finite individual as distinct from God. Coleridge attacks by questioning the coherence of the distinction


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itself, and suggesting that the real problem with Spinoza is his reliance on substance: Would Mendelssohn have been able to give a distinct Conception of his Fürsichbestehende, that was yet not Selbstständige, in any sense different from that in which Spinoza himself admits it—. Why dwell wholly on one of Spinoza’s metaphors, Modification? Does he not admit, that God thinks the Human Soul as abiding & progressive? Does he deny, that A is A and not B?—Above all, does he not establish an infinite Chasm between God and all finite things?—Assuredly, the defect in Spinoza’s System is the impersonality of God—he makes his only Substance a Thing, not a Will—a Ground solely, & at no time a Cause. Now this Mendelssohn has left untouched—The Question which Sp. would put to M would be—‘If God were to suspend his Power, would that, which now is, still continue to be—just as a House after the Death of the Builder?—’ If he answered, Yes! then indeed there would exist an essential difference between them respecting the aggregate of finite Existents. But then M. would be in opposition to all Philosophers, Jewish & Christian, as well as to Spinoza.— (CM III 855–6) Coleridge even questions the possibility of a substance that is selfsubsisting and yet not self-sustaining. This is perhaps going a little far, since it is perfectly possible to imagine something that exists in itself, but which is not responsible for creating or sustaining itself. The real problem is that such a being is not independent, and cannot really manage to exist without God, so that it does not really amount to a separate substance from God. Such a being, then, is perfectly compatible with Spinoza’s conception of substance, and Mendelssohn has missed his mark. Coleridge claims that the ‘defect in Spinoza’s System is the impersonality of God’, which implies a straightforward dismissal of Spinozism on theological grounds. However Coleridge’s qualification of this is important; he adds that Spinoza ‘makes his only Substance a Thing, not a Will’. The assumption that personhood depends only on the possession of a will is intriguing, but what is more interesting is that he criticizes Spinoza’s treatment of substance as a ‘thing’. This is actually Schelling’s criticism of Spinoza, so that Coleridge is effectively evincing a preference for Schelling’s interpretation of Spinoza, over Mendelssohn’s (see SW VII 349). The focus on will in this context is suggestive of the motivation for Coleridge’s own theological emphasis on the concept.


Will is arising here as the necessary means to defend the distinction between the infinite and the finite. Only by being a ‘will’ can the infinite be completely stripped of objective character, which has the dual benefit of avoiding deterministic results and avoiding a reductive conception of substance. And yet, it is fascinating to find Coleridge himself employing a modified version of Mendelssohn’s distinction to criticize Spinoza: {T}here is a confusion between self-originate and {n}ecessary. There cannot {be} two {se}lf-originate {B}eings, as {th}is Prop. {de}monstrates; {bu}t it does {n}ot follow, {th}at there {m}ay not {b}e two {n}ecessary Beings—A: {a}nd B, {t}he necessary Product {o}f B—: & {t}hese may be equal in all {b}ut {s}elf-origination. (CM V 200) Coleridge is happy to use the same kind of distinction suitably emended. ‘Necessary’ can safely replace ‘self-subsistent’ because ‘necessary’ does not imply differentiation; a necessary being need not be imagined as unconnected to (and therefore limiting of) God. Likewise, ‘self-originate’ is more appealing than ‘self-sustaining’, because it allows for a more dynamic conception of the infinite. In particular, Coleridge’s own account of the Trinity relies on the production of necessary beings (father, son, spirit) that are not self-originate (their existence transfigures the self-originate infinite), but are self-sustaining. Mendelssohn’s final attack on Spinoza expands on his use of the distinction between self-sustaining and self-subsistent by suggesting that Spinoza makes a kind of undeclared differentiation between God and finite beings: If Spinoza will not call them—due to their dependency—substance, then he is just arguing over words. If the difference is accepted in the thing, then one ought to devise another name for the persistence of dependent beings, in order to avoid leaving unnoticed a difference that lies in the thing; and the argument is settled. (MW III/2 107 [219–22]) Mendelssohn is suggesting that by acknowledging that finite beings are not straightforwardly parts of God, but rather are modifications, Spinoza has implicitly acknowledged multiple substances, so that his denial that they are substances is merely a verbal nonsense. Coleridge seems to agree that this is a genuine problem for Spinoza, since his annotation reads ‘Ay! but here is the Rub’ (CM III 856). Of course, it is indeed a


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difficulty, though not necessarily a decisive one. Spinoza’s account of the relationship between finite beings and the infinite is the central difficulty for his system, but to dismiss it as a mere confusion of terms seems a little superficial. Mendelssohn sums up his point by saying that ‘Instead of proving that everything self-subsistent is only one, Spinoza only discovers in the end that everything self-sustaining is only one’ (MW III/2 107 [219–22]). This needs little explanation by this point, but Coleridge retaliates: Here M. and not Spin. plays with words. What does M. mean by Eins? Sp. meant by one, that which being conceived all other things are conceived in it: that which must be conceived, whenever one thing is conceived. Thus, my Thoughts & my Mind are one: not that I therefore think my Mind the mere Aggregate or generic Term of all my Thoughts— (CM III 856) This is one of Coleridge’s sharper comments. He refocuses attention on Mendelssohn’s own underlying assumption, namely that ‘one’ means straightforward numerical identity.3 Of course, for Spinoza it actually means something along the lines of ‘unity’. Coleridge admirably illustrates the problem with his example of the relationship between thoughts and the mind. Coleridge is defending Spinoza on the concept of infinity, and does so with a Schellingian inflection, by suggesting that Spinoza’s concept of infinity is sound, that it avoids the problems of reductivism through its status as unlimited being, and that the only problem is that in the end he treats substance as a thing rather than as a will. By taking this stance he is implicitly trying to defend both pantheism and reason, in precisely the way that Schelling had done.

Mendelssohn’s proof of God’s existence The ontological argument for God’s existence is that the concept of God contains every perfection, including existence, which means that God must actually exist. Of course, all such arguments came under heavy fire from Kant in Kritik der reinen Vernunft, where he argues that existence is not a ‘real’ predicate, since it adds nothing to the subject of which it is predicated. Therefore, existence is a mere positing of the subject: to say God exists does not add anything to the concept of God (KRV 620–30). This would mean that existence cannot be seen as just one more perfection like omniscience and omnipotence.


Mendelssohn responded in Morgenstunden, arguing that the necessary being is a special case, so that what Kant had to say about the concept of existence does not apply to it. He argues that for a necessary being, existence is part of its essence, part of what it is. This would mean that the predication problem would not arise in the same way as it does for contingent beings. He also goes on to suggest that the necessary being necessarily posits all of its properties, so that you cannot refrain from attributing existence to it without destroying the concept (MW III/2 148–57 [308–30]). The basic move of this argument is of course similar to Spinoza’s version of the ontological argument. Spinoza had defined substance as that of which the ‘essence necessarily involves existence’ (Ethics I VII proof). This definition has the strength that the concept of ‘substance’ is inherently bound up with that of ‘existence’, so that for Spinoza the difficulties only arise from the other qualities that he assumes in ‘substance’. The problem for Mendelssohn, by contrast, is that there is no obvious reason why the essence of God in any kind of personal sense should involve existence. Coleridge shows some interest in Mendelssohn’s arguments for God’s existence, but is clearly unsatisfied by them: The unspeakable importance of the Distinction between the Reason, and the Human Understanding, as the only Ground of the Cogency of the Proof a posteriori of the Existence of a God from the order of the known Universe—. Remove or deny this distinction, and Hume’s argument from the Spider’s proof that Houses &c were spun by Men out of their Bodies becomes valid.— (CM III 848) Coleridge is referring to Hume’s counter-argument to the teleological argument for God’s existence (a` la Paley). The teleological argument claims that the universe is too complex and orderly to have been the result of blind chance, so that there must have been an intelligent designer (God). Hume objects that a spider could use a similar argument to prove that the universe must have been spun.4 The point of this objection is that through the concept of ‘design’ the teleological argument slips in an unwarranted anthropomorphic assumption, which is no better than the philosophising spider’s arachnopomorphic assumption.5 Mendelssohn is not making such an argument, but rather a form of ontological argument, but Coleridge’s concern seems to be to defend the general possibility of a rational approach to God through the idea of reason as Logos, as the revelation of


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God. The idea that ordinary rationality cannot manage such ontological significance is obviously derived from Kant, as Coleridge acknowledges in Biographia: For a very long time indeed I could not reconcile personality with infinity; and my head was with Spinoza, though my whole heart remained with Paul and John. Yet there dawned upon me, even before I had met with the Critique of the Pure Reason, a certain guiding light. If the mere intellect could make no certain discovery of a holy and intelligent first cause, it might yet supply a demonstration, that no legitimate argument could be drawn from the intellect against its truth. (BL I 201) Coleridge is acknowledging that the ontological proof a` la Spinoza fails to identify the proved thing with a traditional concept of God (rather it is substance). He is also claiming that his interest in Spinoza was superseded by Kant. Kant had concluded in Kritik der reinen Vernunft that no proofs of the existence or non-existence of God are possible: ‘ the same grounds, which reveal the incapacity of human reason with regard to the demonstration of such a being, necessarily also suffice to show the ineffectiveness of every counterdemonstration’ (KRV 668–9). Coleridge’s claim that he had thought of this line of argument before reading it in Kant is wildly implausible.6 The crucial point though is that Coleridge continues by discussing the relative roles of reason and understanding: The question then concerning our faith in the existence of a God, not only as the ground of the universe by his essence, but as its maker and judge by his wisdom and holy will, appeared to stand thus. The sciential reason, whose objects are purely theoretical, remains neutral, as long as its name and semblance are not usurped by the opponents of the doctrine. But it then becomes an effective ally by exposing the false shew of demonstration, or by evincing the equal demonstrability of the contrary from premises equally logical. The understanding mean time suggests, the analogy of experience facilitates, the belief. Nature excites and recalls it; as by a perpetual revelation. Our feelings almost necessitate it (BL I 203) Coleridge is relying on the understanding to achieve a knowledge of God which is not accessible to reason. Indeed, when he discusses the philosophising spider, Coleridge seems even to be considering

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the possibility that the understanding could manage a proof of God’s existence a posteriori, as he says, where reason cannot hope to. Incidentally, this usage itself is slightly odd, since Coleridge usually uses the distinction the other way around. This suggests that the importance of the distinction lies not in the inherent qualities of its two terms, but in the distinction’s capacity to provide an escape from the Kantian limitations on reason. Of course, employing the distinction between reason and understanding in this way also seems odd, or oddly familiar, since it is rather like Jacobi’s salto mortale, the leap of faith he must make when reason fails. Indeed, this part of Biographia draws heavily on Jacobi.7 Thus Coleridge’s famous comment that ‘my head was with Spinoza, though my whole heart remained with Paul and John’ is certainly a reference to Jacobi and his salto mortale. Thus Coleridge’s reference to reason and understanding in the philosophising spider annotation is deeply involved with Jacobi and Kant. He is siding with Jacobi and Kant against Mendelssohn and saying that the use of rationalistic metaphysics to prove God’s existence is a hopeless task. However, he is also saying that understanding may actually be able to succeed where reason fails, and this runs contrary to Kant. He is also referring to the understanding rather than faith though, and suggesting that a rational proof is possible, so that he is not wholly agreeing with Jacobi. He probably does not have a clear position here, but he is clearly contemplating and reacting to all three positions and trying to establish some kind of capacity for rational activity in conjunction with immediate experience to yield religious truths. When Mendelssohn makes his version of the ontological argument, he begins by explaining Descartes’ and Leibniz’s versions of the ontological argument, so as to draw the contrast with his own version. He says of Descartes: Instead of the necessary he posited the infinite, the most perfect being. It is obvious, that the necessary being can have no alterable boundaries, and so must have all the perfect attributes that a being can have. Now Descartes further concludes that existence is evidently a perfect quality of things; so the concept of the necessary entails within it the perfection of existence; so the necessary must also really exist. (MW III/2 149 [310–12]) Mendelssohn is emphasising the fact that Descartes’ version depends on the assumptions that God must possess all perfections, and that


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existence is a perfection. This is in contrast to his own version which relies only on the idea of a necessary being and avoids defining existence as a quality (in order to escape the Kantian critique). Mendelssohn’s phrasing is a little ambiguous though, since in the second sentence it seems as though he attributes the necessary being version to Descartes, which is not right. Descartes’ version of the ontological argument operates solely with the assumption that God possesses all perfections.8 Coleridge is critical of the Cartesian version: I could never discover in the Cartesian Proof more than this: If I have a clear conception of a necessary Being, i.e. that which cannot be thought of otherwise than as existing: then I must conceive his Existence.—But what compels me to assume a necessary Being? Whatever that be, must, methinks, have anticipated this Proof. If there be any thing at all, it must be either dependent or independent: if the former, there must be the latter, for omne quod dependet, dependet ab aliquo/[everything that is dependent is dependent on something] if the latter, it is of itself. (CM III 859) The ambiguity in Mendelssohn’s phrasing has led Coleridge to confuse the two versions of the ontological argument, and he is now attributing the necessary being argument, which is really Mendelssohn’s, to Descartes. Either way though, Coleridge does point to a problem with the necessary being argument. There is no reason to ‘assume a necessary Being’; there is no reason to think that one of God’s qualities is necessity. Without this assumption the argument never gets off the ground. Coleridge also suggests a way in which it might be possible to argue for a necessary being. This is through the observation that if beings are said to be dependent, then they must be dependent on something, therefore there must be an independent being. The problem is that this demonstrates the existence of an independent being, not of a necessary one. Moreover, it does not even manage this cleanly, since the fact that there are dependent beings does not really require the existence of an independent one: there could be a number of dependent beings dependent on one-another. Coleridge adds What does the Cartesian Proof add to this; but a Verbal Interpretation of a Necessary Being?—or substitute ‘all-perfect’—‘God has all perfections; but Existence is a Perfection; therefore, God exists.’ Yes! if it first be proved, 1. that every clear idea has its correspondent Ideatum or Reale, and 2. that we have a clear idea of an all-perfect Being, and

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that what is so called is not a mere series of Ideas abstracted from this and that, and then asserted collectively. (CM III 859) Coleridge is now focusing on the issues that arise from the concept of perfection. He is referring to the infamous matter of the ‘clear and distinct ideas’ in the Meditations, by which Descartes was supposed to be able to identify the difference between truth and falsity. Coleridge identifies this assumption as a problem along with the problem that the concept of God might be nothing more than a collection of unrelated ideas; it might be just a kind of fantasy, and not capable of performing its role in the ontological argument. He expands on this by proposing that all that can be proved is that the idea of God involves the idea of existence, and draws a parallel with ordinary empirical concepts: Otherwise, it would seem that the Position ought to run thus:— The Idea of God implies all perfections: ergo, Existence as being a perfection. Consequently, in the Idea of God I have the Idea of his Existence. But the BELIEF therefore? Does that necessarily follow?— I have a distinct Idea, whenever I chuse to have it, of a Chain of Mountains in the planet Jupiter 8 times higher than the Andes—the Idea of its being there is of course the Idea of its being there; but not the Belief—If But if by Idea be meant a clear perception of the Actuality of the Thing, then again it is a mere lazy Truism.—The thing to be proved is, not that the Idea of God involves the Idea of his Existence, but that the Idea of God contains in itself the Belief in that Idea. (CM III 859–60) Coleridge is questioning whether, even if we allow that existence is a predicate (contra Kant), and indeed that it is a perfection, that allows us to attribute it to the concept of God. The mere fact that the concept of God involves existence does not, as it were, mean that it actually has it. Coleridge has a point: it is perfectly possible to think of a concept of God that has the qualities of omniscience, omnipotence, all-goodness, and existence as not existing. This relates to Coleridge’s previous point that the concept of God might be a mere collection of ideas, a fantasy. The result is the claim that the ontological argument does not demonstrate that existence is included in the idea of God, but only ‘the Idea of his Existence’. This is a point that Coleridge makes several times in subsequent brief notes (CM III 860–1).


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Coleridge’s final move is to make the obvious objection that any such proof, even if it succeeded, would fall short of establishing the traditional attributes of God: Again, it would require proof that Intellect & Will were Perfections— i.e. positive Attributes, and not (as Spinoza believed himself to have demonstrated) the result of Limitation & Modification. (CM III 860) Coleridge is suggesting that intellect and will also need to be a part of the proof of God’s existence. By implication he is suggesting that even if the ontological proof were to work, and it proved the existence of a God that is omnipotent, there would still be something lacking. Spinoza had, of course, adopted a similar style of argument, but had taken precisely this option, denying intellect and personality to God on the grounds that human minds are the product of the finitude of human beings, and the mind of God could not be conceived as being analogous. This is the point of Spinoza’s famous metaphor of the dog constellation. Mendelssohn’s attempt at an ontological argument was intended both to show that Jacobi had been wrong to dismiss reason altogether, and that Kant had been wrong to limit rational metaphysics. However, the weakness of his attempt tended to achieve exactly the opposite, lending credence to both forms of attack on metaphysics. Coleridge’s reaction may be seen, therefore, as typical. His use of the distinction between reason and understanding in the philosophizing spider annotation seems to acknowledge the Kantian limits on reason, and yet he still tries to suggest that some kind of rational approach to God is possible, whether through ‘faith’ or ‘understanding’. Coleridge is trying to forge a position that will give him both the immediacy of religious knowledge, and the dignity of reason, whilst avoiding both the shifting sands of mysticism, and the horrors of cold rationalism.

Truth and Orientierung Mendelssohn also employs another strategy to defend the claims of reason from the Jacobian critique. This is an attempt to defend the claims of reason directly. In Morgenstunden he proposes a practice of ‘orientation’, in which the results of ‘common sense’ [Gemeinsinn] and ‘speculation’ [Beschauung], when they disagree, are submitted to the judgement of ‘reason’. The idea is that he will have a way to arbitrate the kinds of contradictions between common sense and reason that

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Jacobi had pointed to (e.g. on free will). Mendelssohn also discusses the concept of truth with a view to maintaining the claims of rationalistic metaphysics. In particular he argues for a correspondence view of truth: that truth consists in a correspondence between propositions and states of affairs in the world. The difficulty is that Kant’s critique had problematized such accounts, since it problematizes our access to this external reality. Indeed, Kant himself argues that although knowledge certainly consists in the ‘agreement of a cognition with its object’, nevertheless, no ‘general criterion’ is possible because truth consists in the specific relationship between cognition and object (KRV 83). Thus, Mendelssohn’s account of truth is part of the attempt to defend rationalistic metaphysics from both Jacobi and Kant. Mendelssohn begins by acknowledging a correspondence theory of truth before discussing the problem that we have ‘no means to compare the thoughts with their objects, i.e. the images with their prototypes’ (MW III/2 10 [4–6]). His basic account is: He who says nothing but what he thinks, speaks the truth. Truth in speech is therefore the agreement between words and thoughts, between signs and the signified thing. Since our thoughts correspond to a certain extent to their objects in just the same way as signs to the signified thing, some have tried to apply this explanation generally, and to define the essence of truth as the agreement between words, concepts, and things. All possible and real things, they said, are as it were the prototypes; our concepts and thoughts their images; and the words are like the silhouettes of the thoughts. If the image contains nothing more nor less than is appropriate to the representation, and the silhouette correctly represents what the image contains, there is complete agreement between all three, and this is what we call truth. (MW III/2 10 [4–5]) Correspondence theories of truth define truth as a correspondence between a proposition and a state of affairs in the world. This version has the nuance of the third term ‘words’. In the Logic Coleridge follows Mendelssohn in this nuance, so that this formulation obviously had impact for him. But Coleridge is not entirely satisfied with Mendelssohn’s definition: Instead of Things and Matters of Fact put Ideas and the Verities of Reason on the one hand, and {on the other} the Perceptions and the Forms of Sense, under the conditions taught by Experience—and


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the correspondence of Words to Conceptions, and of these to the Realities of Sense and Reason is no bad answer to the? What is Truth?, i.e. relatively to the Human Mind. Relatively to God the question has no Meaning or admits but of one reply—viz. God himself. God is the Truth—i.e. the Identity of Thing and Thought, of Knowing and Being. (CM III 848–9) The major concerns and anxieties that form the background to Coleridge’s reaction are obvious. Indeed, the outright incoherence of the opening sentence, with its bewildering references to ‘Verities of Reason’ and the like, suggests that Coleridge has no clear idea of what he wants to say, except that he wants to somehow build a bridge between this account of truth and his own concerns. The most obvious of these concerns is the issue of God, who Coleridge insists must manage to actually be the truth somewhere along the line. Moreover, Coleridge refers to God as ‘the Identity of Thing and Thought, of Knowing and Being’, a formulation which is related to his transcendental deduction in Biographia where he argues for a conception of God as the ‘principium commune essendi et cognoscendi’ (the principle of knowing and being).9 After dealing with the concept of truth, Mendelssohn goes on to discuss the kinds of evidences that are available for identifying truth, and the kinds of errors that can occur. In doing so he is generally attempting to defend rationalistic metaphysics from the various arguments attacking it, especially those deriving from Hume. For example, he tries to reaffirm the value of induction: in many cases it suffices to give us complete assurance and set aside all doubts. Every one of us expects with undoubting certainty, that they will die, though the ground of the conviction is no more than incomplete induction. (MW III/2 21) Unsurprisingly, Coleridge is nonplussed and responds to this and similar arguments by commenting that such inductions do not produce ‘certainty’, but rather something that he calls ‘positiveness’: I do not at present recollect any German word fully answering to our “Positiveness”—“I am positive”—but I suspect that my beloved Mendelssohn has here confounded Positiveness with CERTAINTY: or rather the Twilight between both with the full Light of the Latter. (CM III 849)

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Coleridge makes the same point repeatedly in the following pages (see CM III 850). He is obviously, and justifiably, unhappy with this aspect of Mendelssohn’s attempt to defend the role of reason and rationalistic metaphysics. Indeed, Mendelssohn’s attempts to do so are problematic throughout. The ontological argument is an inevitable failure, and his account of truth and evidences does not get very far. Moreover, Kant even accused Mendelssohn of turning his back on ‘common healthy reason’ (as opposed to turning his back only on speculation as Kant had done) through his concept of Orientierung, since it prevents reason from ruling unequivocally.10 Coleridge was no more convinced by Mendelssohn’s attempt than anyone else. However, he does make a few observations in favour of Mendelssohn. In Kant’s ‘Bemerkungen’ on the Morgenstunden, Kant accuses Mendelssohn of utilizing a reliance on ‘common sense’ to dismiss important issues in philosophy, so that he settles some disputes by dismissing them as arguments over words, and others by illegitimately declaring them unanswerable.11 Coleridge plagiarized this entire argument in his chapter on truth in the Logic. Kant also makes the point that Mendelssohn assumes that we can know things about objects other than their behaviour in space and time, the possibility of which Kant feels his critique had ruled out: But if I realise that we know nothing of physical nature other than space (which does not exist in itself, but is simply the condition for locations to be separate from one another, and therefore for mere external relations), nothing of the thing in space, other than that there is space in it too (i.e. it is extended) it follows that no knowledge of force or passive quality, other than moving force and movability (change of external relations) is possible; then let Mendelssohn or anyone else tell me whether I can believe I know a thing according to what it is if I know nothing else of it but that it is something that is in external relations 12 This is an attack on Mendelssohn’s attempt in the Morgenstunden to defend the claims of rationalistic metaphysics, and especially his claim that the gap between propositions and external realities was bridgeable at certain points. Coleridge objects: But would not Mendelssohn question the meagre limit of the word ‘Erkennen’, as arbitrary? Opium is ein körperliches Ding—Do we know nothing of it but Space and Motion? Or do we attach Figure and


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Motion to it by any other Logic, than that by which we predicate its specific Qualities?—If Body in general be meant, it suffices to reply, that this {is} a mere non-ens, or generic Term. (CM III 366) Coleridge asserts outright that we can ‘understand’ more about opium than its relations in space. Kant’s point was that all of our knowledge of physical things is mediated and limited by spatio-temporal relations. Coleridge makes the practical point that our knowledge of opium is not a matter of simple physics and chemistry, since our knowledge of these remains inadequate to fully explain the physiological effects of opium, which we nevertheless understand through experience and induction. This is all rather naive, because it does nothing to show that we can have knowledge of any non-spatio-temporal qualities, since the physiological effects of opium are still a matter of spatio-temporal relations. Besides, even if we give Coleridge his point, it does nothing to help defend the extension of metaphysics beyond time and space. Coleridge’s positioning within all of this is fascinating because, aside from the odd bit of melodrama, he actually followed these developments in a fairly coherent and sophisticated way. Like most of the Romantics and idealists, he is fully cognizant of the limitations that Kant had placed on the use of speculative reason, and is nevertheless contemplating the possibilities for escaping, transcending or even denying these limitations so as to re-ground religious knowledge in some way. On the other hand, he is all too aware that all other paths seem equally fraught with difficulty: one had to choose between the dead-end of Mendelssohn’s metaphysics, the dismaying claustrophobia of Kant’s transcendental position, and the uncertain dangers of Jacobi’s anti-rational mysticism. It is hardly surprising that Schelling’s Vom Ich and Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit would have such a dramatic impact on him, offering, as it must have seemed, the prospect of a new insistence on the immediate in knowledge, a newly revived reason capable of achieving religious significance, in a context that avoided the pitfalls associated with Jacobi.

7 Coleridge and Schelling: The Seductions of Ideal Pantheism

Traditional readings of the relationship between Coleridge and Schelling have meditated on Schelling’s ‘influence’ on Coleridge, and specifically on the ‘influence’ of the System des transscendentalen Idealismus. Such accounts have walked an artificial tightrope, basing claims to Coleridge’s philosophical achievement on his having been influenced by Schelling, and yet trying to defend his originality by effectively showing that he was not influenced by Schelling. The question is how we are to understand this complex intellectual relationship, a relationship that was richly invested with Coleridge’s understanding of contextual issues. The concept of ‘influence’ is inadequate to the task, because it makes no differentiation between different elements in the relationship, and it fails to adequately foreground the fundamental hermeneutic questions. What is at stake, first and foremost, is how Coleridge understood Schelling. The crucial thing that has been missed is the complexity of Coleridge’s understandings of Schelling’s texts. He was not, as many scholars assume, simply reading and reacting to Schelling’s System des transscendentalen Idealismus, but reacting far more intensively to Schelling’s other works, especially Vom Ich and Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit. Moreover, he was also engaging simultaneously with the other works involved in the pantheism controversy. Coleridge’s understanding of these texts can only be understood through this inter-textual complexity, and through a recognition of the hermeneutic circle operating between these texts and Coleridge’s understanding of the central concepts of the controversy (reason, faith, pantheism, immanence). What is at stake in Coleridge’s understanding of Schelling is not his use of a text or an argument from Schelling, or his supposed formulation 108

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of a transcendental position or even a ‘system’, but the ongoing transformation of his conceptions of reason, being and God.

Schelling’s ‘Plotinised Spinozism’ Many of Coleridge’s evaluations of Schelling are explicitly related to the pantheism controversy, and frequently involve a specific comparison between Jacobi and Schelling. The general tenor of these comments can be seen in his note on the flyleaves of the Denkmal: In addition to the harsh quarrelsome and vindictive Spirit that displays itself in this Denkmal, there is a Jesuitical dishonesty in various parts that makes me dread almost to think of Schelling. I remember no man of any thing like his Genius & intellectual Vigor so serpentine & unamiable. To give one instance—his exaltation of the Understanding over the Reason. What Understanding? That of which Jacobi had spoken? No such thing! But an understanding enlightened—in other words, the whole Man spiritually regenerated. There is doubtless much true and acute observation on the indefinite&ness, the golden mists, of Jacobi’s Scheme—but it is so steeped in Gall, as to repel one from it—And then the Fancy is unlithesome & wooden-jointed in the wilful open-eyed Dream—and the Wit, the Would-be-Smile, sardonic throughout. Dry Humor with a vengeance! (CM IV 360) Rumours of Schelling’s conversion seem to have significantly affected Coleridge’s understanding of Schelling, so that he refers here to his ‘Jesuitical dishonesty’. Elsewhere Coleridge refers to Schelling (again in contradistinction to Jacobi) as the ‘?as [first defender] of Catholicism on the Continent’.1 In other words, Coleridge is constructing the dispute between Schelling and Jacobi as arising from the opposition between Jacobi’s pietistic and Schelling’s Catholic backgrounds. The reference to mysticism is interestingly unstable, because Coleridge complains of Schelling’s mysticism elsewhere, but seems to be accusing him of more or less the opposite here. On other occasions Coleridge seems to ground the differentiation in the nature of the two thinkers’ ambitions: in a letter Coleridge says that Schelling is ‘too ambitious, too eager to be the Grand Seignior of the allein selig-machende Philosophie, to be altogether a trust-worthy Philosopher’ but that Jacobi is a ‘Rhapsodist, excellent in sentences all in SMALL CAPITALS’ (CL IV 792).

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Coleridge’s understanding of these two figures is deeply intertwined. He is constructing a fundamental philosophical and religious divide, with Jacobi and Schelling as prime exempla. The categories of judgement that he is using to construct this differentiation present themselves in an unstable way, because they are themselves contested categories, and categories that are part of the hermeneutic process that is constructing the differentiation. There is a hermeneutic circle operating between the specific categorization of Schelling and Jacobi, and the terms used to articulate this categorization, so that Coleridge’s usage of terms like ‘mystical’ is itself one of the most important results of his engagements with these figures. Coleridge consistently focuses on Schelling’s arrogant and ‘unamiable’ nature. This is not unreasonable, as Schelling was indeed known for his tendency to polemic and his pride was widely noted and acknowledged even by his own family and friends. However, it is important not to lose sight of either the intensity of the conflicts taking place, or of the dire consequences which sometimes attended the dispute. The participants in the pantheism controversy were often belligerent, because they were fighting for their own intellectual survival. Another of Coleridge’s notes on the Denkmal continues in a similar vein: In what a moody state of passion Schelling began and ended this Denkmal, is clear from the special Pleading Tricks in the 2nd and 3rd page: in which the sensation excited in the philosophic world is maliciously transmuted into civil persecution. (CM IV 361) Schelling’s text is rather sardonic, and it is not difficult to see what Coleridge is getting at: [Quoting Jacobi] “Twelve years ago when the natural daughter of the critical philosophy, the Wissenschaftlehre, claimed that only the moral world-order is God: what a controversy! a little later the second daughter of the critical philosophy (above-mentioned Alleinheitslehre) completely and explicitly cancelled the distinction that the first had left in place between nature and moral thought, necessity and freedom this explicit cancellation caused no further surprise.” It is hard to say what, in the opinion of this pragmatic account, should have been done to the author of the second system after Kant at least he should have been banished from office and position. Sadly


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not. The writer testifies that he had nothing to do with this oversight. He washes his hands, in innocence.2 Schelling himself was the author of the ‘second system after Kant’, and Fichte was the author of the first. The point is that Jacobi’s attack on Fichte contributed to Fichte’s resignation of his professorship. Thus the first daughter of critical philosophy had indeed been ‘banished from office and position’, so that the intensity of Schelling’s reaction upon being attacked by Jacobi is understandable. Coleridge’s comment that ‘the sensation excited in the philosophic world is maliciously transmuted into civil persecution’ shows a limited understanding of what was really at stake in the altercation between Schelling and Jacobi. This may ultimately be related to Coleridge’s ambiguous understanding of Jacobi (see Chapter 5), so that Coleridge is not quite cognizant of just how direct and dangerous Jacobi’s attacks on his peers were. However, he is clearly aware of what was at stake philosophically: if the ‘mystical’ Jacobi was right, even the genius of Schelling could not escape collapsing into a cold nihilistic pantheism. Schelling accepted the label of pantheist and repeatedly argues against dualism. Moreover, he explicitly defends Spinoza in Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit whilst simultaneously differentiating his own position from Spinoza’s. He argues that pantheism and determinism are two separate issues, and that although Spinoza is a determinist, it is not because of his pantheism. However, this association with Spinoza is a major point of concern for Coleridge, and he repeatedly refers to it in his generalizing comments about Schelling: Schelling is the Head and Founder of a philosophic Sect, entitled Natur-philosophen, or Philosophers of Nature. He is beyond doubt a Man of Genius, and by the revival and more extensive application of the Law of Polarity (i.e. that every Power manifests itself by opposite Forces) his System is extremely plausible and alluring at a first acquaintance. And as far as his attack on the mechanic and corpuscular Philosophy extends, his works possess a permanent value. But as a System, it is little more then Behmenism, translated from visions into Logic and a sort of commanding eloquence: and like Behmen’s it is reduced at last to a mere Pantheism Schelling is a zealous Roman-Catholic, and not the first Philosopher who has adopted this sort of Plotinised Spinozism for the defence of the Polytheism and Charms of the Church of Rome. (CL IV 883)

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This implies that at this stage (1818), Coleridge no longer found Schelling’s system alluring (so he says). Once again, Coleridge refers to Schelling’s supposed Catholicism and even makes out a connection between this and his ‘Spinozism’. The connection between pantheism and polytheism is also in the foreground, as indeed it is in his discussions of Spinoza, and Coleridge once again condemns Schelling as a mystic, comparing him to Böhme. Coleridge is effectively claiming that Schelling’s philosophy fails because it collapses into Spinozism, as a result of his ‘Catholic’ attempt to use the Plotinian notion of the selfcreation of To to generate Deity. The idea of the self-creation of To is part of the neo-platonic mystical tradition, so that Coleridge uses the term ‘mystic’ to designate the self-creation story here, in contrast to the way he previously used the word to designate Jacobi’s insistence on immediate apprehension of God. Coleridge makes several other comments regarding Schelling’s ‘Spinozism’, and in rather surprising places. In the course of discussing the status of the self in System des transscendentalen Idealismus Schelling says: Since none of the predicates that belong to things belong to the self, we can explain the paradox, that you cannot say of the self, that it exists. Specifically, you cannot say of the self, that it exists, because it is being itself. The eternal, timeless act of self-consciousness that we call self, gives existence to everything, and thus requires no other being to maintain it; but instead maintaining itself, appears objectively as eternal becoming and subjectively as infinite producing. (SW III 375–6) This is crucial to Schelling’s ongoing argument, and elements of this account of the self are adopted by Coleridge in Chapter 12 of Biographia. Schelling’s point is to deny that the self can be thought of as a thing at all, and therefore to deny that it could resemble Kant’s Ding an sich. However, it is also related to Schelling’s criticism of Spinoza that ‘The mistake of his system is not that he sets the things in God, but that there are things He also treats the will as a thing ’ (SW VII 349). Thus Schelling rather radically denies that the self ‘exists’, essentially because it is merely an aspect of the endless activity of self-consciousness. Coleridge responds: the Spinosism of Schelling’s System first betrays itself: tho’ the very comparison des reinen Ichs zum geometrischen Raume ought by its


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inadequacy & only partial fitness have rescued him. Im Raume the materia & the limiting power are diverse. (CM IV 456) The relationship between the infinite and the individual in Spinoza is a great difficulty, and it is this tendency for the self to disappear into the infinite that Coleridge is branding Spinozism. However, this also points to a fundamental problem for Coleridge, since in adopting much of Schelling’s thought on the self in Chapter 12 of Biographia he seems to be following Schelling into precisely this kind of problem. Many commentators imagine that Coleridge’s interest in German idealism was in part an attempt to escape the ‘influence’ of Spinozism, largely because Coleridge implies as much in Biographia. This marginal note alone demolishes this traditional picture because it shows that Schelling and Spinoza were not simply interchangeable ‘influences’, but rather that Spinozism is a category through which Coleridge continues to understand Schelling. The central motif of the pantheism controversy is Jacobi’s argument that the pursuit of rational philosophy leads to an entrapment in Spinozism, and I have repeatedly argued that this is related to Coleridge’s depiction of the dangers of metaphysics. Indeed, I suggested that it is possible to read The Eolian Harp in these terms. It is hardly surprising, given Coleridge’s view that Schelling was similarly led into some form of pantheism or undeclared Spinozism, that he comes to express similar fears about Schelling’s thought. On several occasions Coleridge suggests that Schelling’s thought was itself an entrapment into which he had fallen: The inconsistency Schelling has contrived to hide from himself by the artifice of making all knowledge bi-polar, Transcendental Idealism as one Pole and Nature as the other—and from the tendency of my mind to confidence in others I was myself taken in by it, retrograding my own prior and better Lights, and adopted it in the metaphysical chapters of my Literary Life—not aware, that this was putting the Candle horizontally and burning it at both ends. Schelling himself, however, would have put me on my guard; but that at that time I knew little or nothing of any of his works, except his Transcendental Idealism. (CL IV 874) The denial that he knew any other Schellingian texts at the time of Biographia is completely disingenuous, as he also draws on Vom Ich and Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit. But the motivation for

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this denial is clear: he wants to retrospectively distance himself from pantheism, and the pantheistic implications of many of Schelling’s works, so he focuses attention on System des transscendentalen Idealismus, and denies an in-depth knowledge of the texts where pantheism was more in the foreground. In Chapter 8 I examine Coleridge’s use of Schelling in Biographia, and in doing so I argue that Coleridge’s anxiety of pantheism is responsible for the breakdown of his argument. The fact that he went on in later years to say that he had been ‘taken in’ by Schelling is part of this same tendency. He gives a similar, though less damning, account in the ‘Opus Maximum’ MS: An onward look of prophecy will not misbeseem us at this moment of our subject in which we are to pause with “the prophetic soul of the whole world, dreaming of things to come.” We shall recommence with that new and distinct energy by which we if not leap, yet stride into the world of light, like Orpheus. The command is that we keep our eye steadily toward the light that is to come, lest like Orpheus looking backward on the phantom [which] though prophetic semblance of life which [is] behind us, and endeavouring to produce the reality out of the phantom itself by an intensity of our own contemplation, we lose the one forever and leave the other forever a phantom. Such it appears to me has been the proceeding of Schelling and of a yet more Orphic mind, H. Steffens. (OM I 91–2) Thus Schelling’s philosophy is compared both to the seductive music of Orpheus and the mistake of looking backwards, specifically the mistake of looking to the ‘phantom of life’ and attempting to create reality out of it. This ‘phantom of life’ can be seen as pantheism (and obviously Naturphilosophie) and the light as theism, so that the siren call of Schelling’s thought is synonymous with that of Spinozism. Of course, in constructing the image in these terms, Coleridge is implicitly understanding Schelling in terms of his relationship to Jacobi.

Schelling contra Jacobi In his ‘Note on Spinoza’, Coleridge makes a brief summary of Schelling’s and Jacobi’s understandings of Spinoza. His account of Schelling’s is:


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Spinoza’s System is chargeable with deficiency and imperfection rather than with absolute positive error; that the passages, that are least defensible, are not essential to the system, but engrafted on it by the mechanical philosophy of the age, from which Spinoza had not emancipated himself, and by the authority of his Master, Des Cartes, whose definition of Matter, as extension, he had adopted in his early studies; but that the Ethics taken as a whole is so far from being incompatible with the doctrines of Religion that it is the Skeleton of the Truth, but lifeless, repulsive and alarming because it is only the Skeleton. (SW&F I 622–3) This is indeed an important part of Schelling’s interpretation of Spinoza in Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit. Schelling wants to affirm what he takes to be a fundamental or immediate insight in Spinozism, whilst simultaneously affirming his own philosophical identity by implying Spinozism’s incompletion, which can, he claims, be seen and understood from the superior perspective of idealism: You could compare Spinozism in its rigidity with the statue of Pygmalion, which must be animated by the warm breath of love; but the comparison is imperfect, because it is more like a work which has been drafted only in its basic outlines, and in which, if it were alive, you would immediately see the many missing or incomplete lines. (SW VII 350) Schelling is arguing that pantheism in itself is not fatalism and that Spinoza’s determinism is unrelated to his pantheism. This argument is geared to Schelling’s overall objective of defending pantheism and free will, and all of this is tacitly aimed at Jacobi. Coleridge claims that Schelling blames Spinoza’s determinism on the influence of ‘mechanical’ philosophy, whereas in fact Schelling never makes this claim, blaming Spinoza’s determinism instead on his failure to give an adequate account of will. Coleridge’s interpretation of Schelling is a slight, but interesting, misprision, since he is projecting onto Schelling an explanation for Spinoza’s determinism that Schelling does not suggest. In contrast to Schelling, Coleridge does not want to argue that there is no connection between pantheism and determinism, but rather avoids the whole issue by describing Spinoza’s thought as some kind of overcorrection (see SW&F I 623–4). On the other hand, Coleridge does to some extent defend Spinoza’s determinism elsewhere, and it will be

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recalled that he was very critical of Jacobi’s interpretation of Spinoza. Coleridge finds almost nothing to comment on in the passages in which Schelling completes his interpretation of Spinoza. Given that Coleridge’s explicit statement is that he ‘greatly prefers’ Schelling’s interpretation, along with the fact that it coincides in many ways with Coleridge’s own comments on Spinoza, it is plausible to read this silence as a tacit approval. Schelling’s attacks on Jacobi’s uses of the terms ‘reason’ and ‘understanding’ also elicited a heightened interest from Coleridge. Jacobi made himself an easy target here, and Schelling’s scathing attack in Zur Geschichte der neueren Philosophie is typical: It was unarguably due to this exclusion of every personal relationship from reason, that Jacobi in his earlier works and his better time put reason, with its exclusion of everything empirical, below the understanding. How completely he moved away from his initial intention and initial aim, is demonstrated by the fact that in the collected edition of his works, which he compiled at the end of his life, he informed his readers that everywhere he had earlier used the word ‘reason’ and pointed to its negative character, ‘understanding’ should now be read, and where ‘understanding’ was used ‘reason’ should now be read—as though to destroy thereby every vestige of his earlier, better aspirations. (SW X 173) This is not entirely correct, since Jacobi actually replaced ‘faith’ with ‘reason’ and displaced ‘reason’ into ‘understanding’. What is really at stake here is the understanding of reason itself: Schelling is implying insincerity on Jacobi’s part, managing to both condemn Jacobi for irrationalism and yet stake out his own position on ‘immediate’ knowledge. Schelling also attacks Jacobi on the relationship between reason and understanding by attacking the distinction itself, and the priority that Jacobi gives to the newly rechristened reason. Jacobi is consistent with his earlier arguments in that he still claims that rationalistic philosophy, philosophy based on what he now calls understanding, leads to a dismal nihilism, whereas the truths of religion can only be attained through some kind of immediate apprehension, which is (now) a part of ‘reason’. In the Denkmal Schelling argues that understanding is the productive and useful element of human knowledge, whereas reason, although fundamental, is relatively useless. When it is recalled that reason is the faculty of immediate self-evident truths, whereas


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understanding is the faculty of practical rationality, it is easy to see what he means. Although the self-evident truths achieve an elevated level of certainty, they are also very limited and almost banal; they are virtually useless because they tell us nothing about the kind of universe we actually live in. As Schelling puts it: The reason knows only the immediate, that which cannot be being, it is like the woman in the house, dependent on the substance, the o ; reason must adhere to this, so that the house stays in prosperity and order; reason is the synthesising, the limiting, whereas the understanding is the expansive, the developing, the active. (SW X 174) The editors of the Coleridge marginalia also point out that in an article in the Jahrbücher der Medicin, Schelling expresses the opposite view that reason has priority (CM IV 369n17–1). However, the fact that Schelling repeated the argument for the preference of understanding many years later in Zur Geschichte der neueren Philosophie shows at least that this view was more than an inconsistently polemic attack on Jacobi at the time of the Denkmal. Coleridge disagrees sharply. Thus in the Denkmal when Schelling says ‘We attribute reason to all, to how many understanding?’ (SW VIII 98), Coleridge responds with the flatly dismissive comment ‘What can be a more childish Log{o}machy than this?’ (CM IV 369). Moreover, Coleridge implicitly supports Jacobi’s usage, and the priority of reason over understanding by adding: If the Understand{ing} be confined to Relations of Time an{d} Space, and its only implements be general terms and {? Notions} (Schell{ing’s} own de{fin}ition), then assure{dly} the Rea{son} must have {?its} first { } in the things above Space {&} Time. (CM IV 369) Shortly following this Schelling outlines (in dialogue form) a criticism of Jacobi’s usage on the basis that understanding and reason are really not so separate as Jacobi supposes, and that the distinction is meaningless when confronted with the importance of matters of religion: You say in your book that knowledge must remain neutral with regard to the doctrines of God, Freedom and immortality.—Neutral? With regard to the most spiritual truths of all! Do you think that a division of man into head and heart, reason and understanding can stand before God? (SW VIII 109–10)

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This neutrality of Jacobi’s is a decidedly Kantian motif, since it reflects Kant’s argument that the attempt to apply reason to purely metaphysical questions will result in contradictions. Jacobi uses Kant’s technique of showing that metaphysical questions get stalled in contradictions for his own specific purposes, namely showing the limits of reason itself. Schelling characteristically objects because he wants to preserve a role for some kind of immediate perception within the ambit of critical reason. Coleridge has the same basic idea in mind, but also wants to preserve a role for the distinction between reason and understanding. Crucially for Coleridge though the whole point of the project is to preserve reason’s capacity to approach ontological truth, so that he understands Schelling’s opposition to Jacobi in precisely those terms: The notion of his adversary, that the noblest gifts of the Spirit, the Reason and the Understanding should be excluded from all spiritual ministries, and that the highest faculties of man should be forbidden to assist in the solution of the great Problem, which they are instinctively compelled to propose, he rejects not only as irrational but as irreligious. (SW&F I 622) Over the previous few chapters a picture of Coleridge’s engagement with German thought has emerged that exposes the depth of Coleridge’s engagements with ‘reason’ as a contested category. This is crucial not only for understanding Coleridge’s understanding of the pantheism controversy but also for understanding Coleridge’s own later accounts of reason.

Ungrund and Indifferenz: Schelling’s speculative ontology The central concept of Schelling’s Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit is the Grund which consists of the Indifferenz of all antitheses, including good and evil. The Grund is the primal source of all being, so that he describes it as ‘Urgrund oder vielmehr Ungrund’ (SW VII 406), and I use Ungrund throughout because Coleridge picks up on this terminology, and because it helps to emphasize the radical undifferentiatedness it represents. In order to achieve personhood this Ungrund had to develop from its original Indifferenz into genuine differentiation, it ‘divided light from the dark world’ (SW VII 403). This separation is necessary, Schelling argues, for God to become progressively personal. God is thus the absolute


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ground of all existence, but can only have existence to the extent that the Ungrund is transformed from its original Indifferenz. Moreover, he argues that finite creation amounts to the opposite pole of the newly created distinctiveness that occurs as the indifference of the Ungrund is brought into distinct antitheses: it is the finitude opposed to God’s infinitude. Indeed it is important to note that the whole point of this is to account for the infinite, to find a way to make it compatible with finite (determined) existence. All of this leads to a crucial result. It amounts to a mechanism by which Schelling seeks to solve the problem of evil; evil becomes a mere side effect of the revelation of God, of God’s act of selfcreation in order to achieve personality. Moreover, since the primal existence of evil is meaningless (it consists of a mere indifference to good), Schelling is able to have a God that is the absolute, without at the same time being responsible for evil, and yet do so without attenuating the concept of evil to the point of meaninglessness. Thus Schelling, like Spinoza, denies that evil has reality, but he does so in a more sophisticated way, since Spinoza’s claim that evil is a mere negation leaves no coherent way to understand the phenomenon of evil at all. The other crucial result of Schelling’s basic ontology is that God is not perfect in the sense of having a perfect existence from eternity. Instead, creation itself is God’s striving for perfection and personality, since creation is nothing more than the realization of God’s potential, a realization that is incomplete. The idea that the universe is the same thing as the realization of the potential of God is familiar from Spinoza, but two elements here are radical and new: the positing of an Ungrund, and the startling thesis that God is imperfect, or in the process of realizing perfection. Given this account, it is easy to see that Schelling would treat the appellation of pantheism, or the immanence of things in God, with some disdain. As he puts it, in a passage implicitly aimed at Jacobi:

It is easy to say that a system teaches the immanence of things in God; and with regard to us, for example, it says nothing even if it could not exactly be called untrue. For we have shown well enough that all natural entities have a mere being in the ground, or in the primal longing that has not yet risen to unity with the understanding; and thus shown that they are merely peripheral beings with regard to God. (SW VII 410–11)

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Indeed, the rather loose idea of pantheism, as designating any theory that maintains the immanence of things in God, seems trivial and hopelessly vague in comparison to Schelling’s account. Moreover, the word ‘pantheism’ is frequently used to imply a lack of a personal God which is not true of Schelling’s account. It is no surprise that Coleridge finds much to object to, although at the same time Schelling’s account has a schematic similarity to his own conception of the Trinity. Coleridge increasingly objected to any pantheistic conception purely on the grounds of its failure to attribute personality to God, but in this case he could not but be aware that such a simplistic dismissal was unwarranted. Thus, his strongest line of attack is to argue that Schelling’s account does not manage to do what it promises, and that it collapses into a cruder pantheism, which can be dismissed. In the Denkmal, Schelling is engaged in a polemic attack on Jacobi, in response to the latter’s accusations of pantheism and atheism. Early in the piece Schelling explains his theory of the relationship between God and nature: ‘We understand by nature the absolute identity, insofar as it is to be contemplated not as existing, but as the ground of its own being.’ Here the existing absolute identity is to be distinguished from the not-existing, which is merely the ground of its existence (in my terms as much as the ‘basis’), and only the latter is called nature. So I hold that nature is the not (yet) existing (merely objective) absolute identity Since further that which exists must be generally above that which is only the ground (basis) of its existence, it is clear by the same token, that the existing absolute identity (God understood immanently; God as subject) must be set above nature, the not-existing— merely objecive—absolute identity. (SW VIII 25) Schelling is using ‘not-existing’ [nicht-seyende] to designate undifferentiated, un-actualized being, whereas ‘existing’ [seyende] is reserved for being that has achieved actuality. This is related to the theory of God outlined above in that God is said to have ‘existence’ because God amounts to the realized potential of the Ungrund. Nature on the other hand has not yet reached this point: Nature is the first or old testament, since the things are still outside the centre and so are still under the law. Mankind is the beginning of the new covenant, through whom as intermediaries (since mankind


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is connected with God) God (after the last separation) assumes nature and becomes it. Mankind is the redeemer of nature, at which all its archetypes aim. (SW VII 411) Schelling sees nature as relatively un-actualized (‘non-existing’), and thus it is merely an early product of the process of the self-realization of God. In a very real sense then, the charge that Schelling identifies God with nature would not be fair, unless it was made within the ambit of a more general criticism of his whole set of distinctions and his ‘evolutionary’ theory of God. Coleridge hints towards this in a marginal note: What but words are won by this distinction? The World, as the aggregate of Particulars and Individuals, is it or is it not distinguished from Nature der nicht-seyende? If not, the position is nonsense. If it be, then the World according to Schelling is God—and {“}über ihr sey nichts.” (CM IV 362) At first glance this seems rather a simplistic condemnation of Schelling, but Coleridge has at least a partial point. In conceiving of nature as ‘nonexisting’, Schelling seems to have arrived at a conception which is not recognizable as the ordinary everyday world of nature. Shelling does not mean to say that nature does not exist in the ordinary sense of the word, but rather that it is not actualized to the extent necessary for the title of ‘existence’ rather than ‘being’. If this is all he means, then it becomes difficult to see the force of his distinction, because it starts to sound like a distinction between the universe as actual, and the universe as potential, or perhaps something like Spinoza’s distinction between natur naturans and natur naturata, nature naturing and nature natured. Indeed, it may be even weaker than this, since he does not identify nature as the potential pole of a dichotomy, but rather suggests that it is merely a partial realization of potential, so that the difference between God and nature is only a matter of degree. But then Schelling’s ontology collapses into materialism. Given Coleridge’s understanding of Jacobi and Mendelssohn, it is easy to see the tensions at work in Coleridge’s mind; he wants to be able to champion a role for reason that will yield a system of immanence that does not collapse into a crass materialism.3 As unhappy as he often is with Schelling, Coleridge has accepted that Schelling represents a kind of test case. Something like this must, he thinks, be made defensible. On the back flyleaf of his copy of Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit, Coleridge makes a more penetrating and consistent commentary

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on Schelling’s God. The note deals mainly with the problem of evil, but it does in passing suggest Coleridge’s dissatisfaction with Schelling’s concept of the Ungrund: And after all this mysticism, what is the result? Still the old Questions return, & I find none but the old answers.—This Ground to God’s existence either lessens, or does not lessen, his Power—in the first, it is in effect a co-existent God, evil because the ground of all evil—in the second, it leaves us, as before. With that “before” my understanding is perfectly satisfied. (CM IV 443) Coleridge’s point is that if the Ungrund is external to God, then Schelling has really just removed all evil from God by creating an anti-God. Schelling’s arguments about good and evil being a mere Indifferenz in this ground notwithstanding, since the problem is that if this ground is separate, and not subject to God, then Schelling has indeed wound up with two Gods—be they good and evil, or good and indifferent. On the other hand, if the Ungrund is subject to the power of God, then it is difficult to see what role it can actually play. If this is the case, then God remains responsible for evil, because evil is a product of the Ungrund, over which he exercises power. One of the ways that Schelling distinguishes his pantheism from Spinoza’s is by pointing to the influence of idealism on his conception. In particular he wants to claim that instead of Spinoza’s single substance, in which all individual things have their being, he has an active principle, based on will. However, he also points out that this does not materially alter the problems that arise from pantheism, the problems of free will and evil: Just the same it would be an error to believe that pantheism has been sublated and cancelled by idealism; a belief that could only arise from a confusion with one-sided realism. For it is just the same to pantheism whether there are individual things conceived in an absolute substance, or just as many individual wills conceived in a primal will. (SW VII 352) This is all part and parcel of Schelling’s differentiation of his theory from Spinozism, and of his separation of pantheism from other aspects of Spinozism (especially determinism). Moreover, it is written with an obvious reference to Jacobi and the pantheism controversy, so that Schelling seeks to undermine any attempt to dismiss pantheism as


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deterministic. At the same time he must re-work pantheism into a form that will enable him to escape and overcome the Jacobian critique, and it is through the idea of will that he seeks to do so. This point does not seem to find favour with Coleridge who comments ‘The ? is, do not these single Wills so included in the one “Urwille” become “Things”?’ (CM IV 423). Coleridge is showing an awareness of Schelling’s overall argumentative strategy, and is attacking it by suggesting, once again, that Schelling’s ideal pantheism collapses into a crude material pantheism. It is difficult to decide what Coleridge means here; if he is simply trying to collapse individual wills into things, then he has simply missed the point. On the other hand, if he means that the individual wills are structurally similar to things, in the sense that they are determined by other wills (because they are not infinite), then he might have a point. It is hard to see how the existence of a series of determined or limited ‘wills’ provides an escape from the deterministic tendencies of pantheism, because they wind up behaving just like ‘things’ anyway. For Schelling’s argument to work he needs the idea of will to be somehow synonymous with ‘unlimited’ or ‘undetermined’. The final aspect of Schelling’s account of God that draws fire from Coleridge is the idea that God is imperfect, or at least is not perfect from all eternity. This is hardly surprising—Schelling has been forced into this in order to account for the existence of an unlimited personal being. The problem is that personality implies determination, and infinity implies the opposite. The question is how to escape the dilemma: Does creation have a final purpose, and if it does, why isn’t it immediately realised, why doesn’t the perfect exist from the beginning? There is no answer except the one already given: because God is a life, not merely a being. But everything that lives has its fate, and is subject to suffering and becoming. And God freely submitted to this too, right at the beginning, when, in order to become personal, he divided the light from the dark world. (SW VII 403) Coleridge objects: These are hard Sayings. Is not the Father from all Eternity the {?Seiend} one?—and frey-willig sich unterwor{fen} um persönlich zu werden! Do not { } the end. (CM IV 441)

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To say that God exists from all eternity implies that God is outside of time, which is an orthodox kind of claim. The point is that Schelling’s God, in order to be able to develop, must exist within time. Indeed, this is the whole idea: if the existence of the absolute is to allow for determined (finite) things, then it must somehow become subject to determination and differentiation. Causality is a difficult problem for any meaningful pantheism, and it is so for Spinoza and Schelling both. By claiming that all things have their being in God, pantheism claims that God is the cause of all things. But if the meaning of this causality is the same as ordinary causality, then the pantheistic system is in danger of indeed becoming a kind of crass mechanical materialism, since it would mean that God is some ordinary cause, albeit the first and universal one. The way to avoid this is to distinguish the kind of causality that operates between God and finite beings, from that which operates between ordinary finite things. Spinoza does this by claiming that all things ‘follow from God’, even though they all have ‘mediate’ (ordinary) causes which are other finite things. The kind of causality that God exercises then becomes some kind of underlying ground of existence. Moreover, since it is different from ordinary causality, it need not be seen as maintaining a distinct cause-effect relationship. Thus, for Spinoza, God is at once cause and effect of everything (it is causing itself). This is problematic since it leaves the relationship between divine and ordinary causality, as well as the relationship between God and individuals, inscrutable. Schelling is left with a similar picture, but with the added complexity that he has another entity, the Ungrund, to account for. In one attempt to articulate the difference between the two types of causality, Schelling argues: You say, for example, that the cause by which a body is electrified, is another body, with which it came into contact. This explains nothing. For how did the contact with the other body create electricity? The body is the condition, or occasion of the electrifying, but not its cause, and you can extend the chain of these conditions infinitely, without ever arriving at the real cause. (SW VII 43) A system of dual causality is emerging here, and Schelling even designates divine causality as ‘true cause’ and dismisses the ordinary sort as a ‘series of conditions’. Moreover, he is implicitly making the point that the chain of ordinary causes is ultimately inexplicable, since one can


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continually ask what causes the cause: if A causes B, then what that causes the causing? Thus like a child one can keep on asking ‘why?’ until the only possible answer is ‘just because’. Moreover, this ‘just because’ is not really an avoidance of the question, it is an attempt to focus attention on the useful (explicable) chain of causes. Coleridge’s response is erudite and uncomprehending: So said Spinoza, so Berkley—but what does this mean more or other than the Schoolman’s occasional caus{e} and who ever supposed that a thing any but God & Spirit, could be a cause in any other sense, than as—the Phænom{enon} A would not be if B. had not been? (CM IV 353–4) The explanation that A would not have been if B had not covers both kinds of causality. Coleridge suggests that divine causality is something other than this, which obviously it cannot be, and nor was this Schelling’s suggestion. Rather, Schelling is suggesting that the explanation of the ordinary chain of causes is incompletable, but that somewhere underlying it is divine causality: Every real cause is thus the immediate first cause, and this goes for all agencies, so that nothing in the ground is a cause, because nothing is an effect, everything is equally absolute, and the law cancels itself. (SW VII 43) Thus the divine causality (‘real cause’) is an underlying immediate cause for everything, and finite things are not, in a real sense, causes or effects. Coleridge responds: Who ever meant by Cause any more than such {a} corres{p}ondence {b}etween two Phænomena, that A + B = C. Sch. seems to talk as {i}f by Cause {w}ere meant Creation. (CM IV 354) Schelling does mean that divine causality is the same thing as ‘creation’. Either Coleridge is only just grasping the nature of Schelling’s argument, or he is being deliberately difficult because he implicitly wants to break down the distinction between the two types of causality. Either way, it is plausible to suppose that even if he is not really following here, he would have objected if he had understood, since the previous note provides a definition of causality which covers both of Schelling’s kinds of causality, and thus implicitly undermines the distinction between the two.

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The problem for Coleridge is obvious. In spite of all that Schelling’s speculative ontology appears to offer, he finds himself trapped in the same old dilemmas, and confronted by the same deeper questions about being, causality and God. In reading Schelling he is urgently trying to find an account of immanence that will genuinely answer Jacobi, that will supply the flesh to cover the Spinozistic skeleton.

Freedom For Schelling, the central problem of all philosophy is the problem of human freedom. Of course, freedom is a problem for any account, but for Schelling it is doubly so, since his conception of God is pantheistic, so that God is the cause (in some sense) of everything. The question then is, how can finite human beings also be the cause of their own actions? It is undeniable that the fatalistic perspective can be combined with it [the doctrine of immanence]; but the fact that so many are driven to it precisely by the most lively feeling of freedom, shows that the two are not essentially connected. The majority, if they were honest, would say that given the nature of their ideas, individual freedom seems incompatible with all of the characteristics of a highest being, such as omnipotence. In freedom a power absolute in principle outside and alongside the divine is claimed, which is unthinkable by these ideas. Just as the sun in the heavens extinguishes all other celestial lights, so, or even more so, the infinite power extinguishes every finite one. (SW VII 339) Schelling’s strategy is to suggest that the problem of freedom is just as much a problem for theistic positions as it is for pantheistic ones. He suggests that there is an incompatibility between freedom and the basic definition of God as omniscient, omnipotent and all-good. For instance, if God is omnipotent, then it is hard to see how the existence of finite powers outside God can be meaningful. There is of course a whole tradition of arguments which try to show such an incompatibility, such as the argument that God’s omniscience requires a knowledge of all future events, and if these events are knowable, they must already be predestined, and thus out of our control. Similarly there are traditional arguments that try to show that the definition of God is internally incompatible, since, for example, if God knows all of his own future actions, he has no freedom himself, or at least he lacks the power to


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control his future actions, which contradicts his omnipotence. It would be ridiculous to suppose that Coleridge was not familiar with all of this, and would not have seen the implications of Schelling’s brief glance in this direction. However, his annotation of this passage seems a little confused: But is no{t} this still {a} carrying {of} the physic{al} Dynamic{s} into the moral? {? Even} admitting the incongruous Predicate TIME, in the Deity, I cannot see an{y} absolute incompossibility of Foresight with Freedom. (CM IV 421) This is an interesting case, where Coleridge’s background knowledge seems to actively intrude into his reading of the text, and leads him to misunderstand it. Schelling is discussing the argument from God’s omnipotence, but Coleridge answers it with a critique of the argument from God’s omniscience. Coleridge makes the obvious and common point that God is thought to exist outside time, so that God’s fore-knowledge is not ‘fore’ at all, since this implies a temporality that does not apply to God. Thus he dismisses the problem, saying there is no ‘absolute incompossibility of Foresight with Freedom’. Regardless of his misconstrual of Schelling’s point, the purpose of Coleridge’s note is clear: he is trying to dismiss the problem of freedom in its specific attachment to the standard conception of a theistic God, and he is doing so through the idea of eternity as timelessness, as opposed to Schelling’s focus on an evolutionary absolute that accounts for freedom as a consequence of its capacity for development. In System des transscendentalen Idealismus Schelling poses the same problem, but without the additional polemic goals of his account in Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit, and also without reference to God. Rather he proposes it as a general problem of philosophy. He breaks the problem down by considering two fundamental convictions that reason is committed to: ‘A. That not only is there a world independent of us, but also that our representations agree with it, and that there is nothing else in the things, except what we represent’, and ‘B that representations which arise freely and without necessity in us, can pass out of the world of thoughts into the real world, and attain reality’ (SW III 346–8). This is a characteristically abstract approach, but the fundamental point is that there is a clash between the idea that our experiences are caused by the world, and the idea that our free will allows us to cause events in the world. This, in Schelling’s view, creates a fundamental tension:

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With these two problems we find ourselves tangled in a contradiction.—For B the preeminence of thought (the ideal) over the sensible world is needed. But how is this conceivable if (for A) the representation is only the slave of the objective?—On the other hand, if the real world is something completely independent of us, to which (as their archetype) our representation has to conform (after A), then it is incomprehensible how the real world could conform to representations in us (by B). In a word, theoretical certainty deprives us of the practical, and with the practical the theoretical is lost; it is imposible to simultaneously have truth in our knowledge and reality in our will. (SW III 247–8) Schelling is not explicitly citing freedom here, but it is a variation of the same problem. This shows the depth of the problem for Schelling; it is not just the traditional sophomoric conundrum of freedom, because it is connected to the integrity of knowledge itself. In casting the problem in terms of his fundamental account of human perception, Schelling has made it a problem for understanding human rationality over and above traditional metaphysics. Coleridge responds excitedly: What after all does the problem amount more to more than the Fact, that the Will is a vis motrix, and the Mind a directive power at one moment & in relation to the Will, and a Re- or Per-cipient in relation to objects moving or at rest? Schelling seems at once to deny and yet suppose the Objectivity—on no other ground than that he commences by giving objectivity to Abstractions—A acting he calls Will: the same A acted on he calls Truth and then, because acting, and being acted on, are Antitheses or opposite States, he first turns them into contrary things, and then transfers this contrariety to the Subject A/—Doubtless That A acts on B, and is itself acted on by C, is a fact, to the How? respecting which I may have no other answer than Nescio/but that my ignorance as to the How makes any contradiction in the Fact, I can by no means admit {The whole difficulty lies in the co-existence of Agere et Pati as Predicates of the same Subject}. (CM IV 450) Coleridge’s criticism is that Schelling is ‘giving objectivity to Abstractions’, but it is difficult to see how this is the case. Coleridge dismisses the problem by saying that ‘A acts on B, and is itself acted on by C, is a fact’, and that our inability to explain it is of no philosophical interest. Schelling would be the first to admit that ‘A acts on B, and is


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itself acted on by C, is a fact’, but he would also insist that our ability or inability to explain it is the crucial problem of philosophy. Coleridge later added a note to his own note. This later note develops the argument in a surprising new direction by suggesting that Schelling’s entire underlying assumption of the distinctness of object and subject, active and passive, is problematic: The remarks on the blank leaves at the end of the Volume are, I still think, valid: so far that all Schelling’s “Contradictions” are reducible to one difficulty of comprehending the co-existence of the Attributes, Agere et Pati, in the same subject—and that the difficulty is diminished rather than increased by human Art, in which Pati and the Agere take place in different relations and at different moments.— Likewise—that Schelling’s positions of Opposites, viz. Nature and Intelligence as the same with Subject Object and Subject already supposes Plurality, and this being supposed, the whole Hypothesis becomes arbitrary/for the conception of Plurality once admitted, Object and Subject become mere relative terms: & no reason can be assigned why each existent should not be both Object and Subject. But if he begins at the beginning, then the objection applies—viz. that Schelling arbitrarily substantiates attributes. For in the very act of opposing A to B, he supposes an X common to both viz. Being, o ; but this given, there is no necessary reason, why Objectivity and Subjectivity should not both be predicable of both— (CM IV 451) Coleridge is now attacking one of the fundamental ideas of Schelling’s thought: the distinction between objective and subjective. He repeats his earlier claim that ‘Pati and the Agere take place in different relations and at different moments’, but goes on to argue that objective and subjective are not properly separable. Oddly enough this invalidates his former point since his first claim rests on the assumption that objective and subjective are not only distinct, but separable. The implications of this move are surprising, since it implies a monism in itself, as Coleridge is now arguing that the objective and subjective are merely relative: that all beings have some measure of both, which implies some kind of monism. Indeed, it seems eerily reminiscent of Spinoza’s account. The detail is important here, since Coleridge claims that ‘in the very act of opposing A to B, he supposes an X common to both viz. Being’. This is, schematically at least, related to Coleridge’s view of the Trinity, where the X is the spirit. Thus, Coleridge’s criticism, which seems to land

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him in a pantheism more thorough than Schelling’s, is dependent on an escape clause. The escape clause itself seems problematic though, since it is hard to know what to make of Coleridge’s underlying ‘X’. It is not hard to see that in positing an objective and a subjective, he is assuming the being of both, but it is difficult to see how such an observation serves to break down the distinction. It is, finally, impossible to see how it manages to excuse him from answering the basic problem, the problem of how finite agents can be both the causes of things that occur in the world, and causally subjected to the world. To merely answer that they are, in fact, both objective and subjective, is simply to miss the point. However, the real question is why Coleridge is going to such drastic lengths to escape Schelling’s problem-setting over freedom. The answer is plain: Coleridge has doubts about Schelling’s solution so he is trying to set himself up for a different one. Ultimately, for Schelling, the question of freedom is grounded in the problem of the relationship between finite beings and God. This is to be expected, since this relationship is the crux of pantheism, and it is equally important (and problematic) in Spinoza. For Spinoza, human freedom is the extent to which a finite being is able to exercise its own potential, as opposed to being subjected to that of others, and the actualization of individual potential is merely a part of the actualization of the divine potential. To some extent this answer consists in avoiding the problem, since it still results in a finite agent that is unable to separate itself from the infinite. As we have seen, Schelling adopts a similar position, except that he allows for more distinctness of the individual from God, by setting the finite world up in opposition to God, and saying that they share a common basis: the Ungrund. Schelling occasionally waxes lyrical over this opposition between God and humanity: To you it seems greater to struggle against an absolute power, and to go down fighting, than to protect yourself from all danger from the start through a moral God. Certainly, this struggle against the immeasureable is not just the most sublime thing that mankind can contemplate, but it is, I think, the principle of all sublimity. But I would like to know, how you find the power itself with which man opposes the absolute, and the feeling that accompanies this struggle, explicable in dogmatism. The consistent dogmatism seeks not struggle but submission, not the violent, but the willful downfall; seeks silent surrender of self to the absolute But this means that every surrender has a pure aesthetic side. The silent submission to the immeasureable, peace in the arms of the world. (SW I 284)


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Of course in referring to consistent dogmatism, Schelling means Spinoza.4 Indeed, it is central to Spinoza’s thought on human conduct that we must surrender to the immeasurable, thus the catch-phrase ‘acquisentia in se ipso’, we must acquiesce in the inevitable. Schelling, on the contrary, lionizes the struggle with the immeasurable; he comments a little later ‘If the drama of the struggle is destined to present man in the highest moment of his power; then conversely the quiet view of that peace, finds him in the highest moment of life’ (SW I 284–5). Coleridge though is still troubled about the precise status of this struggling finite being: Substitute the World (die Welt) for a moral God, what do I gain, in der reinästhetischen Seite, more than in any other point of view?—How can I combat a or fight up against that which I am myself am? Is not the very Impulse to contend or to resign one of the Links in the very chain of necessary Causes, which I am supposed to struggle against? If we are told that God is in us both to will and to do, i.e. is the sole Agent, how much more must this apply to the World or Fate, or whatever other phantom we substitute. (CM IV 408) Coleridge has a good (if pedantic) case here. If God is the cause of all things, then God is the cause even of the attempts to oppose his causality. God’s ineluctable power makes the idea of a struggle against him no more than philosophical bravado. This point would be entirely convincing, were it not for the fact that Schelling proposes, with the concept of the Ungrund, that there is a source of possible action against God. In the end, he dismisses all such action into the realm of non-being, but this in itself is important, since one type of action which receives this fate is evil. Coleridge is nonplussed, and blankly rejects Schelling’s rhetoric: How much more sublime, and in other points of view, how infinitely more beautiful, even in respect of Taste, or aisthetic Judgement, is the Scriptural representation of the World as in enmity with God & of the continued Warfare (CM IV 408) Coleridge has merely inserted ‘World’ for ‘individual’, and converted the God into a theistic one. It is therefore difficult to see how he proposes to escape his own objection to Schelling’s version of the story, how he can account for the ‘world’s’ enmity to an ineluctable God. Be this as it

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may, Coleridge has concluded that the problem of human freedom is an insurmountable one for Schelling: admitting a supersensual Being this may possibly be, & we therefore from other reasons do not doubt, that it is really compatible with Free Will; but with a World-God this were a blank Absurdity. (CM IV 409) This is a rather unfair interpretation of Schelling. Certainly Schelling’s account of human freedom may ultimately fail to reach its argumentative goal, but dismissing his account on the grounds that he proposes a ‘World-God’ is reading his pantheism as a kind of ‘gross materialism’. Schellingian thought may well collapse into such a result, but it does not, in its own terms, either seek or require it. In making this reading Coleridge is in agreement with Jacobi, but of all the versions of pantheism, Schelling’s is probably the one case where such a reading is least appropriate.

Coleridge’s critique of Schelling’s theodicy Do I not feel the Frost, tho’ {the} sole positive be Heat? (CM IV 358) Coleridge takes a lively interest in Schelling’s account of evil, and the middle part of the Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit, which deals with this, is heavily festooned with annotations. Of course, marginal notes by their very nature tend to be points where one expresses a difference from the text, so this amounts to a very sustained criticism of almost every point in Schelling’s argument. Nonetheless, the very fact that Coleridge lavished so much critical attention on Schelling’s account also shows that, despite his disagreements, Coleridge must have had some kind of sympathy with Schelling’s approach to the problem; if Schelling’s problem setting had not caught his attention he would not have responded so extensively. Schelling introduces the problem, and its relationship to free will: This the the point of deepest difficulty in the whole doctrine of freedom, which has always been felt, and which doesn’t just affect this or that system, but to a greater or lesser extent, affects all of them. Admittedly it affects the concept of immanence most drastically; because, either a real evil is admitted, and then it is inevitable that the evil must be posited in the infinite substance or the primal will itself,


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and the concept of an all-perfect being is completely demolished; or, the reality of evil must somehow be denied, but then the real concept of freedom also disappears. (SW VII 352–3) Schelling begins by dismissing other possible solutions. The first possible solution to the problem of evil that Schelling tries to demolish is derived from the idea that evil merely rides on the back of human freedom. The idea is that God provided free will, which was a good thing overall, but that free will itself necessitates a possibility for evil. Schelling argues that this simply fails to answer the problem: Some could try to escape from this dilemma by giving the answer: the positive—that which comes from God—is Freedom, which is indifferent to good and evil. But if they think of this indifference as a living positive capacity for good or evil (and not just as a mere negation), then it cannot be understood how a capacity for evil can come from a God who is conceived as absolute goodness. To note in passing, this illustrates that if freedom really is what this concept says it must be (and it unmistakably is), then by the same token the former attempt to deduce freedom from God really cannot be right either; because if freedom is a capacity for evil, then it must have a root independent of God. (SW VII 354) Schelling’s solution to both problems is to propose that freedom and evil are derived from the Ungrund, which is independent of God. Schelling’s point in the passage is that if God is utterly Good, then he simply would not have it in him, as it were, to create something such as freedom, which would lead to the production of evil. Coleridge disagrees saying: ‘But God will not do impossibilities {a}nd how can a Vermögen for moral Good exist (in a Creature) which does not imply a Vermögen zum Bösen?’ (CM IV 423). One might argue that God was making the best of a bad situation in allowing evil, but the point he is missing is that this in itself assumes that there is some limit to God’s power, since otherwise it is impossible that God should ever be in a bad situation. This can only make sense, once again, if one supposes some ground of evil which is independent of God. Besides, if God’s only motivation for providing freedom is that there should be a capacity for good, then one wonders why he could not just make good compulsory. Schelling goes on to explain how it is possible for mankind to have the capacity for both good and evil. The answer lies in the very structure of the individual as a realization of the Ungrund: ‘Every being that is

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developed from nature in this way has a double principle, which is fundamentally one and the same, regarded from two possible sides’ (SW VII 362). The principle of light is associated with revelation, whereas the principle of darkness ‘is the self-will of the creature’ that is ‘not yet raised to perfect unity with the light’. This dark principle is responsible for the independence of mankind from God, and through it mankind finds its destiny: ‘this principle—without losing the darkness of the Grund—is transfigured in light and gives rise to something higher in mankind, the Spirit’ (SW VII 363). Thus spirit is the all-important result of the possibilities of good and evil:

Now both principles are certianly in all things, but without complete consonance because of the imperfection of that which has arisen from the ground. It is only in mankind that the word is fully expressed, that is restrained and imperfect in everything else. But in the expressed word the spirit is revealed, ie God as actu. Now as far as the soul is the living identity of both principles, it is spirit; and spirit is in God. If the identity of both spirits was as inseparable as it is in God, then there would be no distinction, and God as spirit would not be revealed. Thus the unity, that is indivisible in God, must be divisible in mankind,—and this is the capacity for good and evil. We expressly say: the capacity for evil, and seek first to make the divisibility of the principles comprehensible. (SW VII 363–4)

Coleridge makes a series of notes on this passage, all of which attack Schelling’s conception of the divisibility of the principles of darkness and light:

But the Problem was—How to prove this Distinction (Unterchied) and here it is assum{ed} as a ground of Proof.— How exactly does this seem to resemble Schelling’s Objection to Fichte—“It must be so.{”} Why?—“Because else my Theory would be false.” Well! and what if it were?—In truth I find little but Behmen—which a Reader must have previously understood in order to understand. And in the names of Candor and Common Sense wherein does this Zertrennlichkeit [divisibility] differ from the rejected Vermögen zum Bösen involved in dem freyem Vermögen zum Guten? (CM IV 424–5)


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Schelling is not really engaged in philosophical argument. Instead he is more or less telling a story about the emergence of evil, which is deeply philosophical, and is based on prior philosophical analysis. Moreover, it is a story that is intended to play a certain kind of rhetorical role; it is supposed to demonstrate, by its very existence, that rational thought and transcendental philosophy can be productively engaged in spiritual matters without leading (as Jacobi forecasts) directly into some form of fatalism. In order to fulfil this rhetorical role it does not need to be a rigorously consequent piece of reasoning, or to be especially secure in its specific assumptions; it only has to show that an idealistic framework is no less capable of doing this kind of spiritual work than any other. Coleridge’s assertion that Schelling’s argument is circular therefore needs a little clarification. The point that Coleridge is getting at is that Schelling’s story about the two principles and their ultimate fate is intended to explain how the problem of evil arises, and to construct a way in which Schelling can escape from it. However, the story itself has little to support it since it is not as if Schelling demonstrates in any philosophical manner the distinctness, emergence or ultimate fate of the principles of darkness and light. Of course, it is all fundamentally based on his idea that the world and God are both products of God’s deliberate development towards full actualization and personality, but the manner in which Schelling arrives at his account of evil from this basis is lacking explanation. This kind of relatively ungrounded philosophical story-telling goes a long way to explaining Coleridge’s complaints of fruitless mysticism in Schelling, which he makes repeatedly. It also goes a long way to explaining his related accusation that Schelling is drawing on Böhme.5 He repeats this claim in the note quoted above, but really the claim seems little more than a codified way of accusing Schelling of mysticism. More interesting perhaps is the fact that Coleridge harks back to the possibility of explaining evil as a necessary co-relative to the possibility of good. Clearly Schelling’s earlier arguments against this account have failed to convince Coleridge and, indeed, he continues in his later notes to prefer it. Coleridge adds a third note to the divisibility of principles passage arguing that the emergence of the two principles from the Ungrund is problematic in itself: We will grant, for a while, that the Principle evolved or lifted up from this mysterious Ground of Existence, which is and yet does not exist, is separate (geschieden) from God: yet how is it separate from

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the Ground itself? How is it individualized? Already the material phænomen of Partibility seems to have stolen in.—And at last I cannot see what advantage in reason this Representation, this form of Symbol, has over the old more reverential Distinction of the Divine Will (CM IV 425–6) Thus Coleridge questions the very possibility of a differentiation arising from the undifferentiated Ungrund. Of course, Schelling’s explanation is that this is the revelation of God, so it is a little difficult to see what kind of account would actually satisfy Coleridge here. However, Coleridge also repeats the criticism of Schelling’s mystical story-telling, and expresses a preference for more traditional explanations of creation and the emergence of evil. In other words, it seems likely that Coleridge’s objection at this point is due to his own theistic concerns, and is part and parcel of his rejection of Schelling’s pantheism, rather than being specifically directed at Schelling’s account of evil. Schelling goes on to discuss one more possible way of solving the problem of evil, namely by claiming that evil is merely a lack or privation. The idea here is that all things are good, and that all evil amounts only to imperfection. This, it will be recalled, was Spinoza’s solution to the problem, one which Coleridge harshly criticized. Schelling argues: the evil, which can be derived from this merely ideal ground, derives from something passive; from limitation, defect, privation; concepts that are completely at odds with the actual nature of evil. For the simple observation that mankind, the most perfect of all visible creatures, is alone capable of evil, shows that the ground of evil simply cannot lie in defect or privation. The devil in christian thought was not the most limited of creatures, but on the contrary, the most unlimited. Imperfection in the general metaphysical sense is not the ordinary character of evil, since it is often accompanied with an excellence of personal power that seldom accompanies the good. Thus the ground of evil must lie not only in something positive as such, but on the highest positive that nature possesses (SW VII 368–9) The first sentence refers to Leibniz’s explanation of evil: that God’s will is good, but that he is himself subject to reason, and it is the conflict between these two principles that is responsible for evil. Schelling’s point is that evil is seldom an omission or imperfection, and it is certainly not based on limitation, for then animals would be far more evil than


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humans, since they are much more limited. Coleridge agrees, but disapproves of Schelling’s strategy: Thus { } world { } not { ? general} as moral evil, but as the limitation of a given Quantum of Perfection, or Powers, all below as well as above being exactly as such in the scale of Being; must { } a Man of Horns? I do not mean to deny the truth of Schelling’s position, but the force of some of his reasons in support of it. It seems evil {? For} that Evil is excluded by Substitute { } (CM IV 428–9) Coleridge’s question, so far as it can be made out, is why should we not see evil as a result of the relative degrees of limitation in the world, and all finite beings? The answer is precisely that the existence of limitation seems unrelated to the propensity for evil. Coleridge dislikes Schelling’s account, even though he agrees with Schelling’s point, as is shown in Coleridge’s criticism of Spinoza’s account, a variant of which Schelling is attacking here. Schelling eventually comes to the rather difficult claim that ‘Thus the ground of evil must lie not only in something positive as such, but on the highest positive that nature possesses ’ (SW VII 369) Coleridge responds ‘But what is the Cause or Condition of this?’ (CM IV 429). Coleridge’s note seems uncomprehending, but of course Schelling’s claim is related to the idea that evil arises through the impulse to individuality and selfdom. He thinks that evil arises precisely in those cases of the most fully developed selfdom. Clearly Coleridge finds the idea distasteful. Schelling expands on the concept of the Ungrund, and its role as a source of evil and freedom outside of God, and relates it to a schematic history of the world. The crucial aspect of this account is the interaction between the Ungrund and God, and Schelling speaks of God ‘allowing’ the Ungrund to operate independently. This creates a prima facie problem, since if God allowed the Ungrund to create evil, then God is responsible for that evil. Schelling’s account of evil is dependent on the assumption that the Ungrund is in some sense outside the power of God, and he does not always seem to acknowledge this. As he puts it, But if the undivided power of the original ground is first recognised in mankind as the ‘inner’ (basis or centre) of the individual, then likewise evil is at first concealed in history, and the age of guilt and sin is preceeded by an age of innocence or unconsciousness of sin.

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and the spirit of love likewise did not reveal itself in the beginning; but because God sensed the will of the ground as the will to His revelation, and because He recognised through His providence that there needed to be a ground for His existence independent of Him (as spirit), He allowed the ground to function in its independence; or to put it another way, He Himself acted in accordance with His nature, and not with His heart or love. (SW VII 378) As I suggested above, this seems problematic, since now God is responsible for evil in some sense, through acting in accordance with his nature rather than with love. A few pages later Schelling expands on the relationship between the Ungrund and the individual human being, and the manner in which the activity of the Ungrund leads to the emergence of human evil. Schelling also discusses God at this point, but God is no longer seen as allowing the Ungrund to act, and, therefore, the implications of God’s responsibility for evil are likewise reduced: There is therefore, a general evil, awoken, not originally, but first in the revelation of God, through the reaction of the ground. It can never come to full realisation, but it constantly strives for it. Only by recognising the general evil, can good and evil in mankind be understood. For if evil was aroused already with the first creation and developed into the general principle through the functioning of the ground for itself, then mankind’s natural propensity for evil would seem explicable, because the disordering of power, once established through the awakening of the individual will in the creature, has already inscribed itself in him at birth. But the ground also works incessantly in individual people and awakes the singularity and the particular wills, so that the will of love can arise with it. God’s will is to universalize everything and raise it into unity with the light or to maintain it in the light, the will of the ground is to particularize everything or make it creaturely. (SW VII 380–1) Schelling is arguing that evil emerges gradually as a result of the will of the Ungrund, the will to particularize. God’s will is opposed to this, since God’s will is to universalize everything and bring it into unity. However, the relationship between the two is a necessary one: the will to particularize is said to be necessary to God’s opposed will to unify. Thus, ‘The ground also works incessantly in individual people and awakes the


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singularity and the particular wills, so that the will of love can arise against it.’ The problem is that the whole account rests on the identification of evil with the self-will, or the will to particularize. It is, to be sure, only a partial identification, since the self-will which arises from the Ungrund is not evil, rather it develops into evil. Moreover, this is really a mechanism to keep evil at one remove from the Ungrund, since Schelling can now assert that the Ungrund is not evil, but rather it contains that which develops into evil. The question is whether this really works, since it would be possible to object that if self-will or the will to particularize leads to evil, then it is evil in itself, so that the Ungrund winds up being evil after all. Coleridge expresses disappointment that Schelling’s account seems to be losing its grip on evil: But where, after all, is the Evil, as contra-distinguished from Calamity, & Imperfection? How does this solve the diversity, {the} essential {diffe}rence, {betw}een {re}gret & {rem}orse? {Ho}w does {it} concur {ev}en with {th}e Idea {of} Freedom? {I} own, {I} am {dis}appointed: {and} that {I r}eject {this} system {& rea}lise, that {I r}emain {in} the same State, with the same harrying {?dim}ly & partially light-shotten Mists before {my} eyes, as when I red the same things {f}or the first time in Jacob Behmen!— (CM IV 434) Coleridge is making two points here. First, Schelling has not distinguished between natural evil and personal human evil. However, it is not clear that this is a problem, since it would be possible for Schelling simply to answer that they are both the result of the same thing: the will of the Ungrund, the will to particularize, and that their distinction is a relatively unimportant practical matter. Coleridge’s second point is that the idea that the Ungrund imbues all creatures with evil (in the form of self-will) seems to contradict the claims of free will, namely that the choice of good or evil is an internal choice. The problem here is that Schelling has undertaken to explain how it is that such a choice is possible, given the assumption that for it to be possible, the capacity for both good and evil must already be present. Thus, he is not saying that the Ungrund forces individuals to be evil, but just that it is responsible for inculcating the principle of evil, and so is responsible for the power of individuals to choose. In any case, this is clearly a point of final disagreement between Coleridge and Schelling. Throughout these notes Coleridge has been increasingly

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unwilling to accept the concept of the Ungrund and its corollaries in Schelling’s overall picture of the emergence of evil. Schelling’s final pronouncement on the status of evil is that it has no real existence (it is merely ‘being’) and that it is a necessary part of God’s development towards personality: Its state is therefore a state of not-being, a state of constant consumption of activity, or consumption of that which strives to be active in it. The realisation of the idea of a finite universal perfection in no way requires the regeneration of the evil into the good (the redemption of all things); because the evil is only evil insofar as it goes beyond potential; when it is reduced to not-existing or potential, it is what it was always supposed to be—basis, subordinated, and as such no longer in contradiction to Gods love and holiness. The end of revelation is therefore the ejection of evil from good, the avowal of evil’s complete unreality. On the other hand, the good arisen from the ground is joined with the original good in eternal unity; those born into the light out of the darkness connect themselves to the ideal principle as members of its body, in which each is perfectly realised and which is now a completely personal entity. (SW VII 405) Schelling here sums up the ontological status of evil, and its necessity, as he sees it, in the development of God. Coleridge is not happy: Then will not the Darkness become again Light? What was before its union with Light, & of course the Object of the same process repeated?—Surely, this has too much the appearance of subjecting the supersensual to the Intuitions [of the senses, and] really looks [like pushing] in a thing merely to take it out. And still {the} Questions returns, Why not this in {the} first place? What can the {?pro}cess have [eff]ected?6 Coleridge really has a point here: it is not clear what has been achieved by Schelling’s description of the development of the personal in God. If everything was unified in the Ungrund, and is so again in the final unity, then it is fair to ask what difference there actually is between the two. Schelling’s answer lies in the claim that in the Ungrund all things are undifferentiated, whereas in the final unity they are differentiated, which makes the personality of God possible. However, we are not in a position to make sense of the difference, or even to understand what


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the undifferentiatedness of the Ungrund really amounts to. Coleridge’s final word is recorded on the back flyleaves of the volume: He himself plainly says that moral Evil arises not from Privation much less Negation, but from the same Constituents leaving their proper ordination The whole Question of the origin of Evil resolves itself into one—Is the Holy Will good in & of itself or only relative, i.e. as a means, to Pleasure, Joy, Happiness &c?—If the latter be the truth, no solution can be given of the origin of Evil compatible with the attributes of God—but (as in the problem of the Squaring of a Circle) we can demonstrate, that it is impossible to be solved. If the former, be true, as I more than believe, the Solution is easy and almost self-evident. Man cannot be a moral Being without having had the Choice of Good & Evil—he cannot chuse Good without having been able to choose Evil. God, as infinite & self-existing, is the alone One, in whom Freedom & Necessity can be one and the same, from the Beginning—in all finite Being, it must have been arrived at by a primary act, as in Angels, or a succession of acts as in man. (CM IV 443–5) Coleridge refers to the view that evil is a privation (Spinoza’s view) and rightly points out that Schelling sees it as untenable. This is interesting in itself since Coleridge’s focus on this issue out of all those that Schelling canvasses demonstrates the importance of Spinoza for Coleridge’s reading of Schelling. Given Coleridge’s background knowledge of the pantheism controversy he is keenly aware of how central Spinoza is to all of this, even though Schelling does not always explicitly refer to Spinoza or Jacobi. Coleridge’s conclusion in the note is that God is ‘good in & of itself’, and that the capacity for evil is necessary in order for human beings to be moral agents. It will be recalled that Schelling discussed this possibility and dismissed it on the grounds that it would make God responsible for evil, which is inconceivable, since God is purely good. Interestingly, in spite of the objection made here, Coleridge’s later accounts of evil and of the Trinity bear a striking resemblance to Schelling’s account, and make no mention of the freedom necessary for moral agency. In other words, Coleridge was finally unconvinced by his own objections. The pantheism controversy was tied up with the corollaries of pantheism, with the allegations of determinism and atheism made by Jacobi. Schelling’s contribution was to argue for a version of pantheism which avoided these corollaries, and as an aside to argue that they are

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also problems for any theistic account. Schelling’s intervention into this area was a success, so much so that even Goethe, Jacobi’s friend, sided with Schelling in the ensuing dispute. All of this serves to demonstrate two points. First, it shows the depth of Coleridge’s engagement with the pantheism controversy, and his engagement with these texts as the texts of the pantheism controversy. This alters our understanding of Coleridge’s relationship with Schelling, because it undermines the traditional over-emphasis on System des transscendentalen Idealismus, and the persistent misunderstanding of Coleridge’s understanding of even that text caused by the image of the ‘transcendentalist’ Coleridge. The results of this are cashed out in Chapter 8 where I demonstrate that Coleridge’s account of the imagination in Biographia has been significantly misunderstood. The second point lies in the specific details that arise from this analysis. It is obvious that Coleridge admits much of Schelling’s argument, but that he ultimately finds Schelling’s accounts of free will and the problem of evil unsatisfying. Coleridge does not simply reject Schelling’s account outright because of its pantheism, rather he seems to later adopt some important elements of Schelling’s account, especially the concept of the Ungrund, and certain structural features of his account of evil. However, in doing so he takes pains to alter Schelling’s account, dropping Schelling’s conception of the imperfection and temporality of God, and transforming his account of evil. These issues form the complex core of Coleridge’s engagement with the pantheism controversy, and did not allow for a simple resolution. Coleridge was looking for something in Schelling, looking for a way to make sense of an immanentist or pantheist position that would give him three things: a personal God, an infinite God, and a concept of reason that could maintain its rational validity whilst accommodating both. What he found instead was a speculative ontology that delivered personality and infinity only at the unacceptable cost of an evolutionary divinity. What must have become increasingly clear to him though was that the fundamental problem was insoluble, since personality and infinity are by their natures respectively determined and undetermined; they cannot be reconciled other than by some drastic measure: either the Jacobian leap of faith, or the Schellingian leap of reason. As I argue in the following chapters, the anxiety caused by this impasse had a marked effect on Coleridge’s philosophical development, in Biographia and beyond.

Part III The Pantheism Controversy in Coleridge’s Later Thought


8 The Anxiety of Pantheism: Hidden Dimensions of Coleridge’s Transcendental Deduction

& even Jacobi wrote under a Warp—the fear of appearing a Convert to Spinozism (CM IV 226) This chapter examines two particularly vexed and intriguing issues in the analysis of Coleridge’s account of the imagination in Biographia: his strangely anxious and unstable attempt at a transcendental deduction of the imagination, and the theatrical interruption of that attempt caused by the letter from the ‘friend’. Previous accounts have focused almost exclusively on Coleridge’s plagiarisms from Schelling’s System des transscendentalen Idealismus, and have missed the contextual connections that govern Coleridge’s understanding of Schelling. The controversy over these plagiarisms has unbalanced our assessments, focusing excessive attention on the relationship between System des transscendentalen Idealismus and Biographia, and effectively blinding us to all other relationships. The following account uncovers a wealth of connections between Coleridge’s text and the key texts of the pantheism controversy, especially Jacobi’s Über die Lehre des Spinoza and Schelling’s Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit. This forces a radical re-evaluation of Coleridge’s account of the imagination because it demolishes the interpretive orthodoxy that takes this account to be unambiguously committed to the general framework of Schellingian idealism (as presented in System des transscendentalen Idealismus), and indeed as marking an unproblematic departure from Coleridge’s earlier monistic and materialist interests. This orthodoxy was initiated by Coleridge’s own account of his intellectual development in Biographia and often receives surprisingly uncritical acceptance in spite of the artificiality of the dichotomy, and its obvious role in Coleridge’s construction of his own public persona. Instead I will demonstrate that 145

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Coleridge specifically associates the imagination with pantheism, and especially Spinozism, and that the instabilities of the text are the result of his anxiety over the pantheistic implications of the argument he is making about the imagination. Most fundamentally I will show that the theatrical breakdown of Coleridge’s argument is not the result of some transcendental miss-step, but of his anxiety over the pantheistic results that would have become apparent from the argument’s completion. The fictional incompletion of the argument is a mask to cover the intractably pantheistic implications of the argument’s results, and Coleridge’s depiction of his own relationship with German idealism is a part of this mask. In Biographia Coleridge presents us with a series of ‘theses’ on the imagination. He claims that he is skipping to the results of the ‘Dynamic philosophy’, which he proposes to present in another work, and adds that this process will be ‘authenticated’ by the result, so that it is enough if he has ‘rendered intelligible’ this result (BL I 263). This whole ploy is completely disingenuous—the theses themselves are precisely the demonstration he has just begged off providing. Indeed, they are not results at all, but a connected series of arguments intended to establish self-consciousness as the principle of knowledge—a principle that Coleridge characteristically (if not uniquely) wishes to characterize as an act, and identify with God. Both Jacobi and Schelling made similar arguments, and Schelling was influenced by Jacobi in doing so, though they aim their arguments at radically different objectives. Jacobi’s version occurs in Supplement VII to the second edition of Über die Lehre des Spinoza and is part of a concerted effort to reshape his earlier pietism into something more respectable. Having been dismissed in some quarters as a religious enthusiast, he was trying to reposition himself by relating his own faith-philosophy to both Hume’s scepticism and the Kantian critique. His argument tries to show that an absolute principle of reason, which cannot be reconciled with finite reality, amounts to a supernatural (or, more to the point, super-rational) God (ULS 398– 434 [127–62]). The argument rests on his rather problematic notion of a ‘Vorstellung des Unbedingten’ (representation of the unconditional) which he claims must underlie all conditional representations. This fills something like the role of the Kantian Ding an sich, but has been stripped of its specific relationship to Kant’s account of perception, where the Ding an sich must be there to supply the content of experience which is understood through the forms of intuition (space and time). Without this background Jacobi’s version is hard to make

The Anxiety of Pantheism

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sense of—but then he is not trying to convince through reason, but to foreground the limits of knowledge whilst providing a rationalization for intense religious and mystical experiences. Schelling’s version of the argument has almost the opposite intention to Jacobi’s, and is presented with all the technical fireworks that an ambitious young idealist could muster. It is presented first in Vom Ich als Princip der Philosophie (SW I 162–87), and is repeated in a modified form in System des transscendentalen Idealismus (SW III 361–5). In both cases Schelling tries to establish self-consciousness as the principle of knowledge, and does so through this same idea of the unconditional element in knowledge. Unlike Jacobi though he limits himself to the epistemological implications of this and maintains a much more disciplined transcendental stance—only ambiguously so in the earlier Vom Ich, but much more clearly so in System des transscendentalen Idealismus where he explicitly denies any ontological connection, and most especially any connection to God. These different versions of the basic argument amount to appropriations of the Kantian deduction—indeed there is a kind of turf war going on as various camps try to position themselves to claim the mantle of Kantian rigour whilst accommodating the argument to their own interests. In many ways the resulting arguments are destabilized by being uprooted from the Kantian background and teeter towards incoherence, but what is fascinating for my purposes is that Coleridge is appropriating the same argument in turn, and doing so with a clear awareness that he is in a sense adjudicating between the Jacobian and the Schellingian appropriations that preceded his.

Coleridge’s transcendental deduction Coleridge begins with the basic problem of knowledge—the problem of the relationship between the objective and the subjective in knowledge, or the problem of how the categories (cause and effect, etc.) can be applicable to empirical reality. Kant’s answer lies in the ‘schemata’, which are both analytic and synthetic, and are therefore able to mediate between the two. In System des transscendentalen Idealismus Schelling follows this line, even mentioning the synthetic versus analytic distinction, but concludes that the only thing that can be both—that can play the role mapped out by Kant for the schemata—is self-consciousness (SW III 361–5). Coleridge also adopts self-consciousness as the principle of knowledge, thus appearing to side straightforwardly with Schelling.

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However, Coleridge adds a scholium that presents an unexpected dimension to the argument: A chain without a staple, from which all the links derived their stability, or a series without a first, has been not inaptly allegorized, as a string of blind men. Equally inconceivable is a cycle of equal truths without a common and central principle, which prescribes to each its proper sphere in the system of science. That the absurdity does not so immediately strike us, that it does not seem equally unimaginable, is owing to a surreptitious act of the imagination, which, instinctively and without our noticing the same, not only fills out the intervening spaces, and contemplates the cycle as a continuous circle giving to all collectively the unity of their common orbit; but likewise supplies by a sort of subintelligitur the one central power, which renders the movement harmonious and cyclical. (BL I 266–7) This much more closely resembles Jacobi’s version of the central argument—where he argues that the unconditional, though a condition of all comprehensible experience, is itself incomprehensible, and winds up identifying it as a super-rational absolute. Jacobi’s argument is an implicit critique of the project of rational metaphysics, which he sees as attempting to subject the unconditional to rational (that is to say conditional) explanation—he says: ‘To discover the conditions of the unconditional, to invent a possibility of the absolute necessity, and to want to construct it to be able to comprehend it, must immediately appear an incoherent undertaking’ (ULS 424–5 [153–4]). We are forced into just this problem, according to Jacobi, when we attempt to understand nature: Because if everything that is produced and presented in a manner comprehensible to us, must be produced and presented in a conditional manner; then as long as we comprehend, we stay within in a chain of conditional conditions. Where this chain ceases, there we cease to comprehend, and there the complex we call nature ceases too. (ULS 425 [154]) For Jacobi the chain is the result of trying to subject the unconditional (Coleridge’s ‘central power’) to rational thought—that is to say the chain is the result of the wrongful attempt to pursue rational metaphysics (as Spinoza does). However, it also represents the limitations of


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comprehensibility, and as such it leads to the necessity of a super-rational principle (the unconditioned) which he identifies with God (ULS 427 [156]).1 This is very important for Coleridge and the image of a ‘chain without a staple’ or a chain of reasoning is one of his most frequently repeated images, including telling references to Spinoza: ‘O I did injustice to thee, Spinoza!—Righteous and gentle Spirit, where should I find that iron Chain of Logic, which neither man or angel could break, but which falls of itself by dissolving the rock of Ice, to which it is stapled’ (CL IV 548).2 Recognizing this connection to Jacobi, and through Jacobi to Spinoza helps to pinpoint the hidden tensions in Coleridge’s text—the reference to the ‘chain without a staple’ in the scholium is indicative of the possible consequences Coleridge is exploring while making his argument. He continues by defining the goal of the remaining theses as the pursuit of this ‘unconditional’ element: We are to seek therefore for some absolute truth capable of communicating to other positions a certainty, which it has not itself borrowed; a truth self-grounded, unconditional and known by its own light. In short, we have to find a somewhat which is, simply because it is. (BL I 268) The hidden connection to Jacobi is now clear: Coleridge wants to pursue the principle without appearing to do so through reason (without subjecting the unconditional to conditional explanation). As question begging as this idea seems, it is actually a fairly cogent summary of the project of post-Kantian philosophy. Kant’s critique had subjected reason itself to an examination of its grounds, and the difficulty inadvertently raised was that this procedure is itself an activity of reason, so that the ability of reason to play this role—to be its own judge—was thrown into doubt. Kant’s successors from Reinhold on attempted to re-ground the claims of reason in such a way that it was capable of being its own judge, and Schelling’s identification of self-consciousness as the principle of knowledge is, in its own way, a reflection of this concern. Moreover, Kant had argued that the noumenal realm (the realm of the Ding an sich) was not accessible to reason, and that the attempt to apply categorial concepts to it would lead to contradictions. For Jacobi all of this was just one more indication of the dangerous limitations of reason, and thus implicitly of its tendency to lead to Spinozism. It is therefore rather telling to find that Coleridge’s articulation of the fundamental problem is derived not from Schelling, but from Jacobi. This is noted by the editors of the Bollingen edition of Biographia

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(BL I 267–8n1), but has been ignored in the literature, focused as it is on System des transscendentalen Idealismus. Jacobi’s version though makes the troubling theological implications of what is going on much more obvious: Further: everything that lies beyond the complex of the conditioned (the naturally mediated) also lies beyond the sphere of our clear cognition, and cannot be understood through concepts: likewise the supernatural cannot be supposed in any other way than as it is given to us; namely, as fact—It Is! This supernatural, this being of all beings, all tongues name: God. (ULS 426–7 [155–6]) Coleridge’s ‘absolute truth’ thus shares a shadowy and uncomfortable identity with Jacobi’s supernatural, unconditional principle. This would have been reinforced in Coleridge’s mind by the fact that Schelling’s earlier version of the argument in Vom Ich also replicates this ‘es ist’ phrasing in relation to the absolute self (SW I 167–8). Moreover, Schelling repeatedly relates this conception to Spinoza: Of course, if we could only view that which is the ultimate in our knowledge as a silent picture outside us (after Spinoza’s similie), we could never know that we know; but if it is itself the condition of all knowledge, indeed the condition of its own knowability, then it is also the only immediate in our knowledge, and we know that we know thereby, and then we have found the principle of which Spinoza could say—it is the light that illuminates both itself and the darkness. (SW I 155) The problem for Coleridge has become acute: he is pursuing the Schellingian concept of a principle of knowledge, but also trying to make a Jacobi-like identification of this principle with God. In doing this he finds himself trapped between the Scylla of Jacobi’s rejection of reason, and the Charybdis of Spinozistic pantheism with the threat this poses to free will and theism. Coleridge’s anxiety over pantheism is the factor that determines the ways that he is prepared to use, and even to understand, the material he is importing from Schelling. He is able to see the possibility of a collapse into pantheism in Schelling’s argument, because he is so aware of that argument’s relationship to Jacobi.


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Coleridge goes on to argue that there can be only one such principle, and in doing this he is following Schelling again, but rather garbling the argument: That there can be but one such principle, may be proved a priori; for were there two or more, each must refer to some other, by which its equality is affirmed; consequently neither would be selfestablished, as the hypothesis demands. And a posteriori, it will be proved by the principle itself when it is discovered, as involving universal antecedents in its very conception. (BL I 269) There can only be one such principle. Because all truth is absolutely alike. There are degrees of probability, but no degrees of truth; things that are true, are equally true. But if the truth of all propositions is derived from different principles, then it is impossible these truths should be alsolutely alike. (SW III 354) Coleridge’s version is circular: he argues that there can only be one principle of knowledge, since if there were two or more, they would in turn depend on a single underlying principle. There is no reason to suppose that there is any need for this single underlying principle to guarantee the equal truth of several principles, and even if there were, there is no reason to suppose that this underlying principle would have to be ‘self-established’. Schelling’s version is obviously a better argument since its premise is the observation that truth is an absolute predicate, so that there cannot be degrees of truth. Of course this still begs the question of why there should be any ‘principle’ governing the truth of other propositions at all, but at least the argument makes sense. The question is why Coleridge refused to adopt Schelling’s obviously superior version. The answer lies in Coleridge’s assertion that such a truth is ‘self-established’. Schelling makes no such claim; he merely asserts that his principle is the highest form of knowledge possible (self-consciousness), and that the question of what might lie beyond it is philosophically inadmissible. The key then is that Coleridge wants to preserve the possibility of a genuinely rational approach to God, and the term ‘self-established’ is explicitly related to his conception of deity. But the result of this divergence from Schelling is quite surprising, because Coleridge winds up proposing a form of the cosmological argument for the existence of God; he is arguing that there must be a first (i.e. self-established) truth at the base of all other truths. Schelling makes an epistemological argument from the nature of truth, to an epistemological conclusion: that there can be only one principle of

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knowledge. Coleridge’s principle on the other hand has ontological implications—it is ‘a somewhat which is, simply because it is’ (BL I 268). This places him in the antiquated company of the rational metaphysicians, and especially Spinoza. The continuation shows his anxiety over this, as he insists on a distinction that seems to undermine the ontological significance he has already invested in the argument: Such a principle cannot be any THING or OBJECT. Each thing is what it is in consequence of some other thing. An infinite, independent thing, is no less a contradiction, than an infinite circle or a sideless triangle. Besides a thing is that, which is capable of being an object of which itself is not the sole percipient. But an object is inconceivable without a subject as its antithesis. (BL I 270–1) Coleridge wants to make ontological claims for his principle, but tries to avoid the dangerous implications of this by denying its thing-ship. The obvious way to make sense of thing-less being is to identify the principle as the self, or more specifically as self-consciousness, since the peculiar ontological status of self-consciousness (being knowledge of itself) seems to offer an approach to thing-less being. In this Coleridge is certainly following Schelling’s lead in System des transscendentalen Idealismus: And so this unconditioned cannot be sought in any thing; because that which is an object, is also originally an object of knowledge. Instead, that which is the principle of all knowledge clearly cannot become an object of knowledge originally, or in itself, but only through a specific act of freedom. (SW III 368)3 The act of freedom of which Schelling speaks is the act of philosophizing itself—he is claiming that the principle can only become an object of knowledge through philosophical reflection. That Coleridge is following Schelling here has been previously noted (see BL I 270n3), but the fact that Spinozism is the main reference point of the discussion has gone unnoticed. Schelling explicitly attacks Spinozism for its reliance on being as fundamental, and its resultant treatment of finite beings as a chain of ‘things’. Schelling’s criticism of Spinoza is that having taken being as fundamental, he is forced to posit a causa sui that conditions (reifies) all other being. Indeed, this is precisely what Spinoza does, and the problem, as Schelling sees it, is that this role should be played rather by self-consciousness, which is an ideal version of that which is both subject and object—that which thinks itself as


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object and is thus both subject and object simultaneously.4 The grand difficulty is to establish that this ideal version avoids the chain of reification, and so escapes the Jacobian critique, and this is the point of Schelling’s account of Spinozism in Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit: This system is not fatalism because it lets things be conceived in God; since, as we have shown, pantheism leaves formal freedom possible at least. So Spinoza must be a fatalist for a completely different and unconnected reason. The mistake of his system is not that he sets the things in God, but that there are things (SW VII 349) Schelling’s ploy is to separate himself, as a pantheist, from determinism and this kind of reification of finite beings. His critique of Spinoza on ‘Dinge’ is a crucial part of his attempt to free his own pantheism from the fatalistic consequences that Jacobi was pointing out, and Coleridge’s attack on ‘things’ in Biographia is his own undeclared attempt to do precisely the same thing. Coleridge is treating his principle as a pantheistic God, and trying to defend it from the criticisms levelled at such conceptions. But it is only in a footnote that Coleridge dares to openly express the point of his whole exposition: The impossibility of an absolute thing (substantia unica) as neither genus, species, nor individuum; as well as its utter unfitness for the fundamental position of a philosophic system will be demonstrated in the critique on Spinozism in the fifth treatise of my Logosophia. (BL I 271) Thus the main reference point of Coleridge’s exposition (Spinoza) is alluded to only as a cryptic aside, and we are left with the typical Coleridgean promissory note. However, it seems clear that we need not look to Coleridge’s projected Logosophia for this critique of Spinozism and absolute things, since it is actually to be found in Schelling’s Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit. Interestingly though, Coleridge is both following and misinterpreting Schelling here; he follows Schelling in seeing the ‘things’ as the fundamental problem in Spinoza, but has gone somewhat astray in supposing that Spinoza thought of God as an ‘absolute thing’. Schelling explicitly opposes any such interpretation of Spinoza, and claims that the problem with Spinoza is not that God is a thing, but that everything else is a thing (see SW I 185, SW VII 344–5, 349). Nevertheless, Coleridge’s use of Schelling’s defence of pantheism

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to defend his own principle is the key to understanding Coleridge’s text, and it immediately enables us to make sense of yet another cryptic scholium: If we affirm of a board that it is blue, the predicate (blue) is accidental, and not implied in the subject, board. If we affirm of a circle that it is equi-radial, the predicate indeed is implied in the definition of the subject; but the existence of the subject itself is contingent, and supposes both a cause and a percipient. (BL I 269–70) This does not relate to Coleridge’s ongoing argument in any obvious way, and its significance can only be uncovered by looking closely at Schelling’s defence of pantheism from the Jacobian critique. On the face of it Jacobi seems to have a good case: since Spinoza argues that the universe is God, it follows that God is the blindly mechanical material world. Most troublingly God must somehow be all of the evil things in that world, and the usual pantheistic response is to deny the reality of evil in some sense (as by calling it a privation or negation). In Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit Schelling presents a rather embittered defence of the plausibility of such a denial: for example the sentence: this body is blue, does not mean that the body is blue in and through that which makes it a body, but that that which the body is, is—in a different sense—also blue. And yet this assumption, which fosters a complete ignorance of the essence of the copula, has been made constantly in our time with regard to the higher application of the law of identity. If it is said, that the perfect is the imperfect, the meaning is that the imperfect does not exist through that which makes it imperfect, but through the perfection within it. For our times though it means this: perfection and imperfection are equivalent, everything is alike, the worst and the best, folly and wisdom. (SW VII 341) Coleridge’s incongruous ‘blue board’ turns out to have a hidden significance as Schelling’s ‘blue body’, and it is only by realizing this that sense can be made of Coleridge’s passage. Schelling uses this analysis of predication to help defend pantheistic thought, and Coleridge is lining it up to help defend his own principle. This has not been previously noted, and it is crucial because it pinpoints, once and for all, the fact that Coleridge was referring specifically to the detail of Schelling’s defence of pantheism in Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit while writing


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Biographia. This confirms that he was contemplating the relationship between his own version of the principle of knowledge and pantheism, and shaping his argument accordingly. This in turn helps to explain the odd prevarication of his final account of the principle: This principle manifests itself in the SUM or I AM; which I shall hereafter indiscriminately express by the words spirit, self, and self-consciousness. In this, and in this alone, object and subject, being and knowing, are identical, each involving and supposing the other. (BL I 272–3) It is peculiar that Coleridge should choose this most vital point to lump together such highly charged terms as ‘spirit, self, and selfconsciousness’. In drawing from sources such as Schelling, this crude conglomeration of sharply defined terminology is startling. The real problem for Coleridge is that in adopting Schelling’s principle he feels dangerously exposed to pantheistic implications. Of course it is precisely at the point where he tries to exceed Schelling—the point where he identifies the principle not simply as an epistemological entity, but as God—that the problem really comes to a head. It is only natural that he chooses this moment to smudge the canvas, blurring distinctions he now finds troubling.5 Yet another cryptic scholium continues the smudging: But if we elevate our conception to the absolute self, the great eternal I AM, then the principle of being, and of knowledge, of idea, and of reality; the ground of existence, and the ground of the knowledge of existence, are absolutely identical, Sum quia sum; I am, because I affirm myself to be; I affirm myself to be, because I am. (BL I 275) In moving from the empirical ‘I am’ to the absolute ‘I AM’, Coleridge is attempting to mitigate the implications of the identity between the two principles. By raising the self to the divine he is able to more comfortably accommodate the intellectual tensions that have become increasingly unmanageable as his argument progressed. This marks the first really drastic contradiction of Schelling who repeatedly dismisses the notion of a relationship between the principle of knowledge (self-consciousness) and God: But that this self-consciousness could be just the modification of a higher being (perhaps a higher consciousness, and this of a

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still higher, and so on endlessly) is not considered by us as transcendental philosophers; because self-consciousness is not a form of being for us, but a form of knowing, and indeed the highest and most ultimate knowing we can be given. (SW III 355–6) That which is the highest principle of knowledge cannot have its ground of knowability in something higher. So for us its principium essendi and cognoscendi must be one and concur in unity. (SW III 368) Schelling is not claiming that there is a single principle of knowledge and being (as Coleridge has) but rather that self-consciousness is the limit of transcendental enquiry: we cannot seek any principle of being above and beyond our principle of knowing (self-consciousness). Schelling does not mean that the two principles are the same, but rather that they happen to coincide in this case because the being of selfconsciousness is its knowledge of itself. Coleridge is taking the unity of the two principles as a kind of divine attribute, whereas Schelling sees it as a peculiarity of self-consciousness. Nevertheless, Coleridge’s formulation of the idea is clearly dependent upon Schelling’s terminology and phrasing—he even follows Schelling’s Latinate flourishes whilst contradicting his point: ‘This principium commune essendi et cognoscendi’ (BL I 281). The final phase of Coleridge’s argument is the identification of the principle of knowledge and being as will. He begins by adopting Schelling’s argument that self-consciousness is necessarily an act, and is therefore based on will (BL I 279-80). However, Coleridge goes on to identify self-consciousness as will directly, as opposed to Schelling’s more careful formulation in System des transscendentalen Idealismus that the will is a self-determination of intelligence (see SW III 532–57). Some commentators have seized on this transformation as an example of a substantial difference between Schelling and Coleridge, but this is rather problematic, as Schelling discusses the will in other works without replicating the technical detail of System des transscendentalen Idealismus.6 It is in Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit that his use of will seems most relevant to Coleridge’s account of the imagination: He [Spinoza] also treats the will as a thing, and demonstrates, naturally enough, that in all its acts it must be determined by another thing, which in turn must be determined by another, and so on


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endlessly. Thus the lifelessness of his system, the coldness of the form, the dryness of the concepts and expressions (SW VII 349) Schelling goes on to describe Spinoza’s system as ‘like a work which has been drafted only in its basic outlines, and in which, if it were alive, you would immediately see the many missing or incomplete lines’ (SW VII 350). This formulation compares interestingly with Coleridge’s frequent use of skeletal images for Spinoza’s philosophy—he even commented once that Spinoza’s ‘System is to mine just what a Skeleton is to a Body, fearful because it is only the Skeleton’ (CL IV 775), and he often describes Schelling’s philosophy as an attempt to clothe the skeleton of Spinozism.7 Indeed, Schelling goes on to describe idealism as something like the completion of Spinozism: The fundamental concept of Spinozism, spiritualized through the principle of idealism (and altered at one essential point), maintained a vital basis in the elevated approach to nature and the recognition of the unity of the dynamic with feeling and intellect. From this emerged a Naturphilosophie which as simple physics could stand by itself, but which in terms of the whole of philosophy, only forms one part—the real part—which can only be completed and elevated into the actual system of reason by an ideal part, in which freedom rules. It was supposed that in this (freedom) the final empowering act was to be found, through which the whole of nature would be transfigured in feeling, intelligence, and ultimately in will.— In the last and highest instance there is simply no being other than willing. Willing is primoridal being, and all being’s predicates apply to it alone: groundlessness, eternity, independence of time, self-affirmation. All philosophy strives only to find this highest expression. (SW VII 350) The ‘wesentlichen Punkte’ of which Schelling speaks is of course the agency of finite beings (the will)—the point on which Coleridge claimed ‘the correction and the confirmation of Spinosism’ rested (CM V 207). The reason that will is so crucial is that its implied agency promises to provide an escape from the chain of conditioned things—an escape from fatalism. The emergence of this new reliance on will in both Coleridge and Schelling is tied up with the attempt to safely extract pantheistic conceptions from Spinoza, whilst avoiding the pitfalls outlined by Jacobi.8

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In concluding Coleridge makes a much more sustained plagiarism from Schelling, but the really telling detail is the point where Coleridge breaks off from Schelling. After several paragraphs of close paraphrase, Coleridge reaches the point at which Schelling is criticizing the kind of ‘The dogmatism, for which being is fundamental’ (SW III 356): even when the Objective is assumed as the first, we yet can never pass beyond the principle of self-consciousness. Should we attempt it, we must be driven back from ground to ground, each of which would cease to be a Ground the moment we pressed on it. We must be whirl’d down the gulph of an infinite series. But this would make our reason baffle the end and purpose of all reason, namely, unity and system. Or we must break off the series arbitrarily, and affirm an absolute something that is in and of itself at once cause and effect (causa sui), subject and object, or rather the absolute identity of both. Thus the true system of natural philosophy places the sole reality of things in an ABSOLUTE, which is at once causa sui et effectus. (BL I 285) This is very close to Schelling’s text except that Schelling adds: ‘Spinozism is the only consequent dogmatism; but as a real system Spinozism in turn can only survive as natural science [Naturwissenschaft], whose final outcome is once again the principle of transcendental philosophy’ (SW III 356). Coleridge has characteristically elided the reference to Spinoza, and the motivation for this can also be uncovered from the detail because Coleridge’s final phrasing is actually drawn from Jacobi.9 Jacobi criticizes Spinoza for confusing the concepts of ground and cause—a confusion that, Jacobi argues, forces Spinoza to posit a causa sui (which is parallel to Schelling’s point). But Jacobi adds a venomous footnote: This is where the causa sui came from. From the apodictic proposition that everything must have a cause, it follows inevitably that not everything can have a cause. So the causa sui was discovered, to which the effectus sui necessarily belongs. (ULS 416n [148n]) Coleridge’s adoption of the phrase ‘causa sui et effectus’ has missed the fact that Jacobi’s addition of ‘effectus’ is a rhetorical flourish intended to make the causa sui seem absurd, and to suggest that Spinoza’s was forced into the causa sui conception by his inadequate conception of


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causality. At this point though, Coleridge was so distracted by the spectre of pantheism that he was perhaps unwilling to listen too closely to Jacobi’s ever-accusing voice.

The ‘interrupting’ ‘friend’ Coleridge does not complete the argument. Instead he famously breaks off and inserts a letter from a ‘friend’ who urges him not to print the remainder of the chapter on the grounds that it was too difficult for the general public and so overwhelming as to be disorienting: supposing myself to have known only our light airy modern chapels of ease, and then for the first time to have been placed, and left alone, in one of our largest Gothic cathedrals in a gusty moonlight night of autumn. ‘Now in glimmer, and now in gloom;’ often in palpable darkness not without a chilly sensation of terror; then suddenly emerging into broad yet visionary lights with coloured shadows, of fantastic shapes yet all decked with holy insignia and mystic symbols; and ever and anon coming out full upon pictures and stone-work images of great men, with whose names I was familiar, but which looked upon me with countenances and an expression, the most dissimilar to all I had been in the habit of connecting with those names. Those whom I had been taught to venerate as almost super-human in magnitude of intellect, I found perched in little fret-work niches, as grotesque dwarfs; while the grotesques, in my hitherto belief, stood guarding the high altar with all the characters of Apotheosis. In short, what I had supposed substances were thinned away into shadows, while every where shadows were deepened into substances. (BL I 301) This letter was penned by Coleridge himself.10 It ostensibly represents the responses of a generally intelligent and learned person to Coleridgean thought, but the fact that Coleridge wrote it himself suggests that it is really his externalized reaction to his own thought. Indeed, Coleridge repeatedly depicts metaphysics and thought in general as dangerous and unwholesome: the ‘quick-silver mines of abstruse Metaphysics’.11 This is a recurrent theme that runs through the early poetry (especially The Eolian Harp and Dejection: An Ode), and Coleridge points to the idea explicitly in Biographia, quoting Milton’s description of the fallen angels in hell, rationalizing their fall by philosophizing hopelessly about free will (BL I 16). All of this raises a peculiar question: why does Coleridge bother breaking off at this late point? The direction of his argument is obvious

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enough: he would have wound up identifying the principle of knowledge with the imagination. Of course, it would be nice to think that he would have elucidated the relationship between the two in some sophisticated manner, but this seems unlikely since he failed (or refused) to set up a system of inter-relatedness for all the other terms (spirit, self, self-consciousness, principle of knowledge, God). Coleridge is really breaking off from an argument that looks set to dump him into Spinozism, so it is possible to identify Spinoza as one of the grotesques in the letter, especially since Spinoza’s traditionally grotesque reputation had been so dramatically overturned by the German Romantics. I have just demonstrated that Spinoza is a massive, though silent, presence in Coleridge’s argument, and that its philosophical orientation leads Coleridge dangerously close to the threat of pantheism. I think it is therefore possible to identify Spinoza specifically as the grotesque guarding the altar—the altar being the conception of God in the ‘Gothic cathedral’ of transcendental philosophy. This is really a description of the clash between reason and faith, as the very strength of the arguments serves only to produce an unresolvable doubt—as the ‘friend’ puts it: even if I had comprehended your premises sufficiently to have admitted them I should still have been in that state of mind the antithesis to that in which a man is, when he makes a bull. In your own words, I should have felt as if I had been standing on my head. (BL I 301) Coleridge describes the experience of having a long-held view disturbed as the ‘antithesis’ of a bull. A bull, according to Coleridge, is a case of ‘the bringing together of two incompatible thoughts, with the sensation, but without the sense, of their connection’ (BL I 72n). Thus the antithesis is when one has the sense of a connection, but no sensation. Coleridge illustrates this by saying ‘The man feels, as if he were standing on his head, though he cannot but see that he is truly standing on his feet.’ The implication is that Coleridge himself has the same feeling; he can see that the ideas are right, but cannot grasp them intuitively. It is remarkable that this allusion has gone unnoticed. Jacobi repeatedly describes those who allow reason to lead them into pantheism as walking on their heads. Thus in Über die Lehre des Spinoza he says ‘Because those who have fallen in love with particular explanations, will blindly accept every corollary that can be derived from the


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conclusion they cannot invalidate, even if it means they have to walk on their heads’ (ULS 41 [72]). Similarly in David Hume über den Glauben: ‘To me, it is as though I saw people walking on their heads, while they cry out at the top of their lungs: heads up! heads up! And, heads away from the heretic; the head denier, who stays standing on his feet!’.12 Of course, the idea of standing on one’s head is a satirical comment on the reliance on reason. Several previous commentaries have tried to find some deeper philosophical motivation for the letter episode. This has taken the form of seeing the interruption as masking another argument that Coleridge is suppressing for political reasons (Hamilton), as an implicit resistance (itself integral to Schellingian thought) of the totalizing tendencies ingrained in idealism (Ferris), or even as marking a more or less genuine elision of a transcendental argument that can be reconstructed through a close examination of Coleridge’s later manuscripts and marginal notes on Schelling (Reid).13 My account exposes the underlying motivations for the letter episode in a radically different way, since I do not think the deduction is missing at all. Rather the whole letter episode has the effect of distracting the reader (and possibly the author) from the pantheistic implications of what has already been said. But despite all his wriggling Coleridge cannot get off the hook—in a tortured note from the same period he finally admits the depth of his problem: In order to render the creative activity of the Imagination at all conceivable, we must necessarily have recourse to the Harmonia præstabilita of Spinoza and Leibnitz: in which case the automatism of the Imagination and Judgement would be Perception in the same sense, as a {self-conscious} Watch as would be a Percepient of Time (CM III 790) Jacobi argues in Über die Lehre des Spinoza that Leibniz’s theory of pre-established harmony amounts to Spinozism, and is therefore just one more example of rational thought collapsing into pantheism. The show-stopper here though, is Coleridge’s conclusion that his thought about the creative imagination likewise collapses into Spinozism.14 This demonstrates that he was actively considering the possibility of such a collapse, and that this was helping to shape his ideas about the imagination. But it is crucial to realize that such a collapse carried not merely the threat of atheism and fatalism, it also carried the far more pervasive threat of a collapse of reason itself. The project of a transcendental

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deduction is the project of rational understanding itself, and if it winds up leading to pantheism, then it winds up leading to its own collapse in true Jacobian fashion. Coleridge is treating ‘Imagination and Judgment’ as synonymous; imagination and reason are effectively the same here, being linked to the self-understanding of the finite being. In Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition McFarland suggests that Coleridge was briefly drawn to Schelling at the time of the Biographia because he saw Schelling as holding out the hope of a reconciliation of ‘it is’ and ‘I am’, but lost interest when he decided that Schelling could not deliver.15 He concludes, rather oddly, that ‘Coleridge had otherwise little use for the German, and was not in sympathy with him either in tone or in ultimate position.’16 Likewise, McFarland later notices that the deduction ‘trembles on the very brink of pantheism’ but misses the significance of this: for Coleridge this brink signals not so much a descent into an unacceptable ontology as the implosion of the rational self, or of reason itself.17 It is therefore a brink that is mapped out by the tension between Schelling and Jacobi, rather than by any particular ‘influence’. Indeed, right at the beginning of the chapter, Coleridge tries to forestall the objections that someone like Jacobi might make: In lieu of the various requests which the anxiety of authorship addresses to the unknown reader, I advance but this one; that he will either pass over the following chapter altogether, or read the whole connectedly. The fairest part of the most beautiful body will appear deformed and monstrous, if dissevered from its place in the organic Whole. Nay, on delicate subjects, where a seemingly trifling difference of more or less may constitute a difference in kind, even a faithful display of the main and supporting ideas, if yet they are separated from the forms by which they are at once cloathed and modified, may perchance present a skeleton indeed; but a skeleton to alarm and deter. (BL I 233–4) The discussion of the parts dissevered from the fairest body is famously ironic, since Coleridge is about to present us with a real Frankenstein of a chapter, constructed from the parts of other texts. However, the thing that Coleridge claims to fear is that his thought will appear to be a ‘skeleton’—an image that he elsewhere reserves for Spinoza. The use of this image for his own thought would seem baffling, were it not


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that the foregoing analysis of the theses demonstrates the nature of the pantheistic connection. Scholars have been arguing over the plagiarisms for centuries, but they seem to have missed the most intriguing one. This request to the reader is taken directly from Schelling, but not from System des transscendentalen Idealismus as might be expected. Instead it is the opening of the preface to Vom Ich: ‘Instead of all the requests, which an author can advance to his readers and judgers—here only a single one ’ (SW I 151). Schelling asks that his text be read in context, but does not talk about skeletons or body parts as Coleridge does. Instead he talks openly about the real issue: So, for example, that sort of reader could remark that in this work Spinoza is often spoken of as though he was not “a dead dog” (to use Lessing’s expression), and then—the logic of such people is well known—they could leap to the conclusion that the author is seeking to resurrect long refuted Spinozisitic errors. (SW I 151) Coleridge’s ‘anxiety of authorship’ is identical to Schelling’s fear that he could be read as a pantheist or Spinozist. This is precisely why Coleridge is so studiously suppressing direct mention of Spinoza, even in the act of plagiarism. This anxiety determines Coleridge’s understanding of his sources and structures the categories through which he attempts to co-opt them to his own purposes. Indeed, the anxiety of pantheism represents the underlying dimension in which Coleridge constructs his argument, and it is directly responsible for the theatrics of the interrupting letter. Most previous accounts of Coleridge’s transcendental deduction seem to take it for granted that it replicates the motivations (if not the detail) of Schelling’s speculations in System des transscendentalen Idealismus fairly transparently. Some of these accounts try to defend Coleridge’s performance on the grounds that it is coherent but incomplete, and a few even try to supply this incompletion in some way. The evidence I have presented here is incompatible with such accounts, because it exposes the complexity of Coleridge’s awareness of his sources, and the fact that his relationship with System des transscendentalen Idealismus is mediated by his relationship with many other texts.18 This exposes the limitations of trying to understand the relationship between Coleridge and Schelling with no reference to the context, and the dangers of approaching the matter through the terms of Coleridge’s

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own self-understanding (however aggressively re-read) without critical reflection on the forces that were shaping that self-understanding. This material is unique in that it affords an insight into the ongoing hermeneutic process that characterizes Coleridge’s philosophical and theological development. The windfall of the plagiarisms makes it possible to trace out the underlying anxieties, and the unsettled interpretive cruces that are sculpting Coleridge’s conceptions of reason, being and God, and which inevitably set the agenda for his later theological production. By closely examining his understandings of Jacobi and Schelling, I have been able to expose the role that these understandings play in establishing the issues that Coleridge is grappling with here, and, as I will go on to argue, for the rest of his life. The next two chapters trace out the constructive role that these same issues play in Coleridge’s later conceptions of God, evil, reason, understanding and truth.

9 Coleridge’s Trinity: The Defence of Immanence

Dieß ist der empirische Begriff, den jeder der Abstraktion unfähige Mensch von Gott sich bildet. Um so mehr blieb man bei diesem Begriff stehen, als man sich fürchtete, mit der reinen Idee des absoluten Seyns auf einen Spinozischen Gott zu gerathen. (SW I 309n) Up to this point, I have dealt primarily with the pantheism controversy itself, and have shown that Coleridge was more engaged with it than has been suggested before. Even McFarland focuses on it merely as one episode in a more general tradition of pantheism, and sees it, moreover, within the ambit of his concept of the conflict between the philosophy of the ‘It is’ and the philosophy of the ‘I am’. Furthermore, I argued in Chapter 8 that the problems that arise from pantheism had a more general importance for Coleridge, and that in many ways he was concerned that his own thought and beliefs might contain some kind of hidden pantheistic tendencies, or even that his thought might collapse into pantheism, as he supposed that Schelling’s had done.1 All of this leads directly into Coleridge’s later religious thought, which helps to show the longevity of these issues for him, and the intensity of his engagement with them. Many features of Coleridge’s final Trinitarian position show traces of his reading of the texts of the pantheism controversy. The most obvious of these traces are of course the negative ones, such as his attempts to avoid the lustre of pantheism by insisting on the distinctness and personality of the figures of the Trinity. However, there are also positive traces, since some of his terminology derives from Jacobi, Mendelssohn and Schelling. Moreover, Coleridge’s dynamic conception of the Trinity as the result of a ‘three-fold act’ in the Godhead is a feature derived from Naturphilosophie, and in particular 165

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from Schelling’s pantheism. A similar case can be made with regard to Coleridge’s distinction between reason and understanding, which I discuss in Chapter 10. This raises a question about the role of the move to Trinitarianism in Coleridge’s development. McFarland argues that, for Coleridge, the confrontation between the philosophy of the ‘It is’ and the philosophy of the ‘I am’ (between pantheism and Christianity) reaches a ‘resolution’ in Trinitarianism.2 By this he does not simply mean that pantheism was dismissed in favour of Trinitarian theism. Rather he sees the refusal to make such an arbitrary dismissal on either side as the central fact of Coleridge’s philosophical activity, and he sees in this the value and integrity of Coleridge’s efforts.3 To some extent Coleridge’s move to Trinitarianism amounts to a resistance of certain aspects of pantheism, since it includes a blunt insistence on the personality of God, over and above any other account, pantheist, deist, Unitarian or otherwise.4 But it is also obvious that the overall relationship between pantheism and Coleridge’s final Trinitarianism is more complex than this. McFarland does not spell out the exact nature of the ‘resolution’ (as contrasted to a dismissal), since he focuses in the end on Coleridge’s insistence on the personality of God, and the Trinity as a mechanism for maintaining it. The difficulty is that the issue of pantheism has not been ‘resolved’ at all, because it is an ongoing issue that accounts for the instabilities of Coleridge’s later articulations. The detail is more interesting though, because Coleridge’s conception of the Trinity contains elements of pantheism, devolved from their pantheistic origins and employed to help maintain the philosophical integrity of the three-in-one conception.5 Modiano argues that aspects of the internal construction of the Trinity are derived from Coleridge’s engagement with Naturphilosophie and, in particular, from Schelling. She even comments that Schelling’s ‘conception of the Absolute has as much bearing on Coleridge’s notion of the Trinity as the doctrines of the Church Fathers’.6 Modiano points to two main features of Coleridge’s account that are related to Schelling: the addition of the fourth term to the Trinity, which is related to Schelling’s concept of the Ungrund, and the adoption of a dynamic model of activity in the Trinity.7 I think the case is even stronger and in this chapter I argue that the earliest of Coleridge’s texts on the Trinity show that he was consciously considering Schelling and pantheism as he developed his conception of the Trinity.

Coleridge’s Trinity

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Trinity and

It is a commonplace that Coleridge tried to combine aspects of German philosophy into an account that would do justice to his religious beliefs. It is also common to suggest that this attempt was a failure.8 However, following Modiano, I have already suggested that in his concept of the Trinity, Coleridge did succeed in employing aspects of German philosophy in ways which were fruitful, if problematic. Coleridge repeatedly describes the basic structure of the Trinity in his notebooks, in his marginal notes on various texts, and in his later manuscripts.9 It is particularly noteworthy that there is a direct relationship between several German texts and Coleridge’s consideration of the Trinity, so that the Trinity is discussed, for example, in marginalia on Böhme (whose mystical formulations were so important for Schelling) and Oken (one of the Naturphilosophen, a peer of Schelling’s). As Modiano points out, the notes on Oken are particularly interesting since they discuss the relationship between Naturphilosophie and the Trinity; Coleridge comments that Oken is ‘very near to the Orthodox statement of the Trinity in Unity’, but he also criticizes Naturphilosophie because it ‘places Polarity in the Eternal, in God’.10 One of Coleridge’s most important formulations occurs in a series of notebook entries from 1818, and in these entries his discussion of the Trinity is inextricably bound up with his comments on Oken and Schelling. Coleridge begins this series of related entries with a comparison of the Chaldaean Oracles (attributed to Zoroaster) and Schelling:

The five first contain the whole Principles of Schelling I. [Where the Paternal Monad is.]—(The Absolute.) 2 [The Monad is enlarged, which generates Two.] (The polar Law.) 3. [For the Dyad sits by him (the Monad), and glitters with Intellectual Sections.] (Productive Dyad of Thesis & Antithesis) 4. [And to Govern all things, and to Order all things not Ordered.] (Polarity the Law of all Manifestation, the one universal Pantoplast.) 5. [For in the whole World shineth the Triad, over which the Monad Rules.] Synthesis, Trichotomy [For the Mind of the Father said, that all things be cut into three.] But Schelling has not added as Zoroaster did

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[Whose Will assented, and then all things were divided.] and by this omission rendered his system either spinosistic-barren, or groundless.11 Coleridge has made a thorough comparison between Zoroaster and Schelling. Moreover, he has done so in terms that are sharply reminiscent of his account of the Trinity, as he starts from the absolute, generates a ‘Dyad’ (Father and Son), and concludes with the construction of a synthesis (Spirit). Clearly he has no objection to the structure of this account, or the process of the derivation of the subsequent terms. Rather his objection to Schelling resides in the conception of the divine will.12 His final comment is crucial because he suggests that the omission of the divine will leads either to Spinozism or groundlessness. He seems to mean that if the absolute is conceived without the proviso that it consists of divine will, then the absolute amounts to Spinoza’s single substance, and the subsequent terms in the Trinity will lack distinctness; they will fail to fully separate themselves from the ground. Moreover, he seems to be saying that any attempt to avoid this result will involve the destruction of that ground, so that the system will be ‘groundless’. It will also be recalled that Coleridge repeatedly associated Schelling with Spinoza, describing his thought as the ‘cloathed skeleton of Spinoza’ and so forth (BL I 233–4). It is unsurprising that Coleridge objected to Schelling for his failure to provide an adequately personal God, but it is interesting to note that he does not condemn all of Schelling’s formulations on this basis, but rather sees it as an omission, and is more concerned about will. This suggests that Coleridge was willing to rework the Schellingian account into his own Trinity, so long as he could guarantee the requisite level of personality for the Godhead. In a subsequent entry, Coleridge goes on to discuss the issue of trichotomy in terms of the grammatical construction of pronouns. This seems at first glance to be only tangentially related, but the construction of these pronouns is intimately connected with the selfhood of the figures of the Trinity (and thus with God’s personality). Moreover, since Coleridge sees the Son as a construction that is necessary for the selfknowledge of the Father, the relevance of grammar and pronouns is paramount: the basic pronouns will reflect the relationships between the figures in the Trinity. Coleridge extends the model of trichotomy that has arisen from his discussion of Schelling and Zoroaster:


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Whether in the Dynamic Construction of Grammar the second person ought not to be advanced to the Third, and the Third retracted to its the second place?—It is an evident Trichotomy, consequently, Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis—Now I and It are evidently the antithesis—He, She are It potenziated by the original {and perpetual} Thesis—but Thou seems clearly to be I + it + i = he = Thou. It must never be forgotten that I is a perpetual, i.e. ever recurring Thesis. I It. But It is I∗ modified—I take make a duplicate of I, and combining it with It or Not-I—I have the notion of a Spirit = He, or She—Then I again modify it by I—and I have Thou— ∗ i.e. I being = Subject-Object, I contemplate exclusively as Object. Thence It.—To this I substern or subadd the Subject-Object—and have He or Man. This I modify by I taken exclusively as Subject—and the result is Thou.— (CN III 4426) Coleridge is arguing that the third person is logically prior to the second person. The reason for this is embedded in the details of his earlier consideration of Schelling and Zoroaster. It is because the initial construction out of the absolute was a dyad, a polar relation. Moreover, the first-person pronoun (I) does not stand in a polar relation with the second-person pronoun (Thou), or so at least Coleridge assumes. He has some grounds for making this point, since he goes on to argue that the conception of a ‘Thou’ involves the conception of an ‘It’, with an additional recognition of personality. This is what he means in his formula ‘I + it + i = he = Thou’. Thus the ‘i’ stands for the recognition of the personality of one’s antithesis. The result is that the secondperson pronoun ‘Thou’ is the last generated construction (you need to already have an ‘It’ in order to construct it), and Coleridge associates this with the ‘notion of a Spirit’, which is an obvious hint that this term will become the spirit in the Trinity. This helps to explain the special status of the spirit as the recognition of the personal character of creation. In the added note (after ∗ ) Coleridge makes a change; he describes the ‘I’ as ‘Subject-Object’. This implies that the ‘I’ itself cannot be understood other than as the product of the synthesis of the subject and object, the synthesis of the ‘Thou’ and the ‘It’. This is somewhat odd since he had just previously described the ‘I’ as being in antithesis to the ‘It’, so there is obviously a kind of tentativeness in this formulation, as though he had not yet quite settled the relationship between the terms. Immediately

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following all of this, Coleridge turns his attention to the Trinity itself, in a passage which shows the involvement of all these considerations in his conception: Unitrine. Absolute Essence begotten in the Form, Absolute Form coexisting in the Essence, and the Unity of Both. Or the Subject-Object in absolute Identity neither Subject or Object, or both in Combination, but the Prothesis or Unground of both = To o o , O’ [That which is above, the Father]. This eternal Self-position absolutely begets itself as it own Object, in which being all, it is Object-Subject and again asserting the identity of the Form with the Essence, or the Essence of the Form, the o affirming itself as having its Subject or Essence = God, and the Father asserting the Form identical with his Essence, there proceeds from both Father and Son, the Spirit of God, or SubjectObject. God is one, but exists or manifests himself to himself, at once total in a three-fold Act, total in each and one in all.— Prothesis = God Thesis = Son

Antithesis = Spirit

Synthesis = Father Hence in all things the Synthesis or an images what in God only absolutely is, the Prothesis manifested—it is a return to the Prothesis, or re-affirmation. Thus the Monas, the Dyas, the Trias, and the Tetractys are one/(CN III 4427) The import of this last comment should now be obvious: Coleridge has begun with an analysis of Schelling and Zoroaster, moved on to a consideration of grammar, and finally wound up with his conception of the Trinity. In doing so, moreover, he has traced through a single theme, which shows how genuinely related these apparently disparate matters are for Coleridge, so that all these matters image ‘what in God only absolutely is’. In the first paragraph, Coleridge discusses the prothesis, and the terms in which he does so are obviously derived from Schelling as well as from his analysis of grammar. The absolute is the ‘Subject-Object’, that is to say it has not yet been differentiated into distinct elements: the I, Thou, and It terms have not yet been constructed. Indeed, the relationship between these terms in this ‘Unground’ seems to give Coleridge a little trouble, since he describes it as ‘unity’, ‘Identity’ and ‘combination’ in rapid succession. Obviously this ‘Unground’ is none other than the


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Ungrund of Schelling’s Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit. Indeed, the term which Coleridge seems to need, but perhaps wants to avoid using, is Indifferenz. At least, Schelling’s formulation seems the only way to make sense of it. This prothesis or Ungrund does not exist by itself since ‘This eternal Self-position absolutely begets itself as its own Object.’ Coleridge’s choice of words is important here. In the first place the terms ‘eternal’ and ‘absolute’ seem to be inserted purely in order to confirm or emphasize that all of this occurs in an extra-temporal fashion. It will be recalled that Coleridge objected to Schelling’s idea that God is imperfect, or still in the process of realizing his perfection. Nevertheless, Coleridge appears to have adopted Schelling’s idea that God creates himself out of the Ungrund (prothesis). Moreover, he seems to be doing this for the same reason as Schelling, as a mechanism by which God can construct his own personality. This is why Coleridge describes the prothesis as the ‘Self-position’ and not the ‘self’: it is merely the potential self, or the site of a possible self. However, in doing all of this Coleridge is taking pains to ensure that he does not fall into the trap of seeing God as imperfect (a` la Schelling). Thus it is an ‘eternal Self-position’ (it is outside time), and it ‘absolutely begets’ its object (it does not do so partially, imperfectly or gradually). Amongst commentators who are more directly concerned with the theological implications of Coleridge’s thought this has given rise to an objection concerning the introduction of a potential element into the Trinity.13 It is certainly true that the prothesis term is conceived of as potential, as something that is realized. However, this is not enough to justify the claim that Coleridge’s Trinity involves potential and is therefore imperfect. This is because he does not suppose that this potential could exist unrealized; rather it is fully realized in the three figures of the Trinity. Indeed, it is precisely in order to avoid such Schellingian implications that Coleridge emphasizes the ‘eternal’ and ‘absolute’ nature of the activity of the Trinity.14 The use of these terms is precisely designed to lift the essential elements of Schelling’s speculative ontology without becoming trapped in its concomitant evolutionary divinity. Moreover, Coleridge had a distinct philosophical reason for wanting to do so. In the first of these notebook entries Coleridge concludes that Schelling’s system is rendered Spinozistic by his failure to conceive the absolute as will. However, in order to meaningfully incorporate the concept of will, Coleridge must render the Trinity as an act, which in turn implies activity, the actualization of potential (otherwise the ‘act’ becomes a nonsense).

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In this account Coleridge places the Spirit as the thesis, and the Father as the synthesis.15 This is unusual, since he far more commonly places the Father as the Thesis, and the Spirit as the synthesis. However, in the previous entry, dealing with grammar, Coleridge added a note to his entry where he seems to regard the ‘I’ term (Father) as the synthesis. Thus the unusual ordering seems to have been derived from the circumstances of this formulation. This suggests, moreover, that the formulation was quite unstable at the time of these notebook entries, so that he had not yet completely established the ordering of the Trinity in his own mind. Indeed, the relationship between the three figures of the Trinity and the ground remained an important and problematic issue for Coleridge—one he kept returning to: Jeder die drei Einheiten ist ein Besonderheit, aber diese Besonderheit hebt die Absolutheit nicht auf.—This is Monas, or Idea/And all Ideas are so far Idea, as being particular formally they are universal essentially.—STC = Schelling (CN III 4428) This helps to show up the oddity of the claim that Coleridge had somehow gone wrong in including the concept of potential in the Godhead. Clearly, Coleridge feels that he is walking a thin line here, where an overemphasis on the necessary distinctness of the three figures of the Trinity will lead to a cancellation of the absolute, but an under-emphasis will dump him into Spinozism. In other words, if the actuality of the three figures is focused on exclusively, then their unity will be disrupted. This is also the meaning behind the comment that ‘all Ideas are so far Idea, as being particular formally they are universal essentially’, which is as much as to say that the ‘Ideas’ that are involved in God must somehow manage to be both universal (absolute) and particular (in order to maintain the all-important personality of God). Once more, the connections between these formulations and Coleridge’s reading of Schelling and Oken are obvious. Indeed, the sentence in German appears to be a paraphrase from Oken.16 However, the most dramatic point is the implied agreement with Schelling: ‘STC = Schelling’. There is ample reason to place limits on the extent of this agreement, since the foregoing analysis has shown the ways that Coleridge tries to remove certain aspects of Schelling’s account (especially the imperfection of God, and the failure to identify the absolute as will). However, given the context, it shows that Coleridge was consciously adopting the mechanism of Schelling’s thought and


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applying it to the Trinity, so that whatever his later pronouncements about his differences with Schelling, he did not simply turn away from Schelling to a blank faith in the Trinity. On the contrary, Coleridge’s interactions with Schelling show an integrity and continuity which did not allow for such an arbitrary about-face. The final entry in this series applies the results of Coleridge’s analysis of the Trinity to Oken’s thought. The result is a critique of Oken on the grounds that his employment of the trichotomy is problematic: Oken’s representum. With the uprising of Reality a Triplicity is necessarily affirmed—the Affirmant, or Ponent—the Affirmed, (das Ponirte) or relative Zero = +−, and the whole Self-manifestation = 0 + −. These three Ideas are all equal each to the other, they are the same Absolute whole and undivided, but each diversely put (gesezt). But Oken, like Plato, makes the Universe the ponirte = +−; whereas the World is not the All and One, or the Word—(it is not real as the World—) but the Many in Union. In the Son alone God loveth the world—for in the Son alone he beholdeth it as real = God.—It is (to borrow a phrase from Spinoza) a part of that Love with which he loveth himself—From this oversight arise all Oken’s Monstrosities, and semi-blasphemies—or confusion of God with the World—of which Spinoza was not guilty. (CN III 4429) Coleridge’s criticism is that Oken has failed to add the extra term to the conception. Thus for Oken the ‘affirmed’ (the world) is ‘= +−’, it is the sum of the positive and the negative. Coleridge seems to be saying that this is a mis-identification of the world, which should actually be the ‘whole Self-manifestation’, the sum of the zero, the positive and the negative. Obviously these three terms are being analysed in terms of the Trinity, so that the ‘whole Self-manifestation’ is the three figures of the Trinity. The relevance of the comparison with Spinoza is not immediately clear, but it is possible to unravel the reference. It will be recalled that prior to the pantheism controversy Spinoza was widely considered to have identified the world with God, and was thus condemned as an atheist. This was largely due to Bayle’s account of Spinoza in his Dictionary, where he had ignored Spinoza’s distinction between natura naturans and natura naturata.17 Spinoza’s conception of ‘Nature naturing’ and ‘Nature natured’ corresponds to the distinction between potential and actual. Spinoza’s God is the union of both, whereas the world itself is merely the actual part of God, it is only natura naturata. Thus, if you

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ignore the distinction you will inevitably wind up with an interpretation of Spinoza as identifying God with the world. Coleridge’s point seems to be that Oken is guilty of identifying God with the world (whereas Spinoza is not), because he fails to give a proper account of the potential aspect of the universe. Moreover, it will be recalled that in the first of these notebook entries Coleridge criticized Schelling on the same point, for failing to identify the absolute as will. As it stands, Coleridge has not yet fully developed these areas of fundamental difference with Schelling. He does this, though, in the ‘Opus Maximum’, where he provides perhaps his fullest account of these matters, in the chapter entitled ‘Ideas flowing out of the Divine Personeity’ (OM II 191–283). At the conclusion to the previous chapter, Coleridge provides a summary of his account of personality, and its application to God: Abstractedly then from the individual intelligence we are to treat of Personality, considered as a thing of degrees: and we have discovered [1st That there, & there only, where a reason & a Will are copresent distinctly, but in relations either of union or oppugnancy, a personality is affirmed.] 2ndly That it is in the Will itself, & not in its limitations whether of deficiency or defect, that the Personality consists, as far as the element of the Will is concerned. It follows therefore that the essence of Personality is not to be found in any none of those qualities, negations or privations by which the finite is diverse from the absolute, the human Will from the divine, man from God—nay as we have found these diversities proportionally subtracting from personal perfection, it inevitably follows that by the subtraction of these diversities, the personality must become more perfect, and that God therefore must be at once the absolute person and the ground of all personeity. (OM II 187–9) This shows the importance of Coleridge’s insistence that the ground is absolute will. By defining personality as the co-presence of reason and will, Coleridge has made the inclusion of will in the conception of the Trinity a necessity. Moreover, in this passage he insists on seeing divine will as the perfect form of ordinary will. It will be recalled that Spinoza denies will and intelligence to God, on the grounds that they are features of human finitude, that they themselves are reflective of imperfection. This was the point of his example of the dog constellation and the barking animal: although there is something in common between the two, we have no way of extending the analogy from one to


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the other, so that attributing will to God would be like saying that the dog constellation barks (Ethics I XVIIn). Coleridge is deliberately distinguishing his account from such a view, so that he can incorporate the concept of will into the Trinity. The role of the will in the Trinity is tied up with the idea that the Trinity consists of a series of acts. However, Coleridge also insists on the eternity of the Godhead (so that it is outside time), which on the face of it problematizes the status of any such act. He faces up to this problem, saying: The question, which we are now to answer, is simply this:—of two conceptions, that cannot be conceived apart that is neither in the absence of the other which must we take as first in the process/order of intellection in order to the possibility of the other, these conceptions being the conception Will and the conception of Being?—The most cloudy gnostic could not have been ignorant that the existence of a Will anterior to that of being in that sense of the term anterior in which a moment is supposed during which the one is while the other is not is a gross absurdity. It is I say perfectly indifferent in itself and determinable only by accidental expediency whether in speaking of the two co-inherent elements A & B we speak of A as before B or as anterior to B, or as deeper than B, or underneath B, or above B, or as inner or the inmost. (OM II 235–7) Coleridge is reaffirming the eternity of the Godhead, so that the relations of time have no meaning in the Trinity. This is an important point which I have already discussed, since the failure to insist on the eternity of the Godhead would render it liable to imperfection (as Schelling’s version was). Moreover, it would leave Coleridge’s account open to the criticism that he had allowed an element of unrealized potential in the Godhead. Thus he concludes that any temporal understanding of the relationship between will and being is unacceptable. However, Coleridge does want to assert the priority of the will, but in a non-temporal way. He does this in a long passage, from which I selectively quote: in the order of necessary thought the Will must be conceived as anterior to all, or supportive of that which supports the being. And this we may make manifest in two ways: first, we will suppose the contrary and attribute this timeless anteriority this relative depth to Being: the consequence will be that the Will must be contemplated as produced a production or generation, or procession from that being.

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But this would destroy the very essence of [?a] Will & contradicts the essential point of its definition. On the other hand there is nothing in the conception of being, which is irreconcilable with the conception of product or offspring (OM II 239–41) An absolute Will, which therefore is essentially causative of reality & therefore in origine causative of its own reality, the essential causativeness however abiding undiminished & indiminishable (OM II 242) The Will therefore as a personal being & because a Will therefore a personal being having the causa sui or ground and principle of its being in its own inexhaustible causative might. (OM II 243) Coleridge is attempting to assert the primacy of will without having recourse to time, which would introduce an element of imperfection into the Trinity. It is hard to know what to make of the result, since the priority of will now seems rather odd. The point that Coleridge is making seems to be that if being has priority, then the will winds up as a product. However, in making this point Coleridge himself seems to be falling into the trap of thinking of the matter in temporal terms. Moreover, Coleridge’s assumption is that the will must have priority in ‘the order of necessary thought’, and given that all of this is supposed to be going on in an a-temporal way, and that each of the figures of the Trinity depend upon one another for their being, it is hard to see how ‘the order of necessary thought’ is relevant. However, the intention of all of this is clearly to incorporate will and personality into the Trinity in a thorough-going way. That is to say Coleridge wants to argue that will has priority over being, so that he is not left with a God that has only an emergent or developmental personality. Moreover, this is the real reason that he wants to argue that will cannot be a ‘product or offspring’. This seems to have been a matter of some anxiety to Coleridge, since he reaffirms the same basic idea over and over, before finally concluding with an explicit statement of his concerns about falling into pantheism: I need not warn the reader to exclude all thought of succession in the term “becomes”; the employment of which term objectively in the same sense in which it applies subjectively forming one of the great errors of the mystics at the close of the fifteenth century, and in the recent writings of Schelling & his followers as often as


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they attempt to clothe the skeleton of the Spinozistic pantheism, & breathe a life thereinto (OM II 265–6) Yet once more, Coleridge insists on the eternity of the Trinity. It is even more interesting to note that he has Schelling and the mystics explicitly in mind in doing this, and condemns their failure to exclude temporality from God as one of their ‘great errors’. Moreover, it seems that this was the point of Coleridge’s often-repeated claim that Schelling’s thought was a ‘cloathed’ Spinozism. Coleridge seems to be suggesting that the inclusion of dynamic activity in the divine was correct; it is the way to ‘clothe’ the skeleton of Spinozism, and ‘breathe a life’ into it, because it allows for a personal God. However, in failing to place this activity outside time, Schelling and the mystics have disrupted the conception of God, especially in Schelling’s case, since he explicitly conceives of God as imperfect. This helps to explain the central importance of the will and its eternity in Coleridge’s conception. By Coleridge’s own lights, his Trinity does not differ from Schelling’s pantheism except through the insistence on the status of will. However, there still remain some issues to be settled. Coleridge still needs to explain the relative status of the figures of the Trinity, and explain how they interact through this eternal will. Thus he continues: But this divine reciprocation in & by which the Father attributeth his self to another & the Son beholdeth & knoweth himself in the Father is not & cannot be contemplated otherwise than as an act, [?] as an act therefore of the divine Will which is one in both & therefore an act necessarily causative of reality and as before first causative of its own reality. It is [?It] But if real it is therefore self subsistent; & we have only to enquire but if self subsistent therefore distinct & having a form of reality which is its own & not the forms of another. (OM II 266–7) Shortly before this passage Coleridge referred to God as ‘A supreme selforiginated being’ (OM II 259). In this passage he refers to the Son as ‘self-subsistent’, so that it is clear that he has in mind a distinction between self-originating and self-subsistent to help clarify the internal relations between the figures of the Trinity. Thus, the Trinity overall is self-originant (it is the cause of itself) but the individual figures that are produced by God’s act are self-subsistent, which is to say that they

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exist in themselves. They are distinct, but they are not the causes of themselves. This terminology has been taken from Mendelssohn’s attempt to refute Spinoza. I discussed this argument and Coleridge’s criticisms of it in Chapter 6, but the essential point is that Mendelssohn proposes the distinction, and argues that even granted Spinoza’s assumptions that God is causa sui, it is still possible to derive independent substances, so that Spinoza was wrong to think there was only one substance. This argument attempts to show how a God which is the cause of itself can nevertheless give rise to other entities that are genuinely independent. As such this distinction forms the perfect mechanism for asserting the unity, and yet distinctness, of the figures of the Trinity, and this is precisely the way that Coleridge has employed it. Given Coleridge’s continual references to the dangers of falling into a ‘cloathed Spinozism’, the point of adopting Mendelssohn’s distinction is even more clear. Coleridge is working within Spinoza’s general assumption that God is the cause of itself. However, if he is to avoid Spinozism he must find a way to avoid Spinoza’s monism and assert the independence of the products of God’s self-creation. Thus it makes perfect sense that Coleridge’s concept of the Trinity is grounded in Mendelssohn’s attempt to refute Spinoza’s monism, in spite of the fact that such a use was the furthest thing from Mendelssohn’s mind. Having established the nature of God’s act in creating the Trinity, and asserted the independence of its products, Coleridge has only one final problem to deal with—the problem of explaining the nature of an eternal act, one that occurs outside of time: By what other term can we designate this act, but by those of proceeding affirming that it is an eternal proceeding from the Father to the Son, & from the Son to the Father, but such procession being in its nature circular, at once ever refluent & ever profluent, the Greek Fathers have entitled the or the primary, absolute, coeternal intercirculation of Deity. (OM II 268) Coleridge adopts the concept of (perichoresis) to explain the act of God which is necessarily circular and eternal, and translates it as ‘intercirculation’. Of course, it is more or less impossible to properly conceive of an act that occurs without time, so that even in this concept Coleridge has difficulty in making proper allowance for the eternal nature of God’s act, since the concept of circulation is itself one that involves time. In other instances he uses the word ‘interpenetration’ to


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describe the relationship between the figures of the Trinity, as a related term which emphasizes the independence, and yet dependence of the three figures.18 Coleridge’s account of the Trinity did not materially alter from this basic pattern, which is repeated as late as the 1830s. However, these later formulations tend to obscure the technical and philosophical aspects of what he is doing, so that the relationship between Coleridge’s conception and the German background is less clear.19 Coleridge’s conception of the Trinity is therefore heavily informed by Schelling, Spinoza and even Mendelssohn. The similarities have always been reasonably obvious, since Coleridge’s inclusion of a ground to the Trinity has obvious pantheistic implications, and bears a blatant resemblance to Schelling’s conception of the Ungrund. However, in the foregoing, I have also been able to show the ways that Coleridge was consciously drawing on the Schellingian conception, and attempting to modify Schellingian ideas so as to avoid the danger of collapsing into pantheism. It is fair to say that Coleridge’s conception of the Trinity would have been altogether different, were it not for his knowledge of the pantheism controversy. Coleridge has actually achieved a great deal with his conception of the Trinity. He has successfully transferred techniques and ideas from German philosophy into a conception of the Trinity that is incompatible with the pantheistic background from which those ideas and techniques emerged. Coleridge’s account does not collapse into Schellingianism, Spinozism or any form of pantheism. Coleridge has asserted the personality of God, and cashed the idea out in an internally consistent and sophisticated manner. Whatever doubts one might have about the ultimate success of his arguments, there is no doubt that his account succeeds in its own terms in asserting an eternal personal God in contradistinction to Schelling’s account or pantheism in general.

Coleridge and Schelling: Eternity, evil and evolutionary divinity Coleridge’s account of the Trinity is very different from Schelling’s conception of God. However, the two concepts also have a great deal in common, and typically create the same ongoing philosophical problems. The most important of these is the problem of evil. The problem of evil arises through the apparent incompatibility of an all-good God with the existence of evil. Of course with a straightforwardly theistic account of God, the problem can be solved relatively easily, since one can argue that evil is merely relative, and that God made the best overall choice. However, in the case of pantheism the difficulty is rather sharper, since

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if all things are immanent in God, then all evil things must be immanent in God, so that God is in part evil. The argument about God’s choices is irrelevant, since it is not the goodness of his choices that is in question, it is the goodness of himself. Schelling solves this problem by positing the Ungrund for the existence of God. God is supposed to create himself out of this ground, and evil is a mere by-product of this act. In doing this Schelling’s account leaves itself open to a destructive dilemma: either the ground is under God’s control, in which case God still winds up evil, or it is not under God’s control, in which case God fails to be omnipotent. It will be recalled that Coleridge objected to this aspect of Schelling’s account, so that we may suppose that in general terms he was aware of this problem. Schelling has another strategy for dealing with evil: he denies that it has ‘existence’, by which he means that it has only ‘being’. The difference is that the being of evil is not fully actualized, and that when it becomes so it ceases to be evil. However, this strategy is dependent on the assumption that God is imperfect, because he is still in the process of developing towards full actualization and personality. It goes without saying that this was unacceptable to Coleridge. Coleridge makes a sustained attempt to deal with the problem of evil in the MS ‘On the Divine Ideas’. He begins by clarifying the nature of the problem, and it is clear from the outset that he is conceiving the matter in terms that suggest the problems that usually arise from a pantheistic conception:20 The passage from the absolute to the {separated} finite, this is the difficulty, which who shall overcome? This is the chasm which ages have tried in vain to overbridge. If the finite be in no sense separate from the infinite, if it be one with the same, whence proceeded Evil? For the finite can be one with the absolute, inasmuch only as it represents the absolute truly verily under some particular form. Herein, no negation is implied, nor privation, no negation from without; for it is the position of all in the each. But if, on the other hand, the evil finite here spoken of be separate and diverse from the absolute, we might indeed explain the evil therefrom; but then the question would return, how was the finite possible? I said hastily that from such a finite we might educe the origin of evil: but such a finite were evil! (ODI 11–15) Coleridge is subordinating problem of evil to the more general problem of the relationship between the infinite and the finite. Moreover, the


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status of the finite beings is itself a matter of concern, and Coleridge considers two cases separately: that where the finite is the absolute ‘under some particular form’, and that where the finite is separate from the infinite. Coleridge rules out some of the simpler possible answers: where evil is a privation or negation (Spinoza’s solution), and where evil is simply blamed on finite beings, as opposed to the infinite. This is because, if the finite is one with the infinite, then it cannot suffer from privation, and if the finite is separate from the infinite, then this separate status requires explanation. Coleridge has set the problem in terms that imply pantheism, or at least a conception of God that is similar to a pantheistic God in its relationship to the finite. In other words, he is concerned that the existence of evil means that part of God is evil. Moreover, he has ruled out the simple answers, just as Schelling did in his account. On the face of it, it would seem that this is an unnecessary extravagance, since Coleridge is ostensibly working with a theistic account. However, the analysis of Coleridge’s concept of the Trinity in the previous section demonstrates why Coleridge sees his concept of the Trinity as being susceptible to peculiarly pantheistic ailments. Indeed, his continuation shows the persistence of the pantheistic elements in his conception: The Will, the absolute Will, in that which is essentially causative of reality, essentially, and absolutely, that is, boundless from without and from within. This is our first principle. This is the position contained in the postulate of the reality of Will at all. Difficult, we have never attempted to conceal from ourselves, is it to master this first idea. Nor could it be otherwise. But in this affirmation it is involved that what is essentially causative of all possible reality must be causative of its own reality. It is not the cause of all reality because it is causative of its own, but it is necessarily causative of its own reality because it is essentially causative of all possible reality. (ODI 21) Coleridge insisted on the priority of the will in the Trinity, in order to be able to maintain the personality of God. However, in doing so he does not think he has evaded the basic ideas of pantheism at all. Rather his ‘absolute Will’ is similar to Spinoza’s causa sui, and Schelling’s Ungrund. He insists on personality, but does not glibly suppose that in doing so he had done away with the problems of pantheistic thought about God. He immediately continues with an explanation of the relationship between his thought and pantheism:

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Herein lies the depth of the mystery, which without superstitious or slavish fear we may truly call tremendous, and which more or less openly, in words more or less convenient, has been now affirmed and now supposed, in all the great and stirring epochs of the Christian theology: That perilous line on which we pass balancing the soul over a fearful abysm. the narrow isthmus which we have to pass, with atheism on the one side, or a world without a God, and Pantheism, or a world that is itself God; on the one side Fatalism, on the other a sensual Polytheism, as its inevitable consequents. For in the Absolute Will we conceive what in God and as the sSupreme Being, as the Father Divine Person, we could not admit if we dared, for it would involve a contradiction; and we dared not if we could, for it would introduce imperfection into the reality of Deity. (ODI 23–5) This is really important, because it confirms the nature of the problem and its relationship to pantheism. In doing so it also confirms (if there could still be any doubt) that Coleridge’s concern with pantheism was a central focus of his entire intellectual life, and shows itself not just in his early poetry, but even here in his later theology. In any case, it is clear that Coleridge considers pantheism to be an issue that is relevant to his Trinitarian concerns. Obviously this is the result of his insistence that the absolute will is the cause of all reality, an insistence he feels compelled to make in order that he not ‘introduce imperfection into the reality of Deity’. This image of the isthmus between atheism and pantheism confirms once more what I have suggested repeatedly in previous chapters: that Coleridge was deeply concerned that his thought might be in danger of collapsing into pantheism, of sliding off the isthmus (or tumbling off the balancing rope of the struck out line). Indeed, elsewhere Coleridge suggests that this has been the fate of many accounts of the Trinity: ‘I could name more than one learned, godly and religious Clergyman, who is a Pantheist thro’ his zeal for the Trinity.’21 Having set the problem, Coleridge proceeds to attempt a solution. He begins by trying to clarify the status of ‘potential’ and ‘actual’: These forms, these opposite poles of reality are the actual and the potential, and the [? habit] error against which I am now guarding consists in the habit of substituting for these the false opposition and mere logical contrariety of real and unreal, and thus of considering “the actual” as a mere and perfect synonyme of “real”, perfectly commutable words like “swerve” and “deviate”, or “daily”


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and “quotidianal”, and in like manner “the potential” as tantamount, and no more than tantamount, to “unreal” or the mere “non-entity”. Without correcting this habit it is impossible that either the present argument, or indeed any reasoning connected with the ideas, laws, or powers, can be intelligible. (ODI 49–51) Potential and actual are of course abstractions: they do not exist in a really separate sense. It is not as though you can separate them and point them out one at a time. However, the word ‘potential’ is often used in the sense of ‘possible’, which tends to muddy the waters a little. Coleridge’s point is that the meaning of potential and actual are inextricably bound to one another, and that it is not as if ‘potential’ is something that does not exist. Interestingly, Coleridge introduces Mendelssohn immediately after this passage and briefly discusses his attempt at an ontological argument. The passage is unclear, but he seems to be suggesting that in Mendelssohn’s concept of God as a necessary being, he is misusing these very terms: ‘Assuming without right that actual is the perfect equivalent of real’ (ODI 53). Presumably Coleridge means to suggest that the concept of a necessary being does not include the concept of actuality, but only of reality. This would mean that the necessary being might be merely potential, but it is not clear where this is leading, and Coleridge’s argument peters out. The general point is that Coleridge is trying to introduce a twotiered system of being. On the one hand there is the ‘actual’ which amounts to that which is fully actualized, and on the other there is the ‘potential’, which is clearly real, but in some sense not as real as the actual. This bears a striking resemblance to Schelling’s similar distinction between being and existence. Schelling argued that evil and finitude have ‘being’, but since they are not yet fully realized, they do not have ‘existence’, which is reserved for God. It will be recalled that Coleridge expressed some doubts about this distinction, but it is equally obvious that he is now trying to rework some version of this same distinction to fit in with his own Trinitarian concerns. Coleridge’s anxiety on this matter becomes apparent when he returns to the matter of the ‘potential’: Now here is what was with no unseemly fear and inward trembling named the abyss or abysmal mystery, that there is in the causative Allmight of God (who shall dare utter it? or if he feel permitted, in what terms shall he utter it? Shall he say a more than God, or a less

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than God, and yet more in the sense other, a somewhat that God did not realize in himself; for the real containeth both the actual and the potential, but in God as God by the necessity of his absolute perfection there is no potentiality). When, therefore, we speak of the Will as the ground of the divine existence, from which it indeed would be more wise to abstain, or when we meet with it in the mystic passages of writers of deserved name and undoubted piety, it will be highly expedient to bear in mind that the words are used prolepticè or by anticipation, i.e. the Will contemplated after we have assumed it beheld its self-realization, as the necessary being, ens entium, or Supreme Mind. (ODI 67–9)

Coleridge’s concern is once more to reaffirm the perfection of God, and thus to absolve the Trinity of any element of potential. The decision to base the distinction on the opposition of actual and potential is clearly aimed at converting Schelling’s distinction between being and existing into something that can be compatible with God’s perfection. Thus, instead of proposing that part of God’s being does not yet fully exist as Schelling did, Coleridge transfers Schelling’s temporal distinction into the a-temporal realm of mere abstraction. Thus Coleridge says ‘the real containeth both the actual and the potential, but in God as God by the necessity of his absolute perfection there is no potentiality’, by which he means that since potential and actual are mere abstractions, it is not possible to assert only one of them of God. That is to say all of God’s potential is actualized, all of his being is actual. The question remains, how can this resolve the problem of evil? Coleridge approaches this question by proposing the existence of a will that is opposed to God’s will:

It is impossible for God not to be God, and it is impossible for a part which is one with the whole to be other than the whole as long as it remains one with the whole. It does not, however, follow that in the part as a part there should not be contained the conditional possibility of willing to be a part that is not one with the whole, of willing to be in itself and not in another; for this is not precluded in the Will, or in a realization of the Will through and in the Divine Will: it is precluded only by the absolute self realization of the absolute Will. (ODI 27–9)


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This will turns out to be the origin of evil. Coleridge even refers to the figure of Satan: ‘A world of contradictions, I have said, commences. The father of self, alien from God, was a liar from beginning and the father of lies’ (ODI 45). But the origin of this will is still problematic, since Coleridge comments that it is ‘precluded only by the absolute self realization of the absolute Will’. We have already seen that Coleridge insists that the absolute Will is fully realized, and must be so, in order to ensure God’s perfection. This tends to suggest that such an opposed (satanic) will could not even exist. Nevertheless, Coleridge goes on to reinforce the insistence that such a will must be outside God: But in the Will to actualize this potentiality, or as in common language we should say, in the Will to convert this possibility into a reality, it necessarily makes—itself! Shall I say?—or rather, a self that is not God, and hence by its own act becomes alien from God. But in God all {? absolute}{actual} reality is contained: in making, therefore, a self that is not God, the {all} actuality is necessarily lost. A potentiality alone remains, by virtue of the Will, which as Will is indestructible and eternal. A causativeness must remain, for this is the essential of the Will; but it is a causativeness that destroys, which annihilates the actual, and in the potential swallowing up all reality actuality, so that the potential as merely potential remains the sole {only} form of {its} reality (ODI 41–3) In distinguishing this satanic will from God, Coleridge has established the basic premise of his solution to the problem of evil. He ensures that this will is ‘alien from God’, so that God is not evil. However, this leaves him with a further problem, since God contains all ‘actual reality’, so that evil must be ‘a self that is not God, the {all} actuality is necessarily lost. A potentiality alone remains ’. This is bordering on nonsense, and Coleridge’s final statement on the matter is scarcely more enlightening: The potential, still a form of reality, though its negative role, and therefore a form of Will, willed itself to be actual under impossible conditions. For to be actual was to will its subsistence to be in God, and the power of willing otherwise existed potentially, by necessity of the {in a} Will on part of a Will, and part because it was a particular Will. It could not but be, because the real was, and the actual was, but in all particular forms the actual could not be without the particular. The result can be no otherwise expressed, as far as it can be at all

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expressed, than that a self became, which was not God, nor One with God. The potential was actualized but {yet} not as actual, but by a strange yet appropriate contradiction as potential. (ODI 141) Thus evil is merely potential, or rather it is an actualization of potential which fails to actualize or actualizes into potential. Coleridge repeats this general account in a long notebook entry, where he adds that evil can also occur as the conversion of the good into potential (CN IV 4998). This is all rather disappointing. Potential and actual are abstractions, and Coleridge has wound up treating them as really distinct, an error he himself was elsewhere at pains to criticize.22 This account of evil has degenerated into nonsense, and Coleridge appears to give up on trying to develop the argument. He simply mumbles a few embarrassed words about reasoning ‘with that kind of assurance of faith with which the algebraist places his signs, {letters,} and cyphers ’ (ODI 143). He seems to be trying to suggest that although we cannot make sense of the result, it is like some of the peculiar quantities that mathematics sometimes throws up. He knew he was stumped. The reason for this breakdown is what is complex and interesting. I have just argued that Coleridge’s employment of the distinction between potential and actual was an attempt to convert Schelling’s distinction between existence and being into terms which would not disrupt the Godhead. Indeed, this solution to the problem of evil is materially Schelling’s, since Schelling argues that evil is ‘non-existing’, because although it has being, it is not fully realized, and so it does not achieve ‘existence’, which is reserved for cases of full actualization. Coleridge attempts to convert this idea into terms which will allow him to maintain (contra Schelling) the perfection of God. In doing so, Schelling’s solution to the problem of evil simply comes apart in his hands. Coleridge has succeeded in remaining firmly on his isthmus. However, in attempting to convert materials out of a pantheistic context into his own Trinitarian account, he has stalled. He has secured himself from the danger of sliding off the isthmus into either pantheism or atheism, but only at the cost of remaining stuck on it, unable to progress to the mainland.

10 Reason, Understanding and Truth

Coleridge’s distinction between reason and understanding takes pride of place in many accounts of Coleridge’s thought, and rightly so, since Coleridge himself repeatedly insisted on its central importance. However, the context in which this distinction was struck and the forces at work in it have been misunderstood because the central tension over the concept of reason itself has been comprehensively missed in previous readings of Coleridge’s relationship with German philosophy. German philosophy in the period is, in a very real sense, nothing other than an ongoing crisis over reason itself that was sparked as much by Kant’s attack on dogmatic reason in Kritik der reinen Vernunft as it was by Jacobi’s attack on reason in general in Über die Lehre des Spinoza. Thus, attempts to understand Coleridge as a belated transcendentalist have missed what was really at stake in the period, and what was really at stake in Coleridge’s philosophical articulations. Coleridge’s distinction was not so much an attempt to protect faith or religion from reason, as it was an attempt to protect reason itself from an appearance of incompatibility with the urgent matters of faith: free will and divine existence. In other words, the distinction is primarily an attempt to define reason in a way that will protect it from the combined dangers of the Kantian and Jacobian critiques. The importance of Kant and Jacobi for the Coleridgean distinction has always been clear, since Coleridge explicitly mentions Jacobi in his discussions of the distinction in The Friend and mentions Kant in the same context in Aids to Reflection, so that most discussions of Coleridge’s distinction make some analysis of this matter.1 But previous accounts of the distinction have generally understood its relationship to Kant and Jacobi virtually backwards, because they have assumed that 187

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Coleridge derived his distinction from his sources and used it to defend an increasingly intolerant faith against the encroachments of enlightenment reason.2 Even scholars relatively sympathetic to Coleridge observe that the distinction is constructed with something like this in mind, so that McFarland sees it as Coleridge’s defence of Christianity against the enlightenment.3 I am suggesting just the opposite: that the distinction is Coleridge’s genuine attempt to defend reason by generating a conception of reason that could account for ordinary rational activity, without simultaneously trapping the rational subject in a mechanistic milieu which blatantly fails to account for the most basic features of human experience—not only of religious conviction, but of free will itself. Of course this is not to deny that the distinction becomes a general theological and philosophical panacea which allows Coleridge to create an impression of rationality in areas where his religious faith was really calling the shots. It also allows him to more or less assume his way out of the predicament in which Kant had left the speculative reason, since he uses it to assert that although understanding cannot extend to supersensible objects (such as God), reason can. However, the distinction is not so much derived from German sources as it is belligerent to them, and the primary motivation is not so much to defend faith as it is to defend reason, or rather to protect each from the other, by giving an account that will do justice to the rational subject’s self-understanding.

Reason and understanding: The rhetoric of distinction From the outset it is clear that the distinction between reason and understanding is tied up with religion: Man may rather be defined a religious than a rational character, in regard that in other creatures there may be something of Reason, but there is nothing of Religion. HARRINGTON If the Reader will substitute the word “Understanding” for “Reason,” and the word “Reason” for “Religion,” Harrington has here completely expressed the Truth for which the Friend is contending.4 This encapsulates a great deal of what Coleridge attempts to achieve with the distinction. The role of ‘Reason’ as a replacement for ‘Religion’ signposts the fact that the distinction will be used to provide a ground for religious thought that is separate from ordinary rationality. Moreover, this transformation of terminology has an eerie similarity

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to Jacobi’s changes in his use of the term ‘reason’. If nothing else this serves as notice that Coleridge’s ‘Reason’ deals primarily with religious matters, and that it reserves a capacity for doing so which the mere ‘Understanding’ cannot hope to achieve. Moreover, reason is implicitly a higher capacity, which is not shared by animals. In accounting for the relative roles of reason and understanding, Coleridge draws on Jacobi: I should have no objection to define Reason with Jacobi, and with his friend Hemsterhuis, as an organ bearing the same relation to spiritual objects, the Universal, the Eternal, and the Necessary, as the eye bears to material and contingent phænomena. But then it must be added, that it is an organ identical with its appropriate objects. Thus, God, the Soul, eternal Truth, &c. are the objects of Reason; but they are themselves reason. (Friend I 155–6) This is indeed very similar to Jacobi’s later account, where reason includes the possibility of immediate apprehension of God. But in doing this Coleridge has assigned a role for reason similar to that of sense, as a supplier of materials to the understanding, as he openly states elsewhere: ‘Reason indeed is far nearer to SENSE than to Understanding: for Reason is a direct Aspect of Truth, an inward Beholding, having a similar relation to the Intelligible or Spiritual, as SENSE has to the Material or Phenomenal’ (AR 223–4). Thus reason and sense are parallel in supplying materials which the understanding must deal with. The difference between the two is that reason is also one with God as Logos, reason is God’s self revelation, so that reason is part of the divine, in the same way that our senses are part of the material world. As he puts it in 1832 ‘Reason is subjective Revelation, Revelation objective Reason’ (CL VI 895). Coleridge even explicitly compares the reason with human sensory organs: In short, the human understanding possesses two distinct organs, the outward sense, and “the mind’s eye” which is reason: wherever we use that phrase (the mind’s eye) in its proper sense, and not as a mere synonyme of the memory or the fancy. (Friend I 156–7) This is almost certainly derived from Jacobi’s final formulations: Animals only perceive the sensible; mankind, invested with reason, also perceives the super-sensible, and he calls the capacity of

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perceiving the super-sensible, the reason, just as he calls the capacity of seeing, the eye. Animals lack the organ for perceiving the supersensible 5 The real importance of this lies in the emphasis it places on the ‘being’ of reason. It is not simply a rational activity, the way understanding is, rather it is something that has a relatively concrete ontological status as Logos. This is the meaning behind Coleridge’s claim that ‘God, the Soul, eternal Truth, &c. are the objects of Reason; but they are themselves reason’. This and the emphasis on the status of the reason as an ‘organ’ enable it to enjoy the kind of status that sense has, as having a kind of unquestioned veracity in itself, regardless of any questions we might have about the relationships that hold between our sense perceptions and reality. Thus Coleridge will see reason as its own guarantor of truth, in much the same way that certain sensations are (e.g. pain). This is also the significance of his comment that ‘The Reason in all its decisions appeals to itself, as the ground and substance of their truth’ (AR 223). Of course, problems arise when you extend this to claims of general veracity as Coleridge will go on to do (pain is the guarantor of its own reality, but nothing more, as phantom pain demonstrates). This conception of reason leads Coleridge into some of his most radical and problematic formulations. The reason for this extremity is the level of anxiety that is associated with the concept of reason in general; the familiar spectre of Spinoza is still hovering in the background: the supreme Reality, if it were contemplated abstractly from the Absolute Will, whose essence it is to be causative of all Reality, would sink into a Spinozistic Deity. That this is not evident to us arises from the false notion of Reason as a quality, property, or faculty of the Real, whereas Reason is the supreme Reality, the only true Being in all things visible and invisible! the Pleroma, in whom alone God loveth the world! (CL VI 600) Coleridge bases his dramatic claims for the capabilities of reason on a specific ontological status. One of the results of this ontological status is that reason is not a human activity, rather it is something external to which human beings stand in relation. Thus Coleridge describes reason as ‘the superindividual of each man by which he is man’ (SW&F II 838). It is likely that this aspect of Coleridge’s definition of reason is related to Jacobi, who makes the similar comment: ‘But if we understand by reason, the principle of cognition in general, then it is the spirit, out of


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which the whole living nature of mankind is made: mankind consists of it; he is a form that it has taken on’ (ULS 423 [152]). But Coleridge does not see reason merely as some kind of neo-platonic intuitive capacity (though his conception is certainly influenced by the idea). Rather Coleridge cashes out the special capacities of reason in clear, if problematic, ontological claims. Moreover, one of his primary motives for assigning this special status to reason is none other than the avoidance of a ‘Spinozistic Deity’. Coleridge does not merely see the reason as having the ability to transcend the restrictions of ordinary rationality. There is also a distinction within reason, namely the Kantian distinction between its speculative and practical employments. As Coleridge puts it: ‘Contemplated distinctively in reference to formal (or abstract) truth, it is the speculative Reason; but in reference to actual (or moral) truth, as the fountain of Ideas and the Light of the Conscience, we name it the practical Reason’ (AR 217). Of course, Coleridge privileges both in ways that Kant refuses to do, mainly in attributing ontological significance to both. Nevertheless Kant’s division between speculative and practical reason was as important for Coleridge’s conception as his distinction between reason and understanding. Kant allows that the practical reason may postulate certain propositions about God and the like, whereas the speculative reason can make no headway in actually demonstrating them. Even the limitations placed on the speculative reason seem designed to appeal to Coleridge since they may serve to actually protect faith and reason from one another. As Boulger suggests, to Coleridge these limitations ‘seemed to have dealt an effective death blow to the conflicts between reason and faith as they were constantly agitated in eighteenthcentury religious controversy’.6 This division appealed to Coleridge, and indeed it is the account he gives of the matter in Biographia, where he recounts Kant’s distinction between the practical and the speculative reason. However, in this case Coleridge converts Kant’s use of the phrase ‘practical reason’ into ‘understanding’, and argues that it can lead to a knowledge of God through everyday awareness of the world. In other words, his employment of the distinction between reason and understanding in Biographia is the reverse of his employment of it in other contexts, and seems to have been based on Kant’s distinction between speculative and practical reason (see BL I 203). In the end though Coleridge wants to reassert the capabilities of reason, and does so through his radical ontological claims: ‘God, the Soul, eternal Truth, &c. are the objects of Reason; but they are themselves reason’ (Friend I 156). This is the reasoning behind Coleridge’s famous

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claim that ‘Ideas’ are not merely regulative as in Kant (as the unprovable postulates of practical reason), but also constitutive of reality, since they literally are God. Likewise it underlies his claims for the consubstantiality of symbol. The reason then has a rather strange status, since it is not entirely clear what it actually does. The understanding on the other hand turns out to be much closer to an ordinary conception of human rationality. Indeed, this is in many ways the meaning of the distinction: it provides for a capacity superior to ordinary human rationality. Since Coleridge has claimed that the reason is similar to sense in providing immediate materials for understanding to work with, it is no surprise to find him defining understanding in terms of the capacity to judge such materials, and assigning a relatively limited role to it: On the other hand, the Judgements of the Understanding are binding only in relation to the objects of our Senses, which we reflect under the forms of the Understanding. It is, as Leighton rightly defines it, “the Faculty judging according to Sense.” (AR 218) Thus, understanding is the relatively prosaic matter of making sense of the world. As such Coleridge argues that it is a minor capacity which is possessed even by animals. Indeed, he goes on to argue that even the social insects (ants and bees) possess understanding (AR 219–22). However, in the end this whole argument turns out to be more or less a rhetorical strategy designed to support the introduction of the distinction itself, as he concludes: Now I assert, that the faculty manifested in the acts here narrated [architectural feats of bees and ants] does not differ in kind from Understanding, and that it does so differ from Reason In this place I take the understanding as it exists in Men, and in exclusive reference to its intelligential functions; and it is in this sense of the word that I am to prove the necessity of contra-distinguishing it from Reason. (AR 222) Coleridge depicts the understanding as a matter of judgements and problem-solving, so that it lacks the ontological significance assigned to reason.7 In other words understanding is thought, whereas reason actually is the things it provides knowledge about: ‘God, the Soul, eternal Truth are themselves reason’ (Friend I 156). Coleridge goes on


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to define the pragmatic application of understanding in line with this conception: The Understanding then (considered exclusively as an organ of human intelligence,) is the Faculty by which we reflect and generalize the whole Process may be reduced to three acts, all depending on and supposing a previous impression on the Senses: first, the appropriation of our Attention; 2. (and in order to the continuance of the first) Abstraction, or the voluntary withholding of the Attention; and 3. Generalization. And these are the proper Functions of the Understanding (AR 224–5) Coleridge has included almost all of the functions of what would normally be called rationality under the heading of the understanding. He conceived understanding in terms of ‘functions’ and ‘process’, whereas his emphasis in dealing with reason is entirely on its supposed ontological status and the access to ontological conclusions about supersensible objects which that status allows. The result is that understanding becomes a faculty of representation and manipulation of representations. Coleridge places the same kinds of limits on this faculty that Kant places on speculative reason: in all instances, it is words, names, or, if images, yet images used as words or names, that are the only and exclusive subjects of Understanding. In no instance do we understand a thing in itself; but only the name to which it is referred. (AR 231) Thus understanding is tied up with linguistic matters, and human rationality is limited by its linguistic structure (a` la Wittgenstein). Or rather, this would be the case were it not for reason which conveniently avoids such troublesome limitations. Coleridge stresses that the two faculties differ in kind. However, it is important to recognize that they are not conceived as entirely distinct, and they are certainly not in opposition to one another as some commentators have suggested.8 Indeed, Coleridge is insistent on the interrelatedness of reason, understanding and sense: Distinct notions do not suppose different things. When we make a three-fold distinction in human nature, we are fully aware, that it is a distinction not a division, and that in every act of Mind the Man unites the properties of Sense, Understanding, and Reason. (Friend I 177n)

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Not only are the three entities interrelated, but, in terms of human mental activity, they are united. Indeed, reason as Logos redeems human rationality, it ‘goeth through all understanding, and remaining in itself regenerateth all powers’ (AR 218). This in turn creates some problems for Coleridge’s account, since it creates a secondary problem of knowledge. Even if Coleridge’s radical claims for reason are accepted, it is possible to suggest that the relative veracity of reason is immersed in the other features of human thought, so that it would be impossible to determine which is which. This would mean that even if we happened to know the truth of a matter through reason, the understanding would have trouble identifying it as such. Regardless of such details though, this mechanism enables Coleridge to avoid the problems that arise from proposing an antagonism between reason and any other faculty (such as faith or commonsense). Instead he argues that reason informs all aspects of human thought: It is evident then, that the Reason, judges as the irradiative Power & the representative of the Infinite, judges the Understanding as the Faculty of the Finite: and cannot without grievous error be judged by it. When this is attempted, or when the Understanding in its synthesis with the personal Will usurps the supremacy of the Reason or affects the to supersede the Reason. (SW&F II 841) The other faculties are merely subordinate forms of reason, and are not completely distinct from it, nor in opposition to it. Coleridge frequently uses this idea to make judgements of his contemporaries, and it often appears as though he is accusing them of relying on understanding rather than reason. These claims should be read in terms of an imbalance in the relationship between reason and understanding, and frequently in terms of the understanding acting alone (whereas it should work in co-operation with reason). Thus in criticizing British foreign policy Coleridge comments ‘It is wonderful, how closely Reason and Imagination are connected, and Religion the union of the two. Now the Present is the Epoch of the Understanding and the Senses’ (Friend I 203n). Coleridge is actually talking about pragmatic decision-making, which he felt should have been more principled, thus he is not at all supposing that rationality should be dismissed in favour of intuition, religion or anything else; rather he is talking about the internal management of different rational impulses. The point becomes even clearer where Coleridge comments that:


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I have no hesitation in undertaking to prove, that every Heresy which has disquieted the Christian Church, from Tritheism to Socinianism, has originated in and supported itself by, arguments rendered plausible only by the confusion of these faculties, and thus demanding for the objects of one, a sort of evidence appropriated to those of another faculty. (Friend I 177n) Coleridge is not arguing for reason to the exclusion of understanding or anything of the sort. Indeed, given the exposition of the two faculties that I have given it would not make any sense to do so. The crucial point according to Coleridge is to avoid the confusion of the two, and to provide to each the kinds of evidences and materials that are appropriate to it. In the ‘Opus Maximum’ Coleridge gives the perfect example of what he is talking about: And it is now my purpose to evince, that the inevitable result of all consequent Reasoning, in which the speculative intellect refuses to acknowledge a higher or deeper ground than it can itself supply, is—and from Zeno the Eleatic to Spinoza ever has been—Pantheism, under one or other of its modes: the least repulsive of which differs from the rest, not in its consequences which are the same in all and in all alike amount to practical Atheism; but only as it may express the striving of the reasoner himself to hide these consequences from his own consciousness. (OM II 38) Thus Coleridge sees pantheism as a product of the imbalance between reason and understanding, or rather as the understanding’s attempt to make sense of the immediate experience of unity which is the natural domain of reason. It is however crucial to note the subtle difference from Jacobi’s view of all of this. Coleridge does not assert that all consequent reasoning ends in pantheism (as Jacobi did). Instead he asserts that this is the fate of consequent reasoning in which ‘the speculative intellect refuses to acknowledge a higher or deeper ground than it can itself supply’. In short, the problem lies not in one or other faculty, but rather in the balance of their interactions. The distinction between reason and understanding is frequently seen, even by commentators favourable to Coleridge, as a last ditch defence of Christianity against enlightenment reason. However, much of the forgoing seems to throw this into doubt. Certainly it is employed as a shield for Coleridge’s faith, but its application in criticizing types of thought that Coleridge opposed is not as crude as it has sometimes

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seemed. This is born out by the fact that Coleridge also uses the distinction in reverse fashion, to criticize irrationalism in religion. Thus in Aids to Reflection he is scathing of Thomas Brown’s insistence that it is a part of faith to ‘believe a thing not only above but contrary to Reason, and against the evidence of our proper senses’ (AR 208). Coleridge ridicules him and concludes that this is ‘to draw religion down to the Believer’s intellect, instead of raising his intellect up to religion’ (AR 214). Coleridge makes related comments in the ‘Opus Maximum’: I would it were as uncommon, as to every well disciplined mind it is fearful, to hear religionists boast of having sacrificed their reason to their faith, and set up against a certain pretence & usurpation of the mere irrational understanding, & against those, who existing in their lack & disbelief of all that cannot or will not acknowledge its exclusive laws (OM II 201) Thus it is evident that while the one party reject all truths, or assumptions of truth, which cannot be brought before the tribunal of the Understanding, by which we here mean those rules and powers, which have their proper and only objects in the objects of the sense while the other party admitting the inapplicability of the rules and functions of the Understanding to the articles of their faith renounce equally the cognizance of the reason, or rather are equally with the former party blind & adverse to the existence of a Reason as different from & transcending the Understanding—we must despair as far as either of the two classes is concerned abandon the hope of establishing religious faith on a conviction of the eternal or inherent truth (OM II 203–4) Coleridge is equally ready to condemn the ‘religionists’ for their irrationality as he is to make the opposite criticism. Coleridge does not simply use the distinction as a means of supporting religious faith at the expense of reason. Wellek even goes so far as to describe Coleridge as ‘a defender of orthodoxy, of resignation, a prophet of the end and failure of Reason’.9 Wellek is certainly right to be critical of certain aspects of Coleridge’s thought, but given the passage above, this final depiction seems rather one-sided. Coleridge’s discussion of the two parties opposed on the role of rationality in faith is a discussion of the pantheism controversy. Moreover, he is just as dismissive of the ‘religionists’ (Jacobi) who deny reason for the sake of faith as he is of those who dismiss faith through a preference


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for shallow rationality. It is a commonplace in the literature to draw a parallel between Jacobi’s use of the word ‘reason’ and Coleridge’s, and so to suggest that Coleridge’s distinction between reason and understanding is none other than Jacobi’s.10 Indeed, Jacobi was obviously and deeply influential on this point, but it cannot be accepted that Jacobi’s distinction between reason and understanding (as he employed the terms in his later works) is the same as Coleridge’s. Jacobi was deeply opposed to any role for rationality in faith, whereas Coleridge was not. I have taken pains to point out that Coleridge did not see an opposition between reason and understanding at all, but rather supposed that problems arise through the confusion of the two: from treating reason as though it were understanding or vice versa. The importance of Kant’s distinction between reason and understanding for Coleridge has often been underrated due to the assumption that Coleridge had fundamentally adopted Jacobi’s version of the distinction. Kant criticized both Mendelssohn and Jacobi for introducing an element of irrationality into their accounts. Jacobi for obvious reasons, and Mendelssohn because his emphasis on common-sense amounts to at least a partial dethroning of reason.11 This is identical to Coleridge’s position with regard to the parties in the pantheism controversy. Moreover, his comment seems to parallel Kant’s criticism: ‘we must despair as far as either of the two classes is concerned abandon the hope of establishing religious faith on a conviction of the eternal or inherent truth’ (OM II 203–4). The point is that Kant and Coleridge are attacking both sides in the debate for a failure given the final preference to reason in an unambiguously rational sense. There are also some important technical similarities between Coleridge’s distinction between reason and understanding, and Kant’s similar distinction. Most importantly, both Kant and Coleridge see the three faculties (reason, understanding and sense) as working in partnership, and not being entirely separate. As Kant puts it: All our cognition arises from the senses, proceeds from there to the understanding, and finally to the reason (than which no higher faculty can be found in us) to process the matter of intuition and to bring it under the highest unity of thought. (KRV 355) More generally he also distinguishes reason from understanding by referring to understanding as the faculty of judgement and reason as the faculty of principles (see KRV 94, 356). The comparison with Coleridge’s account is interesting here. Coleridge agrees with Kant in

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seeing the three faculties working together in the production of experience. However, he differs in that where Kant traces the movement from sense through understanding and into reason, Coleridge sees both the reason and sense as supplying immediate materials to the understanding. Thus reason is still a mental activity for Kant, whereas Coleridge, as I have already pointed out, gives reason itself a very different ontological status. Mendelssohn has an interesting, though less clear role here. Mendelssohn’s arguments in Morgenstunden are in part directed at reaffirming the ability of reason to come to ontological conclusions, in opposition to Kant’s critique. Obviously this forms a parallel with Coleridge’s attempt to circumvent this same critique. Thus when Kant criticizes Mendelssohn for assuming that we can have knowledge of super-sensible objects, Coleridge responds by saying ‘But would not Mendelssohn question the meagre limit of the word “Erkennen”, as arbitrary?’ (CM III 366). Thus Coleridge is in sympathy with Mendelssohn’s attempt to defend speculative metaphysics. It is a feature of this that Coleridge is also in sympathy with Mendelssohn’s arguments about the status of the truth in the Morgenstunden since Mendelssohn is arguing that we can have knowledge about certain super-sensible objects, such as God. Overall then, Coleridge’s distinction between reason and understanding is surprisingly sophisticated. It is closely related to features of Kant’s, Jacobi’s and Mendelssohn’s accounts as they appeared in the texts of the pantheism controversy, that is, as they appeared in conflict with one another. However, Coleridge’s view involves significant disagreements with all of these three: with Jacobi because he does not see reason and understanding as antagonistic to one another, with Kant because he tries to reclaim the ability of reason to reach ontological conclusions, and with Mendelssohn because he bases this ability of reason on the unique ontological status that he attributes to reason itself (whereas Mendelssohn was thinking of the ordinary concept of reason as a mental activity). Moreover, Coleridge’s development of the distinction is internally consistent and genuine. It is not the case, as with the later Jacobi, that the word ‘reason’ seems simply to be a mask for faith. It is also not the case that Coleridge turns his back on reason, and buries his head in faith, as Wellek implies.12 However, it must also be acknowledged that Coleridge’s distinction between reason and understanding is rather problematic. Indeed, it is ironic that in order to circumvent Kant’s critique, Coleridge attributes a specific and radical ontological status to reason itself. Kant’s arguments had effectively demolished the possibility of assigning such


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an ontological status to anything, and Coleridge’s answer is to assign such a status to reason itself, and then presumably to use reason to justify its own status retrospectively as it were. Indeed, as Wellek observes, Coleridge’s account of these matters seems to place him alongside the traditional ontologists, such as Spinoza.13 However, even if it must be acknowledged that the distinction is a failure philosophically, that does not mean that it is an un-philosophical failure (as Wellek would have it), nor does it mean that it was disingenuous. Nevertheless, I will argue in the following section that the effects of adopting this distinction are crippling for Coleridge’s ongoing philosophical concerns.

Truth Coleridge’s conception of reason is tied up with God and Logos. In his most radical formulations he identifies reason with God. It follows from this that his thought about truth will be tied up with God as well. This is because Coleridge’s dual focus on sense and reason as sources of materials for the understanding necessitates that he give a dual account of truth also. Indeed, Coleridge does exactly this in his chapter on truth in the Logic. The structure of the Logic is itself a matter of some interest, since it resembles the structure of two important works: Morgenstunden and Kritik der reinen Vernunft. All three works are divided into two major sections, the first dealing with an examination of basic materials which are then used in an analysis of the capacity of speculative reason. Obviously all three have radically different emphases, since Kant attacked the speculative reason, Mendelssohn defended it, and Coleridge, although he followed Kant in many ways, also attempted to secure the possibility of ontologically significant reason through a distinction between reason and understanding. A clarification of the definition of truth forms an essential part of each account, and Coleridge plagiarizes most of the substance of his account from Kant and Mendelssohn.14 In this case Coleridge’s plagiarism is a peculiar and problematic venture, since he clearly disagrees with the views that he is plagiarizing, so that he is forced to radically subvert the materials that he takes, in order to remain true to his own interests: 1 The old and famous question with which it was once usual to puzzle the logicians and to force them either to a confession of their ignorance or to the necessity of answering in a circle is that which

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Pilate of old contemptuously {put} to Him who was indeed in the highest sense the reality of that concerning which he asked: “What is truth?” The verbal definition, viz. the coincidence of the knowledge with its object, is here presupposed and admitted. But the querist wants to be informed and such is the purport of the question, “What is the universal and sure criterion of any and every knowledge?” 2 “Prudens quaestio dimidium scientiae”, says Lord Bacon. It is already a great and important proof of understanding and insight to know what can be rationally asked. For if the question itself be absurd and an answer unnecessary, the consequence may be that the querist beguiling the respondent into an attempt precluded from the beginning, that of returning a wise answer to a senseless question, places the respondent and himself in a position which our ancestors describe by observing that the one milked the boar and the other was holding a sieve under to catch the stream. (Logic 107) This passage is plagiarized from Kritik der reinen Vernunft.15 Coleridge has however made some interesting changes, such as adding the quotation from Bacon. Part of the intention here seems to be simply to relocate Kant’s passage into the English-speaking world.16 However, the most telling alteration is the insertion of a reference to the fourth gospel in the first paragraph, along with the claim that Jesus is himself the truth. This is obviously laying the groundwork for an account that is going to be somewhat different from Kant’s. Indeed, the insertion of Biblical and English reference points into Kant’s passage amounts to a considerable subversion of Kant’s text right from the outset. Kant’s purpose in this part of Kritik der reinen Vernunft is to establish the idea that logic, when misapplied, when it is ‘employed as if it were an organon for the actual production of at least the semblance of objective assertions’, will result in what he calls a few lines later the ‘logic of illusion’ (KRV 85–6). That is to say, if logic is used in the attempt to come to ontological conclusions, then the result will be contradictory. This is part and parcel of Kant’s general attack on speculative reason, and one of the most important targets of this attack is none other than Mendelssohn.17 Kant’s point in his version of the passage is to create the basis for two arguments he is about to make: that there is no single criterion of truth, and that some matters are simply not eligible for truth judgements, since not all questions can be legitimately asked. He begins by accepting a correspondence theory of truth, as does Mendelssohn in Morgenstunden.


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Coleridge implicitly adopts it here, and does so also in Biographia, where he plagiarizes a similar account from Schelling.18 When it comes to the kinds of questions that can be rationally asked Coleridge expands on the matter with a discussion of Harris’ account of the grammar of questions. This discussion is plagiarized from Mendelssohn, who discusses Harris’ account in a long note in the Morgenstunden.19 According to Coleridge, the upshot of all this is that all questions must be answerable, that they must consist of imperfect or defective positions which a possible answer may convert into perfect{ible} and conceivable positions. As soon as it is proved that the position which the question intends to have completed is in its own nature incapable of completion, the question itself must be rejected and instead of an answer the questioner, if he be in earnest and deserve a serious reply, must have this incurable defect in the question pointed out and explained to him. (Logic 110) Kant does not expand on what sorts of questions can be rationally asked because he is about to argue that there is no possible answer to the question ‘What is Truth?’, if the question is directed at obtaining a general criterion of truth. More generally though, this ploy may be seen as establishing the groundwork for his later contention that reason is incapable of answering questions of an ontological nature. Mendelssohn’s point in introducing Harris’ account seems to be to argue that the only questions that are unanswerable are those which are grammatically incorrect, so that Kant is wrong to rule out questions such as ‘What is Truth?’ or ‘Is there a God?’. The interesting thing here is that Coleridge has effectively constructed his own text out of the disagreement between Kant and Mendelssohn. However, at the same time, he seems to be less than fully aware of the incompatibility of the two accounts, unaware that there is actually an argument going on. He continues immediately with a further plagiarism of Kant’s argument, at the point at which he left off from the last plagiarism. In other words, Coleridge has plagiarized continuously from Kant, with an incongruous insertion from Mendelssohn: We will apply this remark to two or three questions which it is not uncommon to hear proposed and agitated in societies where the conversation turns on speculative subjects, and we will recommence with the question with which we introduce{d} the

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present chapter: “What is truth?” taken not in its sense of its verbal definition as the correspondence of an affirmation or particular knowledge to its object, or as the test of such correspondence, but as a universal criterion, whether or no in any and every given case this coincidence exists. Now if truth consist in the coincidence of a knowledge with its object, this object must thereby be distinguished from other objects. For a knowledge is false if it does not coincide with the thing to which it is referred, though it may contain somewhat that might be truly affirmed of other things; but we are bound to demand of a universal criterion that it should apply to all knowledges indiscriminately, that is, without distinction of the objects severally appertaining to them (Logic 110–11) This, as the editors note, is a close paraphrasing from Kritik der reinen Vernunft (KRV 83). Kant proceeds from this conflict between the general criterion of truth, and the idea of truth as a correspondence to a particular object, to dismiss the possibility of a general criterion of truth at all. Coleridge follows Kant through this argument, and concludes that ‘the question itself is absurd and rationally impossible. For it is to ask after a distinctive mark of the true contents and matter of each and every knowledge, when at the same time the abstraction from all contents is a necessary condition of the possibility of such a mark’ (Logic 111). The point is that the term ‘truth’ refers to a relationship between a proposition and its particular content, whereas a general criterion requires precisely the dissolution of such particular relationships. The oddity here is that in the immediately preceding passage, taken from Mendelssohn, Coleridge has just concluded that all questions are answerable unless they contain grammatical errors. He certainly does not suggest that the question ‘What is Truth?’ contains such an error, and yet he is now claiming that the question is unanswerable. In short he has imported two contradictory arguments from different sources, and seems unable to see the incompatibility. Kant goes on to claim a limited role for logic in judgements of truth, in that it can rule out some claims to truth as logically impossible. It is, he comments, the conditio sine qua non of truth, but no more (KRV 84). Coleridge, however, delays making this point for a few paragraphs, and the intervening paragraphs seem to indicate that he is uncomfortable with the direction of Kant’s argument. He now simply ignores the result of the previous argument and makes a new attempt at defining truth:


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Question: “What is Truth?” Answer: “If you ask for the meaning of the word, and this relatively to the human mind, I reply, ‘the coincidence of the word with the thought and the thought with the thing’ ”. Relatively to God the question has either no meaning or admits of but one reply, viz. “God Himself”. God is the truth, the identity of thing and thought, of knowing and of being. (Logic 111) This fits in perfectly with Coleridge’s distinction between reason and understanding, since it amounts to a dual conception of truth, with the truth of reason being God, and the truth of understanding being ‘the coincidence of the word with the thought and the thought with the thing’. It does not appear to have been noted that this formulation is derived from Mendelssohn who defines truth as ‘the agreement between words, concepts, and things’ in his chapter on truth in the Morgenstunden (MW III/2 10 [5–6]). Moreover, the following sentence about God being the truth is a transcription of Coleridge’s own marginal note to Mendelssohn’s definition (CM III 848). The identification of truth with God appears arbitrary, but Coleridge actually has a more substantial philosophical reason for wanting to make this identification. It will be recalled that in Chapter 12 of Biographia Coleridge identified God as that in which ‘object and subject, being and knowing, are identical’ (BL I 273). It is a matter of course that truth is a coincidence of subject and object in some way or other, but Coleridge’s prior identification of God as just this coincidence makes his final identification of God as truth almost an inevitability. The adoption of the extra term ‘words’ from Mendelssohn’s definition of truth appears to have been taken up by Coleridge because of its incidental resemblance to his theological concerns. This is because Coleridge has claimed that God is truth, and also that God is the Trinity. Thus, having three terms in his definition of truth allows Coleridge to cash out the claim that ‘God is truth’ by creating a parallel between the Trinity (Father, Son, Spirit) and ordinary truth (word, thing, thought). However, all of this leaves his conception of truth rather problematic. He concludes that Truth, therefore, is its own criterion and, in the language of Augustine, at once discovers itself and detects its opposite, even as we discover darkness by light and the light by its own evidence. (Logic 111–12)

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It is difficult to see what else you could say once you have identified truth (not to mention reason) with God. However, the claim that this description of truth has its source in Augustine seems to be disingenuous.20 A more immediate source for the image is Spinoza’s famous account in the Ethics, which was discussed by both Jacobi and Schelling (ULS 40 [70], SW I 155): ‘what can there be more clear, and more certain, than a true idea as a standard of truth? Even as light displays both itself and darkness, so is truth a standard both of itself and of falsity’ (Ethics II XLIIIn). In a certain sense this is hardly surprising, since Coleridge’s insistence on the nature of reason as the guarantor of its own truth, and as being capable of coming to ontological conclusions really places him in the company of the rationalistic metaphysicians such as Spinoza. Coleridge appears to have deliberately obscured the source of his reference to Spinoza just as he has in so many cases that I have discussed. Immediately following this, Coleridge once more plagiarizes from Kant, taking up precisely where he left off last time (at the conditio sine qua non conclusion). However, there is an interesting alteration in the wording. Kant claims that ‘the agreement of a cognition with the general and formal laws of the understanding and the reason, is indeed the conditio sine qua non and therefore the negative condition of all truth’ (KRV 84). Coleridge, however, claims that ‘The logical criterion of truth or the harmony of an affirmation with the laws of the reason and the rules of the understanding is the conditio sine qua non but still only the negative condition of all truth’ (Logic 112). Unlike Kant, Coleridge has accorded a different status to the ‘rules’ of understanding and the ‘laws’ of reason. This is obviously a feature of the relatively high status which he gives to reason over and above understanding. Coleridge’s chapter continues with a long passage considering the problems of relative truth, which amounts to a consideration of the problems of relative perception. Thus he considers the different shapes that a pyramid may appear to have to differently positioned observers. Much of this material is again taken from Mendelssohn, but it is of relatively little interest for my concerns.21 Coleridge starts to elucidate Mendelssohn’s view that many philosophical disputes amount to arguments over words, and then turns on this line of thought with a sudden burst of religious sentiment, saying ‘we do not live by bread alone, but by every word which cometh from the mouth of God’.22 Coleridge uses this moment for a dramatic change of direction, and launches into a critique of Mendelssohn:


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But I have been led unintentionally into too high a strain Neither is it from worldlings only, or as an excuse for indolence, or a trick by which ignorance is transformed into a merit, that we hear the same maxim from many excellent and intelligent persons who have taken up their notions of the Schoolmen and even of their master Aristotle on hearsay, or from books that have copied from copyists and repeated for the hundredth time the repeaters of Lord Bacon’s assertions, and even men of philosophic minds, but who have taken up their first grounds too superficially, or at all events not at the true depth, have for the last century and more accustomed themselves to a mode of thinking and expression exactly coincident with the following sentence of Mendelssohn, himself an amiable and in every way respectable representative of the class last mentioned. “You are aware”, says he, “how inclined I am to consider the controversies of the philosophic schools as mere disputes about words, or at least to trace them up to some logomachy as their original first source”. (Logic 120–1) The quotation Coleridge uses has not been previously identified— it is from the Morgenstunden (MW III/2 104 [213–14]). This remarkably purple and polemic passage effectively serves to obscure the fact that Coleridge is changing direction completely by criticizing Mendelssohn. Coleridge goes on to declare that he holds a ‘very different and almost the opposite conviction’, in which he is ‘in coincidence with the founder of the critical philosophy’ (Logic 121). He certainly is ‘in coincidence’ with Kant here, since the following arguments and even the quotation from Mendelssohn above have been taken from Kant’s ‘Remarks’ on the Morgenstunden.23 In this short note Kant identifies two maxims in Mendelssohn’s philosophy, and attacks them. Coleridge follows Kant’s argument that the long-standing controversies of philosophy could never be entirely ‘reduced to a mere dispute on terms’, although they did have the effect of forcing the participants to clarify their use of language and thus aided in the removal of ‘whatever imperfections had previously existed in the language’.24 Coleridge is certainly not likely to agree that philosophical arguments amount to disputes over words, so adopting Kant’s criticisms of Mendelssohn may be seen as an attempt to wrest the point away from Mendelssohn. Indeed, this seems to be a feature of the whole chapter, since Coleridge repeatedly attempts to subvert the materials that he has just imported, in order to allow for his own views. In particular, he takes great pains to

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preserve the possibility of a second form of truth, one that is discoverable by reason (and which actually is God). This process continues as Coleridge continues to plagiarize from Kant, but he diverts the attack away from Mendelssohn and onto Bayle: The works, but particularly the dictionary, of the celebrated Bayle furnish abundant instances how easily a man of an acute, quick and discursive intellect in his eagerness to detect logomachy falls himself into the more dangerous fault of logodaedalism, that is, verbal sleight-of-hand and word-trickery. He brings as it were two meanings together on a damp or sinking ground and when they run exclaims, “See, they are both one and the same.” (Logic 124) This passage is a paraphrase of the conclusion to Kant’s discussion of the first Maxim. It is a lot looser than the previous plagiarisms, but the crucial phrase is from Kant: ‘in his eagerness to detect logomachy falls himself into the more dangerous fault of logodaedalism’.25 Coleridge maintained a generous stance towards Mendelssohn, and even in criticizing him typically refers to him as ‘amiable’ and so on. By contrast he is always harshly critical of Bayle due to his rather unfair account of Spinoza in his Dictionary, where he condemns Spinoza as an atheist who holds that God is the same thing as the world.26 Indeed, the accusation of word trickery against Bayle is repeated by Coleridge in his ‘Note on Spinoza’ (SW&F I 613–14). This process of divorcing Kant’s arguments from their target continues when Coleridge goes on to discuss the second of the two maxims. Kant again quotes from Morgenstunden, and Coleridge roughly translates the quote, but obscures its origin by removing Mendelssohn’s name: When, says the self-presumed advocate of common sense, you have been told what a thing does or suffers, how it acts and how it is acted on, there is no sense in asking further what the thing is: it can have no answer because it is, properly speaking, no question. As by means of the former maxim the majority of the most celebrated philosophical disputes are settled by compromise, by means of the second maxim they are to be got rid of by a nonsuit.27 This time Coleridge has obscured the object of the attack, instead of merely transferring it. Kant goes on to argue that knowing everything about how a thing behaves is not the end of all meaningful questions, since it only amounts to a knowledge of its behaviour in space and


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time. Thus it is perfectly reasonable to ask what the thing in itself is, although obviously Kant thinks that our ability to answer this question is severely limited. The point of all this is that Mendelssohn’s comment in the Morgenstunden was directed at the disputes between realism and idealism which he also argues are reducible to a dispute over words (see MW III/2 59–66 [114–32]). Coleridge does not continue with Kant’s account. Instead of dismissing the second maxim entirely he claims that it holds only for matters logical and not philosophical. He then turns to Berkeley’s idealism which he says is ‘most inappropriately called Idealism, is logic in the extensive sense of the word’ (Logic 128). He then goes on to criticize Berkeley, precisely on linguistic grounds, by claiming that Berkeley’s system has unacceptable grammatical results, since it leaves transitive verbs without an object (Logic 127–9). In other words, he has refused to accept Kant’s criticisms of Mendelssohn’s arguments, since he wishes to employ a similar style of argument himself, in order to demonstrate that Berkeley’s idealism is based on a misuse of language. Hamilton briefly discusses this passage from the Logic and also points to Coleridge’s use of the maxim to criticize Berkeley.28 He sees this as a feature of Coleridge’s abiding ambivalence with regard to British common-sense philosophy, since he is overtly criticizing the maxim of common-sense, but also utilizing it. This helps to clarify the way in which Coleridge’s own interests are operating in the act of plagiarism: he is able to protect Mendelssohn, and redirect the venom of Kant’s argument against British philosophers with whom he disagrees. However, Coleridge seems to feel that if this second maxim were accepted unconditionally, it would also mean that questions about God would be meaningless. He therefore places a limitation on its application: Returning, however, to the second maxim, the validity of which we have admitted in all questions purely logical, but that it would be of false and most dangerous application if assumed as universally true, it would be only necessary for us to reflect on the way in which we form our idea of God as the highest intelligence. We contemplate in Him, pure, perfect and proper reality, a something which is not merely real in opposition to pure negation of reality, but in opposition to the apparent, or phenomenal. (Logic 129) The point is that Coleridge partially agrees with Mendelssohn, but thinks that the second maxim holds only for understanding, and not for reason.

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He is prepared to use the maxim to attack Berkeley, but denies its application to his own special form of reason, and so defends the ability of that reason to obtain knowledge about objects above and beyond their spacio-temporal relations. In particular he is concerned to protect the ability of reason to provide knowledge about God. Indeed, Coleridge objects to Kant’s argument in a marginal note: But would not Mendelssohn question the meagre limit of the word “Erkennen”, as arbitrary? Opium is ein köperliches Ding—Do we know nothing of it but Space and Motion? Or do we attach Figure and Motion to it by any other Logic, than that by which we predicate its specific Qualities?—If Body in general be meant, it suffices to reply, that this {is} a mere non-ens, or generic Term. (CM III 366) Actually, it seems unlikely that Mendelssohn would object on this point. Rather it is Coleridge who objects, because he wants to defend the possibility that reason could have a kind of direct knowledge of God that neither Mendelssohn nor Kant would countenance. Coleridge’s conclusion to the chapter on truth is a final indicator of the strained nature of his position: Still it remains true that these realities, the first and last of philosophy, are not objects of logic and therefore cannot be submitted to a discussion or reasoning purely logical. (Logic 131) In many ways this chapter is one of the most remarkable cases of Coleridge’s plagiarism, since he has effectively plagiarized the whole thing, except for a few bridging passages and objections (most of which are geared towards theological concerns). Nevertheless in doing so he has managed to produce a text which is in complete disagreement with the sources from which he has plagiarized. Indeed, in defending his own rather radical account of reason and truth (as actually being God), he has effectively argued for a position that both of the plagiarized texts were, in slightly different ways, arguing against. Neither Mendelssohn nor Kant would countenance the idea that we are possessed of a faculty which provides us with immediate knowledge of God, through itself being identical with God. Such a position is rather more similar to Jacobi’s than either Kant’s or Mendelssohn’s, so that in a sense the text acts out the first phase of the pantheism controversy, with Coleridge himself standing in for Jacobi.


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On the surface Coleridge’s account is quite objectionable. He explicitly rejects logic in favour of his ‘reason’ which seems to amount to little more than religious faith. Indeed, he divides his account of truth into two: one conventional account which obviously applies to the understanding, and another which provides extraordinary licence for the reason. It is easy to see why a commentator such as Wellek would accuse Coleridge of a ‘dualism of speculation and life’ and of turning his back on reason (in the ordinary sense of the word).29 However, this is not entirely fair either. Coleridge has cashed out the consequences of his long-standing adherence to his distinction between reason and understanding in quite definite and logical terms. Given this background, and his emphasis on reason as Logos, his account of truth is perfectly consistent and shows a considerable integrity of thought (if not of referencing). Nevertheless his account of truth is obviously problematic and amounts to nothing more than a crude dualism of truth, with one standard applied to ordinary thought, and another to matters which might impinge upon Coleridge’s religious faith. But it is not here that the damage is done; it had been done a long time previously when Coleridge settled his distinction between reason and understanding. The purpose of this book has been to uncover the dimensions of the anxiety of pantheism that governs Coleridge’s intellectual life. This anxiety amounts to a productive tension between two ways of understanding the fundamental issues of immanence. The double-vision that Coleridge was tormented by, the tension between the ‘one life’ and the ‘inanimate cold world’, is simultaneously destructive and creative. It is responsible for the tremendous intellectual pressure that can be felt in his best poetry, so that the speculations of The Eolian Harp lead inexorably to the contrasted horrors of the supernatural poetry: the existential blankness of The Ancient Mariner and the intrusive alien other of Christabel that reduces will to automatism. Indeed, it is no accident that it is Christabel that Coleridge refers to in the infamous letter from the ‘friend’ which he uses to interrupt his transcendental deduction (see BL I 301). The problem of the deduction and the problem of the poem are identical: both leave the subject silenced, stripped of voice and therefore identity. Both threaten the extinction of rational self-understanding. The key to understanding this tension is to understand that the boundary along which it is acting is determined by the concept of reason. Spinoza is only an issue in the pantheism controversy because he was held up as an exemplum of what reason would lead to. Throughout Coleridge’s poetry and philosophy the predicament of

210


human subjectivity and rationality is the key issue, so that the Eolian harp image has a hidden significance for his entire intellectual life. McFarland argues generally that Coleridge was seeking to resolve a tension between a cold impersonal conception of the world, and the Christian imperative of a personal Godhead. But the various theological problems that explode out of the pantheism controversy are consequences rather than causes of the tension, and the fundamental problem is one of how to understand the human subject itself. In this arena reason and imagination are two sides of the same coin because they are simultaneously tied up with the subject’s self-understanding, and they both lead to the same problem: if there is no breeze then the harp will be silent, the tune lost, but if the breeze is everything then the harp’s tune can have no meaning. This is why Coleridge remained preoccupied with the attempt to carve out a conception of reason that would somehow combine a determinate rational universe with freedom, consistency with creativity, personality with infinity—because otherwise the poet/philosopher, the reasoning subject, as an emblem for the human spirit itself, would remain trapped in Christabellian silence.

Notes Introduction 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19.

McFarland Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition xxiii–xl, 1–52. Ibid. 107–8, 191–7. Ibid. 54–60. Coleridge draws on a tradition of similar distinctions (e.g. Goethe’s and Schelling’s; see The Philosophical Lectures of Samuel Taylor Coleridge 51–5). Dombrowski ‘McFarland, Pantheism and Panentheism’. McFarland Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition 54, 63. Ibid. 54–70. Ibid. 79–82. Ibid. 130. McFarland ‘Aspects of Coleridge’s Distinction Between Reason and Understanding’ 177. BL I 248n1. Taken from Abhandlungen zur Erläuterung des Idealismus der Wissenschafttslehre (SW I 444–6). Gadamer ‘On the Circle of Understanding’ 68–70. Gadamer discusses the history of hermeneutics in depth. Gadamer Truth and Method 173–264. Gadamer Truth and Method 271–7. Heidegger 153. Gadamer Truth and Method 245, 302–7. Gadamer Philosophical Hermeneutics 56–8, 65–6. The ‘classical’ is Gadamer’s key example because it is both an interpretive result and a judgement or prejudice that establishes interpretive categories. Thus Gadamer discusses the hermeneutical significance of temporal distance itself. Gadamer Truth and Method 285–300. Bloom’s theory originally focused on Coleridge. Bloom ‘Coleridge: The Anxiety of Influence’.

1 Silence and the pantheistic sublime in Coleridge’s early poetry 1. Usher 114. 2. See Burke 125–6, 144–7; Usher 107–10, 114–18; Priestley A Course of Lectures on Oratory and Criticism 159; Blair I 48–50; Knight 361–4. 3. For discussion of the emergence of the sublime, see Cassirer 297–331; Monk The Sublime. Abrams Natural Supernaturalism 97–117; Modiano Coleridge and the Concept of Nature 101–37. 4. Knight 363–4. 5. See Everest 216–21, 258–70; Rubenstein 54–60; Harman 888–911; Christie 12–31. 211

212 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12.

13. 14. 15.

16.

17.

18.

19. 20.

21.

Notes Everest 218. Rugby MS, 27v. For a facsimile, see Cheshire 22–6. Rugby MS, 28r. PW gives ‘Concert’, but Cheshire gives ‘concént’, pointing to its usage as ‘a musical term, derived from concinere—sing together’. Cheshire 8–9. See Piper The Active Universe 43–6. Martin 173–6; Piper ‘ “The Eolian Harp” Again’ 23–5; Abrams ‘Coleridge’s “A Light in Sound”: Science, Metascience, and Poetic Imagination’ 458–76; Raiger 76–84. For discussions of Hartley, Priestley and Berkeley in relation to Coleridge’s early poetry, see Prickett 46–70; Engell ‘Imagining into Nature: this Lime-Tree Bower My Prison’ 83–4. Priestley The Theological and Miscellaneous Works &c of Joseph Priestley III 241. Perry emphasizes the ambivalence of the poem, seeing it as reflecting a genuine and abiding undecidedability (‘a muddle’). I think this ambiguity— or ability to accommodate intellectual tension—underlies the poem’s function as a kind of spirograph for metaphysics. The poem becomes part of the way that Coleridge understands differing philosophical stances, and subsequently recasts various philosophical possibilities into its own categories. Perry 68–70, 113–16. Raiger 76–84. CN II 2330, 2937; CN III 3314; CN IV 5192; CN V 6876; CL I 294–5. The original ordering of the effusions emphasizes the importance of faith: Effusion XXXIV (To an Infant) concludes with an address to ‘Thrice holy FAITH!’—‘Still let me stretch my arms and cling to Thee, / Meek Nurse of Souls thro’ their long Infancy!’. The final Effusion XXXVI (earlier Absence: A Poem, and later Lines on an Autumnal Evening) in turn takes up the poet’s determination to check his ‘unregenerate mind’—‘O Thou wild FANCY, check thy Wing!’ (PW II 1 100–11, 269–72). See Magnuson 3–20. The Rugby MS emphasizes the connection between thinking and the guilt with the variant: ‘Nor may I unblam’d or speak or think of Him’. Rugby MS, 28r. ULS 33–7 [64–8]; Leibniz 150–1; SL 390–1 [Letter LVIII]. Coleridge annotated these passages in Spinoza and Jacobi, and although critical of Spinoza he also condemns Jacobi’s criticism of Spinoza saying ‘And is Jacobi’s Theory of Freedom, at all different?’ The two passages show a more sophisticated (and conflicted) grasp of the issues than usually attributed to Coleridge. See CM III 81; CM V 204. Schrickx demonstrates that Coleridge read Jacobi by April 1799. Schrickx 818. For a similar account, see McFarland Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition 296–7. See Schrickx 829–38. Schrickx speculates that Coleridge wrote some of these reviews. See SL 347 [Letter XXIII]. This passage attracts one of Coleridge’s most critical notes, attacking the concept of privation (CM V 202–3). However, Coleridge himself adopts a similar account in his later manuscripts (especially ODI). Although he ostensibly avoids the concept of privation (ODI 13–15) he too denies full existence to evil—defining it, confusedly, as potential or a potentialization of good (ODI 139–43). See CN IV 4998. Abrams explores the philosophical connections underlying the passage. Abrams ‘Coleridge’s “A Light in Sound”: Science, Metascience, and Poetic

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Imagination’ 458–76. A number of accounts treat the passage as a problematic insertion that unbalances the poem. Gérard 411–12; House 75–8; Wendling 26–42; Modiano Coleridge and the Concept of Nature 57–9.

2

Spinoza and the problem of the infinite

1. Hume A Treatise of Human Nature 240. Novalis III 651. Novalis also says ‘Der Spinotzism ist eine Übersättigung mit Gottheit’—Spinozism is an oversaturation with divinity. Novalis III 649. Hegel comments that despite charges of atheism, ‘with him there is too much God’. Hegel Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie III 162–3. 2. Hegel Sämmtliche Werke XIX 372. McFarland Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition 54, 63. 3. Deleuze 28–9. 4. Bayle 288–338. 5. For discussion, see Beiser The Fate of Reason 48–61; McFarland Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition 72–7, 261–6; Moreau 408–11. 6. See McFarland Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition 79–106; Engell The Creative Imagination 166–7. 7. Mason problematically denies that Spinoza seeks to reach any ontological conclusions, because Spinoza does not treat God as an ‘object’, but as being without limits. Mason does not notice that this too is an ontological claim. Mason 34–8. 8. ‘the human mind, or the idea of the human body neither involves nor expresses any attributes of God save these two [thought and extension]’. SL 399 [LXIV]. 9. Wienpahl argues this, and Bennet claims that if Spinoza meant that there are more than two attributes, then ‘the extra implication is negligible because in the Ethics it is idle’. Bennet 78–9; Wienpahl 82–8. 10. Spinoza says his concept of the attributes is ‘based on the idea which we have of a Being absolutely infinite, not on the fact, that there are or may be beings possessing three, four or more attributes’. SL 399 [LXIV]. 11. The matter comes up again when Crabb Robinson writes ‘I cannot believe, that by “infinitis” He meant innumerabilis’, to which is replied in Coleridge’s hand ‘This is a mistake of mine’ (CM V 205). Whalley identifies the handwriting; see ‘Form File’ to MS. notes on Spinoza Benedicti de Spinoza opera quae supersunt omnia. 12. There is controversy over the word ‘tanquam’ which can be translated either as ‘as’ or ‘as if’, so that the attributes could be what the intellect genuinely perceives (as), or an illusion (as if ). However, the point is trivial, since on either reading the attributes are ‘perceptions’ of God, rather than properties of God. 13. The claim that Spinoza’s attributes are different parts of substance flies in the face of the textual evidence since Spinoza defines the attributes as that which the intellect perceives as the essence of substance. Thus adherents to the objective interpretation are forced to virtually dismiss Spinoza’s definition as a mistake. Thus Bennett comments that Spinoza’s definition ‘creates a lopsidedness in Spinoza’s system which he should not have tolerated’,

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14.

15. 16.

17. 18. 19.

20. 21.

22. 23.

24. 25. 26.

Notes and argues that an attribute is a ‘basic way of being’, which has the odd result that the attributes turn out to be modes (Bennett 60–2). Schaller made a similar suggestion in a letter to Spinoza, suggesting that thought and extension are infinite modes that are produced directly by God. Spinoza replied that an example of an infinite mode is not the attributes but ‘the sum of the whole extended universe ( facies totius universi ) which, though it varies in infinite modes, yet remains always the same’. SL 396–8 [LXIII], 398–400 [LXIV]. Haserot 28–42. These arguments appear convincing enough that Mason simply refers to Haserot as authoritative. Wolfson and Hallett on the other hand argue that the distinction between the attributes is subjective. Mason 46–7; Wolfson 146; Hallett 16–19, 40–3. Ethics I XIV, I def V, I XV Proof. Thus Schopenhauer’s famous quip: ‘The main objection I have to pantheism is that it means nothing. Calling the world “God” does not explain the world; it just enriches the language with a superfluous synonym for the word “world” ’. Schopenhauer 112. Goethe XVIII 851. For a discussion of Kant’s use of the idea of mysticism, see Henrich 29–81. Thus Schelling is scornful of the label ‘pantheism’, without denying that his thought could be so described: ‘It is an undeniably excellent invention to have such general labels by which entire perspectives can be instantly designated. Once you have found the right label for a system, the rest takes care of itself, and you can save yourself the considerable effort of investigating its characteristics properly. Even the ignorant can pass judgement on the most deeply thought matter, just as soon as they are given the right label.’ (SW VII 338–9). See also SW VII 409–10. Some Spinoza commentators are equally dismissive of the label (Pollock 331–2). Lloyd considers the matters in these terms, but rightly concludes that Spinoza does not identify the material world with God. Lloyd 38–41. McFarland discusses Krause, and argues that there is no appreciable difference between pantheism and panentheism. McFarland Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition 268–71. Dombrowski ‘McFarland, Pantheism and Panentheism.’ Schelling explicitly defines pantheism as the immanence of things in God, but also points out that this covers a huge range of possibilities (SW VII 339). Hampshire 554–66. Hallett 148–61. SL 327–51 [XVIII–XXIV, XXVII]. For discussion, see Deleuze 30–43.

3 The providential wreck: Coleridge and Spinoza’s metaphysics 1. The phrases are from The Eolian Harp and Dejection: an Ode. I am indebted to Seamus Perry’s account in Coleridge and the Uses of Division for this idea of ‘double-vision’ in Coleridge’s acts of understanding. 2. See Muirhead ‘Metaphysician or Mystic?’

Notes

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3. Many accounts mention the issue, but few deal with Spinoza in any depth (Metzger, White, Spector), or related issues (Schrickx, Brinkley, Linsay). 4. McFarland Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition 54. 5. In a marginal note on the Friend. See Wordsworth 369. 6. See CM III 123, CM IV 456, OM II 266. Similarly, Coleridge attributes to Schelling the view that ‘the Ethics taken as a whole is so far from being incompatible with the doctrines of Religion that it is the Skeleton of the Truth, but lifeless, repulsive and alarming because it is only the Skeleton’ (SW&F I 623). 7. TT I 86–7, 265, BL I 153. There are numerous other examples, for example CM III 853; CM IV 408; SW&F I 399. 8. Crabb Robinson I 399–401 (3 October 1812). 9. CL V 16. From 1818–20 Coleridge sent versions of this addition to several people (see Friend I 522, CL IV 892). The precision with which this addition rehearses the main line of Jacobi’s arguments is telling: ‘The inevitable result of all consequent Reasoning, in which the Intellect refuses to acknowledge a higher or deeper ground than it can itself supply is—and from Zeno the Eleatic to Spinoza and from Spinoza to {the} Schelling{s}, Oken{s}, and the{ir} others adherents, of the present day, ever has been—PANTHEISM ’ (Friend I 522–3n1). 10. CM IV 226. Johann was the son of Hermann Reimarus whose work Lessing drew on for the infamous Wolfenbüttel Fragments. Coleridge mentions the father in his ‘Note on Spinoza’ (SW&F I 614). 11. SW&F I 610–11. Colerus published his life of Spinoza in Dutch in 1705, a translation was included in Paulus’ Jena 1802 edition, which Coleridge annotated (although he did not annotate the life). In an 1816 letter Coleridge says Colerus’ life of Spinoza was included in a German edition of Spinoza which was ‘absolutely necessary to me in an undertaking, which has occupied my best Thoughts for the last 10 years & more’ (CL IV 635). 12. Deleuze 3. 13. Spinoza’s works were circulated amongst unorthodox movements long before the pantheism controversy caused the upsurge of interest in him. Colie argues that some Deist groups preferred Spinoza to figures such as Hobbes, precisely because of his reputation for personal virtue. Colie 29–33, 30n31; Moreau 411–19. 14. SW&F I 612. Coleridge makes a similar point in Biographia, saying that ‘it is too true, and too frequent, that Bacon, Harrington, Machiavel, and Spinosa, are not read, because Hume, Condilliac, and Voltaire are’ (BL I 54). See also CN II 2193. 15. Colerus 420–1. 16. Ibid. 430, 432. 17. As when he comments, ‘If Spinoza had left the doctrine of Miracles untouched, & had not written so powerfully in support of universal Toleration, his Ethics would never, could never, have brought on him the charge of Atheism. His doctrine in this respect is truly & severly orthodox’ (CN I 1379). 18. Coleridge even tried to argue that Spinoza was on the path to Christianity, so that ‘a suspicion of his error was beginning to work{ing} in hims mind, that the right Track was glimmering before him, when just as it pleased Heaven

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19. 20. 21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

4

Notes to remove him’ (SW&F I 610). The mental contortion needed to invent this Christian Spinoza is shown in one of his marginal notes: ‘ would thus have arrived finally not only at the clear Idea of God, as absolute Being, the Ground of all Existents but likewise at the Faith in the Living God, who hath the Ground of his own Existence in Himself and of so pure a Soul, so righteous a Spirit, as Spinoza, I dare not doubt, that this Potential Fact is received by the Eternal as Actual’ (CM V 203). McFarland Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition 89. Coleridge The Philosophical Lectures of Samuel Taylor Coleridge 420n41. Also SW&F I 614, BL II 245. Thus Coleridge was right to note that Spinoza saw God ‘in his Might alone and his essential Wisdom, and not likewise in his moral, intellectual, existential and personal Godhead’ (SW&F I 610). As he puts it in his philosophical lectures: ‘For making the Deity that which is independent beyond any other system of pantheism it divided the Deity from the creature’ (LHP 578–9). MS. Note in Spinoza Benedicti de Spinoza opera quae supersunt omnia I 665–7. See also CM V 204. I follow CM normally, but in this case my reading differs at a number of points (albeit trivial): Spinoza] Spinoza; Conclusion] Conclusion—; ‘question i.e.] question, i.e.; slung like a Stone] slung like a Stone; willing] willing; mid air] midair; proceed on a] proceed on to; Conviction] Conviction,; “I lift my arm] “I lift my arm”,; dont] don’t; therefore I] therefore I.’. Egerton 2801. f10. SW&F gives ‘avoiding the Shallows of’ which I think is clearly wrong. The ‘avoiding’ reading is attractive in that it matches the use of the image a few lines later, but I just cannot see it in the MS. I am tentatively suggesting ‘scanning’, though I am not very comfortable with this either. Later in the quotation SW&F gives ‘in {? Trying} too eagerly {? To} avoid these Shallows’ and Metzger gives ‘in too eagerly avoid{ing} these Shallows’. Neither has any basis in the MS. SW&F I 623–4; Metzger 293. Peterfreund explores the connections between immanentist thought and evil in the supernatural poetry, suggesting that in ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel, Coleridge addresses the possible significance of there being no way to distinguish good immanence from evil immanence— or, perhaps, of there being no immanence other than evil immanence’. Peterfreund 141.

Understanding the pantheism controversy 1. Henrich 15–28. 2. Jacobi acknowledged that Lessing told him he never confided his Spinozism to Mendelssohn (ULS 8–9 [42–3]). Likewise, in An die Freunde Lessings Mendelssohn claimed he always knew. Beiser discusses these preliminaries. Beiser The Fate of Reason 61–4. 3. Prometheus is one of two of Goethe’s poems that Jacobi published without permission. Interestingly, Jacobi had Prometheus printed in a separate leaflet, apparently for fear it might provoke confiscation. See Altmann 699–700.

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4. The connection between the poem and Spinozism was discussed in contemporary reviews, but has never been completely clear. Di Giovanni suggests that Jacobi personally associated it with Spinoza because of his friendship with Goethe and simply because it implies an impersonal Deity. However, if Jacobi’s story is to be believed, Lessing immediately saw Spinozism in it as well, so the emphasis on fate and the devaluation of the divine may be more important. Jacobi The Main Philosophical Writings and the Novel Allwill 67–9. 5. See Beck 352–60; Allison 72–5; Cassirer 190–1. 6. Hume A Treatise of Human Nature 240; Bayle 288–338. For discussion of the anti-Spinozistic background, see Beiser The Fate of Reason 48–61; McFarland Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition 72–7, 261–6; Moreau 408–13. 7. Bayle 288–338. 8. CL I 454–5; See Holmes 216, 288–9; Ashton The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge 146, 149, 156, 168. 9. Bayle 288–338. 10. Jacobi also argues Leibniz was effectively a Spinozist. ULS 31–40 [63–70]. 11. For discussion, see Beiser The Fate of Reason 113–18. 12. Kant VIII 133–4. 13. Wizenmann also criticized Kant, arguing that his position too relies on an anti-rational element, namely the postulation of truths such as the existence of God as the conditions of practical reason. Kant responded to this in Kritik der praktischen Vernunft Kant V 143n. See Beiser The Fate of Reason 109–113, 118–22; Beck 372–4. 14. Kant VIII 133–4. 15. Ibid. 149–56.

5 Reading under a warp: Coleridge and Jacobi’s transformations of ‘Reason’ 1. Jacobi David Hume über den Glauben v. 2. Jacobi Werke II 3–10. 3. Schelling heaped scorn on it, commenting that Jacobi did it ‘as though to destroy thereby, every vestige of his earlier, better aspirations’ (SW X 173). 4. Schrickx’s argument is based on Coleridge’s inclusion in a letter of a passage from Pascal which he appears to have quoted indirectly from David Hume über den Glauben, where it is printed as the epigraph (CL I 478–9; Jacobi Werke II 1). The passage is also quoted in Über die Lehre des Spinoza, but is not so prominent (ULS 237 [230]) and Coleridge’s letter argues that faith is necessary when reason fails, which Schrickx takes as reminiscent of David Hume über den Glauben. Schrickx 818–19. For a similar account, see McFarland Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition 131–3, 296–7. 5. As Beiser suggests; Beiser The Fate of Reason 90. 6. The date of this marginalia is clearly around the time of the writing of Biographia, since one of the marginal notes is expanded and incorporated into Chapter 6 of Biographia. CM III 792n5–1; BL I 111. 7. Coleridge’s annotations of Schelling’s Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit are frequent, but he hardly plagiarizes from it; whereas his notes on

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Notes

System des transscendentalen Idealismus are sparse, but he plagiarizes from it heavily. 8. Mendelssohn Philosophical Writings 96–111. 9. See Leibniz 150–1. 10. CM III 91n21–4. This word is Coleridge’s coinage; the editors of the marginalia supply this translation.

6

Coleridge, Mendelssohn and the defence of reason

1. Burwick considers Mendelssohn but concludes his impact on Coleridge was minimal, where I argue for its ongoing importance for his later thought. Burwick ‘Mendelssohn and Coleridge on words, Thoughts, and Things’. 2. Kant VIII 131–48, 149–56. 3. As Modiano points out, this note refers to the previous one, where Mendelssohn makes the accusation that Spinoza ‘streitet er bloß in Worten’. Modiano ‘Coleridge’s Marginalia’ 260–1. 4. Hume Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion VII 90–1. 5. For discussion, see Hedley 198–201. 6. Coleridge made similar claims about a number of authors he plagiarized from; BL I 160–4; CN II 2375 and so on. 7. Coleridge plagiarized Jacobi’s Biblical versification and indirectly quotes a Kant passage from Jacobi (BL I 201n2, 202). 8. Descartes 44–9. 9. BL I 281. Also 273 where self-consciousness is described as that in which ‘object and subject, being and knowing, are identical’. 10. Kant VIII 133–5. 11. Ibid. 152–3. 12. Ibid. 153.

7 Coleridge and Schelling: The seductions of ideal pantheism 1. SW&F I 622. Also CL IV 883 where he describes Schelling as a ‘zealous Roman-Catholic’. 2. Schelling Denkmal der Schrift von den göttlichen Dingen 1–3. 3. See his comment ‘Schelling an{d} Fichte impose upon themselves the Schem{e} of an expanding Surface and call i{t} Freedom. The above I wrote a year ago; but the more I reflect, the more {am} I convinced of the gross materialism, {which lies under the whole system}’ (CM IV 412). 4. ‘Spinozism is the only consequent dogmatism’ (SW III 356). 5. CM IV 424, 427, 432, 434, 443; CL IV 883. 6. See CM IV 441–2. Note though that CM prints this as two separate notes, with some text missing. The MS is badly cropped so I have relied on Sara Coleridge’s publication of the note to supply the missing text in [] (I do not know whether she had the MS in better condition). Also, the published text reads ‘{exp}ected’ where Sara reads ‘effected’, and I prefer Sara’s reading since it makes better sense. Coleridge Biographia Literaria ed. HN. Coleridge, S. Coleridge 308.

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8 The anxiety of pantheism: Hidden dimensions of Coleridge’s transcendental deduction 1. Schelling takes up the ‘chain of knowledge’ idea in Vom Ich making the same claim—that it leads to an unconditional basis (SW VII 163–5). 2. There are numerous uses of the image, for example TT I 86–7, 265; CM III 853; CM IV 408 and SW&F 399. 3. He makes a similar point in Vom Ich (SW VII 166–7). 4. Thus Coleridge’s famous assertion, ‘Did philosophy commence with an it is, instead of an I am, Spinoza would be altogether true’, is a distinctively Coleridgean twist on a Schellingian criticism. Crabb Robinson I 400 (Entry for 3 October 1812, dated 3 November in some editions). 5. Ferris argues that this represents a ‘radical misunderstanding of the nature and function of systematic development in Transcendental Philosophy’ (Ferris 57). Reid on the other hand argues more generally that Coleridge was rejecting Schelling’s systematic development, because of the resulting status of the will and meta-logical considerations (see Reid ‘Coleridge and Schelling: The Missing Transcendental Deduction’). Both of these accounts, assiduous as they are, are marked by their replication of the categories that govern System des transscendentalen Idealismus, and neither of them considers the broader context, or even the fact that Coleridge was simultaneously dealing with several other Schellingian texts. They are therefore limited to the assumption that any deviation away from System des transscendentalen Idealismus must be explained by some detail of Coleridge’s interaction with this same text. Most importantly neither account is able to explain why Coleridge is destabilizing, rather than redirecting, his own argument with this conceptual smudging. 6. Ferris 54–7. 7. There are many examples: ‘ not that which Spinosism, i.e. the doctrine of the Immanence of the World in God, might be improved into, but Spinosism with all it’s Skeleton unfleshed, bare Bones and Eye-holes, as presented by Spinoza himself’ (CL IV 548). ‘Spinoza’s is the only true philosophy; but it is the Skeleton of the Truth, to scare & disgust—and an imperfect Skeleton, moreover’ (marginal note on The Friend; see Wordsworth 369). Also see CM III 123; OM III 266 and SW&F 623. 8. Barbeau observes the crucial similarity of Schelling’s and Coleridge’s use of will, but does not recognize that this is compelled by their similar concerns about Jacobi. Barbeau 586–7. 9. As the editors note (BL I 185n). 10. See CL IV 728; BL I 300n3. 11. CL II 1178. Repeated at BL I 17. 12. Jacobi David Hume über den Glauben 62. 13. Hamilton’s account is the only one that succeeds in putting aside the Schellingian surface texture of Coleridge’s text—the other two seem unwilling to surrender the elements they are identifying as ‘systematic’ and ‘transcendental’. Hamilton 7–12, 79–81; Ferris 41–84; Reid ‘Coleridge and Schelling: The Missing Transcendental Deduction’ 451–79. 14. Engell notes that Coleridge later felt that his thought about the imagination ‘had betrayed him into a mistaken pantheistic attitude’. He goes on to argue

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15. 16. 17. 18.

9

Notes that Coleridge’s later comments on pantheism and Schelling are in part a result of this feeling. Engell The Creative Imagination 162–3. McFarland Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition 151–60. Ibid. 159. McFarland ‘The Origin and Significance of Coleridge’s Theory of Secondary Imagination’ 199. Burwick points out that even in considering only Coleridge’s use of Schelling there is a problem since Coleridge is drawing on several texts, any one of which could have supplied a complete argument. This sets the problem of understanding what is driving his refusal to fully adopt any of these versions. Burwick ‘Perception and the “Heaven-descended KNOW-THYSELF”.’ 127–8.

Coleridge’s Trinity: The defence of immanence

1. See CL IV 883: ‘But as a System, it is little more than Behmenism, translated from visions into Logic and a sort of commanding eloquence: and like Behmen’s it is reduced at last to a mere Pantheism.’ 2. McFarland Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition 191–255. 3. Ibid. 107–13, 191–6. 4. Reid sees Coleridge’s final disagreement with Schelling as a preference for a ‘Trinitarian logic’ over a ‘pantheistic’ one. The assumption seems to be that Coleridge’s stance is defensible if it can be shown to have a secular rather than religious motivation. Reid ‘Coleridge and Schelling: The Missing Transcendental Deduction’. 5. As Modiano points out (Coleridge and the Concept of Nature 188ff). See also Barth 85–104; Ford 20–4. 6. Modiano Coleridge and the Concept of Nature 189. Hamilton suggests that the scholarly focus on Coleridge’s antipathy to pantheism has obscured the abiding importance of Schelling for Coleridge’s later religious thought. Hamilton 189. 7. Modiano Coleridge and the Concept of Nature 189–92, 194–5. 8. Wellek 134–5; Bate 213–14. 9. This occurs frequently, for example, CN III 4427–9, 4436; OM II 191—283; annotations of Böhme (CM I 561–5, 646–7, 679); Johnson (CM III 151); Irving (CM III 15–18); Diaz (CM III 453); Oken (CM III 1051, 1055). 10. CM III 1055. See Modiano Coleridge and the Concept of Nature 189, 250n91, n92. 11. CN III 4424. Editorial glosses substituted. 12. He repeats the point in a letter to Green, where he criticizes Schelling and Zoroaster: ‘This however the Zoroastrian & Schellingian Oracles have in common—that Polarity is asserted of the Absolute, of the Monad’ (CL IV 874). 13. The potential element is a common point of objection. Reid though rightly concludes that Coleridge’s conception does not involve any unrealized potential. Coleridge The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge I 44. Barth 94–5; Bate 217; Boulger 133–5; Reid ‘The Satanic Principle in the Later Coleridge’s Theory of Imagination’ 263–5, 273. 14. Coleridge frequently insists on God’s a-temporal nature, for example, ‘All the difficulties & heretical Attacks on God derive all their apparent

Notes

15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20.

21. 22.

10

221

self-evidence from taking God, i.e. a Spirit, as a Thing—the subject of the Categories affirming of the falsely tho’ unavoidably imagined Intervals of Time & Space ’(CN III 3575). Modiano notes this, but concludes it has little impact. Modiano Coleridge and the Concept of Nature 193. The Notebook editors describe it as a ‘paraphrase into Schelling’s vocabulary’. CN IIIn 4428. Bayle 288–338. Ford problematically claims that Coleridge uses ‘perichoresis’, ‘intercirculation’, ‘interpenetration’ and ‘co-inherence’ synonymously. For Coleridge ‘intercirculation’ refers to God’s act; ‘interpenetration’ to the relationship between the products of that act (the figures of the Trinity); and ‘coinherence’ is not applied to the Trinity at all since it implies a lack of distinctness. Ford 22. See Coleridge’s ‘On the Trinity’, where these technical aspects are almost completely absent. SW&F II 1510–12. See Barth 93–6. Given its importance this account of evil has received surprisingly little attention. Reid considers similar accounts in the later notebooks, but does not make the connection to pantheism or Schelling. Harding briefly discusses this material, and even suggests a connection between Coleridge and Schelling on evil. However, he does not explore the reasons for this, because he is more interested in the role of the imagination. Barbeau does draw a more direct connection between Coleridge and Schelling on evil, and even manages to suggest that Coleridge was resisting aspects of Schelling’s ontology, but goes astray in suggesting that for Schelling evil ‘is found in the Absolute’. McLean discusses the neo-platonic background that was informing Coleridge’s account of evil, but it seems more interesting to ask how the neo-platonic background was setting the concepts through which Coleridge in turn understands Schelling. Reid ‘The Satanic Principle in the Later Coleridge’s Theory of Imagination’ 265–73. Harding 9–13; Barbeau 587; McLean 93–104. Coleridge The Philosophical Lectures of Samuel Taylor Coleridge 433n17. One of his repeated criticisms of Schelling, who he says ‘commences by giving objectivity to Abstractions’ (CM IV 450).

Reason, understanding and truth

1. See Friend I 155; AR 215, 232. 2. For example, see Wellek 134–5. 3. McFarland ‘Aspects of Coleridge’s Distinction Between Reason and Understanding’ 169. 4. Friend I 154. For the quote, see Harrington 766. 5. Jacobi Werke II 9. 6. Boulger 72. 7. Barfield discusses the understanding in depth, but I see it as a negative conception designed to protect the reason from anything that would interfere with its ontological functions. Barfield 92–103.

222

Notes

8. McFarland and Wellek, despite their opposed views, share this basic assumption. Engell on the other hand emphasizes (as I do) that the three faculties are not completely separate or opposed. See Engell The Creative Imagination 335–8. 9. Wellek 135. 10. McFarland ‘Aspects of Coleridge’s Distinction Between Reason and Understanding’ 177–80; Boulger 77–9; Perkins 142–5; Wellek 103; Orsini 142–3; Lovejoy 15. Hedley on the other hand insists on the difference between Coleridge’s account of reason and Jacobi’s, on the grounds that Coleridge sees reason as somehow immanent whereas Jacobi locates God as a ‘quasi spatially transcendent object outside the world’. With regard to Jacobi’s account of God this seems problematic, but the structural difference between Coleridge and Jacobi on reason is crucial. Hedley 221–2. 11. Kant VIII 131–48. 12. Wellek 133–5. 13. Ibid. 134. 14. The Logic was only published in the twentieth century, so the term ‘plagiarism’ assumes a presentation of material as his own that he never made. Thus Snyder argues he may not have intended to plagiarize (Snyder ‘Coleridge’s Reading of Mendelssohn’s “Morgenstunden” and “Jerusalem” ’ 505n6). 15. KRV 82–3. The Logic editors note this. Logic 107n3. 16. Coleridge frequently does this, as where he alters Schelling’s use of Terra del Fuego to New Zealand (see BL I 251). Fruman also notes this tendency to anglicize German materials. Fruman ‘Quizzing the World by Lyes’ 15. 17. Mendelssohn was a defender of the rationalistic philosophy Kant was attacking. Thus Kant specifically attacks Mendelssohn’s arguments for the immortality of the soul (KRV 413–26), and the ontological argument for God’s existence, a version of which Mendelssohn used (KRV 620–30). 18. BL I 255–8 plagiarized from SW III 335–43. 19. MW III/2 166–73 [XIX–XXXVII]. 20. The Logic editors failed to locate this quote in Augustine. Logic 112n1. 21. Logic 112–20. The editorial notes point to Morgenstunden. 22. Logic 120. Matt 4.4. ‘But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’ Jesus’ answer to Satan’s temptation. 23. Kant VIII 152. This plagiarism has not been previously noted. Indeed, Snyder uses this very passage to argue for the independence of Coleridge’s position. Snyder ‘Coleridge’s Reading of Mendelssohn’s “Morgenstunden” and “Jerusalem” ’ 505–9. 24. Logic 121. Cf. Kant VIII 152–3. 25. Kant VIII 153. 26. Bayle 288–338. 27. Logic 126–7. Cf. Kant VIII 153; MW III/2 60 [116]. 28. Hamilton 64–5. 29. Wellek 134–5.

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Index Abrams, M.H., 212 Adam, 36 Agamemnon, 36 anxiety of authorship, 162–3 of influence, 10 of pantheism, 114, 146, 150, 163, 209 of Spinozism, 42–4, 163, 190 over understandings of Spinoza, 6, 89 Bacon, F., 200 Barbeau, J., 219, 221 Barfield, O., 221 Baxter, R., 48 Bayle, P., 25, 62–3, 173, 206 Beck, L., 60 Beiser, F., 60, 213, 217 Bennet, J., 213–14 Berkeley, G., 19, 207–8 Bhagavad-Gita, 47–8 Bloom, H., 10, 211 Böhme, J., 111, 112, 135, 167 Boulger, J., 191 Brown, T., 196 Burwick, F., 218, 220 Cheshire, P., 212 Coleridge, S., 218 Coleridge, S.T. anxiety of authorship, 162 anxiety over appearance of Spinozism, 42–3 anxiety over philosophical originality, 10 blue board, 154 bull, making a, 160 chain of blind men, 148 chains, 41–2, 148–9, 152–3, 219 Christabel, 22, 56, 73, 89, 209–10 date of first reading Jacobi, 21, 69–70, 212, 217

defences of Spinoza, 44–7, 76–82, 92 Dejection: an Ode, 158, 214 desert image, 39, 56 The Eolian Harp, 15–23, 38, 44, 52, 62, 64, 68, 113, 159, 209–10, 212, 214 evil, 22, 54–6, 132–42, 179–86, 212 ‘heart in the head’, 39 ‘It is’ vs ‘I am’, 3, 42 letter from the friend, 145, 159–60, 209–10 , 167–79 plagiarisms, 2–3, 71, 106, 147–64, 199–208, 217–18, 222 potential vs actual, 171, 175, 182–6 principle of being and knowing, 105, 156 proposed life of Lessing, 63 providential wreck, 55–6 quick-silver mines, 159 reason vs understanding, 98–100, 118, 187–99, 209 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 22, 56, 89, 209–10 sea, 15–17, 19, 22, 75 self conscious watch, 43, 72–3 skeletons, 41–2, 43, 115, 157, 162–3, 168, 177, 215, 219 as transcendentalist, 2, 108–9, 142, 187 truth, 199–210 warp, 43, 76, 88 will, 50, 95–6, 156–7, 174–7, 181 Colerus, J., 44–6, 215 Colie, R., 215 Deleuze, G., 25, 45 Descartes, R., 80, 100–2 di Giovanni, G., 60, 217 Engell, J., 219–20, 222 229

230

Index

Ferris, D., 161, 219 Fichte, G.J., 59, 111 Ford, S.H., 221 Fruman, N., 222 Gadamer, H.G., 7–10, 211 Goethe, J.W., v, 31, 61–2, 216, 217 Grecian urn, 9 Hallett, H., 35, 214 Hamilton, P., 161, 207, 219, 220 Hampshire, S., 35 Harding, A., 221 Harris, J., 201 Hartley, D., 19, 21 Haserot, F., 28, 214 Hedley, D., 222 Hegel, G.W.F., 24, 60 Heidegger, M., 8–9 Henrich, D., 60, 214 hermeneutic circle, 7–11, 108, 110 , 48–9, 61–3 Hume, D., 3, 24, 62, 70, 98, 105 influence anxiety of, 10 weakness as interpretive concept, 1, 6, 108 Jacobi, F.H. free will, 74, 80–1 immediate knowledge, 82–8, 146–7 reason vs understanding, 69–71, 116–18, 189–91, 197 salto mortale, 20, 63–4, 79, 84, 88, 100 Spinoza, 76–87 walking on head, 160–1 Kant, I. categories, 72 criticisms of Mendelssohn, 65–6, 97–8, 106–7, 205–8, 222 Ding an sich, 65, 72, 73, 89, 146

existence as a predicate, 65, 97–8 reason vs understanding, 191, 197–8 synthetic vs analytic, 147 truth, 104, 200–4 Keats, J., 9 Knight, R., 15 Leibniz, G.W. compass needle, 20, 21, 80 evil, 136 pre-established harmony, 43, 72–3, 79–80, 161 relationship to Spinoza, 21, 72–3, 79–80 Lessing, G.E. Spinozism, 60–3, 79–9 world soul, 62–3 , 48–9, 61–3 Lloyd, G., 214 Lovejoy, A., 60 Maass, J.G.E., 71–3 McFarland, T. Coleridge’s Trinitarianism, 165–6 Coleridge’s understanding of Spinoza, 4, 39, 46–7, 53, 55–6, 88 defence of Coleridge’s plagiarisms, 2–3 ‘I am’ vs ‘it is’, 3–5, 39–40, 46–7 Jacobi, 5 reason, 222 Schelling, 3, 162 Spinoza, 1, 4, 40, 53 understanding of history of philosophy, 3–4, 39–40 understanding of the pantheism controversy, 1, 12 Mclean, K., 221 Mason, R., 213, 214 Mendelssohn, M., 64–5 common sense, 80 induction, 105 ontological argument, 65, 97–103 orientation, 65, 103–6 purified pantheism, 64

Index relationship between Leibniz and Spinoza, 72–3, 79, 161 self-subsisting vs self sustaining, 94–5, 178 Spinoza, 64, 91–7 truth, 103–6, 200–4 Modiano, R., 166–7, 220 mysticism, 32, 39, 63, 73, 109–10, 112, 135–6 Nero, 36, 54 New Zealander, 6–7, 10, 222 Nietzsche, F., 45 Novalis, 24, 213 Oken, L., 167, 172–3 Orestes, 36 pantheism attribution to Spinoza, 29, 33, 214 controversy, 59–67 definitions of, 32–3, 64, 214 Perry, S., 212, 214 Peterfreund, S., 216 Priestley, J., 18 Pygmalion, 115 reason, see understanding Reid, N., 161, 219, 220, 221 Robinson, H.C., 42, 213, 219 Schelling, F.W.J. anxiety of Spinozism, 163 causality, 124–5 defence of pantheism, 66–7, 122–3 evil, 119, 132–41, 154, 179–86 evolutionary divinity, 119, 123–4, 171 free will, 126–32 God, 119–26 Jacobi, 109–18 mysticism, 109–10, 135–6

231

Spinoza, 50, 95, 97, 114–16, 122–3, 153, 156–7 Ungrund, 67, 118–26, 132–41, 166, 170–1, 179–80 will, 97, 122–3, 156–7 Schopenhauer, A., 214 Schrickx, W., 21, 69–70, 212, 217 Sherlock, W., 19 silence, 15–23, 31, 130, 150, 209–10 Snyder, A., 222 Spinoza, B. as atheist, 24, 31, 40, 62, 63 attributes and modes, 27–30, 73, 213–14 causality, 30–1, 49–50, 86–8, 124, 158–9 difficulty of understanding, 24–5, 32 dog constellation, 34, 77, 103, 174–5 evil, 35–7, 54–5, 119, 212 free will, 34–5, 50–4 God, 26, 32–4, 49, 76–9 infinity, 26–32, 48–51, 83, 92–4, 97 intuition, 78–9 moral character, 44–6, 215 as mystic, 26, 32, 40, 63 ontological project, 27, 213 thrown stone, 21, 53–4 time, 82–6 truth, 204 understanding understanding understanding, 6–12 understanding vs reason, 98–100, 118, 187–99, 209 Wellek, R., 11, 196, 198–9, 209, 222 Wienpahl, P., 213 Wizenmann, T., 65, 66, 217 Wolfson, H., 214 Zoroaster, 167–70

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