of the human mind, as to elicit from and to superinduce upon the forms themselves the moral reflexions to which they approximate, to make the external internal, the internal external, to make nature thought and thought nature—this is the mystery of genius in the fine arts'. In every work of art 'the conscious is so impressed upon the unconscious as to appear in it. ... He who combines the two is the man of genius; and for that reason he must partake of both. Hence there is in genius itself an unconscious activity; nay, that is the genius in the man of genius'.

'But in order to read the symbol accurately, the artist must first be familiar with the thing symbolized. He must therefore absent himself for a season from her (nature), in order that his own spirit, which has the same ground with nature, may learn her unspoken language in its radicals, before he approaches to her endless composition of them.' Thus only is he fitted for the true interpretation of nature, which consists not in copying the external form, but in revealing 'that which is active through form and figure, and discourses to us by symbols-the Naturgeist or spirit of nature, as we unconsciously imitate those whom we love'

This conception of the essence of art, so far as it is here made clear, is certainly in close accord with that of Schelling. For 'Art' (says Schelling, in the "Transcendental Idealism") ' announces perpetually and for ever anew that which philosophy cannot externally present, the unconscious in action and creation and its original identity with the conscious.'... 'What we call nature is a poem, which lies sealed up in a secret and marvellous writing...' As to the philosopher, so to the artist, nature is but 'the ideal world appearing under constant limitations, or the imperfect reflection of a world which exists not outside but in himself'. But Schelling's point of view in the Transcen

1

Already in 1804 Coleridge had written: 'In looking at Objects of Nature while I am thinking, as at yonder moon dim

dental Idealism is, in its implications, pantheistic and materialist, whereas that of Coleridge is avowedly theistic. The question therefore arises, How are we to reconcile the language of this essay, which represents the spirit of man as 'one in its radicals with nature', with Coleridge's theism, which regards the divine being as wholly prior, and irrelative to the existence of the universe (not, as in Schelling's view, dependent on that universe for its existence as a self), and man as participating in that being? Now, if the self-consciousness in man is to be reflected in the unconscious life of nature, it is evident that it must be, in its essence, one with that life. And to this point of view Coleridge seems at first sight to incline. Thus he defines self-consciousness as the state in which life and intelligence, ascending from the plant upwards, becomes a new kind through the difference of degree, and not by essential opposition. This is also Schelling's standpoint, and it is consistent with his conception of nature as the necessary correlative of intelligence. This view Coleridge, as we saw, attempted in the Biographia Literaria to adapt to his theistic conceptions, but without success. And his verdict on that attempt, that it was not 'fully thought out', probably applies with equal force to the essay which we are considering. Coleridge has not clearly answered the question \'in what sense we can speak of "natura naturans and glimmering through the dewy window-pane, I seem rather to be seeking, as it were asking for, a symbolical language for something within me that already and for ever exists, than observing anything new. Even when the latter is the case, yet still I have always an obscure feeling as if that new phenomena were the dim awaking of a forgotten or hidden truth of my inner nature' (Anima Poetae, p. 136). And_elsewhere he wrote (Gillman, Life of Coleridge, p. 309): From my very childhood I have been accustomed to abstract and as it were unrealize whatever of more than common interest my eyes dwelt upon, and then by a sort of transfusion and transmission of my consciousness to identify myself with the object.' 1 Letter to Wordsworth, 1815 (Letters, ii. 649).

of the bond existing between it and the soul, if we regard on the one hand the divine source of the universe, and on the other the 'rational and responsible soul of man', as equally indifferent to and distinct from that universe itself. For the sense of this distinction was already strong in Coleridge's mind, and it became stronger as he grew older. But the difficulties which it raises were never satisfactorily solved.1 In Coleridge's later speculations the sphere and functions of art are considered less and less, and the imaginative interpretation of nature is never dealt with in the light of his maturer insight.

Not, indeed, that this 'irrelativeness' of the universe to its divine origin precludes its symbolic character. On the contrary, as we have seen, the analogy, of which existence is undeniable, between the sensible and spiritual worlds, is a mystery' of which God alone is the only solutionGod the one before all, and of all, and through all!'2 And as a mystery (Coleridge would add) it is incapable of further definition in the language of the understanding. All that really concerns us here to remember is that the participation of the universe in the divine life is neither to be conceived as an identity with that life nor as an essential condition of it. Similarly, man's essential characteristic, as a self-conscious spirit, is equally independent of his natural existence, and equally distinct from that existence, seeing that it derives immediately from its spiritual source. Yet neither does this preclude our regarding man, the individual, as the apex and crowning result of the process of nature, the concentrated expression of the purpose towards which she tends. What man is and

1

Cp. Essay on Life.

3 First Lay Sermon, App. B. Willst du das Höchste und

dir lehren,

2 First Lay Sermon, App. B. Cp. Schiller's lines:

Beste? Die Pflanze kann es

Was sie willenlos ist, sei du es willens, das ist's. See also Coleridge's Essay on Life.

realizes self-consciously (as a moral being) nature is and realizes unconsciously. Hence nature symbolizes the spiritual life of man, but cannot originate it. 'What the plant is by an act not its own and unconsciously—that thou must make thyself to become.' And of this unconscious symbolism of nature the man of artistic genius is the best interpreter. Both in virtue of his supreme selfknowledge and of his peculiar power of sympathy and intercommunion with nature, his is the mind best fitted to penetrate her hidden meaning, to understand her mute appeal, and to make it intelligible to others; and thus to aid nature in the revelation of her spiritual source. 'To you alone,' writes Coleridge to Allston in 1815, 'does it seem to have been given to know what nature is not the dead shapes, the outward letter, but nature revealing itself in the phenomena, or rather attempting to reveal itself. Now the power of producing the true ideals is no other, in my belief, than to take the will for the deed. The great artist does that which nature would do, if only the disturbing forces were abstracted.'1 The entire elimination, indeed, of these 'disturbing forces' is, even to the artist, impossible; but its capacities of matter as a medium of spiritual expression are realized in the genuine work of art as they are not realized in nature itself. And to this end the conscious and unconscious activities in the artist work together. The unconscious (the genius in the man of genius) is, in effect, his spontaneous sympathy with the hidden purpose of things: the conscious is the selfcontrolled expression of that purpose in individual forms. And the harmony of conscious with unconscious (the

1

Cp. Goethe, Gespräche mit Eckermann, 1828: 'The artist who aims at achieving anything great must be capable ... of raising the inferior, real nature to the height of his own spirit, and making that actual which, in the phenomenal world, either from inherent weakness or outward obstacle, has remained mere intention.'

adequacy of execution to intention) constitutes the great artist and the perfect work.

VIII. LATER YEARS.

The lectures of 1818 embody Coleridge's last definite utterance on the nature of the poetic faculty, even if they do not represent his final point of view. From the first, as we have seen, his interest in the imagination was dominated by the purpose which inspired all his serious speculation, the purpose of establishing right principles of thought and action; and this primarily by the elucidation of the essential nature of human consciousness, and the distinction of its various constituents, or rather, modes of activity, in respect of their value and authority as instruments of truth. And as with increasing age his sense of aloofness from external things grew stronger, and his inward life gained in vividness and depth, he realized more and more the paramount importance of emphasizing and appealing to the purely spiritual consciousness as a common possession of all men. Thus imagination, as the faculty of mediate vision, is thrust into the background, while reason, the faculty of direct access to truth, claims a more exclusive attention. Aesthetic experience is subordinated to the experience in which the intuitions of reason find their surest witness, the 'testifying state' of conscience. This, of course, implies no change of attitude in Coleridge, for the significance of the moral consciousness had been among his earliest convictions: but it was in part a result of his own peculiar experience that the need for emphasizing this conviction grew stronger with the ripening years. To follow out in detail the conclusions to which Coleridge was led by this altered direction of thought, would exceed the scope of this introduction. Their main feature is strikingly illustrated