William Atkinson - The Essential Works of William Walker Atkinson - 50+ Books in One Edition

With tears welling forth from its eyes without pausing or rest,

And with plaintive mourning it broodeth like one bereft

O’er such trace of its home as the fourfold winds have left.”

And, so, with constant faith and ardent hope lives on the Sufi, seeking ever the path which leads to union. Perplexed not by the speculations of the theologians and the philosophers, he answers simply:

“He knows about it all—He knows—He knows!”

And who among us can dispute his wisdom?

Table of Content

IN THE preceding chapters we have traced certain tendencies in modern thought back to the Transcendental Movement of which Emerson was the high priest and prophet; thence back to the philosophies of ancient Greece; and thence back to the Oriental philosophies. We must now begin our return journey to the present time. But in order to lend variety to the trip, and in order to become acquainted with the other roads which lead to the Rome of modern thought, we shall forsake the path of transcendentalism over which we traveled on our outward journey, and shall return home by the road of the Western philosophers. This road, like that of Transcendentalism, extends from the schools of old India, via ancient Greece, to the schools of popular modern thought in the Western world of the twentieth century.

By the term “the Western philosophers” I wish to indicate the leaders and pioneers of philosophical thought from, say, the beginning of the seventeenth century to the present time. Before the Western philosophers, and after the Grecian philosophers, came the school of Patristic Philosophy, beginning at about the second century, the teachers of which were the Fathers of the Church. The Patristic Philosophy was in the nature of an effort to reconcile the early Christian theology with the older Grecian philosophical conceptions, Neo-Platonism and Gnosticism playing an important part in the intellectual struggle.

After the Patristic School came that of the Scholastic Philosophy, the central figure of the division being St. Augustine, who died 430 a.d. The Scholastic Philosophy was a strange mingling of medieval philosophical thought under the domination of the orthodox theology, having for its aim the exposition of the dogmas of the church in the terminology of rational philosophical inquiry. This school was characterized by extreme and often excessive subtlety of expression and refinement of reasoning, and “the making of formal distinctions without end and without special point.” As an authority says: “Scholasticism was the reproduction of ancient philosophy under the control of the ecclesiastical discipline, the former being accommodated to the latter, in case of any discrepancy between them.” The first period of the Scholastic Philosophy extended to the beginning of the thirteenth century, at which time the influence of the old Aristotelian philosophy began to reassert itself by reason of the appearance of the writings of Aristotle in Western Europe. The second period of the Scholastic Philosophy extended from this time until the Renaissance in the fifteenth century, and was marked by the adaptation of the whole Aristotelian philosophy to orthodox theology, the doctrine of Aristotle becoming the basis of the theoretical philosophy of the Church. The “high water mark” of Scholasticism was in the early part of the fourteenth century.

THE RENAISSANCE

Succeeding the Scholastic Philosophy came that of the Renaissance—that remarkable period of the transition from the thought of the middle ages to that of modern times—that strange reawakening or rebirth of thought, art and letters. This period extended over the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The philosophy of the Renaissance was notable for the marked revival of the influence of Plato in Neo-Platonism, which, as usual, resulted in breaking up the crystallized forms of orthodox philosophy and theology, and giving to thought the tinge of mysticism and transcendentalism. Neo-Platonism seems to reappear at regular intervals of time in philosophical thought, and always with a disturbing influence. It is now manifesting in modern thought, in the usual way, as we have seen in the preceding chapters of this work. At the time of the Renaissance it served to break and disintegrate the Scholastic Philosophy, and fitted in with the trend toward the study of nature’s processes which the thought of that time had begun to favor. As an authority says: “Platonism flourished in the Academy of Florence…Neo-Platonism blended with Neo-Pythagoreanism.… Aristotelianism renewed its vigor in the two rival schools of Averroism and Alexandrism, and among the Protestants in Melanchton.” The disturbances in thought at the time of the Renaissance were very similar to that of the present time, and the two periods invite comparison and comparative study.

What I have called “The Western Philosophies” sprang from the fertile soil of the Renaissance, and by the beginning of the seventeenth century was showing blossom and bearing fruit. I think that I can give a better view of the various influences at work from that time on by asking you to consider briefly the ideas and teachings of the representative teachers of the period, rather than to treat the thought as a whole. So many conflicting elements appear that it is difficult to consider it in the latter way.

THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY

Perhaps it would be best to begin the story of the Western philosophers by a consideration of Francis Bacon, that brilliant though eccentric genius, whose power is becoming manifest more clearly as time passes. Francis Bacon was an Englishman, who lived a.d. 1561–1629. At Cambridge he became disgusted with Aristotle’s philosophy, which was accepted almost as final by many of the thinkers of the time. He laid the foundation of modern empiricism, or the doctrine that truth is to be sought in actual experience . He opposed the deductive or a priori speculations of the Scholastics—the speculations which from an assumed general principle, or explanation, proceeded to particular truths—and favored the reasoning which, from actual facts gathered by experience, proceeded to general principles resulting from the same. He insisted that instead of nature being studied from theories or dogmas concerning the Divine Nature it should be known by an examination of her phenomena, without bias, and that possibly even ultimate truth itself might be ascertained from this knowledge of facts of experience. The “Baconian Method” is defined as “The method of investigating experience which proceeds from given particular facts, and applies to general conceptions that have not themselves been gained from and tested by comparison with particulars.” This method of reasoning laid the basis for the scientific discoveries which have followed, and did much to direct thought toward physics and away from metaphysics, in its search for truth. An authority says: “The great triumphs of modern science have arisen from a resolute adherence on the part of its votaries to the Baconian method of inquiry.” Another says: “It is the Baconian spirit of going direct to nature, and verifying our opinions and theories by experiment, that has led to all the great discoveries of modern science.” And it is Bacon’s spirit which has caused the change in metaphysical and philosophical thought, compelling it to take scientific facts and experience into consideration in arriving at general principles, instead of boldly assuming the general principle as truth, and then attempting to account for the phenomena of nature in accordance with the assumed principle. The philosophy of to-day must be based upon observed facts and items of experience. For this we have Bacon to thank.

BRUNO

Giordano Bruno, an Italian philosopher, who lived a.d. 1548– 1600, exerted a lasting influence on later philosophy, although his name has never been accorded its true place in the history of philosophy. He was originally a priest, but was driven out of the church by reason of his philosophical views, and finally was burned at the stake by the Inquisition when he refused to recant. A statue, erected by his modern admirers, now stands upon the exact place of his execution in Rome, where it was erected in spite of the protests of the Vatican. His philosophy was a mystic pantheism, with a poetical personification of nature. He held that there is an All-Life, animating the whole universe, which thus is seen to be an universal living being. This universal living being has two aspects, the one called natura naturans , or God, who manifests himself in the visible world of phenomena, which is called natura naturata , or nature. He held that in God all the seeming inconsistencies of the material world are harmonized, and the apparent evil becomes good. He held that every part of the universe is animated with the life of the whole, and that there is no dead or non-living thing in the world. He held that there is no form without matter, and that as spirit or soul is the essence of form it could manifest only in material embodiment. His philosophy exerted a marked influence on later modern pantheistic or naturalistic thought, and also upon the systems of Descartes, Spinoza, Boehme, Hegel and others, and in a measure upon the latest conceptions of monistic thought in evidence at the present time.