Samuel Coleridge - The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 3

Ib. 2. p. 250.

In which essential Unity of God, a Trinity personal nevertheless subsisteth, after a manner far exceeding the possibility of man's conceit.

If 'conceit' here means conception, the remark is most true; for the Trinity is an idea, and no idea can be rendered by a conception. An idea is essentially inconceivable. But if it be meant that the Trinity is otherwise inconceivable than as the divine eternity and every attribute of God is and must be, then neither the commonness of the language here used, nor the high authority of the user, can deter me from denouncing it as untrue and dangerous. So far is it from being true, that on the contrary, the Trinity is the only form in which an idea of God is possible, unless indeed it be a Spinosistic or World-God.

Ib. c. iv. 1. p. 264.

But now that we may lift up our eyes (as it were) from the footstool to the throne of God, and leaving these natural, consider a little the state of heavenly and divine, creatures: touching angels which are spirits immaterial and intellectual, &c.

All this disquisition on the angels confirms my remark that our admirable Hooker was a giant of the race Aristotle versus Plato. Hooker was truly judicious, – the consummate synthesis of understanding and sense. An ample and most ordonnant conceptionist, to the tranquil empyrean of ideas he had not ascended. Of the passages cited from Scripture how few would bear a strict scrutiny; being either,

1. divine appearances, Jehovah in human form; or

2. the imagery of visions and all symbolic; or

3. names of honor given to prophets, apostles, or bishops; or lastly,

4. mere accommodations to popular notions!

Ib. 3. p. 267.

Since their fall, their practices have been the clean contrary unto those before mentioned. For being dispersed, some in the air, some on the earth, some in the water, some among the minerals, dens, and caves, that are under the earth; they have, by all means laboured to effect a universal rebellion against the laws, and as far as in them lieth, utter destruction of the works of God.

Childish; but the childishness of the age, without which neither Hooker nor Luther could have acted on their contemporaries with the intense and beneficent energy with which, they (God be praised!) did act.

Ib. p. 268.

Thus much therefore may suffice for angels, the next unto whom in degree are men.

St. Augustine well remarks that only three distinct genera of living beings are conceivable:

1. the infinite rational:

2. the finite rational:

3. the finite irrational:

that is, God, man, brute animal. Ergo , angels can only be with wings on their shoulders. Were our bodies transparent to our souls, we should be angels.

Ib. c. x. 4. p. 303.

It is no improbable opinion therefore which the arch-philosopher was of.

There are, and can be, only two schools of philosophy, differing in kind and in source. Differences in degree and in accident, there may be many; but these constitute schools kept by different teachers with different degrees of genius, talent, and learning; – auditories of philosophizers, not different philosophies. Schools of psilology (the love of empty noise) and misosophy are here out of the question. Schools of real philosophy there are but two, – best named by the arch-philosopher of each, namely, Plato and Aristotle. Every man capable of philosophy at all (and there are not many such) is a born Platonist or a born Aristotelian 13 13 'Every man is born an Aristotelian, or a Platonist. I do not think it possible that any one born an Aristotelian can become a Platonist; and I am sure no born Platonist can ever change into an Aristotelian. They are the two classes of men, beside which it is next to impossible to conceive a third. The one considers reason a quality, or attribute; the other considers it a power. I believe that Aristotle never could get to understand what Plato meant by an idea. … Aristotle was, and still is, the sovereign lord of the understanding; the faculty judging by the senses. He was a conceptualist, and never could raise himself into that higher state, which was natural to Plato, and has been so to others, in which the understanding is distinctly contemplated, and, as it were, looked down upon, from the throne of actual ideas, or living, inborn, essential truths.' Table Talk , 2d Edit. p. 95. – Ed. . Hooker, as may be discerned from the epithet of arch-philosopher applied to the Stagyrite, sensu monarchico , was of the latter family, – a comprehensive, vigorous, discreet, and discretive conceptualist, – but not an ideist.

Ib. 8. p. 308.

Of this point therefore we are to note, that sith men naturally have no free and perfect power to command whole politic multitudes of men, therefore utterly without our consent, we could in such sort be at no man's commandment living. And to be commanded we do consent, when that society whereof we are part hath at any time before consented, without revoking the same after by the like universal agreement. Wherefore as any man's deed past is good as long as himself continueth; so the act of a public society of men done five hundred years sithence standeth as theirs who presently are of the same societies, because corporations are immortal; we were then alive in our predecessors, and they in their successors do live still. Laws therefore human, of what kind soever, are available by consent.

No nobler or clearer example than this could be given of what an idea is as contra-distinguished from a conception of the understanding, correspondent to some fact or facts, quorum notæ communes concapiuntur , – the common characters of which are taken together under one distinct exponent, hence named a conception; and conceptions are internal subjective words. Reflect on an original social contract, as an event or historical fact; and its gross improbability, not to say impossibility, will stare you in the face. But an ever originating social contract as an idea, which exists and works continually and efficaciously in the moral being of every free citizen, though in the greater number unconsciously, or with a dim and confused consciousness, – what a power it is! 14 14 See the Church and State, c. i. – Ed. As the vital power compared with the mechanic; as a father compared with a moulder in wax or clay, such is the power of ideas compared with the influence of conceptions and notions.

Ib. 15. p. 316.

I nothing doubt but that Christian men should much better frame themselves to those heavenly precepts, which our Lord and Saviour with so great instancy gave us concerning peace and unity, if we did all concur in desire to have the use of ancient Councils again renewed, rather than these proceedings continued, which either make all contentions endless, or bring them to one only determination, and that of all other the worst, which is by sword.

This is indeed a subject that deserves a serious consideration: and it may be said in favour of Hooker's proposal, namely, that the use of ancient Councils be renewed, that a deep and universal sense of the abuse of Councils progressively from the Nicene to that of Trent, and our knowledge of the causes, occasions, and mode of such abuse, are so far presumptive for its non-recurrency as to render it less probable that honest men will pervert them from ignorance, and more difficult for unprincipled men to do so designedly. Something too must be allowed for an honourable ambition on the part of the persons so assembled, to disappoint the general expectation, and win for themselves the unique title of the honest Council. But still comes the argument, the blow of which I might more easily blunt than parry, that if Roman Catholic and Protestant, or even Protestant Episcopalian and Protestant Presbyterian divines were generally wise and charitable enough to form a Christian General Council, there would be no need of one.